Extra Sensory Perception
A paranormal cognition (or ‘sixth sense’), which is also called (and more commonly known as) ESP. It is the ability of a human to gain information without making use of the tradition senses the body operates with. This is why the ‘extra’ is in the phenomenon’s name – it is outside normal sensory channels, at least, as they are understood in this day and age. ‘Perception’ can take several forms, be it a vision or a dream of an event, feeling intuition about something (be it vague or not) or affected behaviour from information that never reaches a person’s consciousness
As ESP has been known about for quite a long time, it is now a fairly broad category. As such it has several subdivisions. Telepathy is quite well known, and is a ‘mind to mind’ connection, where an individual can gain information from someone else’s mind, and it usually isn’t controlled. An example would be if a friend suddenly ‘hears’ a friend cry out or has a strong feeling that he or she has been hurt, and then later finds out that at the time of this feeling, the friend was in a serious accident. In this example of telepathy, a message of distress somehow transferred from one friend’s mind telepathically to the others. However, some people would not accept this as an example of ESP, instead claiming it to be mere coincidence.
Clairvoyance is another example in the ESP category, and has similarities to telepathy. It is where somebody can gain information about a place, event or object without use of the normal senses. Unlike with telepathy, this phenomenon does not rely on a ‘mind to mind’ contact with another individual.
A third case is known as precognition, which unlike telepathy and clairvoyance does not happen in real time, but rather it is to do with a future event. In most cases, precognition manifests in the same way clairvoyance does, though some manifest in a telepathic manner. Precognition is probably the most common of ESP reports
Psychokinesis
Also called PK, psychokinesis is the ability of a being (humans in most cases) to affect objects and event in his or her surroundings, without the conventional use of muscular movement or any known physical energy. The word ‘psychokinesis’ is the combination of a pair of Greek words, psycho (mind) and kinesis (motion). As such, the phenomenon today is depicted as a direct influence on objects or systems through use of the consciousness only.
A popular, but less accurate term given to PK is ‘mind over matter’. This lacks precision however, as this phrase can refer to many other things, such as meditation and self healing
This phenomenon is reported more rarely than extra sensory perception, and unlike ESP, it is hardly ever spontaneous. The most common examples of spontaneous occurrences would be poltergeists or a clock stopping at the moment of a person’s death
More deliberate examples of psychokinesis include levitation, moving and deforming objects, and more rarely, teleportation of objects. This has now become to be known as macro-psychokinesis with the rise of research into conscious influence on electronic devices – PK on atomic particles. This is called micro-psychokinesis. The difference between the two is if the effects can be seen (macro-PK) or if statistical evaluation is needed to determine if something out of the ordinary happened. There are however, some experiments that can fall between the two (such as dice throwing)
Perhaps one of the most confrontational examples of psychokinesis to turn up in parapsychology is that of materialisation. Reports of this occur mainly during séances and usually were only partial. However, as these materialised objects never outlasted the séance, another phenomenon, dematerialisation is added. The former hold more doubts and suspicions, as it would be relatively easy to fake a materialised object. However, dematerialisation would be harder to fraud, as the object in question would have to simply melt away.