In my last blog entry, i pointed out the outstanding research confirming that telepathy, clairsentience and precognition exist.

Skeptics will very rarely cite the well-documented parapsychology (psi) literature. They seek every other possible way to prove their disbeliefs in psi rather than rely on the best research. While they can be annoying, I find skeptics fascinating subjects for observation – because skeptics have psi abilities just as much as believers do.

Gertrude Schmeidler’s brilliant observation is well validated in psi research: disbelievers in psi perform significantly poorer than chance levels on psi tests. Labeled the ‘sheep/ goat effect,’ this means that skeptics have psi abilities to approximately the same degree as believers, but skeptics manifest their psi awarenesses into consciousness in ways that are consonant with their beliefs and disbeliefs.

This was discovered when psi research moved from individual, one-on-one testing of psi functions (telepathy, clairsentience, precognition) to group testing. While the researchers had been able to get reliable results in 1:1 testing, they got null results in group testing, despite repeated efforts in various labs around the world. It was only when Schmeidler suggested assessing the results for believers and disbelievers separately that they realized the disbelievers were scoring significantly at levels equivalent to those of believers but in the reverse direction. In other words, skeptics were so thoroughly making wrong guesses that their results were way beyond chance and cancelled out the positive results of the believers.

Meta-analysis show that both believers and disbelievers in ESP perform significantly better than chance (Lawrence, 1993), with significance levels at (p <  10 x 10-8 = odds against chance greater than 1 trillion to 1)

Why is is so difficult for many people to accept that our intuitions, psychic experiences, spiritual awarenesses, spiritual healing, and collective consciousness exist? This is the subject of my next editorial and a detailed article in the International Journal of Healing and Caring that will be published in January (Benor, 2009).

This research is  viatlly important to understanding humanity's cruelty to and abuse of each other; our genociding of other species; our abuse of the environment; and our impending suicide by global heating (warming is an unacceptable euphemism). In effect, we have a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the collective consciousness of humanity.

Reference

Benor, DJ. Fears of acknowledging consciousness as the first principle in health and healing, International J Healing and Caring 2009, 9(1), 1-30.

Lawrence, T. Bringing home the sheep: a meta-analysis of sheep/goat experiments. Proceedings of 36th Annual Parapsychology Convention 1993, Fairhaven, MA: Parapsychological Association.