Many people are skeptical about Extra Sensory Perception - ESP - and related states like telepathy, mind reading, clairvoyance etc. The main criticism has often been leveled at para-psychologists that there may be a tendency to be fraudulent and to fake the results. The chief reason is lack of scientific knowledge about ESP. Secondly, it is indeed very difficult to accept such states without self-experience, which is difficult and rare to come by, by itself or without regular and adequate practice of controlling the mind.
A final criticism is that, for phenomena such as extrasensory perception and psychokinesis to be true, fundamental physical laws would have to be broken!
Some adopt the view that psychic phenomena are outside the realm of science, whereas others believe that breakthroughs in science (e. g. particle physics etc.) might one day provide explanations for such phenomena. The resultant awe associated with such 'superstitions and supernatural display' makes people apprehensive and fearful. In this confusing state, genuine extrasensory perceptions are also designated as superstitious and fake, and are neglected without any in-depth study.
Present Scenario
Until we find 'scientific' basis for these extrasensory phenomena, all sorts of opinions and theories will continue to find their way in the minds of peoples. The extra sensory perceptions would be labelled as superstitious, unscientific and irrational. However, one must accept the fact that some persons do experience and are capable of exhibiting such powers. Our interest should be to document these real life events and try to explain the same on the basis of present day scientific progress. While in most cases, the origin of such phenomena is obscure, some persons develop such mental powers - "siddhis" - during the course of practice of mental concentration and Yoga. The state is a kind of altered consciousness.
Definitions
Parapsychology:
Parapsychology is the study of the ability of the mind to perform psychic acts without any known physical energy acting as the carrier of the information or force. Psychic phenomena, as the term is applied to the human mind, generally fall into two broad categories:
1) Psychokinesis is defined as the ability to move or alter animate or inanimate matter by thought alone.
2) Extrasensory perception (ESP) is defined as the ability to acquire information without the benefit of the senses.
Extrasensory perception is further divided into two sub-categories:
a) Telepathy: Telepathy is the perception of someone else's thoughts by intercommunication between one brain and another by means other than that of the ordinary sense channel. It has bearing on all psychic phenomena.
Many cases are on record where vivid impressions have been transmitted from a distance. It is believed that telepathic communication goes direct from one mind to another irrespective of the distance. The mechanism of telepathy is generally supposed, so far, to be in the form of yet unknown ethereal vibrations or "brain waves".
b) Clairvoyance: Clairvoyance or 'remote perception' is 'sensing of an object or event out of range of the senses'. The term denotes the supposed supernormal faculty of seeing persons and/or events which are distant in time and place, and of which no knowledge can reach to the seer or perceiver through the normal sense channel.
Evidence
Most scientists outside of the parapsychological field are reluctant to accept the existence of ESP. But recently some scientists have shown interest in these phenomena because such events are recorded and documented, and can be said to constitute the 'facts'.
"Many hundreds of carefully studied cases and laboratory experiments have now established that ESP (telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, etc.) exists - but what does all this mean? Primarily that there is far more to man than we have known. We have the data, and they are strong and clear. But they could not exist if man were only what we have believed him to be. If he were only flesh and bone, if he worked on the same type of principle as a machine, if he were really as separate from all others as we have thought, it would be impossible for him to do the things we know he sometimes does. A new concept of man, a new way of looking at others and ourselves, a knowledge that there is more to man than our old concepts allow, is scientifically demonstrated in these facts. And that is the real importance of extrasensory perceptions."
