Does ESP exist?

November 22, 2005 12:40 PM

What are some landmark studies about the existence of Extra-sensory perception?

Interested in clairvoyance, precognition and telekinesis mostly. I was wondering if anyone knows any peer-reviewed studies in psychology or parapsychology (if such a journal exists) or anything like that. Infamous and well-known studies are best for my purposes. Thanks.

posted by Holygrail2 to Education (8 answers total)

Despite much of hiss work has been discredited as being biased, careless, and, in some cases, utterly fraudulent you should check out J.B. Rhine
posted by brautigan at 12:54 PM on November 22, 2005

Hiss?! His even.
posted by brautigan at 12:55 PM on November 22, 2005

Try the folks at PEAR.
posted by doctor_negative at 1:00 PM on November 22, 2005

I haven't dug too deeply there, but I believe the studies at PEAR are actually meta-studies. And the detractors say they are data-mining.
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 1:03 PM on November 22, 2005

The University of Edinburgh have the Koestler Parapsychology Unit, The Guardian published an article about them a while ago.

This speech given by the unit head may be of use, she includes quite a few references at the bottom.

I'm currently studying in Edinburgh, but I'm not involved in psychology in any way. So I can't really comment on what they're doing, I tend towards skepticism though.
posted by Olli at 1:25 PM on November 22, 2005

Duke University has had a paranormal studies dept. for some time I believe - Google?
posted by Pressed Rat at 1:49 PM on November 22, 2005

And then, please, please, please put on your skeptic hat and read something...well...that might debunk the issue:

James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge.

Any ESP whatsover...and a million dollars is yours. Not decided by him, but by a board...the FAQ and the, yet, unsucessful, applicants


He's been doing this debunking for years and years.

But, please, if you know someone or have heard of someone who can do any sort of ESP, there's a million $$ out there for them. Still Unclaimed.
posted by filmgeek at 1:55 PM on November 22, 2005

filmgeek's point is an important one, although it's easy to overstate the fact and assume that the unclaimed prize money proves the nonexistence of ESP.

For me, the most interesting ongoing research (interesting in that it has not been explained away quite yet) relates to Ganzfeld studies.
posted by Marquis at 3:41 PM on November 22, 2005