Telepathy

Telepathy (from the Greek τῆλε, tele, "distant"; and πάθεια, patheia, "feeling") is defined in parapsychology as the paranormal acquisition of information concerning the thoughts, feelings or activity of another person^[1], the implication of "paranormal" being that the information is not gathered using the usual five senses, directly or inderectly. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research,^[2] and has superseded earlier expressions such as thought-transference.^[3] Telepathy is considered a form of extra-sensory perception or anomalous cognition.^[4] Telepathy is often associated with other paranormal phenomena, such as precognition, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis.

Types of telepathy

Latent Telepathy is telepathy in which a time lag is observed between the transmission and receipt of the telepathic communique. Precognitive Telepathy occurs when a telepath obtains paranormal knowledge about what the state of another person's mind will be in the near or distant future.^[5]

The future of telepathy

Some people, occasionally referred to by themselves or others as "transhumanists", believe that technologically enabled telepathy, coined "techlepathy", will be the inevitable future of humanity. Kevin Warwick of the University of Reading, England is one of the leading expert proponents of this view, and has based all of his recent Cybernetics research around developing practical, safe devices for directly connecting human nervous systems together with computers and with each other. He believes techno-enabled telepathy will become the sole or at least the primary form of human communication in the future. He asserts that this will happen by means of the principle of natural selection, which he predicts will force nearly everybody to make use of the technology for economic and social reasons once it becomes available to all.^[6][7]

Skepticism and controversy

The field which studies reports of certain types of paranormal phenomena such as telepathy is called parapsychology. There is a consensus within that field that some instances of telepathy are real.^[8][9] Skeptics say that instances of what seem to be telepathy are most easily explained as the result of fraud or self-delusion and that telepathy does not exist as a paranormal power.^[10]

Parapsychologists and skeptics agree that many of the instances of more popular psychic phenomena such as mediumism, can be attributed to non-paranormal techniques such as cold reading.^{[11] [12] [13]} Magicians such as Ian Rowland and Derren Brown have demonstrated techniques and results similar to those of popular psychics, but they proffer psychological explanations instead of paranormal ones. They have identified, described and developed complex psychological techniques of cold reading and hot reading.

A technique which shows statistically significant evidence of telepathy on every occasion has yet to be discovered. This lack of reliable reproducibility has led skeptics to argue that there is no credible scientific evidence for the existence of telepathy at all.^[14] Skeptics also point to historical cases in which flaws have been discovered in experimental design and occasional cases of fraud.^[14] Parapsychologists such as Dean Radin, president of the Parapsychological Association argue that the statistical significance and consistency of results shown by a meta-analysis of numerous studies provides evidence for telepathy that is almost impossible to account for using any other means.^[15]

Telepathy in fiction

A number of superheroes and supervillains, as well as figures in many science fiction novels, etc., use telepathy. Notable telepaths include the Jedi in Star Wars, Betazoids and Vulcans (among others) in Star Trek; Talia Winters, Lyta Alexander,Alfred Bester, and the rest of the Psi Corps of Babylon 5; the dragons of Pern; Dr. Wendy Smith of seaQuest DSV; J'onn J'onnz, the Martian Manhunter of the Justice League; Charles Xavier, Jean Grey, Betsy Braddock and Emma Frost of the X-Men, and the wizards of the Young Wizards Series.

The mechanics of telepathy in fiction vary widely. Some fictional telepaths are limited to receiving only thoughts that are deliberately sent by other telepaths, or even to receiving thoughts from a specific other person. For example, in Robert A. Heinlein's 1956 novel Time for the Stars, certain pairs of twins are able to send telepathic messages to each other. Some telepaths can read the thoughts only of those they touch. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some telepathic characters continuously sense the thoughts of those around them and may control or dampen this ability only with difficulty, or not at all. In such cases, telepathy is often portrayed as a mixed blessing or as a curse.

