A study by Dr. Rupert Sheldrake shows that modern forms of communication may be connected with a more primeval form of communication—telepathy.
He tested a group of people by asking them to guess who was calling when their phones rang. Each was given four potential callers to chose from. “The average scores were very significantly above the 25 percent hit rate expected by chance,” wrote Sheldrake in an article published by the Institute of Noetic Science earlier this year. Sheldrake has a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Cambridge University and he studied philosophy and history of science at Harvard University.
Similar results have been replicated independently at the University of Amsterdam in Holland and the University of Freiburg in Germany. Statistically significant results have also shown a positive connection between telepathy and text messaging or various forms of Internet communication, according to Dr. Sheldrake.
The telepathic ability seems to come through especially clear in relation to people with whom the subjects have strong emotional bonds.
Dr. Sheldrake anticipates the criticism that a close friend or family member is highly likely to both be in a person’s thoughts and to call that person, and thus the chances of both events occurring at the same time are high.
“The only way to resolve these questions is by means of experimental tests that can be evaluated statistically,” he said. Referring to the experiments he has done along this line, he said, “These tests gave positive, statistically significant results.”
In an initial series of trials, 63 people got an average hit rate of 40 percent, well above the 25 percent rate dictated by chance. Throughout hundreds of tests, Sheldrake has heard from some subjects that they were more often right when they felt confident in their guesses, like their intuition had kicked in.
Sheldrake began also asking subjects how confident they felt about each guess. He gave the example of a female subject who had a hit rate of 85 percent when she felt confident and a hit rate of only 34 percent when she was not very confident. She had a hit rate of only 28 percent when she was just guessing without any feeling of intuition whatsoever.
Pam Smart, Sheldrake’s colleague, conducted experiments to compare the telepathic connection between loved ones versus the connection between strangers. She found the hit rate of 50 percent with familiar callers compared to a hit rate near the chance level of 25 percent with strangers.
Experiments to test for precognition and other potential extra-sensory perceptions came back with negative results, suggesting a connection specifically to the ability of telepathy.
So, do we form telepathic bonds with loved ones?
Dr. Bernard Beitman of the University of Virginia has found in his study of coincidences that people with close bonds can sometimes experience the same things at the same time, particularly distress, even when they are great distances apart. He calls the phenomenon simulpathity. Beitman had a personal experience of simulpathity that spurred him to study it. When his father was on his deathbed thousands of miles away, Beitman started choking, apparently without cause. He later found out that his father was choking at approximately the same time.
This phenomenon has been known to occur between twins and others with close bonds.
