brief report (draft version) Human Values Study: incidence of telepathy Martin Potschka

Transcription

1 brief report (draft version) Human Values Study: incidence of telepathy Martin Potschka

2 Table 1 % Persons that have experienced 1 % Telepathy Clairvoyance Contact with the dead All three not-none (Any psychic experience) Persons that believe Telepathy exists 2 Denmark Norway Ireland, Rep , Northern Spain Portugal 35 Belgium Luxembourg 38 Sweden /66 3 Malta Holland France Iceland /73 3 Great Britain /73 3 East Germany 18 West Germany Austria 49 Czechia 73 Finland Italy Slovenia 27 Belarus 32 Poland 38 Croatia 43 Hungary 46 Bulgaria 49 Latvia 52 Slovakia 53 Greece 55 Estonia 55 Ukraine 57 Russia 58 Romania 67 Lithuania 79 EUROPE 45 EUROPE (West) U.S South Korea Gallup Human Values Study 1980 (Haraldsson et al 1991) question (a) 2 Gallup Human Values Study 2000 (Inglehart 2004) question (b) 3 Studies from 1974 (Iceland), 1978 (Sweden) and 1980 (Great Britain) (Haraldsson 1985)

3 U.S. Table 2 % Persons that have experienced c % % Telepathy Clairvoyance Contact with the dead Persons that believe Telepathy exists d experienced telepathy but don t believe General population 2 58/ / /30 1 College Professors 3 66 Elite scientists (administrative) Gallup Human Values Study 1980 (Haraldsson et al 1991) question (a) 2 McCready & Greeley (1976) (McClenon 1982) 3 Wagner & Monnet (1979) (McClenon 1982) 4 McClenon 1982 c question (c) d question (d) More facts: Contact with the dead is more common among less educated people, telepathy is slightly more common among college students. 1 Elite scientists are highly skeptical on a- priori grounds about parapsychology. Parapsychologist themselves believe that this is so because Parapsychology threatens the established mechanistic world view and that Scientists are simply unfamiliar with the present evidence. They do not realize that elite scientists rather claim There is insufficient evidence for psychic ability. However, belief in ESP is more closely related to personal experience than to familiarity with the research literature on psi. Common opinions held are: Methodological problems exist within parapsychology; inducing paranormal experiences under laboratory conditions may be difficult; doubt in the value of scientifically exploring the phenomenon; certain aspects of it preclude the possibility of scientific explanation. 2 1 Haraldsson 1985, McClenon 1982

4 The questions: (a) Did you ever have any of the following experiences: (1) Felt as though you were in touch with someone when they were far away from you; (2) Seen events that happened at a great distance as they were happening; (3) Felt as though your were really in touch with someone who had died. (b) Which, if any of the following do you believe in: telepathy? (c) How often have you had any of the following experiences? (1) Felt as though you were in touch with someone when you knew that it was impossible (ESP); (2) Seen events that happened at a great distance as they were happening (clairvoyance); (3) Felt as though you were really in touch with someone who died (communication with the dead). choices were "never in my life" "once or twice" "several times" "often" or "I cannot answer this question".(once or twice, several times, and often were counted as experience with (1) telepathy or (2,3) the other phenomena, respectively) (d) In your opinion is extrasensory perception "An established fact" "A likely possibility" "A remote possibility" "An impossibility or "Merely an unknown? (Established fact or likely possibility were counted as belief in telepathy)

5 Definition Telepathy: communication from one mind to another by extrasensory means (Webster); German translation is Gedankenübertragung, i.e. direct transference of thought from one person (sender or agent) to another (receiver or percipient) without using the usual sensory channels of communication (Encyclopedia Britannica), also called ESP (extrasensory perception). Haraldsson, Elendur; Houtkooper, Joop M. [1991] Psychic Experiences in the Multinational Human Values Study: Who Reports Them?, Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 85: Haraldsson, Elendur [1985] Representative National Surveys of Psychic Phenomena: Iceland, Great Britain, Sweden, USA and Gallup s Multinational Survey, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 53 (#801): (includes a preliminary analysis of the Gallup Human Values Study that differs from Haraldsson 1991). McClenon, Jim A. [1982] A Survey of Elite Scientists: Their Attitudes towards ESP and Parapsychology, Journal of Parapsychology 46 (1982): ; revised and expanded in: Deviant science: the case of parapsychology, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 1984, p , , Wagner, M. W.; Monnet, Mary [1979] Attitudes of College Professors Torwards Extra-sensory Perception, Zetetic Scholar 5: McCready, William C., Greeley, Andrew M. [1976] The Ultimate Values of the American Population, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Gallup International (European Value Study Group) [1984] Human Values and Beliefs: Tabulations, London: Gallup International. Harding, S.; Phillips, D.; Fogarty, M. [1986] Contrasting Values in Western Europe, in association with the European Value Systems Study Group, London: Macmillan. Inglehart, Ronald; Basanez, Miguel; Diez-Medrano, Jaime; Halman, Loek; Luijkx, Ruud; Eds. [2004] Human Beliefs and Values: a crosscultural sourcebook based on the values surveys, Source Book + CDROM, Mexico City : Siglo.

