Telepathy

Alex Tsakiris, the host of the Skeptiko podcast, selected replication of the "Dogs that know when their owners are coming home" experiment of Rupert Sheldrake, as the first one of his OpenSourceScience initiative.

Today, the project posted the first video, describing the experiment and some preliminary result. Our forums section now also added a new forum to discuss the replication, alongside the active Skeptiko podcast forum. After seeing the video, go to the new DogsThatKnow experiment discussion forum.

He also released show #41 of the Skeptiko podcast about the experiment.

The famous Uri Geller was interviewed for a german site Telepolis. The interview (in English) is quite interesting, though it touches not only Uri’s “mystical” carreer but also his help with in the Israeli Palestinian conflict, his new book “Ella”, why he lives near London and some interesting facts from his life, like his Mexican citizenship, fnding oil and a lot of stories from his work for the CIA. I really enjoyed reading this interview. Some excerpts:

...The first contact was in Mexico City, to the best of my recollection. It was a CIA agent, and he told me, “I’m a CIA agent, we want you to work.” You know, I was very excited about this because I was young, and it was like a movie for me. It was like an unbelievable experience. Wow! To work for the CIA. And then I started getting tasks. To spy on the Russian embassy, to erase floppy disks that were attached to KGB agents in diplomatic pouches…

And then in Mexico, when I found oil, the CIA said to me to come close to the Mexican President. To become friends. For many reasons I can’t tell you why. But, I remember, the Mexican President made me a secret agent for the Mexican treasury. I actually had a card, it was metal, where I was Uri Geller, secret, it doesn’t say “secret”, but it said, “special agent for the treasury department”...

Dr. Dean Radin (of the Institute of Noetic Sciences) posted on his blog a note about two recent speeches that he’s done. The first speech was on January 16th in the Google headquarters (Telepathic search engine, anyone ?).

The good thing about the speech is that the video is available on Youtube with the full speech (over 90 minutes), which is really great. The video is edited, showing the slides well and with good sound quality. The abstract of the speech is as follow:

Do telepathy, clairvoyance and other “psi” abilities exist? The majority of the general population believes that they do, and yet fewer than one percent of mainstream academic institutions have any faculty known for their interest in these frequently reported experiences. Why is a topic of enduring and widespread interest met with such resounding silence in academia? The answer is not due to a lack of scientific evidence, or even to a lack of scientific interest, but rather involves a taboo. I will discuss the nature of this taboo, some of the empirical evidence and critical responses, and speculate on the implications.

On January 19th, Dr. Radin talked in a conference entitled “Investigations of Consciousness and the Unseen World: Proof of an Afterlife?” where he talked about the possible implications of Psi on the possibility of afterlife.

I first saw the reference to the N’Kisi project – a research into the telepathic abilities of a Congo African Gray Parrot, named N’Kisi at our Skeptiko.com podcast forums where Alex Tsakiris, the podcast host, wrote about it as an example of a research done on animal communication. This appears to be an interesting study and it was actually published in the Journal of Scientific Explorations at Testing a Language-Using Parrot for Telepathy. Full text of the published article in PDF format, together with reviewers’ and editor’s comments, is available there.

The abstract of the article is as follows:

Aimee Morgana noticed that her language-using African Grey parrot, N’kisi, often seemed to respond to her thoughts and intentions in a seemingly telepathic manner. We set up a series of trials to test whether this apparent telepathic ability would be expressed in formal tests in which Aimee and the parrot were in different rooms, on different floors, under conditions in which the parrot could receive no sensory information from Aimee or from anyone else. During these trials, Aimee and the parrot were both videotaped continuously. At the beginning of each trial, Aimee opened a numbered sealed envelope containing a photograph, and then looked at it for two minutes. These photographs corresponded to a prespecified list of words in N’kisi’s vocabulary, and were selected and randomized in advance by a third party. We conducted a total of 147 two-minute trials. The recordings of N’kisi during these trials were transcribed blind by three independent transcribers. Their transcripts were generally in good agreement. Using a majority scoring method, in which at least two of the three transcribers were in agreement, N’kisi said one or more of the key words in 71 trials. He scored 23 hits: the key words he said corresponded to the target pictures. In a Randomized Permutation Analysis (RPA), there were as many or more hits than N’kisi actually scored in only 5 out of 20,000 random permutations, giving a p value of 5/20,000 or 0.00025. In a Bootstrap Resampling Analysis (BRA), only 4 out of 20,000 permutations equaled or exceeded N’kisi’s actual score (p = 0.0002). Both by the RPA and BRA, the mean number of hits expected by chance was 12, with a standard deviation of 3. N’kisi repeated key words more when they were hits than when they were misses. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that N’kisi was reacting telepathically to Aimee’s mental activity.

