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Psychic Drift -Why most scientists do not believe in ESP and psi phenomena By Michael Shermer

psi

Psi (pronounced sigh) is a term commonly used by parapsychologists to refer to both ESP and psychokinesis taken together. The term was coined by B.P. Weisner and recommended by R.H. Thouless as a term for describing ESP in his 1942 article "The Present Position of Experimental Research into Telepathy and Related Phenomena," (Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 47, part 166, pp. 1-19). J. B Rhine (1948 Reach of the Mind) used the term to refer to both ESP and psychokinesis.

The James Randi Educational Foundation offers a prize of $1,000,000 to anyone who can prove he or she has a psychic ability.

See also clairaudience, clairvoyance, cold reading, decline effect, displacement, ESP, experimenter effect, file-drawer effect, ganzfeld experiment, Uri Geller, medium, meta-analysis, Raymond Moody, Nostradamus, optional starting and stopping, parapsychology, past life regression, precognition, psi assumption, psi-missing, psychic, psychic detective, psychic surgery, psychokinesis, psychometry, James Randi Foundation psychic challenge, remote viewing, retrocognition, séance, Charles Tart, telekinesis, telepathy, and James Van Praagh.

further reading

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• "The Evidence for Psychic Functioning: Claims vs. Reality" by Ray Hyman
• Culture, Psychopathology And Psi: A Clinical Relationship
• The Research With B.D. and the Legacy of Magical Ignorance by George P. Hansen
• Deception by Subjects in Psi Research by George P. Hansen
• Does Psi Exist? Replicable Evidence for an Anomalous Process of Information Transfer Daryl J. Bem and Charles Honorton

Alcock, James E., Jean Burns and Anthony Freeman.  Editors. Psi Wars: Getting to Grips with the Paranormal by   (Imprint Academic, 2003).

Frazier, Kendrick. editor, Science Confronts the Paranormal (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1986).  See especially the article "Fooling Some of the People All of the Time," by Barry Singer and Victor A. Benassi.

Gardner, Martin. Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1957), ch. 25.

Gardner, Martin. How Not To Test a Psychic : Ten Years of Remarkable Experiments With Renowned Clairvoyant Pavel Stepanek (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1989).

Hansel, C.E.M. The Search for Psychic Power : ESP and Parapsychology Revisited (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1989).

Hines, Terence. Pseudoscience and the Paranormal 2nd ed. (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003).

Hyman, Ray. The Elusive Quarry : a Scientific Appraisal of Psychical Research (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1989).

Hyman, Ray. "Evaluation of Program on Anomalous Mental Phenomena," Journal of Scientific Exploration, Volume 10 Number 1.

Marks, David and Richard Kammann, The Psychology of the Psychic (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1979).

Randi, James. Flim-Flam! (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books,1982). 

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