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Stuff You Should Know

Selects: How ESP Works (?)

Published October 18, 2025
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About This Episode

Hosts Josh Clark and Charles W. "Chuck" Bryant explore extrasensory perception (ESP), outlining different proposed phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, retrocognition, mediumship, psychometry, and telekinesis. They trace the history of parapsychology from early work by William James and the Society for Psychical Research through J.B. Rhine's laboratory studies with Zenner cards and later experiments like Ganzfeld setups, Princeton's PEAR random number generator research, and Daryl Bem's controversial precognition studies. Throughout, they contrast believers' interpretations with skeptical explanations involving coincidence, attentional bias, subliminal cues, and issues of scientific rigor and reproducibility.

Topics Covered

Paranormal investigation Remote viewing Perception Consciousness Philosophy of science Superstitions ESP Telepathy Clairvoyance

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Quick Takeaways

  • ESP is an umbrella term covering several different claimed abilities, including telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, retrocognition, mediumship, psychometry, and telekinesis.
  • Early parapsychologists like William James and J.B. Rhine tried to apply laboratory methods to paranormal claims, using tools such as Zenner cards and later sensory-deprivation Ganzfeld setups.
  • Many apparent ESP experiences can plausibly be explained by coincidence, selective attention, subliminal perception, and people's highly developed but unconscious observational skills.
  • Some experiments, such as Princeton's PEAR random number generator studies and Daryl Bem's precognition experiments, report small but statistically significant effects that remain controversial and difficult to reproduce.
  • Skeptics emphasize the need for extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims, and note problems like sensory leakage, experimenter bias, data selection, and lack of consistent replication in ESP research.
  • The debate around ESP research often turns on tone as much as data, with some skeptics using mockery while others call for open but rigorous scientific inquiry.
  • Popular culture, anecdotes, and historical coincidences-such as the Titan/Titanic novel parallel-strongly shape public belief in ESP even when more mundane explanations exist.

Podcast Notes

Introduction, hosts, and new studio

Selects intro and episode framing

Josh introduces this as a 2015 "Select" episode about ESP and notes they will even discuss scientific approaches to the topic.[1:04]
He jokes about classic counterculture phrases while encouraging listeners to keep an open mind for the episode.[1:22]

Moving into a new podcast studio

Josh and Chuck mention they are recording in a new studio space and comment on its size and feel.[1:59]
• They describe it as not tiny but cozy and emphasize that it was purpose-built as a podcast studio rather than repurposed from other rooms like utility closets or lactation rooms.
They joke about installing butt-detection systems in the studio chairs that would shock non-hosts and trigger alarms at their desks.[2:23]
They briefly discuss decorating the studio with Aaron Cooper's original artwork and improving the lighting, mentioning plans for hanging china-ball lights.[3:04]

Initial discussion of ESP and personal beliefs

Do the hosts believe in ESP?

Josh directly asks Chuck if he believes in ESP; Chuck says he does not.[3:37]
Josh probes whether seemingly uncanny predictions or good guesses indicate some ability beyond normal senses, or if it is just selective attention to coincidences.[4:03]
Chuck explains his view that what people interpret as ESP is better explained by coincidence and the sheer number of events that happen daily.[4:12]
• He notes people remember the rare dream that seems to come true but forget the many dreams that do not, leading to a skewed impression.

Josh's evolving stance on ESP

Josh says he spent much of his childhood fascinated by paranormal topics like ESP and ghosts and even wanted to attend Duke's parapsychology department.[4:48]
He mentions that Ghostbusters strongly appealed to him because it aligned with his early interests in paranormal research.[5:02]
As an adult, Josh does not claim to believe in ESP outright but refuses to categorically rule out the possibility since science does not yet know everything.[5:16]
Chuck places himself firmly in the non-believer camp but distances himself from some self-identified skeptics whom he feels can be obnoxious.[5:39]

Defining ESP and categories of psi phenomena

ESP as an umbrella term and "psi"

Chuck notes ESP is a broad, collective term encompassing many kinds of purported paranormal phenomena.[5:59]
They explain that these phenomena are also grouped under the term "psi" (P-S-I), coined in the 1940s and linked etymologically to psyche or soul.[6:13]
Josh says J.B. Rhine, a key parapsychologist, coined the term ESP, while another researcher later introduced "psi" to frame such abilities as potentially normal but unexplained rather than supernatural.[6:09]

Core ESP types: telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, retrocognition

Telepathy is defined as reading another person's thoughts, such as Josh jokingly imagining Chuck's feelings about the studio.[6:46]
Clairvoyance is described as perceiving events or objects happening elsewhere at the same time, like remotely viewing someone's couch or another person in a different location.[7:02]
Precognition ("precogs") is defined as seeing into the future.[7:26]
Retrocognition is given two meanings: a common one as seeing into the distant past, and a newer one where future events somehow affect past experiences.[7:30]
• Josh gives an example of the second sense of retrocognition: dreaming of a spotted dog and then seeing a similar dog the next morning, with some theorists suggesting the later sighting influenced the earlier dream.
• They note this time-reversed interpretation has gained traction in light of odd findings at the quantum scale.

