Evidence for Psychic Powers

[Unbound]

I just came upon this by chance while I was actually kind of looking for the topic as I was discussing in a forum. I thought it was interesting enough to post here.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Dec10/BemStudy.html

"It took eight years and nine experiments with more 1,000 participants, but the results offer evidence that humans have some ability to anticipate the future."

"Publishing on this topic has gladdened the hearts of psi researchers but stumped doubting social psychologists, who cannot fault Bem's mainstream and widely accepted methodology. Bem became interested in the scientific study of psi (unexplained processes of information or energy transfer) when he was asked to find methodological flaws in one psi researcher's successful extrasensory perception studies -- and couldn't."

Note: Apparently he was discredited, but it's interesting anyways.

[zenmaster]

Looks like this guy's experiments were incorrectly done. Oh well.

From Wikipedia:
On April 1st, 2012, Bem received the infamous "Pigasus Award" in the scientist category. Announced on April Fool's Day, the James Randi Educational Foundation gives the awards to highlight parapsychological, paranormal, or psychic fakers that the organization finds to be harmful to society.

[Ali Quadir]

From Wikipedia:
On April 1st, 2012, Bem received the infamous "Pigasus Award" in the scientist category. Announced on April Fool's Day, the James Randi Educational Foundation gives the awards to highlight parapsychological, paranormal, or psychic fakers that the organization finds to be harmful to society.

Uhhuh, and Randi is the guy to ask...
The guy is a rabid pseudo skeptic. He's known to disregard evidence or demand experiments to be restructured in unrealistic ways ... Only to prove his "ide-fix" point. He's a stage magician, not a scientist.

If you want to know if psychic material works. You should check out the PEAR institute. Which is associated with princeton university. These guys have worked for decades and have produced evidence with literally millions and millions of repeatable trials. Which also have been repeated by others. They've demonstrated psychic events with a certainty of 0.9999999999 or even worse. There is a chance of one in billions that they are wrong.

Even better... Find a partner and try it for yourself.. There's loads of stuff on the internet to give you information on how to do this for yourself. It's been done over and over again. If you choose to do so you'd be one of millions who decided to demonstrate the truth of this to themselves.

I have done the psiwheel experiment dozens of times with success. I've demonstrated it to friends who immediately repeated it. Just seeing it caused them to be able to do it. Granted they were witches who were comfortable with energy work. But still... It's easy to get it to work, hard to master full control...

[Ashim]

From Wikipedia:
On April 1st, 2012, Bem received the infamous "Pigasus Award" in the scientist category. Announced on April Fool's Day, the James Randi Educational Foundation gives the awards to highlight parapsychological, paranormal, or psychic fakers that the organization finds to be harmful to society.

Uhhuh, and Randi is the guy to ask...
The guy is a rabid pseudo skeptic. He's known to disregard evidence or demand experiments to be restructured in unrealistic ways ... Only to prove his "ide-fix" point. He's a stage magician, not a scientist.

If you want to know if psychic material works. You should check out the PEAR institute. Which is associated with princeton university. These guys have worked for decades and have produced evidence with literally millions and millions of repeatable trials. Which also have been repeated by others. They've demonstrated psychic events with a certainty of 0.9999999999 or even worse. There is a chance of one in billions that they are wrong.

Even better... Find a partner and try it for yourself.. There's loads of stuff on the internet to give you information on how to do this for yourself. It's been done over and over again. If you choose to do so you'd be one of millions who decided to demonstrate the truth of this to themselves.

I have done the psiwheel experiment dozens of times with success. I've demonstrated it to friends who immediately repeated it. Just seeing it caused them to be able to do it. Granted they were witches who were comfortable with energy work. But still... It's easy to get it to work, hard to master full control...

There is a huge amount of information on the net that does not come from Wikipedia or our so called 'friend' google.
In fact I could provide proof or at least strong evidence of psychic 'powers' without resorting to written evidence.
A simple experiment would suffice.
The very proposition that they (the psychic powers) require evidence I find odd at least.

[Ali Quadir]

The very proposition that they (the psychic powers) require evidence I find odd at least.

Well... every claim requires evidence when challenged. Fortunately in this case ample evidence is given.

[Oldern]

Well... every claim requires evidence when challenged. Fortunately in this case ample evidence is given.

I do not know about this one. Maybe when we are strictly following the rules of the currently aligned consensus reality of our oversouls, yes, evidence might be "needed" by some individuals. But frankly, even then, the most basic thing above all ("I love you") cannot be "proven", strictly speaking, so....

