TELEPATHY
Posted by anthonynorth on March 29, 2007
Explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins once went on an Arctic expedition in which he co-operated with researcher Harold Sherman. Over 68 nights he would spend a little time trying to communicate the events of the day by thought to Sherman in New York. Records of the test show that Sherman wrote some incredibly accurate notes.
This was one of the most celebrated cases of telepathy, the believed ability to receive messages in the mind from another mind. A term coined by Frederic Myers in the 19th century, it is usually called extrasensory perception, or ESP, today; although the latter also takes in clairvoyance and precognition.
Classic examples of telepathy which most people have experienced include foreknowledge of someone about to phone you, or thinking about someone then seeing them. Sceptics deny this is telepathy, but merely coincidence.
J B Rhine began the first ‘scientific’ analysis of telepathy in the 1930s. Using packs of 25 cards with 5 sets of five symbols, subjects would try to guess which symbol another person had turned over. The number of guesses above chance suggested ESP.
By the 1970s, the Ganzfeld became popular, where a person is placed in sensory deprivation and asked to speak his thoughts whilst another person concentrates on sending images of a picture he is looking at. Evidence has been patchy.
Theories to explain telepathy have included the idea that messages are carried on radio-like waves, or are a product of pheromones, or airborne hormones. All such ideas have been discounted.
Others opt for more esoteric explanations, such as Carl Jung’s ‘collective unconscious’; a level of mind below the personal and arguably connecting minds together. Quantum mechanics allows spontaneous action, suggesting an answer may also exist here.
© Anthony North, November 2006
This is a post from Anthony North’s ‘alternative network.’ Current affairs posts almost daily on North’s Review and Eye on the World (this includes politics and links). North’s Review also has fiction, writers’ resources and TV reviews. For deeper issues, including paranormal, crime, environment and much more, Beyond the Blog is for you.
October 26, 2007 at 7:58 pm
I without a doubt believe that we are able to communicate our thoughts through telepathy. I experience this all of the time. I use it in many ways.
October 26, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Hi Tobeme,
In my experience, everyone experiences telepathy. Of course, many sceptics dismiss it as coincidence. I’m still waiting for one to explain just what a coincidence is.
Mindst you, I’m fascinated by what exactly telepathy is. The post, here, is my quick encyclopedia post on the subject. If you’re interested, I have much more on the subject.
If you go to my Mysteries page, above, and scroll down alphabetically to ‘Telepathy’, you’ll find a couple of more in-depth treatments of the subject, seeing it in two very different ways.
And there’s more to come.
August 6, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Recently I can assure you I have encountered telepathy. My husband and I often say things the other is thinking at practically the same time. We don’t know if only one of receives or whether both do. Nevertheless, one thing I can say is that when the thought is in the head it seems like it is my own, not someone else’s. Yet, I have said things that I think my husband had transmitted a couple of moments before, and the same thing has happened with me.
As the thought appears to be my own it is easy to dismiss the thought as irrelevant. But this is the whole point of telepathy, being able to realise that a subtle quiet thought might have made its way in to one’s mind. We need to recognise it for what it is, and act on it, but often we ignore it, and so the telepathic though disappears as if it never came.
If we put too much effort into trying to receive it we will fail, completely. It requires a very relaxed frame of mind, and an ability to recognise these very subtle thoughts as possibly not your own.
There are times, I would add, when my husband and I don’t get the thoughts at all, but that is usually due to one of us focusing their mind on a specific thing so blocking out any thoughts that may try to come in. Other times we try to get the thoughts but they become confused with what we are doing at the time and so don’t make any sense.
Still, my own experience has proved to me at least that telepathy exists. I can’t comment on what others believe.
August 6, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Hi Carol,
I think most people can recall such experiences - I certainly can; many of them. Something is certainly going on. It’s just a shame so many just dismiss it with that mysterious word, ‘coincidence’.