Parapsychologists who study psychic ability say that telepathy is gaining information from someone else without using one’s senses. If you see a picture without viewing it with your eyes or you hear something in your head without your ears picking it up, that is the definition of telepathy. The question that creates a rift between the parapsychology community and the skeptical anomalistic psychologists is whether the source of telepathy is paranormal or if it’s due to some subconscious awareness or other psychological phenomena.
The troubles with studying telepathy are many. Primarily, there are very, very few people with a purported telepathic skill that can be measured much above average ability. The analogy given to me when I asked John G. Kruth, director of the Rhine Research Center, is golfers. Most people could pick up a driver and hit the golf ball a few times out of ten. Once in a while, they’ll hit that ball onto the green and near the hole. Some people really want to play golf well and will practice several hours a week but never get much better than a few strokes over par. Then there is Tiger Woods. He had the great good fortune to have natural ability paired with a father who would push him to practice the game. In his prime, he consistently played under par due to his innate ability, a great deal of practice and an insane level of confidence.
The problem with having so few truly telepathic people to study is that scientific method requires many data points or several individuals to be tested so a trend can emerge. Another issue when studying telepathy is that the perception of a “hit” (accurate guess) can be subtle and elusive. It’s similar to waking up in the middle of the night wondering if you really heard that noise and if so, what was that noise and what might have caused it. Still, more problems seem to arise when time no longer matters. A telepath can make an observation that seems to be from the past, present or future. Then, some telepathic messages can be symbolic. For instance, if the telepath perceives a sun, the message might mean a very large ball, the color yellow, heat or any number of other options.
An example of something that might be considered telepathic happened as I am writing this blog entry: my coworker comes in from another room and, while waiting for a document to print, mimes hitting a golf ball with a driver. I didn’t discuss what I was writing with anyone though it was visible to others in the room with me. Perhaps someone went into the other room and mentioned it, but I certainly didn’t. When I asked my coworker, he did not claim to have heard a conversation about it nor did he claim to have read what I left on the screen. He found it to be an interesting coincidence that he would mime a golf swing as I write about it.
The anomalistic psychologists would say that there is a logical explanation to what has just occurred. The human brain perceives a great deal of information that remains subliminal to our conscious minds. The conscious mind only deals with the information that is important to it at the time. There are many fun experiments that have proven this lack of conscious perception to be true (See the Gorilla Experiment). Sometimes the subliminal message comes to the fore and we have no idea how we got the information. It may have been from a story on the radio or a conversation that we didn’t pay much attention to at the time. When we are close to a person, like a best friend or spouse of many decades, it would seem like we’re finishing their sentences, bringing them a glass of water when they’re thirsty though they haven’t asked for one, or calling them just as they’re thinking about us. Is this telepathy? Most likely, non-verbal communication in close relationships like this is a poor example of psychic ability because we know the people closest to us so well. Experience has taught us what they will say or do under certain circumstances.
Regardless of the paranormal or simply exceptional source of telepathy, it is still an ability worth studying further. The Tiger Woods level telepath might feel like they are becoming unpinned to reality when all they truly need is the professional guidance of a fellow telepath. Telepaths can sense an illness or guide the troubled. Both Ancient humans and current tribes considered those with exceptional insight as beneficial to their societies. It is only due to our strong adherence to physical scientific proof that we miss the more subtle and nebulous aspects of our own inner sense-abilities.