..and when we move out of the realm of consensus reality, and recognize that every consciousness have a worldview and a belief system that is self-reinforcing, than it seems to me that some skeptics may very well find themselves in a world where magic really "does not exist" or is "not provable", while those that need no evidence in the first place align themselves with a different reality.

[zenmaster]

The very proposition that they (the psychic powers) require evidence I find odd at least.

It's actually not odd at all and quite simple if you bother to look at it. It's called 'science'. Scientific experiments must be rigorous and repeatable. And that is the convention that Bem was involved with.

The experience of 'psychic powers', however, does not require rigorous explanation. Working with such constraints require a discipline which the 'new-age crowd' are generally not willing nor able to explore.

[Ali Quadir]

Well... every claim requires evidence when challenged. Fortunately in this case ample evidence is given.

I do not know about this one. Maybe when we are strictly following the rules of the currently aligned consensus reality of our oversouls, yes, evidence might be "needed" by some individuals. But frankly, even then, the most basic thing above all ("I love you") cannot be "proven", strictly speaking, so....

I agree, you're speaking the truth. However, I was speaking from the scientific paradigm that Randi speaks from... About the scientific experiment mentioned.

[Ashim]

I once stumped a good friend of the family with that great quote from the movie Contact.
Question: Do you love your children (wife, mother etc.)?
Answer: Yes.
Qiestion: Prove it.

[godwide_void]

Are not "psychic powers" synonymous to a degree with some term "magick" or others view as learning to access and being able to use and control the various capabilities of one's consciousness? The manifestation of our power, depending on the magnitude of what one attempts to accomplish, ranges from immediate to very delayed, for instance attempting to will one's desires into the world may take an indeterminate amount of time, while being able to exert extreme influence over the air/wind in one's immediate surroundings is typically a spontaneous display.

It doesn't matter in the slightest whether "evidence" for the existence of psychic powers exist. If one needs evidence for these things in order to ascribe to their reality then this is indicative that a tinge of disbelief exists within the mind. Why does one need evidence when these apparently "supernatural powers" are nothing more than latent and dormant abilities we hold within our consciousness? Accessing these abilities is not without considerable difficulty given that certain handicaps are placed upon our consciousness as it exists in this illusion as well as the degree to which one is chained to their physical vehicle, but overall these "powers" are merely waiting to be tapped into once one is able to develop the discipline necessary to do so. It is the loss of the skeptic in this regard for in their incredulity they themselves are reinforcing the barrier which prevents them access to what is possible.

Does anybody remember the end of the first Matrix movie? How Neo vowed to show others around him that there is much more which is possible than what most think, then he flies off from a crowded street? Perhaps the world will bear witness to such occurrences in due time. We will have to wait and see.

[AnthroHeart]

Does anybody remember the end of the first Matrix movie? How Neo vowed to show others around him that there is much more which is possible than what most think, then he flies off from a crowded street? Perhaps the world will bear witness to such occurrences in due time. We will have to wait and see.

Or maybe it will be like Bruce Almighty.

[zenmaster]

If one needs evidence for these things in order to ascribe to their reality then this is indicative that a tinge of disbelief exists within the mind.

Not sure what you mean by "ascribe to their reality", but that's obviously not at all the point of Bem's work, which deals with experiment.

[godwide_void]

Ah, I meant to say that if one needs evidence for these things in order for it to become a part of their accepted paradigm for reality. I was mainly pointing out that whether or not tangible evidence exists for this phenomenon has no bearing on the likelihood of abilities of this nature from occurring in individual cases. I also feel that there are certain facets of this phenomenon which cannot be revealed or observed through testing and that there are probably no known experiments or tests which are or may be devised to capture the suggested phenomenon. For instance there is no machine or set test which can display the power one's mind holds in shaping their reality, yet this is so. There isn't any experiment which would be able to capture every single time two individuals who are very close have spontaneous but obvious moments which would indicate telepathic connection yet regardless of there being or not being a scientifically acceptable method to display the truth of this phenomenon, it is a very common occurrence nonetheless and indicative at the truth of "psychic powers", even if it can't be proven in a lab.

[zenmaster]

Ah, I meant to say that if one needs evidence for these things in order for it to become a part of their accepted paradigm for reality. I was mainly pointing out that whether or not tangible evidence exists for this phenomenon has no bearing on the likelihood of abilities of this nature from occurring in individual cases.

Again, I'm not sure how the point you are trying to make here has any bearing on experimental evidence.

I also feel that there are certain facets of this phenomenon which cannot be revealed or observed through testing and that there are probably no known experiments or tests which are or may be devised to capture the suggested phenomenon. For instance there is no machine or set test which can display the power one's mind holds in shaping their reality, yet this is so.

