Telepathy Essay, Research Paper
Telepathy or mind reading is the transmission of thoughts from one human to another human by means other than the bodies physical senses. Telepathy also implies that we have sensing capabilities other than the physical senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. Which enable us to sense and perceive the mental thoughts and feelings of another person, in other words we have something people like to call extrasensory perception (ESP) abilities. In Breaking the Light Barrier Using Telepathy it states the root word “tele” is from the Greek word meaning far off or distance and the root word “pathy” is from the Greek word meaning to feel, so therefore telepathy would mean to feel something from a distance. Some people think that telepathy is a fraud and that it could never happen, while others think the people simply know each other very well and can predict what the other will do or say. Still others think it can and does happen every day. This paper will look at many points of view and how many people are fooled into believing in telepathy.
Telepathy expresses itself in many ways but as a whole it must be understood in perspective. The main means of telepathy communication can be described using feelings, sensations and images. It is the brain of the receiver that learns to associate, possibly even with words, with a particular sensation and feeling and imagery introduced into an interaction (3). It can take years to adapt to telepathy, it does not happen just like that. Along the way many experiences appear common to those who adapt to telepathy in some way. The experiences are highly individual due to the fact that the human brain in everyone is individual and distinct as a human fingerprint.
In a seminar on telepathy by William B. Robertson, he stated that telepathy is not something passed onto a person like a science or schoolbook study. It is something that every person has the ability to do just as a child has the ability to talk. The child must learn how to talk with the air, the throat, and the sounds, while to be telepathic a person must learn how to visualize what they want to put into words rather then speak them.
Telepathy is one symptom to indicate mental disorders which makes it hard to research it well. This is what may happen, a person who has lived in a childhood environment that is not ideal, such as one parent was consistently abusive, stores the frustration and anger of their childhood in an area of the cortex in a particular “neural network”. Up to about the age of 25 (this may vary from person to person) the young brain which is still developing is strong enough to contain such repressed feelings in a neural network. After the age of 25 however the natural defense mechanism may begin to break down and the consequence is “inner thoughts” that can be very loud and may appear as telepathy. These thoughts are the discharges of built up emotional energy in such a neural network.
Due to the nature of such angry emotions, the brain does not want to associate these with the images that caused them, almost every part of the brain will protect itself against such a neural network(5). The result is the neural network attempts to find a way to be accepted. If the neural network can convince the psyche that it is “telepathy”, then a way exists for the inner tension to be released. In some cases this will work, in others it will not and it can cause confusion or mental illness. In most cases the individual in the situation consults a medical doctor who will then give out a list of psychologists who can deal with the matter and help the individual through the period of adjustment(5).
However, in a person that adapts well to telepathy and has not had an intense and far from ideal experience in their life may have the mental imagery with considerable activity to sense things. Telepathy by definition cannot be practiced alone, once a person begins to sense things and the brain adapts, they will be able to communicate with others and manage their talent(7). It is unlikely to ever find out who can communicate or interact with others through telepathy. What is essential to communicate through the mind to a group of people is that a person must learn the difference between their wondering thoughts and proper telepathy. In a group situation it helps a person to learn more about others and how they have lived.
Telepathy is not as static as our physical environment(8). To understand why that is a person needs to have an insight into the human brain. Our brain is more than one brain, it is primarily two distinct brains, the left and right cerebral hemispheres. These work together but have different tasks. After a time of using particular telepathy settings the imagery of the right cerebral hemisphere adapts to visualizing and is converted to feeling by the left cerebral hemisphere. That means that the image is no longer a life-like setting but can be accompanied by a rich flow of feelings(10). When this happens some new mental settings must be developed to insure that good visualization can be achieved. Telepathy is a more energetic kind of environment, the environment must change, but the central principles always remain the same, this is needed in using telepathy well.
Another important factor to appreciate is that all humans are different from one another. Every human brain is different in appearance just is our face is different, the only exception are natural genetic twins. This difference means that each person can form slightly different emotions during a telepathy interaction. This will result is personal likes and dislikes, one person may like one transmission while someone else hates it. One person can make out a picture while another is only confused by the thought.
Some people think that telepathy is just an altered state of consciousness which means that the person would be sleeping, dreaming, in a trance, under hypnosis, in sensory deprivation states, or deep relaxation. These are the same symptoms of a person who is having an out of body experience or someone who is about to die and is revived only to think the were on their way to heaven. None of which can be proven but people seem to stick by what they think they saw. What right do others have to say it is not real? Many people want to believe things from the beyond maybe even enough to make another universe where no one can tell them they are wrong. Some truly think that the transferring messages is possible but they also may be the ones in mental institutions for three years.
