Enigmas of Parapsychology

Enigmas of Parapsychology. The parapsychology is the scientific discipline devoted to the study of paranormal phenomena, which can not yet be demonstrated through physical, biologists or psychological theories.

Summary

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  • 1 History
  • 2 Amazing facts
  • 3 Fields of study of parapsychology
  • 4 Principles and development
  • 5 Experiments on extrasensory perception
  • 6 Oppositions to these experiments
  • 7 Source

History

Since ancient times, men have attributed the responsibility for extraordinary phenomena to fantastic beings, such as goblins , spirits , demons or jinn . Thousands of mysterious facts are news every day. Some results from fantasy, trick or con, others deserve further study. Events are prophesied when it is impossible to foresee them in normal ways and the forecasts are checked. This was the case with the fall of the Alitalia airship , the sinking of the Titanic, and the assassination of President Kennedy .

Surprising facts

Facts and stories surprise us every day, as is the case of a table that is lifted in the air defying, apparently at least, the law of gravity or of an illiterate who suddenly speaks in another foreign language, Hindu yogas walk barefoot on the coals without suffering burns or feeling pain. There is talk of cures performed by sorcerers or healers . Supernatural powers are attributed to yogas and fakirs.

Fields of study of parapsychology

Parapsychologists fundamentally study two types of phenomena; telekinesis, which is the ability to move objects at a distance with the power of the mind, and extrasensory perception, that is, the ability to provide information through non-sensory means. In this field they also analyze occult themes, such as communication with the afterlife (spiritism), the faculties of clairvoyants or mediums, levitation, miraculous cures, apparitions, mancias (Tarot, runes, horoscope, crystal ball); the poltergeists (or haunted houses), astral travel, reincarnation and the belief in life after death. Except in very rare cases, they constitute human phenomena, of the hidden forces of man himself.

Principles and development

In the 18th century , Dr. Franz Antón Mesmer , a mixture of investigative genius and charlatan, astonished Europe with his wonders. Many, many people, paralyzed, insane, mute and allergic, were cured by the imposition of their hands. Under its influence they could receive strong blows without feeling anything and deep surgical operations without pain or blood. Afterwards the influx was so great that Mesmer had to invent a “healing water” and a magnetized wand in order to heal en masse.

Already in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries steps are taken for a deeper investigation, this first stage was called Metaphysics , the second gave rise to parapsychology.

In 1882 the first parapsychological society was founded in England. His initial research is carried out in the field of hypnosis, a psychic phenomenon that was later the object of study and experimentation in Medicine and Parapsychology (today, it is not considered as a Parapsychological phenomenon).

The events produced in the séances were also developed, classified into physical and mental; the physical ones (telekinesis), referred to the possibility of moving objects and interfering in physical processes with the power of the mind. Mental manifestations – extrasensory perception, encompass telepathy (direct transmission of subjective messages, emotions, or feelings from one person to another without speaking or gesturing), clairvoyance, and divination.

In the United States , one of the first groups to deal with parapsychological issues is the laboratory at Duke University in North Carolina . Under the direction of the American psychologist Joseph Banks Phine, methods were developed that promoted the systematic study of parapsychological investigations, based on statistics and the calculation of probabilities and not as a correlation of isolated and anecdotal facts.

Extrasensory Perception Experiments

In the experiments on extrasensory perception, Rhine and his collaborators used a deck of 25 cards, similar to the ordinary ones, but with 5 designs; star, cross, circle, box and wavy lines.

For his experiments on telekinesis, he used a common die that was thrown to the wall, or turned into a mechanically moving box. In these tests, there was an apparent relationship between the mental effort of the subjects to try to make a given face of the die appear face up and the number of times it occurred. The results of many individual and ensemble experiments could not be attributes of chance and its fluctuations.

Oppositions to these experiments

However, many prestigious figures in science, Physics and Philosophy have harshly criticized the institutional support for research that, according to them, does not meet the minimum guarantees of objectivity as to be considered scientific and today are misleading, despite its supposedly scientific language.

Despite the use of increasingly refined methods, typical of scientific observation, and the increase in parapsychological experiments, one of the harshest criticisms made of this discipline is that its findings can rarely be confirmed with a second experiment under similar conditions.

In fact, the scores tend to decrease the more times it is repeated, since between the probability calculation, because these phenomena are difficult to define or isolate when they seem to occur, and are only observable by a select group by a select group of spectators.

Most scientists believe that parapsychological investigations fail to meet the requirements of objectivity of the scientific method; consequently many, instead of trying to convince the skeptical community, have dedicated themselves to exploring the scientific basis of such phenomena, including quantum physics. Others argue that the scientific method and its requirements to reproduce the phenomena studied is limited, restrictive and useless for the study of parapsychological methods, particularly when it is required that they demonstrate a material substrate in the form of particles or waves for those “energy” or “Psychic powers.

An energy hypothesis must answer four fundamental questions; how the signal originates, how the information is encoded in it, what is the nature of these signals and how the perceiver detects and receives them. Satisfactory answers have not been obtained. In 1996 , it was held in Buenos Aires , Argentina .

 

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