But "psychic powers" is really an umbrella term for a variety of phenomena. In the case of the experiments, the treatment was limited to something testable. His methods were found to be faulty, however.

There isn't any experiment which would be able to capture every single time two individuals who are very close have spontaneous but obvious moments which would indicate telepathic connection yet regardless of there being or not being a scientifically acceptable method to display the truth of this phenomenon, it is a very common occurrence nonetheless and indicative at the truth of "psychic powers", even if it can't be proven in a lab.

Ali Quadir just claimed he's moved matter only using his mind, dozens of times, with witnesses. Will it work in a lab as well? If not, why not?

[godwide_void]

Ah, I meant to say that if one needs evidence for these things in order for it to become a part of their accepted paradigm for reality. I was mainly pointing out that whether or not tangible evidence exists for this phenomenon has no bearing on the likelihood of abilities of this nature from occurring in individual cases.

Again, I'm not sure how the point you are trying to make here has any bearing on experimental evidence.

You're right, it has no bearing on experimental evidence, but still something I wished to point out.

I also feel that there are certain facets of this phenomenon which cannot be revealed or observed through testing and that there are probably no known experiments or tests which are or may be devised to capture the suggested phenomenon. For instance there is no machine or set test which can display the power one's mind holds in shaping their reality, yet this is so.

But "psychic powers" is really an umbrella term for a variety of phenomena. In the case of the experiments, the treatment was limited to something testable. His methods were found to be faulty, however.

I agree. As I said before what some consider psychic powers others consider magick or latent capabilities of consciousness.

There isn't any experiment which would be able to capture every single time two individuals who are very close have spontaneous but obvious moments which would indicate telepathic connection yet regardless of there being or not being a scientifically acceptable method to display the truth of this phenomenon, it is a very common occurrence nonetheless and indicative at the truth of "psychic powers", even if it can't be proven in a lab.

Ali Quadir just claimed he's moved matter only using his mind, dozens of times, with witnesses. Will it work in a lab as well? If not, why not?

I didn't catch that claim anywhere in the thread, or are you referring to his doing the psiwheel experiment? If he claims this is so then yes, I don't see why such a thing wouldn't be reproducible in a lab environment and I'd certainly be very interested in witnessing a lab test of this happening, or at least a video of this feat.

[zenmaster]

I didn't catch that claim anywhere in the thread, or are you referring to his doing the psiwheel experiment? If he claims this is so then yes, I don't see why such a thing wouldn't be reproducible in a lab environment and I'd certainly be very interested in witnessing a lab test of this happening, or at least a video of this feat.

yes, the psiwheel. I guess you're not familiar with that? It's the one where people's subtle breathing, or even body movements, readily moves it. Now if that didn't work in a lab-experiment conditions, then it would be interesting to find out why as well, considering the track record of success outside of a lab.

[Bring4th_Austin]

Zenmaster, would you care to speculate at all on why any sort of exhibitive "psychic" phenomenon seems to evade empirical observation?

Also, do you have any knowledge any "scientific" explanation or debunking of the "card guessing" experiments which defied probability examined by Jung in Synchronicity, or the random number generator experiments done at Princeton which also defy probability? Would you consider either of these evidence for "psychic" or "paranormal" phenomenon?

[Ali Quadir]

I didn't catch that claim anywhere in the thread, or are you referring to his doing the psiwheel experiment? If he claims this is so then yes, I don't see why such a thing wouldn't be reproducible in a lab environment and I'd certainly be very interested in witnessing a lab test of this happening, or at least a video of this feat.

yes, the psiwheel. I guess you're not familiar with that? It's the one where people's subtle breathing, or even body movements, readily moves it. Now if that didn't work in a lab-experiment conditions, then it would be interesting to find out why as well, considering the track record of success outside of a lab.

But it works in the lab! The psi wheel wasn't invented by new agers, it was invented by russian scientists. Who did a lot of research into TK in the cold war. Just like their american counterparts did. The russians found that it was the easiest way to demonstrate and practice TK.

These days there is another method that has become more popular in the lab, it's the psychic influencing of random event generators. This allows for vastly more trials and vastly more reliable research.

Just study parapsychology. Read some of their magazines. Their research is years beyond the point of wondering whether it actually works. They're now researching how it works and what factors influence it.

