The many facets of Mental Telepathy
Most people do not really understand the term ‘Mental telepathy‘. The definition of mental telepathy implies that two people are able to share their thoughts with each other without the intervention of the five senses. Nevertheless mental telepathy can involve a range of varied communication ranging from trying to watch somebody to trying to read someone’s mind. The science of telepathy has many facets to it which can range from utterly simple to highly evolved. The aim of this article is to delve into the various forms of mental telepathy
NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION
Kinesics, or non-verbal communication, occurs whenever two people communicate without speaking, using their eyes, body language, and facial expressions instead. This can range from simple messages like ‘go away’ to entire conversations. Any parent who has tried to communicate something to their spouse that they don’t want their children to hear has experienced this. Non-verbal communication is achieved easiest and most accurately between people who know each other well—siblings, parents and children, husbands and wives, and close friends.
This may not count as mental telepathy, as the two people are using their senses to communicate, just not verbally and this is correct. However, mental telepathy plays a role, because their minds are more attuned to each other because of extended exposure to the way the others mind may think and some predictability comes into play, so there is a sort of mental connection. Two people that know each other well enough to understand more subtle body language, or have created nonverbal signals to communicate, might be argued that it is not be classified as mental telepathy.
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.
Psychologists write off such empathetic phenomena as a simple trick of an overactive imagination. At the very least, they do have a point that other senses are being used. Would we be able to feel the sympathetic pain of a broken arm, for example, if we could not actually see the injury? This does not explain, however, the phenomena of long-distance empathy.
CONCRETE CONCEPTS:
This is the thought transference of concrete symbols and objects between two minds. Mental telepathy at this level must by necessity move beyond the regular five senses, and often requires a designated sender and receiver, intense concentration, training, and practice.
The simpler the concept, the easier it is to communicate through thought alone. For example, a color or shape may be easier to convey than an animal.
Zener cards often used in mental telepathy test are an example of this principle. Simple, concrete black-and-white symbols (a circle, square, star, plus sign, and three wavy lines), gives even a random guess a 20% chance of being right. On the other hand, a shared, known, limited set of concrete symbols may increase the coordination of the thoughts between sender and receiver. A success rate of 50% or higher (which have happened) can not be explained away by simple statistics, but may indicate a level of mental telepathy, instead.
ABSTRACT COMMUNICATION:
Mental telepathy at this level involves abstract concepts like ideas or actions, which are more complex to communicate than colors and shapes. Telepaths rarely achieve this level, and lower success rates are indicated in experiments.
Some animals appear to communicate, and science is not able to explain how. Telepathy shouldn’t be ruled out. At this level, such animals would be using abstract concepts, albeit very basic concepts. Due to the nature of animal brains lacking prefrontal lobes, such ideas would probably not go beyond simplistic impulses like ‘hungry’, ‘thirsty’, ‘horny’, or ‘danger!’
There is a theory that humans were once capable of telepathy, but lost it as the species evolved and developed language. If this is true, then with the right stimulation humans should be able to ‘relearn’ this dormant ability.
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.
