What powers do we possess, beyond the normal five senses? Are psychic abilities real or illusion? Have you ever been troubled by ghosts, prophetic dreams, or an 'out of body' experience? Such questions are the subject of frequent inquiry and debate, and objective explanations are hard to come by. In our March-April 1995 issue OPEN EXCHANGE MAGAZINE hosted an inquiry, The Great ESP Debate, with parapsychologist Loyd Auerbach and skeptic Bob Steiner. Here are some highlights:
Auerbach and Steiner are two truth seekers, friends and colleagues, who happen to be on opposite sides of the ESP controversy. While the popular media often vilifies one side or the other in these debates—variously portraying psychics as unscrupulous con artists and skeptics as close-minded curmudgeons—we wish to offer OPEN EXCHANGE readers and class participants a balanced, thoughtful presentation. Our purpose is not to change your mind or tell you what to believe, but to offer alternative explanations for strange, anomalous occurrences—and to let you decide for yourself.

Is there such a thing as extrasensory perception, or ESP? First, Loyd Auerbach makes "The Case For ESP," then, Bob Steiner argues "The Case Against ESP." Steiner and Auerbach, friends and colleagues, have come to opposite conclusions. But what do you think? As always, your letters will determine the content of future articles. Right? Write!
—Bart Brodsky, Publisher

The Case For ESP

As parapsychologists have learned over the decades, the incidence of reported ESP experiences is fairly evenly distributed across the population, making these experiences far from unusual or extraordinary in the course of human experience. Most parapsychologists would consider nothing "extra" about ESP, except in the sense that it is a perceptual process not included in the current label of "normal" sensory perception.
Robert Morris of Edinburgh University has used the phrase "communication anomalies" to describe these experiences, and Keith Harary and Darlene Moore of San Francisco's Institute for Advanced Psychology coined the phrase "extended perception" or "extended human abilities" to cover the process by which the mind somehow brings in information through space (and possibly time).

Has ESP been proven a real quality of human beings? Does good evidence exist for extended perception? Where is the physical root for ESP?

These are three different questions, and you will get very different answers depending on who you ask.

Acceptance of the existence of psi, which is a form of perception, has been held up for physical proof. How could it work, given what we know about the brain and mind and the physics of the Universe? The answer is: we don't know, yet. On the other hand, we also don't know much, from a physical standpoint, about how the mind works. One question to ask the critics of parapsychology is "Should parapsychologists be conducting physics experiments when studying information processing, or psychology experiments?

The experimental methodologies utilized in parapsychology follow those of experimental psychology, mainly because we are dealing with information processing, perception and the mind, all areas that fall under a social science approach versus a physical science one. Yet the evidence consistently demanded by skeptics is "physical." I guess that means statistical proofs for effects in psychology, dealing with that esoteric (and not physically proven) item called the mind is also lacking.

Has ESP been proven? Not to most scientists. For many in academic pursuits, revealing an interest in psi is tantamount to admitting the world is flat. The scientist without an established reputation is ridiculed and often ostracized.

Yet the skeptics will drive home the point that psi experiments need to be replicated, especially by those outside the field of parapsychology. This point is one which all within parapsychology would agree. But consider this: There is almost no funding, fewer than 200 full and part time researchers around the world who conduct experimental series (and, as are all not working to replicate each others' works, these experiments only build a general body of evidence, not strict replications).

So therein lies a good part of the angst of parapsychological researchers; for ESP to be accepted as "proven," there must be independent replications. However, as there seems to be little or no interest expressed by most "mainstream" scientists, the replications will not be done outside the field of parapsychology.

So, is there evidence for ESP that builds a case for its existence?

For readers who automatically say "No," I wonder if you have actually read the many research reports published in refereed journals of the field (such as The Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research)? Or have you just "heard about" the research or perhaps read a review in a skeptical (and perhaps biased) publication?

For those of you who say "Yes" to that question, I wonder the same thing. Are you basing your support (of the evidence) on the scientific data or on personal experience?

The experimental body of evidence that exists has been developing over the years. Because of potential issues of sensory leakage and possibility of fraud on the part of experimental subjects, the best experiments are conducted double-blind, and in a manner that subject fraud can be easily ruled out (even further reduced as a possibility by using "average" people rather than self-professed gifted subjects who may have much to gain by achieving positive results in a laboratory experiment).

Over the past few years, statistical analyses of the data in Remote Viewing experiments (in which a subject describes a randomly chosen object or location not known to him/her), the Ganzfeld studies (in which subjects in mild sensory deprivation describe randomly chosen images shown to a "sender" in another location), and other studies, have convinced a number of researchers from outside (and within) the field of parapsychology that there is some form of information processing that we have not yet identified (except with convenient labels like "ESP"), or explained.

Looking at human experiences reported outside the artificial setting of the laboratory, the same information processing/communication anomalies appear to exist. As with other human experiences and examples of human behavior that are hard to induce and therefore study in the lab, one must look both at controlled experimental studies and "real" experiences.

Perception is a mental process; information that comes in through our senses is processed, organized and interpreted by the brain/mind. Based on both spontaneous experiences and laboratory studies, there is overwhelming evidence that we are processing some information that does not appear to be attributable to our "normal" senses, inference, or memory.

