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Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic W. H. Myers, a founder of the
Society for Psychical Research The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to co ...
(SPR), and has remained more popular than the earlier expression ''thought-transference''.Glossary of Parapsychological terms – Telepathy
Parapsychological Association The Parapsychological Association (PA) was formed in 1957 as a professional society for parapsychologists following an initiative by Joseph B. Rhine. Its purpose has been "to advance parapsychology as a science, to disseminate knowledge of the fie ...
. Retrieved December 19, 2006.
Telepathy experiments have historically been criticized for a lack of proper controls and repeatability. There is no good evidence that telepathy exists, and the topic is generally considered by the
scientific community The scientific community is a diverse network of interacting scientists. It includes many " sub-communities" working on particular scientific fields, and within particular institutions; interdisciplinary and cross-institutional activities are als ...
to be
pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claim ...
.Felix Planer. (1980). ''Superstition''. Cassell. p. 218. "Many experiments have attempted to bring scientific methods to bear on the investigation of the subject. Their results based on literally millions of tests, have made it abundantly clear that there exists no such phenomenon as telepathy, and that the seemingly successful scores have relied either on illusion, or on deception."


Origins of the concept

According to historians such as
Roger Luckhurst Roger Luckhurst is a British writer and academic. He is professor in modern and contemporary literature in the Department of English, Theatre, and Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London and was distinguished visiting professor at Colu ...
and Janet Oppenheim the origin of the concept of telepathy in Western civilization can be traced to the late 19th century and the formation of the
Society for Psychical Research The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to co ...
. Luckhurst, Roger. (2002). ''The Invention of Telepathy, 1870–1901''. Oxford University Press. pp. 9–51. As the physical sciences made significant advances, scientific concepts were applied to mental phenomena (e.g.,
animal magnetism Animal magnetism, also known as mesmerism, was a protoscientific theory developed by German doctor Franz Mesmer in the 18th century in relation to what he claimed to be an invisible natural force (''Lebensmagnetismus'') possessed by all livi ...
), with the hope that this would help to understand
paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...
phenomena. The modern concept of telepathy emerged in this context. Psychical researcher Eric Dingwall criticized SPR founding members Frederic W. H. Myers and William F. Barrett for trying to "prove" telepathy rather than objectively analyze whether or not it existed.


Thought reading

In the late 19th century, the magician and mentalist,
Washington Irving Bishop Washington Irving Bishop, also known as Wellington (4 March 1855 – 13 May 1889) was an American stage mentalist. He started his career as an assistant under the muscle reader J. Randall Brown, but was most well known for his performance of t ...
would perform "thought reading" demonstrations. Bishop claimed no
supernatural Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...
powers and ascribed his powers to muscular sensitivity (reading thoughts from unconscious bodily cues). Bishop was investigated by a group of scientists including the editor of the ''
British Medical Journal ''The BMJ'' is a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal, published by the trade union the British Medical Association (BMA). ''The BMJ'' has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Origi ...
'' and the psychologist
Francis Galton Sir Francis Galton, FRS FRAI (; 16 February 1822 – 17 January 1911), was an English Victorian era polymath: a statistician, sociologist, psychologist, Anthropology, anthropologist, tropical Exploration, explorer, geographer, Inventio ...
. Bishop performed several feats successfully such as correctly identifying a selected spot on a table and locating a hidden object. During the experiment, Bishop required physical contact with a subject who knew the correct answer. He would hold the hand or wrist of the helper. The scientists concluded that Bishop was not a genuine telepath but using a highly trained skill to detect ideomotor movements. Another famous thought reader was the magician Stuart Cumberland. He was famous for performing blindfolded feats such as identifying a hidden object in a room that a person had picked out or asking someone to imagine a murder scene and then attempt to read the subject's thoughts and identify the victim and reenact the crime. Cumberland claimed to possess no genuine psychic ability and his thought-reading performances could only be demonstrated by holding the hand of his subject to read their muscular movements. He came into dispute with psychical researchers associated with the
Society for Psychical Research The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to co ...
who were searching for genuine cases of telepathy. Cumberland argued that both telepathy and communication with the dead were impossible and that the mind of man cannot be read through telepathy, but only by
muscle reading Muscle reading, also known as " Hellstromism", "Cumberlandism" or "contact mind reading", is a technique used by mentalists to determine the thoughts or knowledge of a subject, the effect of which tends to be perceived as a form of mind reading. ...
.