Of course, there’s some criticism of the study and the peer reviewers get mixed impressions when reviewing it. One of them states that there’s a methodological error, the other says he asked for more data, received it from the researchers and concludes that ”...concordance between N’kisi’s phrases and the card images Morgana viewed cannot be explained by chance and does not appear to be explainable by methodo logical error.”

About the involved in the study:

The researchers in this study were Rupert Sheldrake, a known biologists, who conducts many studies in the parapsychology fields, including the more recent Telephone telepathy studies and his more known study about the dogs that known when their owner returns home and experiments on The sense of being stared at.

Aimee Morgana works with animals and has been working with parrots since 1985, trying to establish better communication with animals.

N'Kisi

“N’kisi is a captive bred, hand raised Congo African Gray Parrot. He is 4-1/2 years old, and his species has a life span similar to humans. He has received teaching in the use of language for 4 years. He is now one of the world’s top “language-using” animals, with an apparent understanding and appropriate usage of over 700 words (at least 1200 now – Jacob).” – From Sheldrake’s page on the experiment

Since Alex published the reference to this study in the Skeptiko forums, there’s been a hot discussion about it between skeptics and supporters. Start looking from here.

If you’re interested in discussing the topics of psi research (parapsychology) and psychic abilities development, you’re invited to join our Parapsychology forum.

OpenSourceScience released a press-release about their search for psychic dogs:

Researchers at OpenSourceScience.net have offered a $1,000 prize to dogs who successfully demonstrate they know when their owners are coming home. Many dog owners claim their pets anticipate their arrival by going to wait at a door, window, or driveway. Some claim their dogs do this even when they arrive home unexpectedly or at odd hours. While some researchers, including Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, a biologist, and former Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge University have investigated this phenomena, many scientists remain unconvinced it really occurs.

OpenSourceScience is a project started by Alex Tsakiris, host of the Skeptiko.com podcast, where he interviews leading scientists and their critics on topics of controversial science, like psi research, consciousness and its survival after death. Alex started the OpenSourceScience.net projects in order to create scientific experiments on collaborative ground between all kinds of researcher, skeptics and not. The first experiment is a replication of a famous research performed by Rupert Sheldrake, which deals with the subject of whether dogs know when their owners return home.

If you have a dog who, in your opinion, knows when you come home, you’re invited to take part in the experiment and you could earn a $1000 prize for a successful demonstration. For an example, look at Dogs That Know:de la Cuadra Dogs.

The researchers are encouraging dog owners who have noticed this anticipating behavior in their dogs to take part in the experiments and have set-up a special website address for participants: www.dogsthatknow.com. OpenSourceScience.net founder Alex Tsakiris explains: “This is an experiment that anyone can join in on and make a real contribution. We feel very confident this happens all the time. It’s a matter of finding dog owners who are willing to help demonstrate just how special these animal abilities are.”

For an interview I’ve done with Alex Tsakiris, where he explains more of the project read Interview with Alex Tsakiris.

Marcel Cairo, host of AfterlifeFM podcast, is a psychic medium. Today, in response to the James Randi’s Milion Dollar Challenge, he proposes his own challenge, dubbed The intuitive to inquirer (i2i) Challenge.

Challenge premise: An intuitive (medium) and an Inquirer (control) travel to a public space in a randomly chosen city and each will approach 40 randomly chosen people (the subject), and each will conduct a spontaneous reading for a randomly chosen set of subjects.

The objective of the experiment is to see if under the same test conditions, the intuitive (medium), can score higher across the 40 random readings than the inquirer (control) can.

Full text of the challenge can be read on the Official Skeptiko Podcast’s forum on this site.

Marcel also tells why he doesn’t support JREF’s Milliom Dollar Challenge. For more critique on the JREF’s challenge by other people, read About the James Randi Million dollar challenge.

I hope you find the challenge interesting and some of you will be willing to participate.

Do Some Psychics “Read the Eyes?”

A popular misconception about ESP that has existed from time immemorial is that it involves some form of “mind reading.” Telepathy has been popularly conceived as two people “reading each other’s minds,” and when a person appears to perform a feat of clairvoyance in correctly guessing something about another person’s life, that other person often exclaims, “Wow! Are you reading my thoughts?” An examination of subjective reports from spontaneous cases as well as from the lab (Rhine, 1967) suggests that the experience of ESP can often be much more complex than this, but the mind reading concept still holds even today in the minds of some people, including some mainstream scientists and skeptics who are not familiar with parapsychological research.

