Extrasensory perception (ESP), often dubbed the “sixth sense” or “psi,” describes the alleged ability to gain information about the world or influence it without using the traditional five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. This paranormal phenomenon encompasses a range of purported abilities that defy conventional scientific understanding. These include telepathy, the idea of reading minds; psychokinesis, or moving objects solely with mental power; and precognition, the notion of predicting future events.
ESP stands in stark contrast to established scientific principles, yet its allure remains strong. A 2019 study in the Europe’s Journal of Psychology indicated that approximately two-thirds of people in the United States believe in ESP’s reality. This widespread belief has even sparked serious discussions within academia. While some psychologists advocate for the careful examination of ESP, skeptics rightly point to the lack of robust evidence, suggesting that what little evidence exists is either weak or potentially fraudulent.
A Historical Journey into ESP
The roots of ESP fascination can be traced back to the spiritualist movement that flourished in 19th-century Britain and the United States. During this era, séances became fashionable, particularly among the elite, where mediums claimed to communicate with spirits. By the late 1800s, scientists and intellectuals began forming societies dedicated to investigating these spiritual claims and other “psychic” phenomena, including telepathy and hypnosis. Notably, while telepathy and séances remain unproven, hypnosis has since gained scientific validation. In 1882, the Society for Psychical Research was founded in London, followed by the American Society for Psychical Research in 1885. Both organizations are still active today, reflecting the enduring interest in these topics.
Related: How does hypnosis work?
The term “extrasensory perception” gained prominence in the 1930s thanks to the work of Duke University psychologist J.B. Rhine. Rhine established a dedicated lab to study the sixth sense, becoming famous for his experiments using Zener cards. These cards were decks marked with five distinct symbols. In his experiments, Rhine would present a deck of 25 Zener cards and ask participants to identify the symbol on each card without looking at it. Statistically, random chance would predict a 20% accuracy rate. However, Rhine’s findings suggested participants consistently outperformed this probability, guessing correctly more often than chance would dictate. Based on these results, Rhine concluded he had found evidence supporting ESP, as detailed by Terence Hines in his book “Pseudoscience and the Paranormal” (Prometheus, 2003).
Rhine’s research, published in his 1934 book “Extrasensory Perception,” sparked both controversy and fascination. A review in the journal Nature that same year suggested Rhine’s strong belief in ESP might have influenced his research outcomes. Despite criticism, Rhine’s work propelled the growth of parapsychology, a field dedicated to studying psychic phenomena. In 1957, Rhine established the Parapsychological Association, which continues to explore psychic experiences today.
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Victorian Era Illustration Depicting Thought Reading and Fascination with ESP Phenomena
Fascination with ESP, particularly thought-reading, surged in the late 19th century, as illustrated in this 1889 depiction from the Illustrated London News. (Image credit: Getty Images/Hulton Archive)
The Scientific Investigation (and Skepticism) of ESP
Since the rise of parapsychology, numerous scientists have explored the potential existence of ESP. Intriguingly, ESP research has even garnered attention from government agencies. From 1972 to 1995, the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) invested $20 million in ESP research, primarily conducted at the Stanford Research Institute. This program, later known as “Stargate,” explored ESP’s potential applications during the Cold War. Details of this research were published in a 2015 article in SAGE Open.
Today, ESP studies can be found alongside mainstream psychology research in reputable peer-reviewed journals like American Psychologist and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Some of these studies appear to offer evidence in favor of ESP.
One notable research approach is the ganzfeld experiment, developed in the 1970s. Participants in these experiments are placed in sensory isolation – in darkened rooms with covered eyes and white noise – to minimize external stimuli and supposedly enhance focus on ESP signals.
In a typical ganzfeld experiment, a “sender” in one room focuses on transmitting a “target” image or video clip to a “receiver” in another room. The receiver, experiencing sensory deprivation, is asked to describe any mental images they perceive. Afterward, the receiver is presented with a set of images, including the original target. Identifying the target is considered a “hit.” Similar to Rhine’s findings, meta-analyses of numerous ganzfeld studies suggest that participants identify the target image more frequently than expected by chance, as noted in a review article.