Case studies

In the late 19th century the Creery Sisters (Mary, Alice, Maud, Kathleen, and Emily) were tested by the
Society for Psychical Research The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to co ...
and believed to have genuine psychic ability. However, during a later experiment they were caught utilizing signal codes and they confessed to fraud. George Albert Smith and Douglas Blackburn were claimed to be genuine psychics by the Society for Psychical Research but Blackburn confessed to fraud:
For nearly thirty years the telepathic experiments conducted by Mr. G. A. Smith and myself have been accepted and cited as the basic evidence of the truth of thought transference... ...the whole of those alleged experiments were bogus, and originated in the honest desire of two youths to show how easily men of scientific mind and training could be deceived when seeking for evidence in support of a theory they were wishful to establish.
Between 1916 and 1924,
Gilbert Murray George Gilbert Aimé Murray (2 January 1866 – 20 May 1957) was an Australian-born British classical scholar and public intellectual, with connections in many spheres. He was an outstanding scholar of the language and culture of Ancient Greece ...
conducted 236 experiments into telepathy and reported 36% as successful. However, it was suggested that the results could be explained by hyperaesthesia as he could hear what was being said by the sender. Psychologist
Leonard T. Troland Leonard Thompson Troland (1889–1932) was an American physicist, psychologist and psychical researcher. Career Troland graduated in 1912 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in biochemistry. He then studied psychology at ...
had carried out experiments in telepathy at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
which were reported in 1917. The subjects produced below chance expectations.
Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...
and
W. T. Stead William Thomas Stead (5 July 184915 April 1912) was a British newspaper editor who, as a pioneer of investigative journalism, became a controversial figure of the Victorian era. Stead published a series of hugely influential campaigns whilst ed ...
were duped into believing
Julius and Agnes Zancig Julius and Agnes Zancig were stage magicians and authors on occultism who performed a spectacularly successful two-person mentalism act during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Julius Zancig (1857–1929) – born Julius Jörgensen in Copen ...
had genuine psychic powers. Both Doyle and Stead wrote that Zancigs performed telepathy. In 1924, Julius and Agnes Zancig confessed that their mind reading act was a trick and published the secret code and all the details of the trick method they had used under the title of ''Our Secrets!!'' in a London newspaper. In 1924, Robert H. Gault of
Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...
with Gardner Murphy conducted the first American radio test for telepathy. The results were entirely negative. One of their experiments involved the attempted thought transmission of a chosen number between one and one-thousand. Out of 2,010 replies, none was correct. This is below the theoretical chance figure of two correct replies in such a situation. In February 1927, with the co-operation of the
British Broadcasting Corporation #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
(BBC), V. J. Woolley who was at the time the Research Officer for the SPR, arranged a telepathy experiment in which radio listeners were asked to take part. The experiment involved 'agents' thinking about five selected objects in an office at Tavistock Square, whilst listeners on the radio were asked to identify the objects from the BBC studio at Savoy Hill. 24,659 answers were received. The results revealed no evidence of telepathy. A famous experiment in telepathy was recorded by the American author
Upton Sinclair Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in sever ...
in his book '' Mental Radio'' which documents Sinclair's test of psychic abilities of Mary Craig Sinclair, his second wife. She attempted to duplicate 290 pictures which were drawn by her husband. Sinclair claimed Mary successfully duplicated 65 of them, with 155 "partial successes" and 70 failures. However, these experiments were not conducted in a controlled scientific laboratory environment.
Martin Gardner Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of Lew ...
, '' Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science'' (Courier Dover Publications, 1957) Chapter 25: ''ESP and PK''
available online
accessed July 25, 2010.
Science writer
Martin Gardner Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of Lew ...
suggested that the possibility of sensory leakage during the experiment had not been ruled out: The Turner-Ownbey long distance telepathy experiment was discovered to contain flaws. May Frances Turner positioned herself in the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory whilst Sara Ownbey claimed to receive transmissions 250 miles away. For the experiment Turner would think of a symbol and write it down whilst Ownbey would write her guesses.
John Sladek John Thomas Sladek (December 15, 1937 – March 10, 2000) was an American science fiction author, known for his satirical and surreal novels. Life and work Born in Waverly, Iowa, in 1937, Sladek was in England in the 1960s for the New Wave ...
. (1974). The New Apocrypha: A Guide to Strange Sciences and Occult Beliefs. Panther. pp. 172–174
The scores were highly successful and both records were supposed to be sent to
J. B. Rhine Joseph Banks Rhine (September 29, 1895 – February 20, 1980), usually known as J. B. Rhine, was an American botanist who founded parapsychology as a branch of psychology, founding the parapsychology lab at Duke University, the ''Journ ...
; however, Ownbey sent them to Turner. Critics pointed out this invalidated the results as she could have simply written her own record to agree with the other. When the experiment was repeated and the records were sent to Rhine the scores dropped to average. Another example is the experiment carried out by the author
Harold Sherman Harold Morrow Sherman (1898–1987) was an American writer, lecturer and psychical researcher. Biography Sherman was born on July 13, 1898, in Traverse City, Michigan. He studied at the University of Michigan for a brief time, then reloc ...
with the explorer
Hubert Wilkins Sir George Hubert Wilkins MC & Bar (31 October 188830 November 1958), commonly referred to as Captain Wilkins, was an Australian polar explorer, ornithologist, pilot, soldier, geographer and photographer. He was awarded the Military Cross afte ...
who carried out their own experiment in telepathy for five and a half months starting in October 1937. This took place when Sherman was in
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
and Wilkins was in the
Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar regions of Earth, polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenla ...
. The experiment consisted of Sherman and Wilkins at the end of each day to relax and visualise a mental image or "thought impression" of the events or thoughts they had experienced in the day and then to record those images and thoughts on paper in a diary. The results at the end when comparing Sherman's and Wilkins' diaries were claimed to be more than 60 percent. The full results of the experiments were published in 1942 in a book by Sherman and Wilkins titled ''Thoughts Through Space''. In the book, both Sherman and Wilkins had written they believed they had demonstrated that it was possible to send and receive thought impressions from the mind of one person to another. The magician John Booth wrote that the experiment was not an example of telepathy as a high percentage of misses had occurred. Booth wrote it was more likely that the "hits" were the result of "coincidence, law of averages, subconscious expectancy, logical inference or a plain lucky guess". A review of their book in the '' American Journal of Orthopsychiatry'' cast doubt on their experiment, noting "the study was published five years after it was conducted, arouses suspicion on the validity of the conclusions. In 1948, on the BBC radio
Maurice Fogel Maurice Jack Fogel (7 July 1911 – 30 October 1981) was a British magician and mentalist. He described himself as "the world's greatest mind-reader". Lamont, Peter. (2013). ''Extraordinary Beliefs: A Historical Approach to a Psychological Problem ...
made the claim that he could demonstrate telepathy. This intrigued the journalist Arthur Helliwell who wanted to discover his methods. He found that Fogel's mind reading acts were all based on trickery as he relied on information about members of his audience before the show started. Helliwell exposed Fogel's methods in a newspaper article. Although Fogel managed to fool some people into believing he could perform genuine telepathy, the majority of his audience knew he was a showman. Lamont, Peter. (2013). ''Extraordinary Beliefs: A Historical Approach to a Psychological Problem''. Cambridge University Press. p. 220. In a series of experiments Samuel Soal and his assistant
K. M. Goldney Kathleen Mary Hervey Goldney (1894–1992) best known as K. M. Goldney was a British parapsychologist and writer. Career In the 1940s, Goldney worked with the mathematician Samuel Soal on ESP experiments with Basil Shackleton. It later was disc ...
examined 160 subjects over 128,000 trials and obtained no evidence for the existence of telepathy.Lawrie Reznek. (2010). ''Delusions and the Madness of the Masses''. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers . pp. 54–55 Soal tested Basil Shackleton and Gloria Stewart between 1941 and 1943 in over five hundred sittings and over twenty thousand guesses. Shackleton scored 2890 compared with a chance expectation of 2308 and Gloria scored 9410 compared with a chance level of 7420. It was later discovered the results had been tampered with. Gretl Albert who was present during many of the experiments said she had witnessed Soal altering the records during the sessions. Betty Marwick discovered Soal had not used the method of random selection of numbers as he had claimed. Marwick showed that there had been manipulation of the score sheets and all experiments reported by Soal had thereby become discredited. In 1979 the physicists
John G. Taylor John Gerald Taylor (18 August 1931 – 10 March 2012) was a British physicist and author. He is notable for writing a book critical of paranormal phenomena.Evans, Peter. (24 July 1980). ''Knock twice for no. Science and the supernatural by John ...
and Eduardo Balanovski wrote the only scientifically feasible explanation for telepathy could be electromagnetism (EM) involving EM fields. In a series of experiments the EM levels were many orders of magnitude lower than calculated and no paranormal effects were observed. Both Taylor and Balanovski wrote their results were a strong argument against the validity of telepathy. Research in
anomalistic psychology In psychology, anomalistic psychology is the study of human behaviour and experience connected with what is often called the paranormal, with few assumptions made about the validity (or otherwise) of the reported phenomena. Early history Accord ...
has discovered that in some cases telepathy can be explained by a covariation bias. In an experiment (Schienle ''et al''. 1996) 22 believers and 20 skeptics were asked to judge the covariation between transmitted symbols and the corresponding feedback given by a receiver. According to the results the believers overestimated the number of successful transmissions whilst the skeptics made accurate hit judgments. The results from another telepathy experiment involving 48 undergraduate college students (Rudski, 2002) were explained by hindsight and
confirmation In Christian denominations that practice infant baptism, confirmation is seen as the sealing of the covenant created in baptism. Those being confirmed are known as confirmands. For adults, it is an affirmation of belief. It involves laying on ...
biases.


