Death by Psychokinesis
‘If Psychokinesis exists, why don’t people kill each other with the power of their minds?’
Laboratory evidence suggests that Psychokinesis (PK) is typically a low level effect. We seek to measure it on random systems where we know how a target system should behave, and where we can quantify what actually happens when people attempt to employ PK.
Experimental data suggests find that the deviation from chance expectancy is very small, albeit replicable. The idea that PK could be employed or ‘ramped up’ to kill someone has little credence.
In fact, think about it from an evolutionary perspective. If ‘PK facilitated death’ was viable, an arms race would have likely developed to exploit such abilities (as well as, presumably, an evolutionary capability to block such threats). Observations from the real world suggest that Death by PK is not something we have to worry about.
There’s an interesting article in today’s Times about an Indian Rationalist who challenged a tantric guru to kill him on TV, using “only his mystical powers”. The article also highlights some ‘tricks of the trade’ that others have employed.
For those of you who are interested in pseudo-psychic behaviour, I posted an article last year.
