Introduction

Telepathy is a psychic phenomenon in which information can be transferred from one person to another without using the usual methods of communication, such as speech or body language, hence referred to as mind-to-mind communication. These thoughts may include feelings, ideas, mental images and sensations. Telepathy is considered a form of extra-sensory perception (ESP) and is often linked to various paranormal phenomena such as precognition, clairvoyance and empathy. Most humans use less than 10% of the brain's capacity. Telepathy is thought to take place somewhere in the other 90%.

Although many scientific experiments have been conducted on telepathy, including some by reputable universities, it is not widely accepted by scientists who do not acknowledge that it existence has been proved.

History

"Telepathy" is derived from the Greek terms tele ("distant") and patheia ("feeling").

It was originally referred to as "thought-transference" and "thought-reading", until the French researcher Fredric William Henry Myers renamed it telepathy in 1882.

The 'Society for Psychical Research' (SPR) leaded the scientific investigation of telepathy, publishing their findings in 1886 as the two-volume work Phantasms of the Living. Although many of the primary studies consisted mostly of a compilation of anecdotal accounts with follow-up investigations, a few experiments were also performed with some people who claimed telepathic abilities. However, their experimental protocols were not very strict by today's standards and so cannot be considered scientifically accurate.

Scientific findings

The American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR), founded after the SPR also scientifically studied telepathy. The first experiment involved a person (sender) in one room trying to transmit information (a two-digit number, a taste, or a visual image) to another person (the receiver) in another room. The French physiologist Charles Richet introduced mathematical chance to the tests, and also discovered that telepathy occurred independent of hypnotism.

Before long other psychologists and psychiatrists were noticing telepathy in their patients. Sigmund Fraud observed it so often that he soon had to tackle it. He defined telepathy as a regressive, primitive faculty that was lost in the course of evolution, but which still had the ability to manifest itself under certain conditions. Psychiatrists Carl G. Jung and William James both regarded the phenomenon as more important and encouraged more research on the subject.

Perhaps the most well known experiments involving telepathy were those of J. B. Rhine who is often hailed as the father of parapsychology, starting in the late 1920s using the distinctive ESP Cards of Karl Zener. The original Zener cards were a deck of 25 plain white cards, each showing one of five simple yet distinct patterns. Each deck contained five cards of each pattern, so there was a one-in-five chance of correctly guessing the pattern on any particular card. The experiments were more rigorous and followed systematic experimental protocols unlike the previous experiments. The subjects were not people who claimed to have any ability and so were not biased. Rhine would ask his participants to guess which pattern was on each card and record the result. By the laws of average, random guessing should yield five correct matches per deck of 25. Rhine reasoned that consistent accuracy above this level, excluding any cheating, indicated ESP ability. His results were published in his popular book Extra Sensory Perception, which popularized the term "ESP". He concluded that telepathy and clairvoyance were the same psychic function manifested in different ways. Rhine also observed that distance or obstacles between the sender and receiver do not affect telepathy.

To prove this theory that telepathy is not affected by distance, a telepathic experiment was conducted during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971 to prove this. The experiment involved 4 recipients on Earth being sent 200 sequences of 25 random numbers from the astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell 150,000 miles above in space. By the laws of chance, they should guess 40 correctly, but 2 of the recipients guessed 51 correctly. Although these results were not highly significant, they implied that there was some degree of telepathy going on. However, NASA did not authorize this experiment and details were not released until the mission was completed.

Occurrence

Telepathy commonly occurs between members of the same family or close friends, which is thought to be because they learn to adjust to each other's frequencies. This is especially true with twins who create these links when they are infants and they can last a lifetime. Telepathy frequently occurs when a relative or close friend is in danger or has been injured. The victims relative may be aware of the crisis from a distance, even before they have been notified. This is especially true between mothers and their children perhaps because of that special bond that is formed when they are babies. Women in general are more telepathic which is thought to because they are more in tune with their emotions and are more able to base their decisions on intuition.

Telepathy between humans and animals

Many people believe that humans and animals can communicate through telepathy. For example some people have said that they felt an urge to go home and check on their pet, only to find that they needed their owners. Some pets are thought to know when their owners are about to come home unexpectedly. There are many professional pet communicators who claim to use telepathy to communicate with your pets and so are able to pass messages on from your pets, such as if your pet is ill. This interspecies communication was thought to be a normal part of life in the past in areas such as in Native America.

Theory

The general theory is that primitive species used telepathy before language was developed as a means of communication. As language was developed, the use of telepathy became redundant and so the human race simply 'forgot' how to use it. It is claimed that the brain is a telepathic organ; its ability to connection to other brains through psychic means was an innate human ability.

How to do it!

Telepathic abilities are considered similar to radio frequencies - the person must be tuned in to the correct signal to pick up the messages. Some people find it easier than others to do this but often telepathy cannot be learned however hard a person may try. People with small degrees of telepathy may learn how to exploit their ability to the maximum. Once the door to telepathy is open, it can be turned on and off like a switch by focusing their thoughts.

You may like to experiment with a close friend or relative, sending different images or colours to see if you have any ability. Often different meditation techniques and learning to focus the mind is the key. At first messages may be mixed, but if there is some underlying ability, the more it is practiced, the better you will get at it.