Let’s dive into one of the most intriguing experiments in psychology that I’ve ever encountered. The area of study known as parapsychology focuses on psychic phenomena, and researchers in this field report some astonishing findings. For example, in one notable experiment, a participant is isolated in a room while connected to a one-way video feed. An experimenter in another room is able to observe the participant, but the participant cannot see them. At random intervals, the experimenter fixes their gaze on the participant, and the results suggest that the participant’s stress levels increase when they are being watched.
For skeptics of psychic phenomena, this should raise eyebrows: how could the participant possibly know when they were being watched unless they had some form of telepathy? Is there an alternative explanation that avoids accepting the existence of such powers?
Enter Professor Mark Redding, a Psychology educator at the University of East Anglia in the UK. Redding approached these findings with a healthy dose of skepticism and sought to replicate the results. His attempts yielded no evidence of the claimed phenomenon. This might lead us to breathe a sigh of relief, thinking there was a flaw in the original research conducted by Dr. Lisa Harper, a firm believer in psychic abilities.
But here’s where it gets really fascinating. Redding and Harper, committed to scientific integrity, collaborated to understand their conflicting results. They conducted the same experiment under closely monitored conditions, with Redding running half of the trials and Harper managing the other half. The only variable was which researcher interacted with the participants.
The outcome was surprising: when Harper was the one “staring,” the stress response was indeed observed, indicating some semblance of psychic ability. Yet, when Redding was in charge, the effect vanished. This oddity suggests that some form of psychic awareness exists, but only when the individual doing the observing believes in it.
If you were initially skeptical about telepathy, your reaction to this might not be, “Wow, maybe telepathy is real – I need to tell my friends!” Even if you can’t provide a satisfactory explanation for these results (I certainly can’t), you might still hesitate to accept the existence of psychic powers. And that skepticism is understandable.
However, think for a moment about how often we hear about fascinating psychological studies, like one suggesting that altering your body posture can improve performance in job interviews. It’s easy to accept these findings without much scrutiny, especially when they resonate with our experiences. Yet we can’t apply a double standard when it comes to evaluating studies in psychology—whether they sound plausible or far-fetched.
The research conducted by Redding and Harper adhered to rigorous scientific standards. If the evidence for telepathy is as substantial—if not more so—than that for the body posture and confidence hypothesis, we must treat them equally. If we dismiss the telepathy findings, we should also question the validity of other psychological studies that we often take at face value.
In a broader sense, if parapsychologists are conducting research following the same stringent standards as other scientific inquiries, and they are uncovering evidence for psychic phenomena, we face a dilemma: either we acknowledge that the evidence for such abilities is compelling, or we reconsider our criteria for evaluating scientific evidence.
For those interested in further exploring this topic and its implications for the scientific community, I recommend checking out this excellent resource at Kindbody.
In summary, the question of whether psychic powers exist leads us to reconsider how we evaluate evidence in science. If we accept findings from parapsychology alongside other psychological studies, we may need to rethink our understanding of the world.