Do you think ESP is a reality?

[naomi24]

Just a bit of light relief from all the recent dismal warnings of Armageddon. :o)

[wildwood]

The brain is a marvellous organ and young children hearing imaginary noises in the middle of the night has been proven to be possible, they have the ability to hear higher pitched sound waves than older people.

ESP means different things to different people. I believe that we each have a different level of the (clearly) defined senses that science has allocated to us, just as we all tend to appear different because humans are a visual dependent animal.

I have no doubt that we have a (electromagnetic?) sense that when someone unknowingly nears us from behind, we can sense that when they come close enough to enter that circle before we see/hear that. This, to me, is a form of ESP.

When it comes to ESP as a supernatural event then no , I think that is rubbish.

[birdie1971]

As others have said, it depends on the scope and definition of ESP. If you're talking about a person's ability to 'see' a symbol on the other side of an opaque piece of card without resorting to cheating then I would categorically say that ESP was false.

However, what some people might call ESP, others might call intuition or foresight. There's nothing 'other-worldly' about an ability to be able to assess a situation and predict a likely outcome based on your previous experience, knowledge and an passing acquaintance with basic human psychology.

Derren Brown is a great example of a person who (by this own admission) possesses no special abilities whatsoever other than bog-standard 'magic' (ie. trickery / misdirection / cold-reading / subliminal suggestion, etc.) and yet he has convinced thousands (maybe even millions) of people that he is able to read minds, predict unknowable future events and defy the known laws of physics.

[birdie1971]

^^^ by HIS own admission... D'oh!

[David H]

You can't think a sense or ability is a reality. If you were born blind you'd either need someone to prove to you that there is a sense of sight, or get it yourself to find out. ESP is the missing sense, and only a handful of people are born with more than the rudiments, and then mainly dismiss it as not real.

If you learn how to open it up and then see for yourselves then there won't need to be a question, you'll know.

1) Feel your centres open from the belly up to the top of the head, take a deep breath for each and feel you could wave your hand through the space. It's not essential but what we did to prepare.

2) Decide what you want to know

3) Ask the question

4) Clear your mind

5) See what comes in

6) Say the first things that come to you. They won't make much sense as they relate to someone else's information, but they can tell if it does to them. It can be thoughts, feelings, pictures or words.

7) Practice, your mind will think and interfere, you get the feel of knowing the good stuff and if not sure balance the two answers and you'll know which is which.

If you all try this most of you will know for yourselves in 10 minutes or so.

[Elderman]

The subject of Armageddon is much misunderstood and that not only by extremists. Its importance is so little appreciated that a modern book on theology more likely than not will fail to make any reference to it. Even in certain voluminous Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias one looks in vain for any listing of it.

[naomi24]

//If you're talking about a person's ability to 'see' a symbol on the other side of an opaque piece of card //

I'm not thinking of that sort of trickery - and Birdie if your ESP was up to scratch, you'd have known that - ;o)

Sometimes people, for no apparent reason, just 'know' someone will call them, or that something is wrong, or as Wildwood says, they will know that someone is behind them. It that kind of 'instinct' I'm talking about.

[rowanwitch]

I do agree it is something you have to be 'open' to or your unconscious mind will shut the door as it were... but for every 'coincidence' there are probably a hundred events which did not happen in that way and go unnoticed

[jomifl]

Wildwood, I don't think an electromagnet sense (light excepted) has been demonstrated in humans. I detect people behind me by almost subliminal information from changes in sound and light ambiance or infra red radiation from their bodies being felt on the back of my neck. Some people are just more aware of their surroundings than others.

[naomi24]

Dave //but what we did to prepare. //

Who's we? Did you go somewhere to learn how to do this?

[sandyRoe]

You're standing in a shop and get a sense that you're under observation. Look round and there indeed are the security staff standing watching you.
It's disconcerting, to say the least.

[sandyRoe]

^^^ Though I'm not sure if that falls into the ESP category

[jno]

I suppose if I had ESP I would be able to tell if Armageddon was just around the corner. Instead, I have to come onto AB for updates.

[Nadis]

Yes.

[jomifl]

jno..If I were you I wouldn't rely on the 'ESPers' detecting an asteroid on a a collision course with earth or even a plain old earthquake, they don't do very well with tsunami. When Armageddon comes I'm sure it will be a surprise to all of us, even the atheists. :-)

[Ankou]

"Sometimes people, for no apparent reason, just 'know' someone will call them, or that something is wrong, or as Wildwood says, they will know that someone is behind them. It that kind of 'instinct' I'm talking about."

well the chances of being right or wrong are 50/50, so that instinct is probably some evolutional survival trait rather than some ethereal skill. if you thinkn someone is behind you, you turn and they aint there then it must be imagination, if you turn and they are thats esp ? dont make me larf.

[naomi24]

No chance of that, Ankou. ;o)

Maybe if you read the rest of my post, you'd avoid reaching such a hasty conclusion.

[birdie1971]

Naomi - “... Birdie if your ESP was up to scratch, you'd have known that...”

Hmmm. My ESP obviously doesn't work! Probably because it doesn't exist... ;-)


“... Sometimes people, for no apparent reason, just 'know' someone will call them, or that something is wrong, or as Wildwood says, they will know that someone is behind them. It that kind of 'instinct' I'm talking about....”

This is confirmation bias. How many times have you thought about someone and they haven't called? How many times have you thought that someone was behind you but weren't? Hundreds? Thousands perhaps?

Do you remember the 'misses'? No, of course not; no one does. Do you remember the 'hits'? Oh yes! The human brain is spectacularly good at connecting random events together to create a sequence. It is an evolutionary necessity (ie. a survival trait) and something that we are hard-wired to do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

[jno]

well... up to a point, jomifl. Animals seem to sense tsunamis and other approaching disasters.

http://news.nationalg...sunami_animals_2.html

ESP? No, just more perceptive senses than our own. It's no secret that (for instance) dogs can hear sounds that we can't. But it does raise the question of whether we might be able to train our own senses to perceive more - and whether some people already have.