paranormal-investigations

Origin obsolete French présentiment, from Latin praesentientire “perceive beforehand”. The general overall meaning for presentiment is that of prophecy and the future, a feeling that something will or is about to happen i.e. premonition and it differs from pre-vision in that it is a feeling rather than a picture and experiences have been reported throughout history and across all cultures (Rhine, 1969; Radin, 1997).

Research into this “phenomena” has been undertaken for over a century under controlled conditions in an attempt to ascertain whether these experiences are better understood/interpreted as coincidences, selective memory or whether some might actually be what they appear to be.

Precognition has been referred to as an intuitive hunch, especially when the hunch has been reported prior to unexpected emotional event(s) (Moss & Gengerelli, 1968; Bechara et al, 1997). This theory appears to be heightened when perceived as a bad feeling, especially when there seems to be no logical explanation or evidence prior to such an event.

In reality there are things which we as individuals sense but do not necessarily understand. From this I mean the issue of a “feeling” to which we cannot explain the reasoning behind and a good example of this is not given from a human perspective but from one of the animal kingdom. This was seen in the case of the Boxing Day Tsunami, where a young elephant’s reaction to get away from the beach area immediately with a child who had, over the previous few days, become bonded with the elephant. This would seem on the face of it to give rise to the issue that animals appear to have a presentiment of natural phenomena such as, in this case, an earthquake, through sensitiveness to certain physical conditions which precede the actual earthquake. In these cases the inner sense may perceive an event before it has happened on the physical plane and such cases are too numerous for them to be lightly dismissed as imaginary or mere coincidences. (YDE, 2009)

Precognition is perceived as a form of extra-sensory perception (ESP) which allows an individual to sense information about future places or events before they happen and is therefore used as a collective term for more than one type of foretelling future events. Some psychics receive information about the future through a process that is referred to as presentiment and within the context of precognition the individual receives impressions that are based in the display of a range of emotions surrounding a person or an event. For example, there may be a sense of fear associated with a person in the near future with the impression being that the person is going to be injured in some way. Those who believe in precognition stress that such “visions” should not be taken at face value alone, but rather they may indicate something will occur if changes are not made.

An example which could be provided here is that when a psychic has a vision of, for instance, someone being attacked in a given locale and advised of such danger, the individual could then take steps to avoid such locale until such time as the “danger” had passed. Is this just not avoiding the inevitable of the individual’s fate, especially if the individual in question has something in their past history that is not known to the “world” generally i.e. mitigating factors? In the latter explanation, it would not be psychic information but merely an understanding of knowing how the world actually works. (YDE, 2009)

While the validity of precognition, along with other types of ESP, continues to be debated, there is no doubt that many people place a great deal of faith in the reality of this form of psychic expression.

A sixth sense is a sense beyond the conventionally accepted five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. For most, the term is used to describe a sensitive sense of intuition or perception which allows people to predict events or pick up on subtle cues which others miss. Studies have been conducted in this area to ascertain whether or not people really can predict things and most of the studies concluded that the sixth sense does not in fact exist. However, there appears to be dispute between Dean Radin and Ray Hyman as to whether hunches can be perceived as intuition and subsequently used to predict a given situation, with Radin being the believer in this debate.

There are several possible explanations for why such "intuitive hunches" sometimes work.

1. On a subconscious level we are always thinking and coming to conclusions but these only register as hunches to our conscious mind.

2. We read cues from body language, subliminal sounds or peripheral vision without being consciously aware of doing so and in some circumstances individuals who are less perceptive might mistake the same as a sixth sense.

3. Being aware that for each coincidence we remember what about the times a hunch did not materialise.

4. We modify memories for our own convenience thereby creating a connection where it may not have existed.

These explanations possibly account for most intuitive hunches, but they don't explain them all - many individuals get a gut feeling before something bad happens.

PSI is an impartial term for psychic experiences. Scientists worldwide have studied PSI in laboratories for over a century and scientific evidence is now stronger than ever for commonly reported experiences such as telepathy, clairvoyance and precognition.

Radin asked, "Do experiments prove without doubt that sixth sense exists?” and answers “Not yet." This would suggest that further experiments should be undertaken by independent investigators to prove that sixth sense is actually real and that they should achieve their results by use of different apparatus, measurements and by the use of random procedures, in addition to replicating Radin’s results thereby avoiding reproducing any errors Radin may have made, otherwise it would just result in faulty results.

It should be borne in mind, however, that how does one replicate and measure findings when there is no specific evidence source to compare the findings to. By this I mean, for example, you have a crime scene and not only is the physical evidence taken from that scene for analysis, but a “control” sample would also be used for comparison with and against the resultant findings. The evidence in terms of PSI etc is not readily available for such comparative purposes, therefore how you can replicate the same?! (YDE, 2009)

Scientific investigations have been conducted over the past 150 years and there is an abundant supply of examples claiming proof of paranormal existence. However, that said, modern day parapsychologists would appear to discard most these examples giving the reason that such experiments and findings were unsafe in the provision of proving definite proof of paranormal phenomena, PSI etc.

Piczo