Enough work has been done to indicate that human experiences include a component of apparent information processing that we have no consistently good explanations for, but not enough has been done to have statistical proofs that all would accept. We need to study these experiences in and out of the lab to further understand these very real, very common human experiences. And isn't that what Science is all about?
Ultimately, parapsychologists may have to redefine these experiences both in and out of the lab in a more "acceptable" fashion, perhaps an information processing approach, that allows other scientists to look into them without feeling embarrassment or fear of academic reprisal or ridicule.

The "Case for ESP" rests on a body of evidence, based both in the lab and out. But perhaps first the "case" needs to be redefined, before the "jury" can consider the evidence and render an informed decision.

The Case Against ESP

What Does ESP Mean?

In order to understand the topic under discussion, it is essential that we understand the words we use. ESP, also known as extrasensory perception, means:

communication or perception by means other than the physical senses
     —The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language

perception (as in telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition) that involves awareness of information about events external to the self not gained through the senses and not deducible from previous experience
     —Merriam Websters Collegiate Dictionary

Extrasensory perception does not mean simply heightened awareness or greater sensitivity to what is going on. It is not another expression for intuition. Extra means that it must be beyond normal perception, beyond intuition.

Extraterrestrial means "originating, existing, or occurring outside the earth or its atmosphere" [Webster's].

Extramarital sex does not mean heightened sex within the marriage. It means outside the marriage.

Anyone who uses the term ESP as a synonym for intuition, or for heightened awareness, is misusing the language.

Language is the assignment of meaning to certain noises. The way we understand one another is by using the same noises to refer to the same meanings. If you refer to the four-legged, inanimate object on which we eat dinner as a table, while I refer to it as an elephant, we are doomed to failure in our communication. It is common usage, as chronicled in the dictionaries, that determines what certain noises will mean. If you want to be understood, you must follow common usage.

The Burden of Proof

The burden of proof rests on the one making the claim.

Suppose I tell you that I can flap my arms and fly, with no strings, no motors, no smoke, and no mirrors. Can you prove that I cannot do that?

No, you cannot prove that. However, you do not have to. I have made the claim; I must show the proof. You have nothing to prove, and nothing to disprove. If, and only if, I present credible evidence to support my claim, then you must address, assess, and evaluate my evidence.

For 13 years, Bay Area Skeptics has offered $11,000 to anyone in the Bay Area who can demonstrate ESP under properly controlled scientific conditions. Many have inquired. Some have tried. No one has succeeded. (The current 2004 prize is at least one million dollars.—Editor)

The dog who could add, subtract, and do cube roots...could not.

The professional tarot reader who could divine useful information from a subject, even though the subject volunteered no information...could not.

The man who beat us playing poker, because he was assisted by his guardian angels...could not.

On many television programs, I have been pronounced psychic by subjects on whom I did readings. They "knew" that I could not possibly have gotten my information by normal means. I am a professional magician. I did get the information by normal means...deceptive, highly skilled, but normal.

Where is the Good Solid Evidence for the Existence of ESP?

We have heard many claims about the existence of ESP. We have heard discussions of when it works, where it works, and how it works. Before you waste your time discussing the when, where, why and how of ESP, you must first determine whether it works. We have no good evidence that ESP even exists. By good evidence, I mean evidence produced under properly controlled scientific conditions, evidence that has been replicated in other experiments.

It is not enough for the proponents of ESP to say that there are "anomalies." Or that "science cannot explain everything." Or that "there is something going on out there." Or that human beings do not use the full capacity of our brain power." Or that "there are a lot of unexplained experiences in life." Even granting the correctness of all but one of the above, which I do grant, that does not prove the existence of ESP. (The oft-heard statement that "there is something going on out there" is too vague to even address whether it is correct.) Show us your evidence!

We have an interesting phenomenon taking place in ESP experiments that occurs nowhere else in science. Assume that you and I are chemists. I tell you that I mixed 3 parts of Chemical A, 8 parts of Chemical C, and 4 parts of Chemical X, and got the following result (which I detail to you). You do not inquire whether I cheated or lied, or whether my Doberman urinated into the mixture. No! You simply go back to your laboratory and mix the same quantities of the same chemicals. If you get the same result, we have another step toward forming a hypothesis.

In ESP, on the other hand, it seems that often we have just one experiment to "prove" a point. After that, people debate whether the controls were adequate. Where are the replications?

Parapsychologist Keith Harary conducted an experiment in remote viewing, wherein it is claimed that someone can perceive targets (locations) at a distance. The subject, having been chosen by a television producer, did impressively well in "guessing" the targets.

I asked Harary whether the television producer knew the locations of the targets. Harary did not know whether the television producer knew the target locations. That weakness in controls, that failure of the person conducting the experiment to control pertinent information, should be enough to simply throw out that experiment. Set it up again with proper controls. But no! Harary insists that that information is unimportant to the experiment. Remember, it was the television producer who selected the subject who seemed to score so well.

Where ESP Works, and Where It Does Not Work

ESP "works" in poorly controlled experiments. And it "works" enough in the field to provide many unsubstantiated, untestable anecdotal stories.

ESP does not work in the following four places:

at the racetrack
at the gaming tables in the casinos
in the stock market
in the scientific laboratory.

One must wonder why it never works in those important places.