The pseudo skeptics still hold the confidence of the majority. But the science is firmly in the hand of the parapsychologists. They're demonstrating parapsychological events with certainties that are unheard of in the rest of the scientific world. In physics a reliabilty of 70% or p=.70 is often acceptable to demonstrate an effect, psychology generally looks for a significance of p=0.95, parapsychologists aren't happy with effects weaker than p=.9999. That's evidence so strong that most science could not demonstrate anything if they were demanded to deliver the same certainty in their results. Presuming their model is valid there is literally a chance of one in millions that they're wrong. And these guys are very informed about scientific methodology... They have to be! Their results are repeatable and the required information to do this yourself is available in the psipog site I gave.

Purely speaking from the bodies of scientific evidence we're more certain of the reality of psychic events than we are of evolution or the big bang. So yes it has most certainly been empirically demonstrated, time and time and time again.

The paranormal is just an area that is taboo in modern science. Merely mentioning it attracts ridicule. Mentioning the evidence attracts a lot of vehement criticism. First by calling out that there is no evidence. Then if you mention the tip of the overwhelming iceberg of evidence.. They will be mentioning skeptical researchers who failed to reproduce the results of experiments all the way up to calling fraud or idiocy. There is simply no way anyone comes to the discussion without preconceived notions.

But if you study the evidence found by really good methodological scientists, for example the PEAR group, and imagine that the research area was ordinary psychology, medical science or physics. Then it's clear that these people have demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt the reality of the paranormal powers of every average person decades ago...

[zenmaster]

Zenmaster, would you care to speculate at all on why any sort of exhibitive "psychic" phenomenon seems to evade empirical observation?

Most of it is subjectively experienced or time/space related. We can't measure time/space phenomena.

Also, do you have any knowledge any "scientific" explanation or debunking of the "card guessing" experiments which defied probability examined by Jung in Synchronicity, or the random number generator experiments done at Princeton which also defy probability?

Problem is that they are not reproducible. The Princeton random number generator, also not reproducible - so no experiment can be set up before hand. You have to be able to predict and to theorize. No one has been able to do either.

Would you consider either of these evidence for "psychic" or "paranormal" phenomenon?

They are merely suggestive, which is not scientifically admissible evidence. And what may seem statistically beyond chance is actually only anecdotal, usually due to selection bias.

[Bring4th_Austin]

Also, do you have any knowledge any "scientific" explanation or debunking of the "card guessing" experiments which defied probability examined by Jung in Synchronicity, or the random number generator experiments done at Princeton which also defy probability?

Problem is that they are not reproducible. The Princeton random number generator, also not reproducible - so no experiment can be set up before hand. You have to be able to predict and to theorize. No one has been able to do either.

I'm assuming you mean that others have tried to reproduce them and failed?

Also, how about the ongoing Global Conscoiusness Project at Princeton? I'm uninformed on the "official" scientific view of such a project, but it seems to me that, even though it is merely suggestive, it is consistent in delivery? i.e. "Statistical anomolies occur in synchronization with events which have a large impact on world-wide consciousnesses."

Would you say this is also influenced by selection bias?

[zenmaster]

Also, do you have any knowledge any "scientific" explanation or debunking of the "card guessing" experiments which defied probability examined by Jung in Synchronicity, or the random number generator experiments done at Princeton which also defy probability?

Problem is that they are not reproducible. The Princeton random number generator, also not reproducible - so no experiment can be set up before hand. You have to be able to predict and to theorize. No one has been able to do either.

I'm assuming you mean that others have tried to reproduce them and failed?

Correct.

Also, how about the ongoing Global Conscoiusness Project at Princeton? I'm uninformed on the "official" scientific view of such a project, but it seems to me that, even though it is merely suggestive, it is consistent in delivery? i.e. "Statistical anomolies occur in synchronization with events which have a large impact on world-wide consciousnesses."

The researchers pick certain events after they happened and look at the degree of statistical deviance which occurred around the same time.

Would you say this is also influenced by selection bias?

Of course, because there is no means to perform an objective study, due to lack of understanding of what they are looking at. There is no theory developed, so nothing to test or to predict in advance through experiment. There really is no scope or context other than those events which selected by some ad hoc method. Sort of like finding shapes in clouds.

[Plenum]

isn't the main problem here the group calling?

Ra appeared into the skies of egypt because the people believed in the paranormal, so there was no need to hide, or preserve the free will of those who had a 'materialistic' world view.

our consensus reality is programmed by the nightly news where crop circles and ufos are mocked (or used to be anyway).

no proof until the group mind changes.

[zenmaster]

isn't the main problem here the group calling?

Ra appeared into the skies of egypt because the people believed in the paranormal, so there was no need to hide, or preserve the free will of those who had a 'materialistic' world view.

our consensus reality is programmed by the nightly news where crop circles and ufos are mocked (or used to be anyway).

no proof until the group mind changes.

