PSI research and its treatment by mainstream science and media

Third_Density_Resident

Jedi Council Member
I recently watched a program about telepathy, one episode in a series called Naked Science. Had I known in advance that it was a National Geographic production, I probably would have avoided watching it, since their track record is one of disinformation and pseudoskepticism. However when I began watching it, the show looked quite objective and promising. Later on I realised that this supposed objectivity was nothing more than a set-up to ensnare the unsuspecting viewer into thinking that whatever conclusion the program arrived at in the end would be scientifically sound and accurate. Which is the way most of these disinformation programs operate.

In the program, they conducted a series of experiments to do with telepathy. Many of the experiments have been performed rigorously countless times before in true laboratory conditions with positive results, but of course the show was not about presenting these findings; rather it was about trying to do its own experiments to show authoritatively whether telepathy is real (it already has been shown to be so, as I mentioned).

Each of the five experiments, to my mind, yielded results which were highly suggestive of PSI phenomena taking place. While the narration acknowledged some of this significance, it never failed to plant little seeds of doubt in the viewer with its constant, repetitive suggestion, "but this could all just be coincidence". The word "dubious" was thrown around without justification also. These negative seeds of doubt were sown despite an interview with a former hard-nosed skeptic who himself eventually arrived at the conclusion that telepathic phenomena must be real because in all his years of studies and counter-arguments, there was nothing else that could explain the "anomalies" . But even after FIVE quite rigorous experiments were done in the program, ALL of which had similar findings, they were still harping about "coincidence" being a very possible element. What are the chances of doing five completely separate and independent experiments, each of which yields results suggestive of PSI? This is the main problem with skeptics: they so often fails to take a holistic approach and examine results collectively. It's akin to dismissing every reliable UFO anecdote (that is, from reliable, well-respected people) individually as nothing more than "a planet" or "a comet" or whatever non-UFO object you can think of, and not stepping back and realising that collectively, these reliable anecdotes point to the very strong possibility of there being many bizarre objects in our sky which mainstream science simply cannot fathom at present. But this is not even a fair analogy, because the results of PSI are not about anecdotes, they are about hard data. And there are countless experiments which have come up with the HARD DATA proving that PSI is real.

At the end of the program, the narrator claims that the findings of experiments into telepathy are not at all scientific, and that as a result, research into telepathy would remain on the fringe (in other words, would never become scientific). The program wants viewers to come away with the impression that because the findings they came up with are not, and cannot be, scientific, telepathy and PSI as whole can’t be real, and hence PSI is most likely a load of rubbish. What is so disingenuous about this National Geographic program is the fact that there was not a single mention of the numerous experiments which have already been conducted over the years into PSI, most of which have yielded positive results. Viewers are misled into thinking that the program is an authority on PSI, when in actuality nothing could be further from the truth.
 
Russia has had many experiments having to do with telepathy, telekinesis, etc. If I remember right, they found that clairvoyance and telepathy were less successful if there were skeptics in the room giving off negative vibrations. These negative vibrations seemed to inhibit the person from successfully completing their objective. Things went much better when all the vibrations were on a positive note.

fwiw :)
 
Actually, this effect, which I believe is known as "the experimenter effect", was mentioned on the National Geographic program, but it was not termed as such. And it was basically used as more reason to doubt telepathy, because if some experiments come up with negative results (due in actuality to too many (pseudo)skeptics being present), then this would "clearly" mean that those experiments yielding positive results must be poorly conducted. Never mind that the vast majority of properly conducted experiments do not come up with negative results!
 
I didn't find any report about the following experiments in the forum. They are conducted by an institute located in Paris.

www.parapsych.org said:
EXPERIMENTS WITH HUMAN AND ANIMAL SUBJECTS
UPON A ROBOT MOVING AT RANDOM1
RENÉ PEOC’H, M.D.
INSTITUT MÉTAPSYCHIQUE INTERNATIONAL (http:(doubleslash)www.metapsychique.org/)

ABSTRACT: Starting in 1980, I have been conducting PK experiments using a system called the «Tychoscope», which was originally invented by the French engineer, Pierre Janin (1977). It is a small, self-propelled « vehicle », or robot, which integrates a random event generator (REG). The tychoscope movements are thus determined by the REG output, which makes it move in successive segments of random length and orients it according to random angles. A plotter attached to the robot traces a record of the movements.

Using this first tychoscope we were able to show that both animals – chicks in this case – and humans are capable of influencing the normally random movement of the device. While in the absence of a human or animal observer, the trajectories traced by the Tychoscope did not differ from those which would have occurred by chance, when a human subject wished to attract the robot in his direction, the difference compared to controls, was significant. The results with chick experiments were highly significant. In this case, we used the « imprinting » instinct, established by Konrad Lorentz, to condition baby chicks to adopt the Tychoscope as their mother. The results showed that the device would approach a cage full of conditioned chicks two and half times more often than an empty cage. By contrast, the movements remained purely random when the chicks were not conditioned to take the robot as their mother.

Following these successful experiments, we decided to extend the research with a second-generation Tychoscope, which separated the robot from the REG. In this later work, the REG was integrated into a computer, and the tychoscope’s movements were determined by remote-controlled signals from the computer.

Using this system, we tested the possible psychokinetic influence of 80 groups of 15 chicks on a randomly moving robot carrying a lit candle in an otherwise darkened room. In 71% of the cases, the robot spent excessive time in the vicinity of the chicks. In the absence of the chicks, the robot followed random trajectories. The overall results were statistically significant at p<0.01.

We then tested human psychokinetic action on the robot. A male subject attempted to attract the robot towards the left for thirty trials of 20 minutes each. The difference between these and control trials is significant (p<0.005). The same subject then attempted to push away the robot towards the right, over the course of 50 trials. Here too, we obtained a significant difference between experimental and control trials (p<0.04), but in the direction opposite the stated intention.

1 This research was made possible through the generous support of the Fondation Odier de Psychophysique
 
Thanks for this link. I didn't know it. As you can imagine I like especially their motto:

NOUS N'Y CROYONS PAS. NOUS L'ETUDIONS

http://www.metapsychique.org/-Le-laboratoire-.html
which is almost like my own actual signature.

I also like this FAQ:

Je suis la réincarnation des Princes de Thuringe. Je suis a votre disposition pour témoigner.


"Princes de Thuringe" ou autre. A l’Institut, il nous arrive quelquefois de recevoir de semblables appels. Nous tentons d’y répondre avec toute la sympathie possible mais, en toute sincérité, nous ne sommes pas les interlocuteurs adéquats pour ces sortes de vérités révélées.

Pour tout dire, de tels appels nous embarrassent fort. Ils témoignent souvent d’un grand désarroi et d’une certaine détresse, la plupart du temps psychologique. L’IMI vous conseille de vous référer
 
News: Two days ago we have visited the Institute:

http://www.metapsychique.org/-L-IMI-aujourd-hui-.html

and discussed its work with the President of the Institute. So, thanks for the tip, it was useful, and perhaps it will bring some fruits in the coming future :)
 
ark said:
News: Two days ago we have visited the Institute:

http://www.metapsychique.org/-L-IMI-aujourd-hui-.html

and discussed its work with the President of the Institute. So, thanks for the tip, it was useful, and perhaps it will bring some fruits in the coming future :)
That's a good news. According to the content of their website there seems to be some colinearity with what we are doing. It might help to reach a critical mass leading to some beautiful fruits. Wait and see.
 
It sounds like this is the same entropy reduction effect that spins the Egely wheel. Reducing the randomness of the REG is just like reducing the randomness of the air to spin the wheel.
 
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