It is likely that a great many instances of apparent ESP that look like “mind reading” can be chalked up to sensory cues that we often give off, whether we are aware of it or not. It is often claimed by skeptics that, rather being highly adept in ESP, many mental mediums and commercial psychics who give readings are more skilled in picking up on these cues in the expressions of the people consulting them, and use this in tandem with cold reading and other mentalist tricks to produce false psychic information. One such sensory cue that these mediums and psychics may pick up on is the movement and the appearance given off by our eyes, which can sometimes be used to infer our current mood. Other people who may be skilled in this may include psychotherapy professionals, salespeople, police officers involved in lie detection, and skilled poker players trying to “read” others at the table on a good hand or a bluff.

Recently, a group of researchers from the New York University School of Medicine and two German universities conducted a study that looked a bit closer at “eye reading” to see if psychic readers are particularly more advanced than most people in applying “theory of mind” and empathy in their practice (Dziobek et al., 2005). Theory of mind is actually a concept from social psychology that describes the ability for a person to infer other people’s mood, thoughts, desires, and/or intentions; it can be seen as a kind of mental plan we develop for knowing how the minds of others feel and work. Most inferences that we make (both consciously and unconsciously) to build a theory of mind come through social interactions, and can be expressed through the “intuitions” we have about people (e.g., when we hear someone say, “I have a feeling about her,” or “There’s something about him that rubs me the wrong way”). More complex applications by skilled people can even include anticipating what a person is going to say or do next based on their body cues. Similarly, in empathy a person is able to project their own mind into that of another such that they are able to realize and share the feelings, needs, and thoughts of that other person. In other words, we are able to “look at the world through another person’s shoes,” so to speak.

This is a second articles in the series on Retro-PK by Bryan Williams. The first article was A Brief Intro to Retro-PK.

A Lunar Modulation Effect on Retro-PK?

It has been thought that one way in which we might come to better understand (and perhaps eventually predict) the workings of psi phenomena is to search for any physical variables whose changes might be connected in some way with psi performance, and might therefore have a modulating effect on psi. One possible variable that has come to light in recent years is the Earth’s own internally-generated magnetic field, which studies suggest may decrease successful ESP performance as it increases in intensity (Persinger, 1989). A few recent studies are beginning to suggest the possibility that there may be another, lesser-known variable: certain phases of the monthly lunar cycle.

A great deal of myth and folklore has been traditionally associated with the phases of the moon throughout many human cultures since ancient times (Guiley, 1991). For example, in Celtic lore, midnight at the time of a full moon was considered “the witching hour,” and people were assumed to turn into werewolves under the full moon. Certain major holidays in the Christian and Jewish religions (Easter and Passover, respectively) are timed according to the lunar cycle. Even the term “lunatic” derives from the ages-old assumption that the light of the full moon made people crazy. In order to separate fact from fiction, several psychological studies have been done over the past few decades to see if any kind of human activity (e.g., murders, suicide attempts, crimes, trauma & mental hospital admissions, traffic accidents, stock market activity) might be tied in some way to the lunar cycle. Some of these studies found positive indications (Alonso, 1993; Geller & Shannon, 1976; Lieber & Sherin, 1972) while others found none (Coates et al., 1989; Culver et al., 1988; Rotton & Kelly, 1985), suggesting that any possible relation between the moon and human behavior was unclear and that the case was still up in the air.

NBC has announced that Uri Geller and Chriss Angel (Mindfreak) will be appearing in a new TV reality show called “Phenomenon” (working title) this fall.

The show’s format was bought from Israeli Keshet Broadcasting. The original show in Israel’s channel 2 was called “The Successor” and it was a great hit in Israel’s prime time. The format is somewhat similar to the popular American Idol format where contestants (mentalists – stage magicians specializing in mind tricks) perform acts of seemingly paranormal ability, like telepathy etc. One contestants leaves the show each week, selected by Geller.

Geller and Angel will assist the Phenomenon contestants with their insight. The ultimate winner from the 10 participants will be selected by home viewers.

Phenomenon is a co-production of Granada America, Keshet Broadcasting, and Kuperman Productions in association with SevenOne International, which controls the worldwide rights to the show’s format.

Today I’m glad to announce the launch of the forum on the Mind-Energy.net site. The Parapsychology and alternative medicine forums at http://forum.mind-energy.net are place for the visitors and readers of mind-energy.net and all other internet users to talk about subjects of parapsychology and psi research and on the various topics of alternative medicine and energy healing.

In the forum you’ll find sections devoted to energy healing (EFT, Quantum Touch), personal practices, such as qigong and yoga, Traditional Chinese Medicine and your home remedies for various conditions.