There was an experiment performed to test the telepathic powers of Daniel Thompson. Daniel was tested by a doctor who had been working with him for a while and had discovered that Daniel had mental powers. Dr. Chris French, an experimental psychologist was about to perform the largest telepathy test ever. The aim of this experiment was for Daniel to transmit a number between 1and 50 to an audience. Daniel was locked in an isolation box with a sealed envelope containing the number that he would transmit. Dr. French explained that Daniel was going to transmit a number under 50, containing two digits, both being odd and not the same. Viewers were asked to phone in the first number they thought of. The results were shown later in the program. Only eight numbers satisfied the criteria set by Dr. French: 13;15;17;19;31;35;37;39 and the majority of calls received (34%) voted for the number 37. However the number was 19. But the experiment was a success because Daniel Thompson was an actor and Dr. French expected the majority of people to choose 37. In fact the experiment was designed not to test telepathy, but to test for the population stereotypes that fake telepaths use to fool their audience. Thirty-seven is a popular stereotype every time the test is performed the majority of people choose 37 in the same way that most people think carrot
Psychokinesis is the hypothetical influence of the mind on matter without the use of any known physical or sensory means. This directly relates to telepathic powers in the fact that they both use the mind to do things that are unexplained. The participants in psychokinesis experiments tend to be normal, everyday people who have volunteered to help with an experiment. The majority do not claim to have any amazing psychic abilities or experiences, nor do they necessarily subscribe to any particular belief system, some even have a strong disbelief in the possibility. Typically, participants will be asked to watch some feedback display to see what is expected in the target system s activity. Depending on the format of the experiment they may be told details about the target system itself, or they may simply be asked to try to affect the feedback display. What strategy the participant employs in their attempt to be successful also depends on the particular experiment. In some cases they may be asked to go through some relaxation exercises and then to passively imagine the display changing as they wish. In others they may be asked to get exited as possible often telling the display how it should be acting.
Another experiment anyone can do is to take two people, closely related, ideally parent and child and have one of the people go to sleep. When the person falls asleep the other person should describe an image or things that the person is doing, like walking on the beach or looking at the sky. When they awaken ask what they dreamt about during the night. Before the experiment is done be sure the sleeper is willing. Also do not discuss what is going to be told to them until after the results are recorded. When they are describing the dream to the sleeper they should be out of earshot or some music could be played to prevent eavesdropping. Lastly the person dictating the dream should talk about the dream quietly to themself and no one else.
For a long time it has been said that the environment and psychic abilities have been linked(2). Psychic abilities work better at certain sites, at different moon-phases and at night rather than during the day. People talk about good and bad atmospheres, hauntings are associated with cold spots and mysterious breezes but, until relatively recently the role of the environment had not been considered in parapsychology.
One aspect of the environment is the geomagnetic field (GMF). It has recently been the focus of several studies around the world, looking at a possible relationship between the activity of the field and psychic abilities. Although the actual relationship remains unclear studies have consistently shown that extrasensory perception seems to be more effective at times when GMF is relatively quiet. There have been fewer and less consistent studies looking at a psychokinesis relationship, but some authors seem to show that the active GMF is associated with a good psychokinesis performance. Some researchers are considering other environmental variables, ranging from the ion concentration in the air to the current lunar phase(12). One of the problems with studies looking at this topic is that there is no clear idea as to what mechanism(s) could account for a psychic ability environment relationship. Broadly the possibilities are 1. That the physical characteristic being studied somehow interacts with , or composes, the mechanism underlying psychic abilities 2. That the environment has some direct effect on human psychology that directly or indirectly affects psychic abilities.
The history on this planet has been one of secrecy and involved with religious or occult practices. Many people have stories of people with mental powers to read the mind, mental powers to communicate thoughts to others over a distance, mental powers to wake others up in the middle of the night with a revelation, or stories of people hearing voices. Not all of these are telepathy, because people can imagine these things, but some may possibly be telepathy. Also most people have heard stories of some mother that knew her child was in trouble, or someone who knew a brother, sister, or family member wished to contact them and they just knew it. So they call the person on the phone and say, “I was just thinking about you.” What does this mean? This means that there is a linking line, a line that joins two people. Therefore there has been some communication along that line. This rarely occurs and is often called “woman s intuition” or “gut feelings” rather then telepathy.
This experiment will test to see if people can read the minds of others. This experiment will be tested with Zener cards which in this case are homemade. Zener cards have symbols like stars, circles, triangles, straight lines, and wavy lines all of which are colored or not colored. The tester will look at the picture on the card and imagine the shape in their mind. Then the subject will be asked what they see, they will not be told if they are right or wrong the next card will simply be held up and they will be asked again what they see. The subject will not be able to change their mind since they may be guessing at what the card is. The tester will record what the subject said they saw, this will be repeated for all eight shapes. The last thing that will be asked is if they actually think they saw the shapes or if they were only guessing what the cards had on them, if they say they were guessing the image it could still have been transferred to their mind without them knowing so the results from them will not be thrown out. This will be done on 10 males and 10 females from the ages of 14-45. The order of the cards will be changed from person to person so that when one person gets their score they cannot tell which ones they got correct. The subject will be told before hand what shapes they have the choice of saying. This will be a one on one experiment with no one else in the room to distract the tester or the subject.
The materials used in this experiment were as follows
+ eight 3×5 cards
+ markers
+ people to be tested
+ pencils
+ paper
+ a tester
The predicted outcome of this experiment is that people cannot read minds in this situation. Also it is hypothesized that they will have guessed it what is on the cards even if they got the correct answers.
The data from this experiment is as follows,
Only two people said they could see what was on the cards #4 and #12 all the rest said the were guessing for what was on the cards.
In conclusion, even though many people believe that mind reading is real this experiment has shown that people cannot read minds. Even though this is only one test and it does not test all people it has proven the hypothesis, because even though one person got all the shapes on the cards correct they stated that they were only guessing. If the tester were another person the results may have come out different because the other person may be able to transmit messages while the one giving this test obviously could not. It cannot be explained how subject ten got all the cards right but said they were only guessing.
After thinking it over it was decided that the experiment would be done with another testers and more subjects. The experiment was done the same way with the same cards. Three of the test subjects said they could see the cards they were numbers 7, 16, 23.
In conclusion to the second experiment one person could possibly read minds while the rest only guessed at the cards. Once again it was found that people cannot read minds despite the want to know what others are thinking.