Telepathy
Telepathy (from the Greek, tele meaning "distant" and pathos or -patheia meaning "feeling, perception, passion, affliction, experience") is the purported transmission of information from one person to another without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research,and has remained more popular than the earlier expression thought-transference.
Telepathy experiments have historically been criticized for lack of proper controls and repeatability. There is no convincing evidence that telepathy exists, and the topic is generally considered by the scientific community to be pseudoscience.
According to historians such as Roger Luckhurst and Janet Oppenheim the origin of the concept of telepathy in Western civilization can be tracked to the late 19th century and the formation of the Society for Psychical Research.As the physical sciences made significant advances, scientific concepts were applied to mental phenomena (e.g., animal magnetism), with the hope that this would help to understand paranormal phenomena. The modern concept of telepathy emerged in this context.
Psychical researcher Eric Dingwall criticized SPR founding members Frederic W. H. Myers and William F. Barrett for trying to "prove" telepathy rather than objectively analyze whether or not it existed.
Within the field of parapsychology, telepathy is considered to be a form of extrasensory perception (ESP) or anomalous cognition in which information is transferred through Psi. It is often categorized similarly to precognition and clairvoyance. Experiments have been used to test for telepathic abilities. Among the most well known are the use of Zener cards and the Ganzfeld experiment.
IPR approved Telepathy Tests
Laboratory conditions:
For relevant results we are describing a simple setup for the experiments we provide on the website.
You need 3 people.
Person 1: The Observer
watches the experiment and makes sure all technical conditions are within the correct paramters. The observer sets the start signal for the experiment and also waits for a signal from the "Sender" to tell the "Receiver" that the transmission has taken place.
Person 2: The "Sender"
The "Sender" looks at the pictures in the gallery. When they have decided which picture they want to transmit they click on the thumbnail to bring up this picture big on their screen. They should not signal in any form that they have already taken a decision.The "Sender" then looks (stares) at the picture for around 60 seconds. We have constructed the test pages with a big X on the right top, what closes the pictures and shows our startpage. This is to prevent that they see other pictures right after the transmission. Now they signal the "Observer" that the transmission has taken place.
Person 3: The "Receiver"
The "Receiver" waits until the "Observer" gives the start signal and focuses on the "Sender" person. When the Observer gives the end signal, the receiver draws what they received.
Important:
Rhine's experiment
Zener cards are marked with five distinctive symbols. When using them, one individual is designated the "sender" and another the "receiver". The sender selects a random card and visualize the symbol on it, while the receiver attempts to determine that symbol using Psi. Statistically, the receiver has a 20% chance of randomly guessing the correct symbol, so to demonstrate telepathy, they must repeatedly score a success rate that is significantly higher than 20%. If not conducted properly, this method can be vulnerable to sensory leakage and card counting.
J. B. Rhine's experiments with Zener cards were discredited due to the discovery that sensory leakage or cheating could account for all his results such as the subject being able to read the symbols from the back of the cards and being able to see and hear the experimenter to note subtle clues. Once Rhine took precautions in response to criticisms of his methods, he was unable to find any high-scoring subjects. Due to the methodological problems, parapsychologists no longer utilize card-guessing studies.
Click here for the Zener Test
The Photo Test
During our research about image telepathy we sometimes had better results with real photographs. It looks like the Zener cards are not evoking enough emotions to trigger the telepathic signal. Our volunteers have collected more than 350 pictures, that showed to give good results on telepathy tests. We encourage you to take the photo test with some friends.