#extrasensory perception (ESP)

[inthedarktrees]

ESP test at the American Society for Psychical Research

Henry Groskinsky, “ESP,” Life, 1972

[actualpsychicability]

Some books from our psychic library. Let us know in the notes if you'd like more information on any of them! We'll be posting reviews and excerpts.

[archivist-crow]

The Miami Poltergeist - 1966/67

First poltergeist case in which scientifically controlled experiments were conducted to determine the nature of the activity. A human focal point was identified.

The Miami Poltergeist case began in late 1966 or early 1967, when an unusual number of objects in the warehouse of Tropican Arts, a wholesaler of novelty items, spilled and broke under mysterious circumstances. At first, carelessness on the part of shipping clerks was blamed. On January 14, 1967, the Miami police were called by the warehouse manager, Alvin Laubheim, who complained that a ghost was in his warehouse breaking things. The investigating oficer arrived and witnessed objects falling off shelves of their own accord.

After the case came to public awareness, parapsychologists, including Roll and J. Pratt, investigated. Almost immediately Roll suspected that a human focal point was responsible, and that the person was a 19-year-old shipping clerk named Julio (pictured above). The breakages and movements of objects always took place when Julio was in the vicinity, and the activity was most intense when Julio seemed to be irritated or upset. Julio’s proximity to the activity had led coworkers to accuse him of being the culprit, which he vehemently denied. He did confess, however, that the breakages made him happy. The researchers found no evidence that he was responsible for the incidents, or that any trickery was used to stage effects.

No objects moved when attempts were made to film activity. Also, activity in general decreased whenever Roll was on the scene, although he did manage to witness 13 of the 224 incidents that were documented.

Julio's father-in-law to be, Jose Diaz, a medium, was brought to the warehouse by management, and he claimed to see an alligator spirit that allegedly was responsible for the mischief. Diaz placed items about the warehouse to serve as diversionary "playthings" for the spirit, but the breakages continued.

Roll and Pratt examined all shelves to make sure that boxes and items were pushed as far back as possible to eliminate the possibility of vibrations or jarring causing them to fall naturally. To see if objects rose up in the air before falling, Roll placed notebooks as a barrier in front of rows of glasses on shelves. When broken glass was discovered and the notebooks stood undisturbed, it indicated that the glasses had risen up into the air before falling to the ground.

The case also enabled Roll to test his psi field theory, which holds that phenomena reduce with distance from the agent due to a weakening psi field, comparable to a magnetic field. Activity was reduced with distance from Julio; however, objects farthest away from him traveled the longest distances, while objects nearest him traveled the shortest distance. To explain this, Roll proposed that the psi field rotates in a circular motion around an agent similar to a vortex. This explanation has been widely contested by other parapsychologists.

Julio agreed to take a battery of personality and psychological tests. Results that might indicate unconscious psychokinesis at work included anger, rebellion, a sense of unworthiness, guilt, rejection, detachment, passivity and inaction, a feeling of being apart from the social expressing aggression. Julio acknowledged disliking his boss. It also was discovered that 10 days prior to the start of the phenomena at the warehouse, Julio had had some upsetting experiences at home, with his stepmother trying to get him to move out of the house. He suffered nightmares and had suicidal feelings.

On January 30, a break-in occurred at the warehouse and some items and petty cash were taken. Julio was suspected, and he later confessed. The owner and manager did not press charges. The police sergeant also said that Julio claimed he had caused the poltergeist activity with trickery using threads; the sergeant, however, never examined the warehouse, and Roll and Pratt doubted the claim. Several days later, Julio stole a ring from a jeweler for his fiancee.

He was convicted and sent to jail for six months. After his departure from the warehouse, phenomena ceased.

Upon Julio's release, Roll and others attempted to arrange financial support for him so that he could undergo laboratory research for extrasensory perrception (ESP) and PK. Julio declined, and pursued marriage and a tumultuous job history. He eventually underwent tests, and showed significant results for PK but not for ESP. He indicated an ability to control his PK. Later, his father-in-law attempted to help him improve his control of PK in mediumistic sittings.