Other psi phenomena: mediumship, psychometry, telekinesis

Mediumship is described as channeling dead spirits, with Chuck referencing a famous television psychic figure as an example.[8:39]
Psychometry is defined as reading information about a person or place by touching them or an associated object, likened to the movie character in "The Dead Zone" who sees visions when he touches people.[8:39]
Telekinesis is described as manipulating matter with the mind, such as Uri Geller allegedly bending spoons with a light touch.[9:23]

History of parapsychology and early scientific attempts

J.B. Rhine and the Duke University parapsychology lab

Josh calls J.B. Rhine the "granddaddy" of ESP research and notes he was a legitimate scientist who began systematic parapsychology studies at Duke in the 1930s.[10:14]
Rhine focused on laboratory experiments in academia rather than stage performances or purely anecdotal reports.[10:28]

William James and the Society for Psychical Research

Decades before Rhine, William James and colleagues in the Society for Psychical Research applied the scientific method to studying paranormal phenomena.[10:40]
They investigated mediums with an open mind, exposing frauds like Madame Blavatsky while also closely studying cases they could not easily explain.[10:51]
• Josh describes Madame Blavatsky as a quasi-cult leader who promoted theosophy and conducted séances that were later revealed as fraudulent.
The Society's dual role-debunking clear frauds while investigating puzzling cases-laid groundwork for later parapsychology research.[11:13]

Rhine's overall approach to psi

Rhine sought to bring psi into the lab with controlled experiments, notably using specially designed symbol cards.[11:19]
He and later researchers debated whether ESP is a rare gift, an occasional universal ability, or a latent capacity that some people learn to access.[14:10]

Conceptual theories of what ESP might be

Possible mechanisms: electromagnetic spectrum and extra dimensions

Josh says one early idea was that ESP tapped into some unused portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, allowing information to be received outside normal senses.[14:49]
This EM-spectrum idea fell out of favor because it failed to explain how information could move through time or identify a specific brain region acting as a receiver.[14:49]
They reference a study where participants in an MRI viewed images and also had someone in another room think about those images, finding no distinct brain region reacting differently to "ESP" versus normal visual stimuli.[18:07]
• This result suggests there is no straightforward sensory organ or localized brain area that obviously mediates ESP-like information.
Another proposed mechanism is that there may be another dimension with different laws, and occasionally information "spills over" into our dimension as future or past perceptions.[20:04]
• Josh notes that skeptics would find this dimension-spillover proposal particularly frustrating because it is unfalsifiable and not anchored to known physics.

Belief frameworks about who has ESP

They outline three broad views among believers: everyone has ESP that sometimes manifests, only certain gifted individuals have it, or everyone has potential but some are more in tune with it.[20:35]
Chuck confirms he does not place himself in any believer camp, while Josh remains open to possibility without firm belief.[21:33]

Coincidence, statistics, and anecdotal evidence

Coincidence as a powerful explanation

Chuck emphasizes that with billions of people thinking countless thoughts each day, coincidences are inevitable and will occasionally feel uncanny.[17:09]
He argues that people highlight the rare match between thought and event while ignoring the vast majority of mismatches, giving ESP an illusory plausibility.[18:07]

Example: "Futility" and the Titanic

Josh relates the 1898 novel "Futility" by Morgan Robertson, describing a fictional ship called the Titan that hits an iceberg and sinks in the North Atlantic, with too few lifeboats and heavy loss of life.[19:57]
• Details closely matching the later Titanic disaster include the April timing, starboard-side collision near Newfoundland, and the ship's supposed unsinkability.
They note that Robertson had maritime experience and knowledge of routes, icebergs, and naming conventions, making his scenario less miraculous than it first appears.[23:14]
Josh points out that over time, retellings embellished the story by claiming the book came to Robertson in a trance, highlighting how anecdotal evidence often gains layers that bolster an ESP narrative.[24:22]

J.B. Rhine's Zenner card experiments and later refinements

Zenner cards and basic telepathy testing

Chuck explains that Rhine's colleague Karl Zenner created a 25-card deck with five symbols (circle, plus, square, star, and wavy lines) to test ESP.[23:10]
In a typical experiment, one person views a card and mentally transmits the symbol while another, unable to see it, guesses the symbol, with hits recorded over many trials.[25:27]
Chuck mentions taking an online Zenner card test and scoring 6 out of 25; the site responded humorously that he was not psychic.[25:09]
• Josh notes that for a five-symbol deck, chance would yield about 5 correct out of 25, so 6 is only slightly above chance.

