Is Telepathy Fact or Fallacy? Can Thoughts Really Be Transferred Through Extrasensory Means?

Can a person convey their thoughts to another without the aid of any of the known physical mediums of communication? The majority of scientists have been negating this concept for the past 125 years or so. According to the current scientifically proven knowledge, there is no sixth sense in humans through which information can be shared. Nevertheless, such an ability has been termed ‘telepathy.’ A few years ago, after 3,000 different experiments conducted under controlled testing in Great Britain, the data obtained made telepathy a subject of research for the scientific lobby.

Although the results were not substantiative enough to verify telepathy’s existence, some organizations started considering it as a subject that needed detailed research. The rule for accepting any theory is that if a result can be achieved once by someone, then it should also be possible for it to be achieved again by others.

Years ago, the transmission of thoughts from one person to another without any known medium was known as ‘thought transfer.’ In 1882, the parapsychologist, Frederick Myers, gave it the name of ‘telepathy.’ Myers had also established a society for experimental research in which other parapsychologists had participated. Even after Myer’s death, the investigation continued.

One theory that’s worth mentioning is that during the process of evolution, to ensure survival in unfavorable conditions, human brains developed the ability to communicate using telepathy, and that our minds stayed in contact with one another, no matter the physical distance.

The most noteworthy experiments were conducted by the biologist named Dr. Joseph Rhine of Howard University, USA. A total of 1,800 Zener cards were used during the experiments. Two persons – the sender of the symbol and the receiver of the symbol – were separated by a distance of 400 meters. There was no medium through which they could be in contact with one another. In spite of this, out of the 1,800 symbols sent, the receiver drew 588 symbols correctly on their paper. This was a strike rate of 32.66%. The noteworthy fact was that there were not just 5 but 25 cards in each heap, and once the cards had been used, the heap was shuffled once more.

The well-known magazine named ‘Nature’ reproduced Rhine’s paper on this subject without any change, but in the editor’s column of the same issue, they condemned his experiments. On the other hand, this got the common person interested in telepathy, and so to understand the mystery surrounding telepathy, all types of weird experiments started being conducted.

One such method came to be known as ‘blank field,’ in which all the five senses had to be cut off from the outer world. The purpose of rendering a person blank, as far as the senses were concerned, was to ensure that their known sensory organs could not interfere in any way. In the midst of all this seclusion, if a message were received and interpreted accurately, then this would be attributed to telepathy.

In 1993, researchers used two rooms, with a distance of 3 meters, to test telepathy. In the first room, the person who would receive the messages was sitting. In the second room, there was a television in front of the person who would send the message. The words repeated by the receiver were: ‘I can see a bird that has a sharp beak and its wings are turned down. There is something else that is flying. It is like a parrot that has long feathers. There are many fathers and a very long…long…long… the tail… it’s flying. A big eagle with its wings spread out…’ This description given by the receiver was accurate and was exactly like the scene being telecast on the television in the other room. However, like most researches, this was also disregarded for lack of documented and tested data.

In short, just like palmistry, telepathy is considered anything but science today. There is no place for doubt in science; one plus one must always make two. Therefore, when we talk about telepathy, the result obtained should be 100% conclusive, every time. The maximum success rate of telepathic experiments is 72%, and most of the time, it is not even more than 40%.

To conclude, telepathy cannot be granted the status of science as it is not exactly validated. On the other hand, it certainly has the potential for more research.