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7 Correlation telphathy - contact with dead % contact with dead % telepathy Correlation telepathy - Clairvoyance % clairvoyance % telepathy Correlation believe-in vs. experience of telephathy % belief that telepathy exists % experience of telepathy

8 Discussion 1) Prevalence of telepathy is substantial in all populations, it is not a border line phenomenon. 2)Translation of questions may bias responses and account for some of the differences between countries. 3) No language problem exists when comparing the German speaking countries East- Germany (low), West-Germany (medium) and Austria (high) or the English speaking countries Great Britain (high), Republic of Ireland (low) and Northern Ireland (low). Northern Ireland is more Irish than British and Austria is definitely a culture separate from Germany and more related to Hungary, Czechia and Slovakia. The unique low value of east Germany demonstrates how much attitudes are shaped within 1 to 2 generations of cultural hegemony. However, East Germany is unique among former communist countries which all show medium to high prevalence of telepathy. 4) The difference between the 1980 and 2000 polls can be explained by (a) short range vs. long range telepathy, (b) experience vs. belief in the possible occurrence (plausibility), (c) decline of incidence over time, (d) different judgment of terms that guide what is perceived as experience, and (e) experiences that do not lead to belief. In detail: 5) Over the last generation from 1980 to 2000 prevalence of telepathy has declined. This is evident in Sweden, Iceland and Great Britain where belief in telepathy was polled in both 1980 and There is also indirect evidence from Germany and Italy where the 2000 figure in belief is lower than the 1980 figure in experience. 6) In 1980 the question that is labeled telepathy did not ask for transference of thought in general but for occurrences at great distance. In 2000 the question used the word telepathy. It included experience at long and short range plus plausibility without experience. Experience of telepathy, including those at short range, cannot be larger than the figures labeled belief. 7) Belief that telepathy exists generally is higher than experience in telepathy. The number of people that consider it possible or have experience at short distance but have not experienced it at large distance differs from country to country (see e.g. Malta and Holland) but these results may be biased by different rates of decline for telepathy in different countries. Countries with low rates of long-range experience are unproportionally high in belief (see correlation diagram). 8) Telepathy is more prevalent in the US than in Western Europe. The US level is comparable to Eastern Europe (the former East-block). This contradicts the presupposition that the former East-block was materialistic in any superficial manner. 9) Clairvoyance, a visual form of telepathy, is widespread but to a lesser degree than telepathy. 10) Incidence of telepathy is positively correlated with other paranormal phenomena, not only with clairvoyance but also with having had contact with dead (see correlation diagram). It is, however, different persons that experience the different types of paranormal phenomena (and only a small fraction that experiences two or all three). 11) Persons that have experienced telepathy but don t believe give alternative explanations for their experience and reject the theoretical model implied by the term telepathy (table 2). 12) Reported figures by elite scientists may also be biased by their a-priori disregard. Such disregard may lead to not paying attention to experiences that are decisive for others, and hence not reporting those. Moreover opinion on belief may be biased by disregard for current experimental research activities in the field. Similarly spiritual experiences may not be classified as psychic. Also, some people may hear voices where others just reason. This is a particular possibility if it concerns reasoning about opinion held by named others. 13) Dissatisfaction with current theoretic framework that promotes telepathy and other paranormal phenomena is widespread, but it affects elites more than average respondents. The low polls among elite scientists may not so much indicate a-priori preoccupation but discrepancies of language and difficulty to grasp the notions in sufficient intricacy. E.g. does extrasensory perception refer to communication that does not use the common 5 senses, or is

9 it defined by lack of known physical mechanisms (thus is a 6 th sense based on electromagnetic propagation not extrasensory at all). Theory-laden people may consequently reject telepathy while being familiar with phenomena that others would call telepathy. 14) Telepathy is not prevented by Faraday cage, i.e. is not electromagnetic in type. It is widely believed that physics can not explain it. Such a priori reason then leads highly educated people to questions the existence of the phenomenon altogether. 15) A current attempt to explain telepathy physically is as non-local quantum phenomena. Opinions are still controversial. 16) Psychoanalysis has no problem with telepathy though it does not use this name. It speaks of counter-transference and there like, i.e. of phenomena that imply telepathy. Psychoanalysis does not only consider conscious telepathy (the subject polled) but also unconscious events that may be far more abundant.