preview

Extra Sensory Perception Essay

Good Essays

Extra Sensory Perception

Have you ever had the feeling that you've been in an establishment before you've actually gone inside? Did you ever feel like you've known that something was about to happen before there were any signs that it was about to occur? If you're not a skeptic about the powers of the mind, then there might just be an explanation for your seemingly coincidental premonitions. It's a phenomenon called extra sensory perception, better known as ESP. The textbook definition of this classification of parapsychology is "sensing" anything beyond the normal.(www.paranormalatoz.com) Most scientists do not believe that this phenomenon exists. Nevertheless, controversial evidence can be used to sway the incredulous. By viewing and …show more content…

The actual term extra sensory perception wasn't used until the early 1930's. During this time an American scientist, Joseph Banks Rhine first began his ground breaking experiments testing ESP's validity.(Encarta) His research was conducted at the Parapsychology Laboratory of North Carolina's, Duke University.(Encarta) Rhine's most well-known experiment involved a deck of twenty-five cards. On the cards, written in heavy black ink, each card had a different design on them. The designs included a star, a cross, a square, or wavy lines.(Encarta) The concealed deck of twenty-five cards was shuffled. One random card was drawn from the deck at a time and the test subject was asked to identify the hidden marking on the flip-side of the card. If the test subject correctly identified five out of twenty five cards correctly, it was considered pure chance.(Encarta) Rhine and his associates concluded that if the individual named six out of ten of the cards correctly, then indeed the test subject possessed extra sensory perception.(Encarta) From his experimentally proved evidence, it can easily be seen which stand Rhine took on the controversial existence of ESP. However, not all scientists had acknowledged the authenticity of his trials and the legitimacy of this branch of pseudo-science called parapsychology. Certain scientists do not believe in the reality of extrasensory perception due to their lack of faith in the experiments that test it's

Get Access