In parapsychology

Within
parapsychology Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena ( extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related t ...
, telepathy, often along with
precognition Precognition (from the Latin 'before', and 'acquiring knowledge') is the purported psychic phenomenon of seeing, or otherwise becoming directly aware of, events in the future. There is no accepted scientific evidence that precognition is a ...
and
clairvoyance Clairvoyance (; ) is the magical ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant () ("one who sees cl ...
, is described as an aspect of
extrasensory perception Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke Universit ...
(ESP) or "anomalous cognition" that parapsychologists believe is transferred through a hypothetical psychic mechanism they call " psi".Glossary of Parapsychological terms – ESP
,
Parapsychological Association The Parapsychological Association (PA) was formed in 1957 as a professional society for parapsychologists following an initiative by Joseph B. Rhine. Its purpose has been "to advance parapsychology as a science, to disseminate knowledge of the fie ...
. Retrieved December 19, 2006.
Parapsychologists have reported experiments they use to test for telepathic abilities. Among the most well known are the use of
Zener card Zener cards are cards used to conduct experiments for extrasensory perception (ESP). Perceptual psychologist Karl Zener (1903–1964) designed the cards in the early 1930s for experiments conducted with his colleague, parapsychologist J. B. Rh ...
s and the
Ganzfeld experiment A ganzfeld experiment (from the German words for “entire” and “field”) is an assessment used by parapsychologists that they contend can test for extrasensory perception (ESP) or telepathy. In these experiments, a "sender" attempts to me ...
.


Types

Several forms of telepathy have been suggested: * Latent telepathy, formerly known as "deferred telepathy",Rennie, John (1845), "Test for Telepathy", ''
Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', V3#1 (1847-09-25)
describes a transfer of information with an observable time-lag between transmission and reception. * Retrocognitive, precognitive, and intuitive telepathy describes the transfer of information about the past, future or present state of an individual's mind to another individual. * Emotive telepathy, also known as remote influence or emotional transfer, describes the transfer of kinesthetic sensations through altered states. * Superconscious telepathy describes use of the supposed
superconscious The superconscious (also super-conscious or super conscious) is a proposed aspect of mind to accompany the conscious and subconscious and/or unconscious. It is able to acquire knowledge through non-physical or psychic mechanisms and pass that kno ...
to access the collective wisdom of the human species for knowledge.


Zener cards

Zener cards are marked with five distinctive symbols. When using them, one individual is designated the "sender" and another the "receiver". The sender selects a random card and visualizes the symbol on it, while the receiver attempts to determine that symbol telepathically. Statistically, the receiver has a 20% chance of randomly guessing the correct symbol, so to demonstrate telepathy, they must repeatedly score a success rate that is significantly higher than 20%. If not conducted properly, this method is vulnerable to sensory leakage and
card counting Card counting is a blackjack strategy used to determine whether the player or the dealer has an advantage on the next hand. Card counters are advantage players who try to overcome the casino house edge by keeping a running count of high and low ...
.
J. B. Rhine Joseph Banks Rhine (September 29, 1895 – February 20, 1980), usually known as J. B. Rhine, was an American botanist who founded parapsychology as a branch of psychology, founding the parapsychology lab at Duke University, the ''Journ ...
's experiments with Zener cards were discredited due to the discovery that sensory leakage or cheating could account for all his results such as the subject being able to read the symbols from the back of the cards and being able to see and hear the experimenter to note subtle clues. Once Rhine took precautions in response to criticisms of his methods, he was unable to find any high-scoring subjects. Due to the methodological problems, parapsychologists no longer utilize card-guessing studies.


