Science of ESP

I have to admit that I come to anything paranormal as a skeptic. Yet I'm fascinated by the paranormal. I've read scientific studies that found little evidence for the existence of ESP. A paranormal researcher (I will find his name -- he believes in the paranormal, but follows rigorous proceedures for documenting phenomena) wrote that many of the incidents of ESP are simply the times that it worked ... people's minds tend to glide over the times that it doesn't work. Any thoughts?

Please note that I'm not challenging people who believe strongly in the existence of ESP. I don't know what to think ... I tend to be skeptical, but I find the whole subject fascinating. :)

I think you have to find the evidence for yourself in order to believe. Have you ever had any precognitive dreams or intuition about something? The signs can be very subtle and you have to tune yourself in. Then answers come flooding. I hope this makes sense. I have always been interested too and found a spiritualist church where I began to develop in a circle. It opened up a whole new world for me.

Hi Elen0Sila,

I understand where you're coming from, every week someone wins the lottery, the odds against picking the exact six numbers are so remote that if you took that one winner picking those numbers as an isolated incident it would seem very likely that there was some sort of ESP involved. But when you take into account that millions of people also had a go, by the laws of probability someone was very likely to have done it. I however don't accept this as proof that there are no such phenomena as ESP, telepathy etc. I'm often talking to people and then out of the blue a random thought or idea will pop into my head and a moment later the person I'm talking to will just say what I'm thinking, the trouble with paranormal, metaphisical and spiritual experiences is that they are purely subjective, only the person who experiences them really knows the truth.
Have you ever heard of the hundredth monkey theory? Between 1952 and 1958 a team of scientists including a Dr. Lyall Watson were studying the behavioural patterns of the Japanese monkey Macaca Fuscata on the island of Koshima, Japan. Each day the the scientists were bringing the monkeys sweet potatoes and dropping them in the sand. The monkeys liked the sweet potatoes but not the sand and dirt. An 18 month old female they named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in the sea. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also copied this new way and taught their mothers too. Soon all the young monkeys washed their sweet potatoes, but only the adults who imitated their children learned this behaviour. The scientists recorded their behaviour between 1952 and 1958. Then in the autumn of 1958, the few monkeys on the island of Koshima doing this reached a critical mass, which Dr. Watson arbitrarily placed at 100 and suddenly all the monkeys on the island started washing their potatoes without any further influence. If it had happened on that one island they probably would have assumed there was some sort of communication and looked for it, but simultaniously monkeys on the surrounding islands also started washing their potatoes, this behaviour was even repeated on mainland Japan in Takasakiyama. There was no possble way these monkeys could have communicated by any way that we know, scientists had never observed this behaviour before.

Hi thanks for sharing that with us Ross. I love hearing about this sort of study. It is fascinating. I thought that you might be interested to hear about another amazing study that has been done, this time on water. There is a totally amazing book entitled THE HIDDEN MESSAGES IN WATER. It shows the result that thoughts, words and music have on crystals that are formed in ice. What was discovered was that classical music, positive thoughts and words have the effect of producing perfect crystals, wheras negativity produced poor quality crystals. The book includes beautiful photographs of these. It was also discovered that water could predict earthquakes and had a memory. As the human body is 70 % water , it shows what impact our thoughts and experiences could have on our wellbeing.

Hi Silver Swan,

A friend lent me that book a couple of months ago, it blew my mind. It completely changed the way I look at water. There was an article in the BBC science magazine; Focus in September/October time last year and they slated it and the scientific methods used by Emoto, but knowledge like that just feels true, the whole book made so much sense to me, I've been meaning to get a copy since I read it and apparently there's a follow up to it.

Hi Ross,

Yes I Agree , It Does Make Sense. Yes There Is A Follow Up Book, And Also A Pre-quel I Believe. I Found My Copy From Amazon. I Would However Be Interested To Read The Article You Mentioned. I Will Try And Obtain A Copy.

Thanks X