ESP, psychic and supernatural phenomenon... yes or no?

[Gaura Priya]

Do you believe in it? Yes or no?

I am a sceptic when it comes to supernatural phenomenon... Except for my belief in God, the Afterlife, the soul, and the material realm, it is difficult for me to believe in angels, demigods, ghosts and demons, seeing them as metaphorical.

ESP and psychic phenomenon, furthermore, are things that are occurring within the material laws instead of above them; after all, if humans are capable of them, why not? It goes back to Vaishnavism teaching that siddhis, or yogic powers, are attainable, yet pointless in spiritual life because they distract and can lead to pride.

 

[fallingblood]

Do you believe in it? Yes or no?

I am a sceptic when it comes to supernatural phenomenon... Except for my belief in God, the Afterlife, the soul, and the material realm, it is difficult for me to believe in angels, demigods, ghosts and demons, seeing them as metaphorical.

ESP and psychic phenomenon, furthermore, are things that are occurring within the material laws instead of above them; after all, if humans are capable of them, why not? It goes back to Vaishnavism teaching that siddhis, or yogic powers, are attainable, yet pointless in spiritual life because they distract and can lead to pride.

I'm in the no camp. I have been a professional magician for almost 8 years now, and during that time, studied psychic claims, and even did a number of mentalist performances.

To this day, I have not seen a feat of ESP, psychic phenomenon, etc that I can't reproduce. Now, that doesn't mean those phenomenon aren't true, but if I can reproduce them using trickery, I see little reason to believe in them.

 

[PolyHedral]

There has been no evidnce that such abilities are genuine.

 

[Noaidi]

Do you believe in it? Yes or no?

No. Psychology can show how easy it is to manipulate the way a person thinks.

 

[fallingblood]

No. Psychology can show how easy it is to manipulate the way a person thinks.

Actually, many psychologist are very easily fooled by such phenomena.

 

[jarofthoughts]

Do you believe in it? Yes or no?

I am a sceptic when it comes to supernatural phenomenon... Except for my belief in God, the Afterlife, the soul, and the material realm, it is difficult for me to believe in angels, demigods, ghosts and demons, seeing them as metaphorical.

ESP and psychic phenomenon, furthermore, are things that are occurring within the material laws instead of above them; after all, if humans are capable of them, why not? It goes back to Vaishnavism teaching that siddhis, or yogic powers, are attainable, yet pointless in spiritual life because they distract and can lead to pride.

I'm firmly in the 'no' camp.
Having previously used, among other things, cold reading as a party trick, I am well aware of how easily people are fooled by this.

 

[Noaidi]

Actually, many psychologist are very easily fooled by such phenomena.

Wouldn't they know better?

 

[fallingblood]

Wouldn't they know better?

One would think so, but not really. Its the same way with scientists in general. They are of the idea that they can't be fooled, because they know how things work. However, it is easy to play with that mentality. I can't tell you how many psychologists that I have convinced that I have some real gift. Of course, later one I tell them that it is nothing more than tricks, but they are quite easily fooled.

Now, that doesn't mean they all are, but many are.

 

[outhouse]

Do you believe in it? Yes or no?

I am a sceptic when it comes to supernatural phenomenon... Except for my belief in God, the Afterlife, the soul, and the material realm, it is difficult for me to believe in angels, demigods, ghosts and demons, seeing them as metaphorical.

ESP and psychic phenomenon, furthermore, are things that are occurring within the material laws instead of above them; after all, if humans are capable of them, why not? It goes back to Vaishnavism teaching that siddhis, or yogic powers, are attainable, yet pointless in spiritual life because they distract and can lead to pride.

Ive been intuitive all my life, not sure I would place that in the ESP catagory.


I have at one time picked 13 suits correctly from a deck of cards. The guy testing me was ticked off because I was so accurate, he stated if your so good pick the top card, I said it was the 4 of diamonds and then said nope its the 5 of diamonds. He flipped it and it was the 4 of diamonds. Never been that good since. Cant explain how I did it, i just knew.

driving through a foreign country my first night [lima peru] about the size of L.A I was riding with my wife and father in law and I had a feeling and asked hey where does your brother I met early live? we had been on the road for 80 min and they all gave me the weirdest look and said how did you know that? they said when you asked we were driving by his house.

I race motorcycles, riding towards a bus one day parked on the side of a 55mph hwy I had a feeling someone would cut out, I slowed to 5 mph and when I got to the front of the bus a guy whipped out flying around the front of the bus. I would have T boned him.


Some guys came over to murder my friend while I was there, I had no idea who these guys were but they spooked me by feeling alone, I put my 38cal on my hood where they could see it, the feeling kind of subsided so I put it away, then they got froggy looking again as martin was talking to them and kept looking over at me. I used my finger in my jacket to simulate a gun and one guy touched his friend and they got in the car and left. I didnt think anything of it and left martin at his house. Last time I had seen martin ever. They came back after I left and but 6 12 guage rounds in his back to steel his weed. I did help the police catch the guys by my description. My intuition saved my life that time.


ESP not sure, but I dont say no out of ignorance

 

[PolyHedral]

Never been that good since.