Dream telepathy

Parapsychological studies into
dream telepathy Dream telepathy is the purported ability to communicate telepathically with another person while one is dreaming. The first person in modern times to document telepathic dreaming was Sigmund Freud. Mainstream scientific consensus rejects dream te ...
were carried out at the Maimonides Medical Center in
Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
led by
Stanley Krippner Stanley Krippner (born October 4, 1932) is an American psychologist and parapsychologist. He received a B.S. degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1954 and M.A. (1957) and Ph.D. (1961) degrees from Northwestern University. From ...
and
Montague Ullman Montague Ullman (September 9, 1916 – June 7, 2008) was a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and parapsychologist who founded the Dream Laboratory at the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York and for over three decades promoted public interes ...
. They concluded the results from some of their experiments supported dream telepathy. However, the results have not been independently replicated. The psychologist James Alcock has written the dream telepathy experiments at Maimonides have failed to provide evidence for telepathy and "lack of replication is rampant." The picture target experiments that were conducted by Krippner and Ullman were criticized by C. E. M. Hansel. According to Hansel there were weaknesses in the design of the experiments in the way in which the agent became aware of their target picture. Only the agent should have known the target and no other person until the judging of targets had been completed, however, an experimenter was with the agent when the target envelope was opened. Hansel also wrote there had been poor controls in the experiment as the main experimenter could communicate with the subject. An attempt to replicate the experiments that used picture targets was carried out by Edward Belvedere and David Foulkes. The finding was that neither the subject nor the judges matched the targets with dreams above chance level. Results from other experiments by Belvedere and Foulkes were also negative.


Ganzfeld experiment

When using the
Ganzfeld experiment A ganzfeld experiment (from the German words for “entire” and “field”) is an assessment used by parapsychologists that they contend can test for extrasensory perception (ESP) or telepathy. In these experiments, a "sender" attempts to me ...
to test for telepathy, one individual is designated as the receiver and is placed inside a controlled environment where they are deprived of sensory input, and another person is designated as the sender and is placed in a separate location. The receiver is then required to receive information from the sender. The nature of the information may vary between experiments.''The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena'' by Dean I. Radin Harper Edge, The Ganzfeld experiment studies that were examined by Ray Hyman and Charles Honorton had methodological problems that were well documented. Honorton reported only 36% of the studies used duplicate target sets of pictures to avoid handling cues. Hyman discovered flaws in all of the 42 Ganzfeld experiments and to access each experiment, he devised a set of 12 categories of flaws. Six of these concerned statistical defects, the other six covered procedural flaws such as inadequate
documentation Documentation is any communicable material that is used to describe, explain or instruct regarding some attributes of an object, system or procedure, such as its parts, assembly, installation, maintenance and use. As a form of knowledge manageme ...
, randomization and security as well as possibilities of sensory leakage. Ray Hyman. ''Evaluating Parapsychological Claims'' in Robert J. Sternberg, Henry L. Roediger, Diane F. Halpern. (2007). ''Critical Thinking in Psychology''. Cambridge University Press. pp. 216–231. Over half of the studies failed to safeguard against sensory leakage and all of the studies contained at least one of the 12 flaws. Because of the flaws, Honorton agreed with Hyman the 42 Ganzfeld studies could not support the claim for the existence of psi. Possibilities of sensory leakage in the Ganzfeld experiments included the receivers hearing what was going on in the sender's room next door as the rooms were not soundproof and the sender's fingerprints to be visible on the target object for the receiver to see. Hyman also reviewed the autoganzfeld experiments and discovered a pattern in the data that implied a visual cue may have taken place: Hyman wrote the autoganzfeld experiments were flawed because they did not preclude the possibility of sensory leakage. In 2010, Lance Storm, Patrizio Tressoldi, and Lorenzo Di Risio analyzed 29 ganzfeld studies from 1997 to 2008. Of the 1,498 trials, 483 produced hits, corresponding to a hit rate of 32.2%. This hit rate is
statistically significant In statistical hypothesis testing, a result has statistical significance when it is very unlikely to have occurred given the null hypothesis (simply by chance alone). More precisely, a study's defined significance level, denoted by \alpha, is the p ...
with p < .001. Participants selected for personality traits and personal characteristics thought to be psi-conducive were found to perform significantly better than unselected participants in the ganzfeld condition. Hyman (2010) published a rebuttal to Storm ''et al''. According to Hyman "reliance on meta-analysis as the sole basis for justifying the claim that an anomaly exists and that the evidence for it is consistent and replicable is fallacious. It distorts what scientists mean by confirmatory evidence." Hyman wrote the ganzfeld studies have not been independently replicated and have failed to produce evidence for telepathy. Storm ''et al''. published a response to Hyman claiming the ganzfeld experimental design has proved to be consistent and reliable but parapsychology is a struggling discipline that has not received much attention so further research on the subject is necessary. Rouder ''et al''. 2013 wrote that critical evaluation of Storm ''et al''.'s meta-analysis reveals no evidence for telepathy, no plausible mechanism and omitted replication failures. A 2016 paper examined questionable research practices in the ganzfeld experiments.