The Miami case is evidence in support of the theory that at least some cases of poltergeist outbreaks are caused unwittingly by human agents, perhaps due to repressed emotions and hostilities.

Text from The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits, Third Edition by Rosemary Ellen Guiley (Checkmark Books - 2007)

[river-kodai-supremacy]

ITS FINALLY HERE!!

(please keep scrolling to read!!💖⚠️)

this is some fan promotional art I made for the novel I have been waiting for!!!

YALL NEED TO CHECK OUT THIS BOOK *NOW*

here's the silly link to the amazon page!

💙💜💫here's the blurb:💫💜💙

""Show me where it says that some stories are forever and always off limits, just because of who we are."

Recently out of foster care and diagnosed as a Dissociative Identity Disorder system, Yancey Love and his fellow alters are simply trying to navigate life day by day. However, Yancey can't help yearning for a chance to be a part of something bigger than his own routines.

When a simple errand turns into a psychic-powered back alley brawl involving a telekinetic teen named River, Yancey gets way more than he wished for!

River claims his sister has been kidnapped by a mysterious agency of espers seeking out people with powers. That really wouldn't be Yancey's problem-until he discovers he and his headmates have psychic powers as well.

And they might be just the sort of abilities River needs...

Hoping for answers, Yancey agrees to team up with River. With enemy espers hot on their tail, and a dangerous world of secret organizations brewing ahead, this unlikely friendship is put to the test as the two struggle to work together.

Sci-fi with a bit of superhero meets mental health issues in this YA adventure exploring friendship, teamwork, courage, and the power of meaningful healing. "

- The Parallel by Kyra R. Croninger

this book is an amazing adventure that is full of great representation and has a fun and diverse cast of characters, all of which I have a hard time NOT falling in love with!

if you see this post, PLEASE go give it a try!! the kindle eBook is only $0.99 right now so its very cheap and I promise you its worth every penny and more! 💜💙💫

[sachyriel]

Photo-sensitive Psycho-pyrokinesis

You sneeze at bright lights and something catches fire around you.

[jaspersreprise]

Embrace your Sixth Sense

Within each and every one of us is a power far greater than anyone can imagine. This is called a sixth sense, and although everybody has it, not everyone knows how to access it. Those who have mastered the art of tapping into the sixth sense have a natural ability to recognize otherworldly energies around them. Just like animals, we are all born with a natural ability to detect when a situation feels “off.” For example, we rarely see wild animals in the path of a tsunami; they usually sense something is amiss and make for higher ground. This sense of premonition tends to be socialized out of humans, starting from an early age. 

You’ve probably already heard before how little children can innately identify spirits, primarily because they are not long from the spirit realm and often have a guide close by. For kids, it is natural to state, “I see Grandma on the couch,” when Grandma died more than a year ago, but most ordinary families discourage this kind of behaviour and put it down to the child being eccentric. Children learn very quickly to suppress these abilities, and over time, because they don’t use it, they lose it. Think about a time when you knew what the outcome of an event would be, without a question in your mind. Whether you acknowledge it or not, you were leaning on your intuition. Most of us have natural skills of premonition, but many ignore these visceral feelings, opting to rely on logic and reasoning instead.

What I am about to share with you next borders on the oblivion. According to our understanding of spiritual teachings, some of us who choose to exercise our psychic gifts have a “call to duty,” to try and prevent future cataclysmic events. Sometimes we succeed in changing future events with our predictions. Sometimes we do not.

Extrasensory experience

ESP, or extrasensory perception, is a wide-ranging term often used when talking about a sixth sense. Many other phenomena comprise the sixth sense, too, such as any heightened feelings relating to our other five senses. Some of these are as follows:

CLAIRALIENCE - Gleaning psychic information through scents not obvious to others

For example, a psychic who helps with police investigations may smell orange blossoms, indicating that the subjects of a manhunt are hiding out in an orange grove. Or, more commonly, you may catch a whiff of your long-dead grandfather’s cologne or cigar smoke, indicating that he is nearby.

