Besides the movie versions of Carrie, there are also other movies that deal with this phenomenon, albeit in different ways. Phenomenon, staring John Travolta, gives us a gentle depiction of someone with the power to influence matter with their mind. Then there is the movie Chronicle, in which three high school friends discover a strange glowing rock underground. The three of them develop the ability to move objects with their mind, and things begin to spiral out of control at an alarming pace.
Such abilities make for great books and movies, but is there any evidence that such phenomena exists in real life? Granted, telepathy and precognition really aren't that hard to accept. But moving things with your mind? Come on! Nonsense right? We will look at some of the testing in this area to see if it has any basis in reality. However, before we move on, let's define a few words. What is the difference, if any, between psychokinesis and telekinesis? Psychokinesis is more of a broad term-an umbrella term, so to speak- that would include phenomena like pyrokinesis, psychic healing, and retrocausality. Telekinesis is a subset of psychokinesis, and specifically refers to the ability to influence matter with your mind. Today, this is all referred to as mind-matter interaction. For this post, I am specifically going to focus on telekinesis.
Let's start off with a simple yet profound question: Can mental intention directly affect the physical world? To begin to answer this question, we must first consider the concept of "consciousness". Speculation about how to define consciousness abounds. it seems like everyone agrees that consciousness exists, but no one really knows how to define it. Talking about "consciousness" is sort of a big deal right now. Especially in the area of quantum physics. Yes, you heard that right- scientists are now considering metaphysical answers to some of the things that take place in the hard sciences. Such an example has to do with observation and measurement in the quantum realm. Many researchers are doing experiments, and coming to the conclusion that conscious observation and measurement affect the behavior of quantum particles. One controversial explanation that we will explore later is that not only is there a collective human consciousness, but that all of reality has some level of "consciousness". In putting aside these controversial topics, the fact of the matter (see what I did there?) is that in some way observation and measurement is affecting how particles behave at the quantum level. Since all of reality is made up of sub atomic particles, mind-matter interaction with larger objects doesn't seem that far fetched.
Laboratory Studies on Mind-Matter Interaction
Before we look at some of the anecdotal evidence, I want to first deal with what has been done in the lab. It is easy to dismiss stories as conjecture, but it is hard to deny the evidence that comes out in lab testing. This is why I want to give the test results first; it will give us a grid to interpret the anecdotal evidence through. Some have argued that there is no conclusive evidence that psychokinesis/telekinesis exists. This argument not only comes from those who are skeptics, but also from some who believe in psi phenomenon. We can understand why the skeptics would say this, but the believers? Why? The reason is that in some experiments, it was very hard to tell if it was precognition or telekinesis operating. For example, in the die experiment that we are going to look at, it was hard to determine if the person was getting hits because they were actually moving the die (PK), or seeing before hand what it would land on (precognition). However, there are other test that have been performed that seem to show that some level of telekinesis does exist. But first, let's talk about the beginning of the die experiment.
As with most of psi testing, PK testing was influenced by J.B. Rhine and the Duke Parapsychology lab. Piggy backing off of Rhine, several researchers began to investigate whether the fall of dice might be influenced by mental intention. These investigations started around 1935 and went on for the next half century. The experiment is pretty simple: A die face is picked before hand, then a die (or group of dice) is tossed while the person tries to make the face turn up by focusing on the die. If the mental intention matches the face that the die lands on, then it is considered a hit. If more hits are obtained than expected by chance, then this is considered to be evidence for mind-matter interaction.
Over the years, this experiment was severely criticized many times. However, in 1989 psychologists Diane Ferrari and Dean Radin did a meta-analysis on all the data from around 1935-1987. In the relevant studies, a total of fifty-two investigators were involved, and a total of 2,569 people had attempted to mentally influence 2.6 million dice throws in 148 different experiments. In 31 controlled studies, 150,000 dice were thrown where no mental influence was applied. The hit ration for the control studies (where no one tried to influence the dice) was 50.02 percent- this is well within chance expectations, making the odds against chance two to one. in the experimental studies, the hit rate was 51.2 percent. This doesn't look like much percentage wise, but it results in odds against chance of around a billion to one.
The next type of experiment worth mentioning is the RNG, or random number generator. It is basically the modern equivalent of dice studies. According to Dean Radin, "An RNG is an electronic circuit that creates sequences of "heads" and "tails" by repeatedly flipping an electronic "coin"and recording the results." The test subject is asked to try and mentally influence the RNG's output so that it produces more "heads" than tails". Most RNG test used numbers, like 1 and 0. The test subject is asked to either focus on causing the RNG to produce more of either of these. There is more specific details and controls that go into the testing, but I don't want us to get bogged down in the technicality. Suffice to know is that these test are solid and top notch.
When a meta-analysis was done on all the RNG tests, the aim was to see if the results would be over 50 percent hit rate, thus going beyond chance. RNG test results were gathered from 1959-1987. They showed a total of 832 studies done by sixty-eight different investigators. These included 597 experimental studies and 235 control studies. The overall result? This is staggering- the odds against chance were beyond a trillion to one.
RNG studies have been repeated, with the same types of results. So, what does the lab data tell us? It tells us that mind-matter interaction exists. It is hard to deny the evidence. Now, I will say this: there is a big difference between moving larger objects around the room and influencing dice or numbers. However, if the ability is proven to exists, would it be possible that some people posses this "talent" at a greater level than others? We will examine that in the next post. This will include looking at the anecdotal evidence, or personal testimonies of people who have experienced or seen PK/TK in action. We will also address the controversial theory of a collective human consciousness, as well as the idea of all things having some level of consciousness. I will save my biblical interaction until after I deal with poltergeist, since poltergeist are usually considered a form of psychokinesis.