Twin telepathy

Twin telepathy is a belief that has been described as a
myth Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...
in psychological literature. Psychologists Stephen Hupp and Jeremy Jewell have noted that all experiments on the subject have failed to provide any scientific evidence for telepathy between
twin Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of TwinLast Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two em ...
s.Hupp, Stephen; Jewell, Jeremy. (2015). ''Great Myths of Child Development''. Wiley. pp. 10–16. According to Hupp and Jewell there are various behavioral and genetic factors that contribute to the twin telepathy myth "identical twins typically spend a lot of time together and are usually exposed to very similar environments. Thus, it's not at all surprising that they act in similar ways and are adept at anticipating and forecasting each other's reactions to events." A 1993 study by
Susan Blackmore Susan Jane Blackmore (born 29 July 1951) is a British writer, lecturer, sceptic, broadcaster, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth. Her fields of research include memetics, parapsychology, consciousness, and she is best known ...
investigated the claims of twin telepathy. In an experiment with six sets of twins one subject would act as the sender and the other the receiver. The sender was given selected objects, photographs or numbers and would attempt to psychically send the information to the receiver. The results from the experiment were negative, no evidence of telepathy was observed. The skeptical investigator Benjamin Radford has noted that "Despite decades of research trying to prove telepathy, there is no credible scientific evidence that psychic powers exist, either in the general population or among twins specifically. The idea that two people who shared their mother's womb—or even who share the same DNA—have a mysterious mental connection is an intriguing one not borne out in science."