CLAIRAUDIENCE - Hearing sounds beyond others’ capability

This often includes the voices of deceased loved ones or other sounds that have significance in some way. For example, if someone you know loves London After Midnight, you might faintly hear one of their songs while in the same room with this person. Clairaudience is picking up on audial clues given off by the universe or another entity.

CLAIREMPATHY - Feeling the emotions or physical sensations of another person

This skill is set very similar to that of an empath, which is a person with the ability to feel the emotions and experiences of others. Most of us can easily sympathize with other people, but clairempathy takes it a step further: clairempaths feel the exact same happiness or pain as another person, or even an animal. People with empathetic powers must be careful not to absorb the energies of everyone around them, as this can be overwhelming and, at times, depressing. Psychics with these abilities must sometimes take time away from other people in order to protect and restore their own energy.

CLAIRVOYANCE - Sensing objects, energies, or entities not readily perceivable to others

If you have this ability, you may be able to look at someone and visualize them as a child in the house they grew up in, or perhaps you can see a deceased loved one near another person. You might have a vision of a friend in a situation that hasn’t yet happened—in a foreign city, for example, or as a much older person.

MEDIUMSHIP - Conversing with spirits

There is a difference between ESP and mediumship. All mediums have ESP, but not all people with ESP can communicate with the deceased and so are not mediums. Some mediums’ ability to talk with spirits occurs from childhood; others say they become aware of their skill later in life. Mediums can often see, smell, hear, and feel deceased people and spirits of all forms. People who gave true mediumistic gifts are rare. Some prefers to have the ability when in fact they might just have a conglomeration of the capabilities listed here. See “Connecting with the Dead”, which is my previous post, the most recent one for more helpful information.

PRECOGNITION - Prophesizing events, or seeing them in dreams, before they happen

Precognitive abilities have similarities to the occurrence or premonitions. People with precognition have predicted global disasters, plane crashes, and even future presidents. 

TELEPATHY - Reading or sensing another person’s thoughts, even over great distances

Twins often possess a reputation for having a psychic bond, knowing how the other is feeling without communicating. This can happen while in the same room or even across states.

It only takes one of these traits to be considered psychic, but some people have more than one and can gather information from multiple domains simultaneously. These are amazing gifts, but if too much information comes in at once, it might also be overpowering. That is why it is so important to take care of yourself and know when you need a break. 

[ylespar]

“The basic concept surrounding the PMIR [Psi Mediated Instrumental Response] was that human beings utilize psi to accomplish something (the instrumental response) that fulfills certain needs in which the individual consciously or subconsciously possesses. Such concepts lead to arguments suggesting that psi may be far more common in daily life than is immediately apparent, but that psi does accomplish its goals in a subtle elegant manner void of conscious awareness. Further arguments then direct us towards the question ‘if psi is a staple in our subconscious daily life, can psi be directed to be a staple in our conscious daily life to any extent?’”

— Theresa M. Kelly [Ref.]

[sachyriel]

That makes him extremely powerful, capable of seeing so deeply into a person you can tell them the root of their worldview and corner it like you're walking around a city block. No wonder he faints, crossing the threshold of what an individual feels and thinks into the barrage of sensory input of what the world gives a person, with all the specific context and generalized connotations that anyone attaches to the deluge of what your eyes ears and nose go through minute by minute. This guy went from a residential street where cars come and go, but in the quiet times you could hear a leaf fall, over to mainstreet of downtown while a parade was going on and getting trampled by the marching band.

Telepathy can come in certain levels, but not all levels are conducive to receiving thoughts. At low levels you can see emotions, what you'd call an empath. Higher level you might to see the beginning of complex thoughts, emotions and actions combining. Higher levels you can see their triggers, what causes action from emotion, or what actions cause them to feel emotion.

But immersing yourself into a full stream of consciousness is overloading your own brain. You no longer have brain capacity to understand your own vision, your auditory processing centre is flooded by someone else's ears and your olfactory centre is assaulted by strange smells from a nose not your own? No wonder this guy passed out, he's got no room for his own eyes, ears or nose, let alone skin conditions or taste.

