The Controversy Over Psychic Staring PDF

Preview

Summary

Second essay assignment for the online course...

Description

1

The Controversy Over Psychic Staring By: Randi Maguire RLST 2326 EL10 February 15, 2016

2 Rupert Sheldrake claims that there is a feeling of insecurity and nervousness when someone is staring at you, even when you are unaware that you are being stared at. There is a plentiful amount of proof that has been achieved from countless experiments that have been conducted following Sheldrake’s instructions. I have personally conducted a few of Sheldrake’s experiments and had thought of a few “bugs” in the system; but had also been surprised with my findings. Sheldrake proposes that two people get together, one sitting with their back to the other. In a random sequence influenced by a head-ortails method, the person must stare at the other whose back is facing them. The other person must notify the other when they feel as though they are being stared at. According to Colwell et al. (2000), results were most positive when feedback was given, feedback being a true or false answer after every response. The results without feedback were a mere 29.9% accurate, where as the feedback method was 98.7% accurate. It seems to me that by giving the subject a true or false answer after each response is a way of training their bodies to sense their surroundings more and to link such feelings of slight uneasiness with being stared at. Testing this thought, I had a friend attempt these trials without any feedback. We did a total of 20 trials with him getting only 9 correct, 45% accuracy. During our discussion about the participated trials he had mentioned that only a few times he had the overwhelming feeling that I had been “burning holes into the back of his head”; one of the times he had felt that way, I hadn’t been staring at him. We reconducted the experiment using feedback; his accuracy had increased to 85% by getting 17 out of 20 correct. While discussing the trials, he had mentioned have a better sensation of when I was staring at him and he seconds my opinion about being trained to associate those feelings with being stared at.

3 I had my friend test out another one of Sheldrake’s ideas, or much rather, one of his questions. He had asked if the sense of being stared at would still occur if the subject were being looked at through a window. We had used a telephone as a means of communication from those distances, which might have influenced the results. The results were about 30% accurate, which is lower than the original but higher than the second trial. In discussion about these results, we figured that it was much harder to tell if someone is staring at you because there is much commotion outside and only when it is noticeable that there is someone outside staring will you start to have uneasy feelings. An aspect that isn’t taken into consideration for psychic staring is a human’s capabilities of sight in regards to their peripheral vision. A human’s peripheral vision can reach up to 110 degrees either left or right. Bearing that in mind, there has been plenty times where I can see people in my far peripheral visions looking either at me or very close to me and that will give me an uneasy feeling, as Sheldrake had explained. This can’t account for the cases where there is a person directly behind you when you have this feeling. I have always chalked these feelings up to possibly being anxious about something or having a lack of trust in the other humans who surround you. I thought this because fear, panic and uneasiness are common symptoms of an anxiety disorder, which I am diagnosed with. There are other things that can possibly fall under this category of phenomenons as well. Such as the feeling of being stared at, yet no one is actually physically there. According to Jennifer O’Neill (2011), this feeling is a spirit guide and is one of the many ways such entities will attempt to communicate with you. Referring back to Wade Davis’ (1999) writings about shamanism and their beliefs, this isn’t truly that far fetched; although it is difficult to process especially with these beliefs almost being taboo in my culture.

4 Now that I have discussed my concerns about possible flaws in Sheldrake’s experiments, I can continue on with what really amazed me. During the first trial I had conducted, when my friend had gotten the answer correct while I was staring at him he had explained that it was a gut clenching feeling of slight fear that he had felt; as previously mentioned, as though I was burning holes into the back of his head. He has also stated that it made him feel very unsettled and that he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. When the second trial was conducted, the results were much more astonishing. As he trained his body to understand the feelings he was having, the results had skyrocketed. Nearing the end of the 20 trials, he was getting every single trial correct and I was able to witness, at some points, goose bumps forming on his arms. As previously mentioned, the body training is a flaw in this system but is also a discovery that when people become more aware of what they are supposed to sense when someone is staring at them they can feel a certain way. Another aspect of this experiment that wowed me was the window experiment. I was expecting after the body training that even though the distance had increased and a medium had been added that the results wouldn’t stray far, but they had. With the large amounts of activity that occur outside my house, it was hard for him to sense anyone staring at him. During the 20 trials, about 4 people had walked by and 15 vehicles had driven by. If done on a quieter street or quieter area in general, the results could have been different. I would exclude this trial from any finalizing results on the experiment in order to keep efficiency as high as possible. As it stands, my opinion is still based off the fact that the few flaws in the system are too great to agree with Sheldrake fully. Although his results were comparative with mine, I

5 still can’t justify to myself saying that this phenomenon is our inner selves propelling a feeling of being stared at. I have always thought that the human body and its mind is too complex to research every feeling that we may have because every mind can react differently, just as we are our own selves.

6 Works Cited Colwell, J., S. Schroder, and D. Sladen. 2000. The ability to detect unseen staring: A literature review and empirical tests. British Journal of Psychology 91: 71-85. Davis, W. (1999). The Art of Shamanic Healing. In The Clouded Leopard: Travels to Landscapes of Spirit and Desire. (pp. 149-158). Vancouver, BC: Douglas & MacIntrye. O'Neill, J. 2011. Inspirational Examiner. Do you feel like someone is watching you. Sheldrake, R. (1994). The sense of being stared at. Seven experiments that could change the world. London: Fourth Estate. 105-124....