Are there more than five senses?

As you know, there are five major human senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. However, there is a sixth sense, but its existence is controversial.

ESP, or extrasensory perception is often considered the sixth human sense. It’s defined as the reception of information not gained from the main senses, and it’s the basis of parapsychology, a branch of psychology that studies paranormal psychic phenomenon.

ESP is the ability to see things that are not seen, as in knowing the card that is drawn and laid face down or knowing what’s in a picture that is turned away. Telepathy, hypnotism, Odic Force and clairvoyance are often lumped into this psychic category. This sort of perception is often associated with magicians and seers, both suggesting an element of trickery.

So, how does one determine if a person has this so-called sixth sense? That’s where parapsychology comes in. There has been a ton of research done on this phenomenon over many decades and a good deal of it has generated scientific controversy.

The earliest scientific studies on parapsychological phenomenon were done in London in1882 by the Society for Psychical Research and it eventually moved to the United States in Boston and New York City. Stanford and Duke Universities became the first American institutions to study parapsychology. So, how did they study this psychic ability and what did they find?

The first tests were done using quantitative experiments with cards and dice and applying statistical analysis to the results. They assembled various people in rooms and asked them to guess what card had been drawn from a deck or what was the result of a hidden dice throw. When the subjects of the experiment were in adjoining rooms, they had guessed right greater than statistical chance, When they were separated at distance, they were no better than chance would predict. Sounds like Vegas to me, baby!

Many scientists concluded that many of the results of the Stanford and Duke studies were biased and anecdotal and failed to prove that ESP was legitimate. Milboume Christopher, an illusionist, wrote that there were many ways that a subject could cheat on these early ESP experiments. None of the criticism satiated the desire to obtain proof of the phenomenon. In fact, The Parapsychological Association was founded in 1957 in Durham, North Carolina to foster more research on this subject and it became an affiliate of The American Association for the Advancement of Science, a prominent and respected organization.

Modern research on parapsychology has faded into oblivion, mostly because of the failure to obtain good scientific proof of the phenomenon related to it. A lot of the work has gone back to Europe and the UK from where it came.

Parapsychology studies Telepathy, Precognition, Clairvoyance, Psychokinesis, Near-death experiences, Reincarnation and Apparitional experiences. The last item sounds like what happens in séances. All of these are controversial and subject to ridicule.

I think that a near-death experience is the most interesting subject. Many people have reported being out of their body and in a heaven-like setting during a time when they were near death. Some have used these accounts to propose the existence of the soul.

Many people have related that they were someone else in a former life. Reincarnation is part of Hindu religion and some other sects, but it’s a red-flag for Christians, Muslins and Jews.

Precognition, psychokinesis and telepathy violate laws of physics, but many have claimed these powers and have even demonstrated ability. This has lead to a claim that parapsychology is pseudoscience. Some have tried to explain them as being from psychological causes. In other words, the people who claim these abilities are nuts.

I’m not sure that I would dismiss the body of work as being unscientific. There are a lot of things in this world that are mysterious and unexplained. Many of the things that science has discovered were in the same boat, so to speak. It just need more work.

Thanks for reading.