Scientific reception

A variety of tests have been performed to demonstrate telepathy, but there is no scientific evidence that the power exists. A panel commissioned by the
United States National Research Council The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (also known as NASEM or the National Academies) are the collective scientific national academy of the United States. The name is used interchangeably in two senses: (1) as an umbrell ...
to study paranormal claims concluded that "despite a 130-year record of scientific research on such matters, our committee could find no scientific justification for the existence of phenomena such as extrasensory perception, mental telepathy or 'mind over matter' exercises... Evaluation of a large body of the best available evidence simply does not support the contention that these phenomena exist." The scientific community considers
parapsychology Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena ( extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related t ...
a pseudoscience. There is no known mechanism for telepathy. Philosopher and physicist
Mario Bunge Mario Augusto Bunge (; ; September 21, 1919 – February 24, 2020) was an Argentine-Canadian philosopher and physicist. His philosophical writings combined scientific realism, systemism, materialism, emergentism, and other principles. He was ...
has written that telepathy would contradict
laws of science Scientific laws or laws of science are statements, based on repeated experiments or observations, that describe or predict a range of natural phenomena. The term ''law'' has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, accurate, broad, or narrow ...
and the claim that "signals can be transmitted across space without fading with distance is inconsistent with physics". Physicist John Taylor has written that the experiments that have been claimed by parapsychologists to support evidence for the existence of telepathy are based on the use of shaky statistical analysis and poor design, and attempts to duplicate such experiments by the scientific community have failed. Taylor also wrote the arguments used by parapsychologists for the feasibility of such phenomena are based on distortions of
theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...
as well as "complete ignorance" of relevant areas of physics. Psychologist
Stuart Sutherland (Norman) Stuart Sutherland (26 March 1927 – 8 November 1998) was a British psychologist and writer. Education Sutherland was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, before going to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he read Psychology, Philo ...
wrote that cases of telepathy can be explained by people underestimating the probability of
coincidence A coincidence is a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances that have no apparent causal connection with one another. The perception of remarkable coincidences may lead to supernatural, occult, or paranormal claims, or it may lead t ...
s. According to Sutherland, "most stories about this phenomenon concern people who are close to one another—husband and wife or brother and sister. Since such people have much in common, it is highly probable that they will sometimes think the same thought at the same time." Graham Reed, a specialist in
anomalistic psychology In psychology, anomalistic psychology is the study of human behaviour and experience connected with what is often called the paranormal, with few assumptions made about the validity (or otherwise) of the reported phenomena. Early history Accord ...
, noted that experiments into telepathy often involve the subject relaxing and reporting the 'messages' to consist of colored geometric shapes. Reed wrote that these are a common type of hypnagogic image and not evidence for telepathic communication. Outside of parapsychology, telepathy is generally explained as the result of fraud, self-delusion and/or self-deception and not as a paranormal power. Psychological research has also revealed other explanations such as
confirmation bias Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring ...
, expectancy bias, sensory leakage,
subjective validation Subjective validation, sometimes called personal validation effect, is a cognitive bias by which people will consider a statement or another piece of information to be correct if it has any personal meaning or significance to them. People whose opi ...
and
wishful thinking Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs based on what might be pleasing to imagine, rather than on evidence, rationality, or reality. It is a product of resolving conflicts between belief and desire. Methodologies to examine wishful thin ...
. Virtually all of the instances of more popular psychic phenomena, such as
mediumship Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spir ...
, can be attributed to non-paranormal techniques such as cold reading. Magicians such as Ian Rowland and Derren Brown have demonstrated techniques and results similar to those of popular psychics, albeit without claiming paranormal skills. They have identified, described, and developed psychological techniques of cold reading and
hot reading Hot reading is a technique used when giving a psychic reading in stage magic performances, or in other contexts. In hot reading, the reader uses information about the person receiving the reading (for example, from background research or overhe ...
.


Psychiatry

The notion of telepathy is not dissimilar to three clinical concepts:
delusions A delusion is a false fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, hallucination, or som ...
of thought insertion/ removal and
thought broadcasting In psychiatry, thought broadcasting is the belief that others can hear or are aware of an individual's thoughts. The person experiencing this symptom can also think that their thoughts are being broadcast through different media, such as the tele ...
. This similarity might explain how an individual might come to the conclusion that he or she were experiencing telepathy. Thought insertion/removal is a symptom of
psychosis Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavi ...
, particularly of
schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social w ...
,
schizoaffective disorder Schizoaffective disorder (SZA, SZD or SAD) is a mental disorder characterized by abnormal thought processes and an unstable mood. This diagnosis is made when the person has symptoms of both schizophrenia (usually psychosis) and a mood disorder: ...
or substance-induced psychosis. Psychiatric patients who experience this symptom falsely believe that some of their thoughts are not their own and that others (e.g., other people, aliens, demons or fallen angels, or conspiring intelligence agencies, or artificial intelligences) are putting thoughts into their minds (thought insertion). Some patients feel as if thoughts are being taken out of their minds or deleted (thought removal). Schizophrenic patients suffering from the form of alleged telepathy known as thought broadcasting believe that their private thoughts are being broadcast to other people against their informed consent. Along with other symptoms of psychosis, delusions of thought insertion may be reduced by
antipsychotic Antipsychotics, also known as neuroleptics, are a class of psychotropic medication primarily used to manage psychosis (including delusions, hallucinations, paranoia or disordered thought), principally in schizophrenia but also in a range of ...
medication. Psychiatrists and clinical psychologists believe and empirical findings support the idea that people with
schizotypy In psychology, schizotypy is a theoretical concept that posits a continuum of personality characteristics and experiences, ranging from normal dissociative, imaginative states to extreme states of mind related to psychosis, especially schizophr ...
and schizotypal personality disorder are particularly likely to believe in telepathy.Mary Townsend. (2013). ''Essentials of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing: Concepts of Care in Evidence-Based Practice''. F. A. Davis Company. p. 613. "Individuals with schizotypal personality disorder are aloof and isolated and behave in a bland and apathetic manner. Magical thinking, ideas of reference, illusions, and depersonalization are part of their everybody world. Examples include superstitiousness, belief in clairvoyance, telepathy, or "six sense;" and beliefs that "others can feel my feelings."


