Sunday, September 6, 2009

What Exactly Is Mental Telepathy?

By Rachel Jordan

'Mental telepathy' can be a broad term that encompasses numerous things. It typically means reading the thoughts between people without using normal senses. There is a huge difference however between having an intuitive gut feeling and knowing information that could only be gathered by reading somebody's mind. Both basic and complex skills can be construed as mental telepathy. The different levels of mental telepathy are summarized in this article.

NON VERBAL COMMUNICATION:

If you are a parent who has tried to tell your kid or spouse something non-verbally by using your body language, eyes and facial expressions, then you would know what Kinesics or non-verbal communication is. In this form of non verbal communication almost everything can be said without speaking by merely using the eyes and expressions and body language. For this kind of communication you need to know the other person well in order to communicate effectively. Its most effective between parents, children, lovers and intimate friends.

Some can argue (with good reason) that this doesn't count as mental telepathy, as the two people are using their senses to communicate (just not with sounds). Technically, this is correct. This doesn't mean, however, that mental telepathy does not play a role. The fact that non-verbal communication occurs most successfully between people who are related (like family), or who have lived together for extended periods of time (like spouses) implies that their minds might be more attuned to each other than to strangers. On the other hand, one could argue that this merely means the two people know each other well enough to understand each others more subtle body language, or have created agreed-upon nonverbal signals to communicate.

EMPATHY:

Empathy is the ability to recognize, perceive, or directly experience the emotions of others. Some people are very poor at this, and others are very good at this, being able to mentally 'put themselves in another's shoes' and understand how they must be feeling. Empathy can be increased with training and practice. Actors, for example, are able to imitate the emotions of others, even to the point of being able to make themselves spontaneously laugh or cry.

Most people have experienced 'sympathetic pain'"feeling another person's pain as if it were your own. For example, after witnessing someone close to you break their arm, you may experience an uncomfortable feeling or even an ache in your arm, even though you know it's fine. Similarly, when someone close to you is experiencing an overwhelming emotion, such as joy, grief, or depression, you may feel an echo of the same emotion inside you. Finally, there is the phenomena of long distance empathy. In this case, a person suddenly knows"they FEEL it"that someone close to them is in danger, has been hurt, or is in pain, even though they are not near the person at the time.

Overactive imagination has been blamed by some psychologists and they feel other senses are being used, so it doesn't count as mental telepathy. How would you explain the phenomena of long-distance empathy, when you are not in proximity to the person? This might explain the feelings experienced if you have sympathetic pain after seeing your child break his arm, however.

SYMBOL AND OBJECT PROJECTION:

There is another kind of telepathy which involves sending and receiving concrete symbols and objects between two people. Here advanced mental telepathy is involved and it is a phenomena outside the five senses. This kind of mental telepathy involves a lot of training, concentration and practice. There is a receiver and a sender involved in this.

Here the principle is that simpler concepts are easily communicated. For instance an animal is more difficult to communicate than a shape or color.

This level involves a lot of trials in telepathy. In these experiments Zener cards are used. These cards have simple symbols engraved on them like black and white patterns, squares, circles, waves etc. There are many cynics and doubters who may say that since there are merely five cards involved, there is a probability of a guess being right at least 20% of the time. However, on the other end, people feel that having known symbols can enhance the thought coordination between the sender and the receiver thus enhancing their telepathic technique. Moreover even if we assume that random guesses may succeed 20% of them time, there is no explanation of success rate of 50% or more.

ABSTRACT COMMUNICATION:

Mental telepathy at this level goes beyond simple colors and shapes to more abstract concepts like ideas, actions, or values. It is rare and difficult for telepaths to achieve this level, and experiments have shown that they have a lower success rate.

Telepathy shouldn't be ruled out when it comes to animals that seem to communicate ideas to each other through non-verbal actions. Because animal brains lack prefrontal lobes, telepathy would probably not go beyond simplistic ideas such as hunger or danger signals, but many have seen two dogs look at each other and go running for an almost pre-decided location.

While humans may have once been capable of telepathy, as the species evolved and developed language, it was no longer needed as a form of communication. With the right stimulation humans may be able to call upon this dormant ability that includes abstract communication of ideas. Mental telepathy could be used to communicate, without the need for the use of the five senses.

However, there are some who feel that man may be able to develop ESP and telepathy and such psychic abilities in the near future. As man's psychic powers grow it may be possible for the entire race to become telepathic in the future.

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