ESP – Expanding the Mind’s Potential
No conversation about the expansive potential of the mind would be complete without considering psychic abilities. This would comprise telepathy (communicating with others via thoughts), precognition (prediction of future events), telekinesis (moving objects with the mind), remote viewing (seeing a location with the mind’s eye without being at that location), out-of-body experiences (also known as astral travel) and mediumship (the ability to communicate with souls who have crossed into the Light, or with earthbound spirits). All the supernatural, paranormal or psychic events that Randi James, the famous sceptic and paranormal debunker, would call woo-woo.
“For the first time in history, we have begun to forge an empirical approach to one of the most profound and ancient mysteries, the nature of mind and its relationship to the world.”
Chuck Honorton, parapsychologist, on science and extrasensory perception
Scientific studies on psychic abilities are few and far between. One of the names at the forefront, though, is Dr. Daryl Bem, professor emeritus at Cornell University. While studying physics at MIT, he became interested in psychology and his career path (and major) changed abruptly. He taught psychology at Stanford, Harvard and Cornell and was also an assistant editor for a well-respected, peer-reviewed psychology journal. He later met Charles Honorton and became familiar with his studies on telepathy, which piqued his interest in ESP (extrasensory perception). Bem then spent 10 years proving the existence of precognition, which he described as “the subtle sense of what will happen in the future”. Knowing that the subject matter would inevitably be ridiculed by most of the scientific community, any such experiment would have to be conducted using the highest standards of research, statistical analysis and data collection. Bem went to great pains to make sure that his research methods were above reproach. He conducted 9 separate experiments involving nearly 1,000 participants. Eight of the nine experiments showed significant empirical evidence that precognition did exist. And if precognition existed, then the experiment also proved that time flows in two different directions. His findings were published in 2011 and caused a stir amongst his peers. One his colleagues admitted feeling physically ill after reading Bem’s findings. The possibility that psychic ability might be real was just too much for him to process. So, did the results turn science on its head and open the doors to new understanding? No. Instead, Bem’s peers declared that since there was no possible way for ESP to exist, the results must have occurred due to the faulty methods of data collection and analytical procedures that were in place across all experimental psychology. One psychologist was at least open-minded enough to profess, “…(Bem’s) study should prompt discussions on how people cling to their beliefs in the face of challenge, no matter how profound.”
Dr. Chris Roe is a professor of psychology at the University of Northampton (UK) and Director of the Centre for the Study of Anomalous Psychological Processes. These anomalous processes include spirituality and wellbeing, psychic deception, paranormal belief and experience, and experimental tests of claimed phenomena of extrasensory perception and psychokinesis. In a recent article in Psychic News magazine (June 2019), Roe states, “…not all scientists are preoccupied with debunking paranormal claims. There is a growing number of scientists who see psychic claims and experiences as part of the normal range of healthy human experience and want to better understand them.”
The mind is certainly capable of so much more. As science slowly moves forward in this area of research, we may want to consider placing greater emphasis on experiential accounts, that is, personal experience. There is such an enormous cross-section of humanity who have had ESP or paranormal encounters, we cannot possibly explain it all away or dismiss it. We must look “outside the box” if we are to realise the mind’s potential instead of being limited by our generally accepted belief systems and mainstream scientific parameters.
To be continued….
By Elaina Curran, HPD, DSFH, AdvDPLRT, Past Life Regression Therapist and Clinical Hypnotherapist
As published by Thornbury's BS35 Local Magazine - March 2020 issue