He needs to set his third eye on something less brutal, like knowing the emotional state of others or guessing their action. Your brain is only so big, you can't be in two places at the same time.

guy with telepathy but he can't use it because every time he tunes into someone else's mind their unique perception of all of reality is so fundamentally different than his own and so incomprehensible that he just immediately passes out like a lovecraftian horror protagonist

[astonishinglegends]

Ep 310: The Rhine Research Center – Extraordinary Evidence

"These psychic discoveries by reputable scientists have opened up, literally, a new world."  -- Dr. William Moulton Marston, American psychologist, inventor of the polygraph and Wonder Woman comics, on the work that J.B. and Louisa Rhine conducted at Duke University.

Description:

This week, we’re heading into the world of parapsychology with a visit to the legendary Rhine Research Center in North Carolina—an institution that’s been quietly pushing the boundaries of the human mind for nearly a century. Founded in the 1930s by J.B. and Louisa Rhine at Duke University, the center has long been a hub for rigorous scientific inquiry into phenomena like telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis. Recently, friend of the show Allison Jornlin invited Scott on a trip to the Rhine to help renowned researcher Dr. Nancy Zingrone donate materials from her and her late husband’s extensive paranormal library. While there, Scott met John G. Kruth, Executive Director of the Rhine and one of the foremost experts on the scientific study of consciousness and psychic phenomena, who joins us to share the fascinating history of the Rhine.

Reference Links:

John G. Kruth

The Rhine Research Center’s website: www.rhineonline.org

The Journal of Parapsychology entry on the PSI Encyclopedia

Experimental Parapsychology

Drop-in Communicators

Psychokinesis Research

Karlis Osis

Precognition

J. Gaither Pratt

“ESP Research with Russell Targ” at espresearch.com

Russell Targ

Psi Researchers I

Psi Researchers II

J. B. Rhine

Louisa Rhine

Sally Rhine Feather

William McDougall

Air Florida Flight 90

Eileen J. Garrett

Edd Edwards – eddedwards.com

Shaolin American Self Defense Academy – shaolinamericansda.com

Fritz-Albert Popp

Photomultiplier tube

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CREDITS:

Episode 310: The Rhine Research Center – Extraordinary Evidence. Produced by Scott Philbrook & Forrest Burgess. Audio Editing by Sarah Vorhees Wendel of VW Sound. Music and Sound Design by Allen Carrescia. Tess Pfeifle, Producer and Lead Researcher. Ed Voccola, Technical Producer. Research Support from The Astonishing Research Corps, or "A.R.C." for short. Copyright 2025 Astonishing Legends Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

[inthedarktrees]

Study of extrasensory perception at the American Society for Psychical Research

Henry Groskinsky, “ESP,” Life, 1972

[spectraparanormalchronicles]

Exploring Neuroplasticity and Paranormal Cognition

Introduction

In recent years, the concept of neuroplasticity has revolutionized our understanding of the human brain's capacity for adaptation and change. Neuroplasticity refers to the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life in response to learning, experience, injury, or disease. This remarkable phenomenon opens up intriguing possibilities for exploring the link between brain plasticity and paranormal cognition—phenomena such as precognition and remote viewing that challenge conventional scientific explanations.

Understanding Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity underscores the brain's dynamic nature, demonstrating that it is not a static organ but a highly adaptive and malleable structure. Throughout life, the brain can create new neural pathways, strengthen existing connections, and even reassign functions to different areas in response to various stimuli and experiences. This ability is essential for learning, memory formation, recovery from injury, and overall cognitive flexibility.

Exploring Paranormal Cognition

Paranormal cognition encompasses a range of abilities that defy current scientific understanding but are reported across cultures and historical contexts. Key examples include:

Precognition: The purported ability to foresee future events or outcomes before they occur, often through dreams, visions, or intuitive flashes.

