Joseph Rhine and Karl Zener were pioneers of Parapsychology.
Most people in the know regard Professor Joseph Banks Rhine as the granddaddy of Parapsychology. Way back in the 1930's at Duke University, along with associate Dr. Karl Zener, the pair were among the first to seek evidence of Extra Sensory Perception using the 'scientific method'. Up until this point in history the study of the paranormal fell to soothsayers, gypsies and mystics. The two great men are largely unknown despite scientifically proving the existence of E.S.P.
Say what? Surely you'd have heard about such an amazing and impressive discovery. The existence of psychic powers in all of us. The fact that we all have the ability to read each others minds, see what cannot be seen and even predict the future? You'd have heard about that right? Wrong. Sadly extrasensory perception is a taboo subject in science and the findings of Rhine and Zener were swept under the carpet and ignored by mainstream science.
The method revolved around the use of Zener cards, or ESP cards as they are more commonly known. There are a total of 25 cards each bearing one of the five symbols, repeated five times. There would be two volunteers, one to play the role of the 'sender' and the other to be a 'receiver'. The cards would be well mixed so that nobody could know where any of the cards were in the pack and then 'the sender' would select the cards one at a time and mentally project an image into the mind of the 'The receiver' who would attempt to name the card said person was thinking of.
Have you got the skills? Try the Zener test now!
What makes this so interesting is that because there are only five to choose from the chances of guessing correctly are one in five or 20%. But the tests show that, against probability the participants were able to achieve a much higher score. 1850 trials were taken. Probability would expect a 20% success rate, or 370 hits. The total number of successes actually scored for the series is 558, which is better than 30%. So certainly something mysterious is going on here.
Many people in the scientific community doubted the results of J.B Rhine's E.S.P test citing flaws in the experiment, cheating or bias as reason for inaccuracy. To their amazement though when the tests have been reproduced by skeptics of E.S.P, such as the famous Dr. Richard Wiseman the results have been similar.
By the standards applied to any other science ESP has been proven to exist.
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