Some fictional telepaths possess mind control abilities, which can include "pushing" thoughts, feelings, or hallucinatory visions into the mind of another person, causing pain, paralysis, or unconsciousness, altering or erasing memories, or completely taking over another person's mind and body (similar to spiritual possession). An example of this type of telepath include the Carpathians from the Dark Series. Characters with this ability may or may not also have the ability to read thoughts.

Here is a composite list of fictional characters with telepathy.

See also

• Empathy, one's ability to recognize, perceive and directly experientially feel the emotion of another
• Precognition, a form of extra-sensory perception involving seeing future events
• Parapsychology, the study of paranormal phenomena
• Psychokinesis, the use of mental power to move or affect objects
• Magnetoencephalography, measuring the magnetic fields produced by electrical activity in the brain
• Neural oscillations, a concept similar to brain waves
• Extended mind, the concept that things frequently used by the mind become part of it
• Clairvoyance, a form of extra-sensory perception
• Mentalist, claims to manipulate and change spiritual reality
• Willing game, a telepathy-related Victorian parlour game
• Clever Hans, a horse that appeared to answer questions
• Body language, another form of paralinguistics
• Seven Experiments That Could Change the World, proposals for future research
• Rupert Sheldrake, a pioneer in morphic resonance

Notes

1. ^ http://parapsych.org/glossary_s_z.html#t Parapsychological Association Glossary of Parapsychological terms, Retrieved Dec 19, 2006
2. ^ Carroll, Robert Todd (2005). The Skeptic's Dictionary; Telepathy. SkepDic.com. Retrieved on 2006-09-13.
3. ^ http://parapsych.org/glossary_s_z.html#t Parapsychological Association Glossary of Parapsychological terms, Retrieved Dec 19, 2006
4. ^ http://parapsych.org/glossary_e_k.html#g See entry for "GENERAL EXTRASENSORY PERCEPTION". From the Parapsychological Association Glossary of Parapsychological terms, Retrieved Dec 19, 2006
5. ^ http://parapsych.org/glossary_s_z.html#t Parapsychological Association Glossary of Parapsychological terms, Retrieved Dec 19, 2006
6. ^ Dvorsky, George (2004). Evolving Towards Telepathy. Betterhumans.com. Retrieved on 2006-10-24.
7. ^ TakeAway Media (2000). "Leviathan: Back to the Future: An interview with Kevin Warwick". BBC Two. Retrieved on 2006-10-24.
8. ^ http://parapsych.org/faq_file1.html#4 "What is parapsychology?" From the FAQ of the website of the Parapsychological Association, Retrieved February 3, 2007
9. ^ http://parapsych.org/faq_file3.html#20 "What is the state-of-the-evidence for psi?" From the FAQ of the website of the Parapsychological Association, Retrieved February 3, 2007
10. ^ http://www.skepdic.com/esp.html Skepdic.com on ESP, Retrieved February 22, 2007
11. ^ http://www.psy.gu.se/EJP/EJP1984Bauer.pdf Criticism and Controversy in Parapsychology - An Overview By Eberhard Bauer, Department of Psychology, University of Freiburg, in the European Journal of Parapsychology, 1984, 5, 141-166, Retrieved February 09, 2007
12. ^ O',Keeffe, Ciarán and Wiseman Richard: Testing alleged mediumship: Methods and results. British Journal of Psychology (2005), 96, 165–17. http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/wiseman/papers/MediumBJP.pdf
13. ^ Rowland, Ian: The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading. http://ianrowland.com/ItemsToBuy/ColdReading/ColdReadingMain1.html
14. ^ ^{a b} See for examples, Randi, James. Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions. Prometheus Books (June 1982) ISBN-10: 0879751983 or Charpak, Georges and Henri Broch. Translated by Bart K. Holland. Debunked!: ESP, Telekinesis, and Other Pseudoscience. The Johns Hopkins University Press (March 25, 2004), ISBN-10: 0801878675
15. ^

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