Extra-Sensory Perception

[Fire in the Sky]

It is a given fact, obvious in the experience of the percipient, that there is cognition. And cognition of an object outside of the organism would be perception. Future discoveries may reveal something comparable to sense structures and functions, but thus far they have not. Instead, the facts of the last paragraph above lead us strongly toward the opposite conclusion, that this mode of perception is above and outside the sensory sphere, and is likely to be more of a total response, undifferentiable and unanalyzable—a reception on the complex level of knowing. Hence I call it "Extra-Sensory Perception". But to avoid spending my time in

p. 131

[Fire in the Sky]

disputing a mere name, I agree to mean by this merely "Perception by a means or way that is outside the now recognized sensory modes."

The expression "Supersensuous Perception" has been used by certain English writers on the subject and, personally, I think "super" probably indicates hypothetically the right relation E.S.P. has with the sensory mode; but it is an unnecessary additional hypothesis; also "super" often simply means "highly" or "overly", as in "supersensitive", and this would be ambiguous; and, finally, it suggests to some the undesirable connotation of "supernatural".

[Fire in the Sky]

It is probable that someone has already used the expression "Extra-Sensory Perception"; and I should like to regard its use here as a choice rather than an attempted innovation. Mr. Harvey L. Frick entitled his M.A. Thesis submitted to this Department in 1931 "Extra-Sensory Cognition". But this is not specific enough; rational and mnemonic cognition would also be "extra-sensory". Perception is cognition of outer objects or relations, and is therefore, the proper word here. Extra-Sensory, then, limits it in the necessary way.

[Fire in the Sky]

Footnotes

127:1 I am drawing the general principles stated here largely from Prof. McDougall's discussion of "Fatigue Drugs, and Sleep", Chapter III of Outline of Abnormal Psychology, Scribners, 1926, and from his earlier work on the mutual antagonism of certain drugs in their influence on certain mental processes.

127:2 Brugmann's results of increased "telepathy" with 30 grams of alcohol (See Chapter 2) are not contradictory. So small an amount would not for many individuals be noticeably dissociative. In small amounts this drug gives the effects of stimulation through the removal of inhibitions and the vasomotor changes. But a certain dulling of sensory acuity would probably add to ease of abstraction, too. These considerations are adequate to account for Brugmann's results.

128:1 After discussing these results with Prof. McDougall in the light of his researches on drug-antagonisms, I see that one hour was not long enough after the drug ingestion for the maximum effect. In fact, the subjective report of Zirkle confirmed this point. He was more alert several hours later. Prof. McDougall found five hours after ingestion to be the time of greatest effect for caffeine.

129:1 See Chapter 2.

http://sacred-texts.com/psi/esp/esp18.htm