Daryl Bem, a psychology professor at Cornell University, is a prominent and often debated figure in contemporary ESP research. In a 2011 paper published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Bem presented findings that seemed to support precognition – the ability to foresee the future. He adapted nine classic psychology experiments, known for their reliable effects, but ran them in reverse chronological order.
For instance, in one experiment, participants memorized a list of words and were later asked to recall them. After the initial recall test, participants were given a subset of these words to “practice” by copying them. Surprisingly, participants remembered more of the words they would later practice compared to those they wouldn’t. This suggested, controversially, that precognition might have aided their initial memorization based on future practice. However, Bem’s methodologies have faced widespread criticism for potentially generating false positive results.
The Persisting Scientific Controversy Around ESP
A significant challenge for ESP research is the lack of replicability. According to James Alcock, a psychology professor at York University, a cornerstone of scientific validation is reproducibility. “In science, if you discover something and claim it as a fact, then other scientists following similar procedures should find the same thing,” Alcock explains. “[That] never happens with ESP.”
While some might point to seemingly replicated findings, such as those from certain ganzfeld experiments, closer examination reveals inconsistencies. Alcock notes that variations exist in both the methods and outcomes across different studies. For example, one study might find ganzfeld experiments effective with still photographs, while another, incorporating videos, might only show positive results with video targets but not photographs. The inability to consistently replicate the exact same experiment with identical results raises serious doubts about the reliability of ESP findings. “Scientists can’t do it again,” Alcock emphasizes. “They can’t do it when the conditions are tight.”
Furthermore, skeptics argue that even seemingly positive results in ESP research are often statistically insignificant, barely exceeding chance levels. Consider one of Bem’s experiments where participants chose between two curtain-covered windows, one hiding pornography. Bem hypothesized that if ESP existed, participants would choose the window with pornography at a rate greater than 50%. Indeed, they did, but only slightly, selecting the pornography window 53% of the time.
Jeffrey Rouder, a cognitive psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, points out that this marginal success rate is typical in parapsychological research. “If you really have ESP, you should be able to get it right maybe 65%, 80% of the time,” Rouder argues. A mere 3% improvement over chance is hardly compelling evidence for a phenomenon as extraordinary as ESP. “At some point, you want to say, ‘Hey, if this is real, just hit it out of the park!'” Rouder concludes, highlighting the underwhelming nature of the statistical support for ESP.
The Enduring Popular Belief in ESP
Despite the lack of scientific validation, belief in ESP persists among the general public, often fueled by personal anecdotes and experiences. People share stories of premonitions, prophetic dreams, or uncanny intuitions about events or loved ones. Historical anecdotes, like the purported prediction of the Titanic’s sinking in a novella, also contribute to the anecdotal “evidence” for ESP.
However, cognitive biases offer more plausible explanations for these experiences, as detailed in a 2008 article in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. Humans are prone to perceiving patterns in random events. The seemingly coincidental timing of a friend calling just as you think of them can feel like a sign, even though such near-simultaneous events are statistically likely to occur randomly.
Confirmation bias further reinforces belief in ESP. People tend to seek out and emphasize information that confirms pre-existing beliefs, while consciously or unconsciously ignoring contradictory evidence. For example, someone believing in premonitions might focus on instances where a feeling of unease preceded a negative event, while overlooking the many times such feelings were unfounded, or when negative events occurred without any premonition.
Therefore, when faced with an inexplicable feeling or coincidence, it’s crucial to consider cognitive biases rather than jumping to paranormal conclusions. While anecdotes of predicted disasters are captivating, they don’t constitute scientific proof of precognition. And when life throws curveballs like flight cancellations, it’s simply life, not necessarily extrasensory perception at play.