Remote Viewing: The alleged ability to perceive distant or unseen targets without the use of known sensory channels, sometimes described in espionage or psychic experimentation.

These phenomena challenge traditional scientific paradigms, yet they continue to intrigue researchers and enthusiasts alike because of their potential implications for understanding consciousness and human perception.

Neuroplasticity and Paranormal Abilities

Given the brain's capacity for neuroplasticity, researchers propose that changes in neural connectivity and function could play a role in facilitating or enhancing paranormal cognition:

Formation of New Neural Networks: Learning and practicing paranormal abilities such as precognition or remote viewing may involve the formation of new neural networks specialized for processing intuitive or extrasensory information. This process could be facilitated by neuroplastic changes that optimize brain regions involved in perception, intuition, and information processing.

Enhanced Cognitive Flexibility: Individuals who exhibit paranormal cognition abilities might demonstrate heightened cognitive flexibility, allowing them to adapt neural networks more readily to perceive information beyond conventional sensory inputs. Neuroplasticity could support the development of cognitive strategies that enhance these abilities over time.

Environmental Influences: External factors such as meditation, mindfulness practices, or specific training regimens may induce neuroplastic changes that facilitate paranormal cognition. These practices could potentially alter brain structure and function in ways that enhance sensitivity to subtle environmental cues or information.

Challenges and Future Directions

While the concept of neuroplasticity offers an interesting framework for exploring paranormal cognition, significant challenges remain:

Empirical Validation: Demonstrating a causal relationship between neuroplasticity and paranormal abilities requires rigorous empirical research integrating neuroscience, psychology, and parapsychology.

Methodological Considerations: Developing standardized protocols and methodologies for studying paranormal cognition within a neuroscientific framework is essential for advancing our understanding.

Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Bridging gaps between traditionally distinct fields, such as neuroscience and parapsychology, is crucial for fostering collaborative research efforts that can address complex questions about brain function and consciousness.

Conclusion

The intersection of neuroplasticity and paranormal cognition represents a frontier where scientific inquiry meets the mysteries of human perception and consciousness. As researchers continue to probe the brain's adaptive capabilities and their potential links to extraordinary cognitive abilities, such as precognition and remote viewing, we may gain new insights into the nature of consciousness and expand our understanding of human potential.

[journeytojaburo]

I wanna know what his definition of "espers" are because newtypes definitely fall under that

[river-kodai-supremacy]

THE WAREHOUSE FIGHT WOOOO

I will not stop until I make this a huge fandom. PLEASE JOIN ME

[sachyriel]

Being a psychic is like

Do you know what your dream bathroom needs? The one with the lilac and lavender writing on the walls?

"uhh I never told you my dream house's bathroom had light purple writing on the walls? But okay, what does it need then?"

You need to add in some plant accents on the big parts of cursive letters. Like the top of the C? It could use a little sprig, just a line of green and leaves on it?

"Oh my God I can see it‽ Green goes so good with purple. I just dismissed it cause painting the whole wall green either felt like a hospital or it made the bathroom too dark. Thank you so much!"

And you can like, alter their lives for the better if you don't mind barging in to their headspace. If it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission just pluck the idea straight from their head, don't wait for the words on their lips. Like the Tech bros say, move fast and break stuff.

[ylespar]

"In First Sight theory, several almost universal, implicit assumptions about psi are changed. Psi is not an ability; ESP is not knowledge; PK is not action. Perhaps the most important one is the new assumption that psi is not an ability. Instead, it is a universal characteristic of living organisms, a basic feature of their being in the world. It is the fact that we are all unconsciously and perpetually engaged in a universe of meaning that extends far beyond our physical boundaries in space and time. It is not an ability, better in some than in others, called up sometimes and not other times. It is always going on for all of us. It is less like riding a bicycle or discriminating red from green and more like being perpetually engaged as physical bodies with the reality of gravity, or as social beings with an interpersonal world of others. It is an unconscious and ubiquitous but still largely unmapped aspect of our nature."

James C. Carpenter, First Sight: ESP and Parapsychology in Everyday Life (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 84.