Other topics including scientific debates on parapsychology and psi research as a place for the skeptics and supporters of parapsychology to delve into serious debates, a section on developing psi abilities and a place to post your question to the community describing your personal stories of unexplained character.

The last section is devoted to Mind-Energy.net site itself. On is a general discussion for your suggestions on the site’s content, design, goals etc. The other forum imports all blog posts off www.mind-energy.net to continue debates on the topics in the forum, which is better platform than the comments in the blog. In the near future, all the comments on the main site will be disabled and all commenters will need to use the forum instead. This will also improve spam protection and garbage comments.

You can subscribe to forum feeds using RSS as well, if it is easier for you.

My hope is that the forums will be a place for quality people. I’m going to attract some experts in the various related fields of knowledge to add value to the community.

You are welcomed to propose more forum topics, a different structure are help with moderation. If you hold yourself as an expert in any area, please let me know using the contact form as I might have something special for the experts.

So, head over to the Parapsychology and alternative medicine forums right now, register and start your discussions.

Thanks, Jacob.

Today I’m glad to present you an interview with Erin Pavlina. Erin has started doing psychic readings professionally around a year ago, after life full psychic experiences from her childhood. Erin also writes a lot about her knowledge and stories on her blog. Enjoy the interview.

Your path to becoming a psychic medium is quite interesting. You’ve had mystic experiences in your childhood and adolescence and then you dropped all this altogether only to return years later. Could you briefly tell how it started in the childhood and what were the reasons for these changes at the different stages of your life?

I started telling people I had ESP and could read their minds when I was just 4 years old after a barstool fell on my head, cracking open my skull in the third eye area. I will probably never know if the accident had anything to do with my abilities, but the two events were very coincident. It started out as knowing about things before they happened. I would tell my parents something was going to happen and either a few hours later or a couple of days later it would. I was a very intuitive child and often knew what people were thinking.

During my teen years things really kicked up a notch. I started studying dreams for a science fair project and from there learned how to have lucid dreams whenever I wanted. Three years later I began astral projecting and became really proficient at that. It was at that time I started encountering negative energies. Although most of my psychic experiences were positive, there were too many negative experiences that started affecting my psychic health. I also started having premonitions of accidents and deaths and frankly, it freaked me out when they came to pass. So as I entered college I decided I didn’t want to be “weird” anymore and tried to turn it all off. I was largely successful except that I began having spirit communication in my dreams. Deceased relatives would come to me in my dreams and tell me things that were going to happen. I could live with that though.

When I was in my mid-twenties I met my future husband, Steve Pavlina. He was interested in some of my experiences and encouraged me to explore them again. With maturity came the ability to handle the experiences. I slowly began opening myself up again. But it wasn’t until January of 2006 at the age of 36 that I discovered I could improve my abilities consciously. I finally stopped running from my abilities and discovered I could extend my abilities to helping others. And a psychic medium was born.

Your husband, Steve Pavlina, has started to write about his psychic development about the same time that you’ve started your blog. Who has influenced whom in your family?

Steve began having a lot of psychic experiences after he met me. I taught him how to have lucid dreams. From there he had some astral experiences though he is not nearly as proficient as I am. He’s very open to trying new things so his abilities progressed somewhat naturally, though I wouldn’t say he is consciously working on them. At the I Can Do It! Seminar in 2006 he experienced giving a total stranger a psychic reading and connected with a woman’s deceased uncle. That surprised him. He dabbles in things here and there but he is not pursuing this path professionally.

Steve influenced me in the courage department. He was very supportive of me starting a blog about paranormal and spiritual topics. He bolstered my confidence in my abilities and helped me decide to start doing readings professionally. So in that way he has been instrumental in my “coming out” as a medium and certainly in my success in this field.

You’ve had much experience with lucid dreaming. Although lucid dreams are not considered to be paranormal do they lie on the path to spiritual growth, in your opinion? Or is it only a skill that one can develop? What is Lucid Dreaming good for?

Today I’ve read another chapter of Dr. Dean Radin’s book Entangled Minds : Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality, where he performs analysis of past research in the various fields of parapsychology. This chapter, titled “Unconscious Psi” dealt with the various researches where the existence of various psi phenomena, mostly the ability to affect other person’s autonomous nervous system and the central nervous system over distance, without known sensory methods.

His meta-analysis of over 50 different studies shows a significant statistical significance in the overall research. He also quotes one of the groups that performed a research (led by Stefan Schmidt in 2004) where they say that ”...the existence of some anomaly related to distant intentions cannot be ruled out”. Radin then emphasizes the this is a conclusion of enormous importance since it shows that psi exists and compares it to the following imaginary TV news broadcast: