Psychology: A Self-Teaching Guide

Before we address the fact or fiction of telepathy, let’s explore the phenome-

non as if it were real. This will permit us to understand more accurately what peo-

ple mean when they use words such as telepathy.

Telepathy belongs to a larger category of phenomena called extrasensory

perception.Extrasensory perception, or ESP,is the capacity to be aware of exter-

nal events without the use of one of the conventional senses such as vision or hear-

ing. ESP is referred to as the sixth sense,but as you learned in chapter 4, there are

at least seven readily identified senses. ESP should more accurately be called the

eighth sense.

There are three kinds of extrasensory perception: (1) precognition, (2) telepa-

thy, and (3) clairvoyance. Precognitionis the power to know what will happen

in the future. Living almost five hundred years ago, the French physician and

astrologer Nostradamus is one of the more famous individuals in history pur-

ported to have had precognitive powers.

(a) Identify the three kinds of extrasensory perception.

(b) Precognition is the power to know what will happen in the.

Answers: (a) Precognition, telepathy, and clairvoyance; (b) future.

Telepathyis the power to send and receive mental messages. The ability to

read the minds of people who can’t read yours is also considered to be a telepathic

power. A spy with this ability would have a useful psychological tool. In the first

half of the twentieth century Upton Sinclair, author ofThe Jungleand a defeated

candidate for governor of California, conducted telepathic experiments with his

wife and published a book called Mental Radio.

Clairvoyanceis the power to have visions and “see” something out of the

range of normal vision. (The word clairvoyancehas French roots meaning “clear

seeing.”) Some clairvoyants are asserted to be able to give medical readings and

visualize an illness in another person in the same way that an X-ray machine can.

A person who can combine the two powers of precognition and clairvoyance is

thought to be able to both predict and visualize future events. The term seer

implies an ability to combine these powers.

(a) The power to send and receive mental messages is called.

(b) The word visionis associated with what kind of ESP?

Answers: (a) telepathy; (b) Clairvoyance.

Although not a form of ESP, there is another power often associated with it.

This is psychokinesisor PK.Psychokinesis is the power to move objects using

only energy transmitted by the mind. In the movie The Empire Strikes Back,the

hero Luke Skywalker lifts a small spaceship out of the muck of a bog with PK. A

Perception: Why Do Things Look the Way They Do? 67