Telepathy Confirmed In Recent Tests
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/article1683.html

Telepathy Confirmed In Recent Tests
By THoTH

Telepathy is one of those subjects that you either accept as a
possibility or reality, or as something without substance that is
performed by clever illusionists. At it's core is the notion that
seperate minds can link and interact regardless of distance or
circumstance. It has a highly controversial history. Right up to the
present day with those either side of the fence stating it's reality or
dismissing it out of hand.
Last year, the British Association of Science set apart a section of its
"Annual Festival of Science" to allow a scientist (Rupert Sheldrake) to
discuss "Telephone Telepathy". We've all experienced this, or at least
the majority of us. We think about a person seemingly out of the blue
only to find the telephone rings and that person is the one who is
calling, the one we were thinking about. As a result of the subject
being discussed, the Association found itself at the centre of a huge
controversy.

Professor Peter Atkins commented in a radio interview that the samples
used were tiny, and that the effects were statistically insignificant,
further, that the experiments had not been conducted in a "scientific"
way.
Professor Atkins later admitted that he had not actually seen any of the
findings of the experiment, but insisted that it made no difference to
his original statement, adding that there are no serious reasons for
believing in the effect of telepathy.Not all scientists however agree
with Atkins, as we shall see.

The criticism used against the British Association came from an attempt
to test the assertion that "Telephone Telepathy" was real. The skeptical
view was that selective memory was at play, where people would attach
significance to strange events, but ignore times when there weren't
anything strange. The experiments in question were carried out by Dr
Rupert Sheldrake who has been examining these areas for several years
now. His claim is that the person making the call obviously thinks about
the person they're about to call before they telephone. It is this that
the person at the other end detects psychically before the telephone
rings.

Sheldrake recruited several hundred volunteers, each of whom nominated
four friends. One of these four was then picked at random to make a
telephone call to the recipient. The recipient then had to state before
they answered the call, which one of the four they thought it was.
Statistically, chance alone dictates that 1 time out of 4 they'd be
correct, or 25% of the time they'd be correct.The results showed that
42% of the time people correctly identified the caller. Way above, and
almost double what it would be with chance alone.

The skeptics have had their view challenged repeatedly. Another test
most people are familiar with is the "ganzfield" test which involves
people naming a shape displayed on a card that is turned away from them.
A recent combined analysis of these tests, using over 3000 examples
performed up until the year 2004 was completed. Again the success rate
for these tests by chance alone should have been 25%. The results showed
that the overall success rate was 32%, a small, but statistically
significant number. This goes a long way to answering criticism tht only
small numbers of people have been tested. Skeptics still refuse to
accept the findings, blaming everything from bad analysis to outright
fraud.

New Breakthroughs
Scientists in the UK as well as the USA are now providing evidence which
challenges this irrational skepticism even further. This time peoples
brains are monitored during experiments. The results of these
experiments are being detailed in Scientific journals, indicative that
something extraordinary is really happening.

With the availability of high technology, and subsequent technical
analysis, these experiments are not so easily dismissed. Dr Marios
Kittenis based at the University of Edinburgh, has been using EEG
techniques to provide the best evidence yet for telepathy, or at the
very least a new phenomenon of consciousness. People who claimed strong
telepathic links with each other, decided who would be "sender" and
"receiver".
They were then taken to seperate rooms and wired up to EEG machines,
which detect activity in certain parts of the brain.When in these rooms,
the subjects were exposed to the sounds of rythmic drumming to bring
their levels of consciousness to a similar state.

Whilst in this state, random light flashes were beamed at the "sender".
This triggered activity in the visual cortex of the brain (the area
which activates with signals from the eye). Their startling discovery
was that the visual cortex in the "receiver" also responded in a similar
fashion, despite them not being exposed to any light flashes.

Skeptics are finding it more difficult to dismiss these findings so
easily, stating that there must be some unknown error in the experiment
causing these results. More than likely, like Atkins, they've not even
examined the experiments before making these armchair conclusions. In
America, Todd Richards from the University of Washington has performed
similar tests using a more sophisticated technique using Functional
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Which is another method used to study
brain activity in great detail.

The results were the same as those done with the EEG machines. That the
sender who was exposed to random flashing lights, somehow triggering the
same response in the visual cortex of the receiver. A significant number
of these experiments have been carried out and each time producing the
same startling results. Both teams have stated that more experiments
need to take place before a proper conclusion can be made, but even at
this early stage believe these findings to be the result of an
"anomalous phenomenon".

Conclusion
No doubt skeptics will either continue to trot out the same cliched
responses. They've demanded evidence for years, when that was supplied,
they claimed it wasn't "scientific". Now that there is scientific
evidence, they'll no doubt dispute the methods like they did with
Sheldrake last year. I sometimes wonder how we progress when so many
people devote so much time refusing to accept that which a lot of people
already accept as fact, and have done so for hundreds if not thousands
of years.

There will be a follow up to this article relating to more experiments
done in Italy recently. This showed that nerve cells continue to
interact with each other even when they are seperated and isolated from
one another. In the same way as the light signals caused the receiver to
respond in a remote room, these nerve cells BOTH do the same thing when
only one set is exposed to light.