Every culture in the world has had people who claim to be
able to receive information by telepathy, to know things
before they happen, to be able to find lost objects and
people, to scan the body for sickness. We sometimes call
such a person a ‘clairvoyant’ (which means clear
seeing) or a psychic.
Psychic abilities are not by themselves evidence of the
afterlife but they are associated with the afterlife. Investigation
of psychic abilities can provide evidence that consciousness
extends beyond the physical brain and opens the possibility
that it may survive beyond death. Proving
the existence of psychic abilities helps us understand how
those in the afterlife communicate.
Scientists in Europe and America have been investigating
psychic abilities using scientific method for more than
150 years. Since 1942 the term "psi
phenomena"- ( from the 23rd letter of the Greek
alphabet meaning "mind" or "soul") has
often been used to describe those abilities which have been
investigated in the laboratory.
According to Dr Charles Tart (in his book
The End of Materialism) there are five areas
of psychic phenomena for which there is impressive experimental
evidence.
These are:
telepathy- receiving messages from someone's mind
clairvoyance or remote viewing- knowing things at a distance
precognition- knowing things before they happen
psychokineis- moving things with the mind
and psychic healing.
Extensive experiments were carried out in
the Rhine Research Center
by Dr J.B. Rhine and his wife Dr Louisa Rhine who created
the word “parapsychology”.
In their book "Extra-Sensory Perception
After Sixty Years", JB Rhine claims that by 1940, 33
experiments had been done involving almost a million trials
on telepathy and precognition. Twenty seven (27) of the
33 studies produced statistically significant results.
These studies were repeated in 33 independent
experiments in different laboratories in the five years
following Rhine’s first publication of his results.
Twenty of these or 61% were statistically significant where
5% would be expected by chance.
In 1997 Dr Dean Radin, director of the Consciousness
Research Laboratory at the University of Nevada, published
a ground breaking book "The Conscious Universe–the
Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena". In it he analyzes
the overwhelming scientific evidence for telepathy and clairvoyance.
Read Chapter
1.
Typical of the results was an analysis of
all the experiments on psychic abilities conducted at Stanford
Research Institute from 1973 to 1988 by Edwin May. The analysis
was based on 154 experiments with more than 26,000 separate
trials conducted over 16 years. The statistical results
of this analysis indicated odds against chance of more than
a billion billion to one (Radin 1997:101)
Chris Robinson was tested for
precognition at the University of Arizona by Dr
Gary Schwartz and scored an amazing 100% success
rate. Here in Part 5 of the video we see the tests.
Another psychic who was extensively studied in the USA for
many years was Alex Tanous. Details of his research and
the Alex Tanous Foundation
are now in the Rhine Research library.
The Institute of Noetic Sciences
uses the word "noetic" which means "direct
knowing" or intuition to describe the experiences which
it researches.
Because of the enormous interest in psychic abilities there
are television programs in many countries which allow people
to demonstrate their psychic abilitites. Recently Michelle
Whitedove won $100,000 in a competition to find the most
gifted psychic in America. In the final she had to find
a person who was buried underground in 10 acres of desert.
She found him in less than 30 minutes.
Some psychics claim to be are able to tell
what happened at a crime scene. They are often called "psychic
detectives". In the video below a psychic is tested
to see if he can say what happened at a crime scene.
Researcher Dr Rupert Sheldrake argues that everyone has
some psychic ability. He has conducted a number of experiments
on everyday telepathy, such as knowing who is telephoning
you or when you are being stared at.
Rupert Sheldrake talks about the Extended Mind
Warning- many people who claim to
be psychics are not genuine. Remember
that the research mentioned above was done with only the
most talented psychics. Unfortunately there are a lot of
people who try to make money from psychic services who are
not very good or who are not real psychics at all. If you
do want to have a reading from a psychic try to get a recommendation
from someone you know or from an organization that tests
psychics and mediums. Do some research on "cold reading
techniques" so that you will not be tricked. Stay away
from anyone who tells people that bad things are going to
happen or that you have to pay money to remove a curse or
"negative energy."
