More on ESP

In editing tags, I came across an earlier post in which I think I was trying to distinguish between terms referring to kinetic acts.

(Let me preface the rest of this by noting the post referenced is not one of my finer moments... I was probably drinking. That is not to say I do not feel strongly about that in which I believe, just that... well, that post goes a bit overboard without ever specifying much of... anything and I fully realize this. But I digress...)

Kinesis is defined as "the movement of an organism in response to a stimulus." In particular, there are two definitions with which we are concerned: telekinesis and psychokinesis. The differences are subtle and often argued.

• Psychokinesis is the discipline of moving something through sheer force of will, or "mind power," if you will; possibly the truest form of "mind over matter."
• Telekinesis is the discipline of communicating with spirits to have them move objects for you. In this regard, telekinesis is often seen as a matter of telepathy - which, technically speaking, it is.

This is why The OddBlog only uses the tag - and term - "ESP," short for Extra Sensory Perception to define all "psychic" abilities. This purposeful lack of delineation between so-called "psychic" phenomena originates with Greece (Psi - Ψ) and is the only clinically scientific way to approach the matter; the Greeks made no attempt to divide psychic phenomena by effect, simply grouping the phenomena into a category by cause. That is to say, no matter the phenomena experienced (precognition, clairvoyance, T/PK, etc.), the source of such was determined to be psychic in nature and classified as such - no further delineation was necessary.

As the above clearly illustrates, we do not have enough information on ESP phenomena to make separations between disciplines and individual phenomenon - so why bother? In fact, the first to even attempt to do so was the Society for Psychical Research, founded in 1882, and while their intent was both admirable and understandable, it is too far-reaching and thus meritless.

When a "psychic" predicts something that comes true, how are we to know whether he possesses some form of precognitive "power" or some form of telepathy which allowed him to communicate with (or be communicated by) some entity which informed him of the matter? This would technically define the difference between a "psychic" and a "psychic medium." But further, maybe some heretofore unknown discipline was exercised which allowed the "psychic" to access some natural energy, field, power, et. al., in which such knowledge is stored - a "dimension" or field where the normal "rules" of time are inapplicable, corrupted, or - even better - so perfect and perfectly true as to contain all things past, present, and future?

In fact, while tests concerning ESP are inconclusive - in no small part because we do not know how to even begin testing them - at least one test carried out in 1971 proved that while ESP is likely (that is, that something inexplicable is present), division beyond that is simply not possible at this stage of research.

© C Harris Lynn, 2008