It's not about proof. It's about scientific evidence. These are two different things, entirely.

[3DMonkey]

I once stumped a good friend of the family with that great quote from the movie Contact.
Question: Do you love your children (wife, mother etc.)?
Answer: Yes.
Qiestion: Prove it.

I hear you. Loud and clear.

It's like scientists looking for dark matter. It's like the heads side of a coin trying desperately to see the tails side.

Science is for science. They don't have the ability to remove themselves from the equation and they don't have the data to rightfully insert themselves into the equation.

[Parsons]

UGGGHH it was painful reading through this thread. I thought SOMEONE would pipe up with Dean Radin. I mean... Someone from this community must have produced this https://docs.google.com/View?id=ddhjsbdd_70cw5kxxd8 excellent list of links written by a LOO fan. Its ok... I still <3 you guys.

Dean Radin (born February 29, 1952) is a researcher and author in the field of parapsychology. He has been Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), in Petaluma, California, USA, since 2001, and is on the Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Psychology at Sonoma State University, on the Distinguished Consulting Faculty at Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, and former President of the Parapsychological Association. He is also co-editor-in-chief of the Elsevier journal Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing.

I been reading his book The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena, which is the META data (meaning ALL data) of pretty much all recorded psychic experiments. The book goes through categories of different psi-phenomenon, including the precognition experiment mentioned in this thread, and calculates on the odds against chance. The results are so far for every single category Ive read so far: humongous odds against chance.

Take for example the aforementioned trying to guess the suit on a standard deck of cards. If you just guess, the odds would be 25% that you would pick the correct suit. If you take that example, most of the experiments produced results of people guessing it correctly 33-40% of the time. Now for some reason, to most people, they think the experiment is no successful. But if you subtract the 25%, you have a discrepancy of 8-15% that cant be accounted for.

Video example of this with precognition:

I have read through maybe 25% of the book and it has already proved that several other categories of significance like the presentiment example given can not be due to chance, according to the metadata.

To combat skeptics, they even did some of the experiments in a Faraday Cage to prevent any chance of sensory leakage.

To name some other category off the top of my head for example from the book: remote viewing is a real effect.

Anyways, you can look up pretty much anything about him on youtube and it will be interesting and informative and come from a scientific standpoint.

[zenmaster]

I think people are missing point with science research. Again, it's not about showing 'proof and hand waving'. It's about providing a falsifiable explanation of experimental evidence - empirical data. Saying it another way, the objective is not to attempt to bolster the opinion that psychic phenomena exists (as many attempt to do in internet forums, superficially, using 'magical thinking' - intuition supported by vague notions), as if to sway skeptics. It's about creating experimental methods used to explain, in a rigorous and reproducible manner, some hypothesis about the phenomena. The result is typically some measure of utility or an improved understanding of the mechanisms involved.

For statistical findings, if research is conducted using inadequate methodology, the paper will be rightly criticized and should be rejected.

An analysis by Gregory Francis in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review found statistical evidence of publication bias in the set of nine experiments reported by Bem. His analysis suggests that the number of rejections of the null hypothesis reported by Bem (eight out of nine experiments) is abnormally high given the properties of the experiments and reported effect sizes, with the probability of Bem obtaining such results (0.058) significantly less than the standard criterion used in tests of publication bias (0.1). According to Francis this suggests that Bem's experiments cannot be taken as a proper scientific study, as critical data is likely unavailable.

[Plenum]

I think you need more faith.

[zenmaster]

I think you need more faith.

Why do you think so?

[Plenum]

I think you need more faith.

Why do you think so?

you seem to be taking this thread quite personally. But that's just my impression.

[Ali Quadir]

@Zenmaster did you see my post where I discussed the available scientific evidence? I made the point that falsifiable evidence exists and relevant experiments have been repeated. The evidence for psychic phenomenon researched under proper scientific methodology is enormous.. And solid as a rock if you ask me.

I've been trained in scientific methodology. I hold the degrees. I am technically one of their peers even if I don't do research in parapsychology. I have actually inquired into the possibility of picking up a study in the field. There are universities that offer courses. Real and internationally recognized universities.

The initial response by most is that there is no evidence. And that it's just fringe science done by some weirdos who cannot possibly understand science. But this is categorically not true. It's decorated scientists connected to reputable universities and research centers. Who publish their research in journals and do peer reviews.

The empirical data produced is enormous. Like I said, purely speaking from the research we're more certain about the existance of psychic phenomenon than we are about the big bang or evolution.