This is a very bad sign from a "confirmation bias" side of things.

 

[dawny0826]

Do you believe in it? Yes or no?

I am a sceptic when it comes to supernatural phenomenon... Except for my belief in God, the Afterlife, the soul, and the material realm, it is difficult for me to believe in angels, demigods, ghosts and demons, seeing them as metaphorical.

ESP and psychic phenomenon, furthermore, are things that are occurring within the material laws instead of above them; after all, if humans are capable of them, why not? It goes back to Vaishnavism teaching that siddhis, or yogic powers, are attainable, yet pointless in spiritual life because they distract and can lead to pride.

I totally believe in angels and demons and they fascinate the heck out of me.

I may be strange but I don't want to believe in a world where there aren't unseen forces around me.

 

[Quintessence]

I'm of the mind that ESP/psychism are just more magical words to describe a phenomena that is "mundane" so I believe in them, but not in any supernaturalistic sense. Preternatural maybe, but supernatural - if it exists - does so completely outside the sphere of human perception and knowledge.

 

[Penumbra]

No, I don't believe in ESP/psychics, and I'm not going to believe in it unless there is evidence. Testing to prove or falsify this sort of claim is more straightforward than a lot of other supernatural claims.

 

[CynthiaCypher]

Ive been intuitive all my life, not sure I would place that in the ESP catagory.


I have at one time picked 13 suits correctly from a deck of cards. The guy testing me was ticked off because I was so accurate, he stated if your so good pick the top card, I said it was the 4 of diamonds and then said nope its the 5 of diamonds. He flipped it and it was the 4 of diamonds. Never been that good since. Cant explain how I did it, i just knew.

driving through a foreign country my first night [lima peru] about the size of L.A I was riding with my wife and father in law and I had a feeling and asked hey where does your brother I met early live? we had been on the road for 80 min and they all gave me the weirdest look and said how did you know that? they said when you asked we were driving by his house.

I race motorcycles, riding towards a bus one day parked on the side of a 55mph hwy I had a feeling someone would cut out, I slowed to 5 mph and when I got to the front of the bus a guy whipped out flying around the front of the bus. I would have T boned him.


Some guys came over to murder my friend while I was there, I had no idea who these guys were but they spooked me by feeling alone, I put my 38cal on my hood where they could see it, the feeling kind of subsided so I put it away, then they got froggy looking again as martin was talking to them and kept looking over at me. I used my finger in my jacket to simulate a gun and one guy touched his friend and they got in the car and left. I didnt think anything of it and left martin at his house. Last time I had seen martin ever. They came back after I left and but 6 12 guage rounds in his back to steel his weed. I did help the police catch the guys by my description. My intuition saved my life that time.


ESP not sure, but I dont say no out of ignorance

Sounds like you had a few synchronistic events happen in your life. While those events were still coincidences they were meaningful coincidences

 

[outhouse]

No, I don't believe in ESP/psychics, and I'm not going to believe in it unless there is evidence. Testing to prove or falsify this sort of claim is more straightforward than a lot of other supernatural claims.

See I dont look at it as supernatural in any way.

I dont know how to look at it and dont try and classify either.


Most of my stories could be just dead luck and coincidence, the card guessing wasnt.

Wish i could repeat it and be that lucky all the time.

 

[Bob Dixon]

No. I find it illogical and, what's more, my religion does too.

 

[nameless]

There has been no evidnce that such abilities are genuine.

there is no point in 'proving' it to others, it wont make any difference other than some entertainment.

 

[outhouse]

This is a very bad sign from a "confirmation bias" side of things.

wish I could explain it and or recreate it. wish i knew more about it.


Of course on a completely different side of things I did dowsing professionally for a water well drilling company and I cant explain that either. But it does work despite what others may say from a stance of ignorance.

That has been around long enough its viewed as witchcraft in the bible

 

[fallingblood]

wish I could explain it and or recreate it. wish i knew more about it.


Of course on a completely different side of things I did dowsing professionally for a water well drilling company and I cant explain that either. But it does work despite what others may say from a stance of ignorance.

That has been around long enough its viewed as witchcraft in the bible

Dowsing has been tested greatly and has been shown to be explained away by purely logical means. James Randi has also tested dowsers quite a bit and showed that under test conditions, dowsers simply fail.

I have also tested such claims and have been able to replicate them better than many actual dowsers. I can see how it would be seen as supernatural, because it does look like that from first view and because the actual mechanics behind it are involuntary or not consciously done. Basically, it comes down to observation. There are certain things that give people clues to where water or the like are, and many dowsers simply are not aware that they know this information. It is something that is just subconsciously picked up and then effects future use.

This is why when it is actually tested, under actual test conditions, dowsers fail. They don't have the cues to pick up on, and thus can't successfully do it.

 

[fallingblood]

there is no point in 'proving' it to others, it wont make any difference other than some entertainment.

If it does exist, there is more than enough reason to prove it. First, one could test if someone is a scam artist or genuine. It could have practical uses such as helping police find missing persons, instead of just leading them in circles like psychics do now. It could be great in the military or business in general.

Really, it could have a lot of benefits if it was proven true.