Use in fiction

Telepathy is a common theme in modern
fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a tradi ...
and
science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
, with many extraterrestrials,
superhero A superhero or superheroine is a stock character that typically possesses ''superpowers'', abilities beyond those of ordinary people, and fits the role of the hero, typically using his or her powers to help the world become a better place, ...
es, and
supervillain A supervillain or supercriminal is a variant of the villainous stock character that is commonly found in American comic books, usually possessing superhuman abilities. A supervillain is the antithesis of a superhero. Supervillains are oft ...
s having telepathic abilities.


See also

* Brain–brain interface *
Extended Mind In philosophy of mind, the extended mind thesis (EMT) says that the mind does not exclusively reside in the brain or even the body, but extends into the physical world. The EMT proposes that some objects in the external environment can be part of ...
, the concept that things frequently used by the mind become part of it. *
Ishin-denshin is an idiom commonly used in East Asian cultures such as Japan, Korea, China, which denotes a form of interpersonal communication through unspoken mutual understanding. This four-character compound's (or ) kanji (Chinese characters) literally tran ...
, traditional Japanese concept of unspoken mutual understanding, sometimes translated as "telepathy". * Lady Wonder, a horse that appeared to answer questions. *
Microwave auditory effect The microwave auditory effect, also known as the microwave hearing effect or the Frey effect, consists of the human perception of audible clicks, or even speech, induced by pulsed or modulated radio frequencies. The communications are generated di ...
for hearing and subvocal recognition for speaking. *
Synthetic telepathy Synthetic things are composed of multiple parts, often with the implication that they are artificial. In particular, 'synthetic' may refer to: Science * Synthetic chemical or compound, produced by the process of chemical synthesis * Synthetic o ...


Notes


Further reading

* James Alcock. (1981). ''Parapsychology: Science or Magic? A Psychological Perspective''. Pergamon Press. *
Whately Carington Walter Whately Carington (1892 – March 2, 1947) was a British parapsychologist. His name, originally Walter Whately Smith, was changed in 1933.Telepathy: An Outline of its Facts, Theory, and Implications
'' Methuen & Co. *
Bergen Evans Bergen Baldwin Evans (September 19, 1904 – February 4, 1978) was a Northwestern University professor of English and a television host. He received a George Foster Peabody Award in 1957 for excellence in broadcasting for his CBS TV series ''The La ...
. (1954). ''The Spoor of Spooks: And Other Nonsense''. Knopf. * C. E. M. Hansel. (1989). ''The Search for Psychic Power: ESP and Parapsychology Revisited''. Prometheus Books. * Walter Mann. (1919)
''The Follies and Frauds of Spiritualism''
Rationalist Association. London: Watts & Co. Chapter XII. pp. 131–191. *
David Marks David Lee Marks (born August 22, 1948) is an American guitarist who is best known for being an early member of the Beach Boys. While growing up in Hawthorne, California, Marks was a neighborhood friend of the original band members and was a freq ...
. (2000). '' The Psychology of the Psychic'' (2nd Edition). Prometheus Books. * Kenneth Wilcox Payne. (1928)
''Is Telepathy All Bunk?''
Popular Science ''Popular Science'' (also known as ''PopSci'') is an American digital magazine carrying popular science content, which refers to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. ''Popular Science'' has won over 58 awards, incl ...
''. * Felix Planer. (1980). ''Superstition''. Cassell. * Graham Reed. (1988). ''The Psychology of Anomalous Experience''. Prometheus Books. *
Stuart Sutherland (Norman) Stuart Sutherland (26 March 1927 – 8 November 1998) was a British psychologist and writer. Education Sutherland was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, before going to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he read Psychology, Philo ...
. (1994). ''Irrationality: The Enemy Within''. Penguin Books.


External links


The Intuitive Magician
Bruce Hood
Telepathy
Skeptic's Dictionary ''The Skeptic's Dictionary'' is a collection of cross-referenced skeptical essays by Robert Todd Carroll, published on his website skepdic.com and in a printed book. The skepdic.com site was launched in 1994 and the book was published in 2003 wi ...

Soal-Goldney Experiment
– a critical evaluation of the Soal-Goldney Experiment, which claimed to prove the existence of telepathy

– article in Science and Psychoanalysis {{Authority control 1882 introductions 1880s neologisms Parapsychology Psychic powers Paranormal terminology Pseudoscience Science fiction themes Fantasy tropes