Problems with early Rhine experiments: sensory leakage and card design

Chuck says early Zenner cards were somewhat translucent, meaning subjects might faintly see the symbol through the back, inflating hit rates.[25:20]
Other scientists suggested Rhine's body language or facial expressions could inadvertently cue the subject, a problem known as sensory leakage.[26:42]
• In initial setups, Rhine held the card and looked directly at the subject while they guessed, enabling subtle reactions to influence responses over many trials.
After correcting for translucency and sensory leakage, reported ESP hit rates tended to decrease.[26:49]

Ganzfeld experiments to reduce sensory input

To combat sensory leakage, researchers developed the Ganzfeld ("whole field") technique, placing subjects in dim red light, playing white noise, and covering eyes with specially designed glasses or ping-pong ball halves.[28:44]
The aim was to deprive ordinary senses so that any information transfer would be less likely due to subtle cues and more attributable to psi, if present.[28:38]

Rhine's reputation, beliefs, and criticisms

Josh notes Rhine is both respected and heavily scrutinized: he corrected for fraud when discovered but was also a committed believer wanting to prove psi was real.[29:40]
He recounts the "Levy affair," in which a lab engineer unplugged a sensor that recorded negative hits, briefly inflating positive results; Rhine fired him and discarded the tainted data.[30:39]
Rhine was criticized for allegedly keeping files on people he thought were deliberately guessing wrong to skew data and not including those runs in published results.[31:19]
Despite methodological issues, Rhine and his wife Louisa devoted their careers to parapsychology, helping to establish it as a research field within academia.[32:45]

Modern ESP-related experiments and statistical debates

Princeton PEAR random number generator studies

Josh describes Princeton's Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) lab, which ran millions of trials having people attempt to influence random number generators with their thoughts.[37:12]
Participants would focus on a particular outcome and researchers checked whether human intention shifted the statistical output away from pure randomness.[38:27]
He says PEAR reported a very small but measurable effect of human intention on machine output, statistically significant across vast data sets according to their publications.[39:04]
Josh contrasts this with the expectation that thoughts alone should have zero impact on a mindless random number generator, making the reported deviation intriguing.[40:14]

Daryl Bem's precognition experiments

They discuss psychologist Daryl Bem of Cornell, whose 2010 paper in a respected journal reported evidence of precognition in simple lab tasks.[41:12]
In one experiment, students saw two on-screen curtains, behind one of which would randomly appear an erotic image; they chose first, and then the computer randomly placed the image.[41:12]
• Participants correctly chose the curtain hiding erotic images about 53.1% of the time, versus a chance expectation of 50%, while non-erotic images produced chance-level performance.
Josh notes Bem interprets this as potential evidence that physiological arousal from seeing the image travels back a few seconds to influence the earlier choice.[43:12]
They mention that a 53.1% hit rate corresponds to a p-value around 0.2 on a 0 to 1 scale of correlation, similar in strength to accepted links like aspirin and reduced heart attacks or secondhand smoke and lung cancer.[44:00]
Another Bem experiment involved showing subjects a list of words, testing recall, and only afterward having a computer randomly select half the words for extra practice.[45:16]
• Bem reported that words later selected for practice were more likely to have been recalled on the earlier test, suggesting a retroactive influence of future studying on past memory.
Josh summarizes that Bem framed these as examples of retrocognition: future events affecting earlier brain states.[47:02]

Reproducibility and meta-analyses

They note Bem's findings sparked major controversy; critics challenged both the journal that published them and the interpretation of the statistics.[49:01]
Josh references a meta-analysis that combined Bem's studies with follow-up replications and related experiments, concluding that taken together they did not show statistically significant effects.[49:06]
He mentions a commenter's point that many accepted scientific findings, including pharmaceutical trials, also suffer from reproducibility problems, so failure to replicate is not unique to ESP research.[50:42]

Psychological and skeptical explanations for ESP experiences

Everyday coincidences and context constraints

Josh shares a real-time coincidence: he asked their IT colleague about recycling bins at the printer just as the colleague was composing a company-wide email about that exact topic.[39:30]
• He notes this felt striking but becomes less impressive when considering timing (mid-morning email), the new office context, and his own recent trip to the printer with extra paper.
They compare this to the Titan/Titanic example: dramatic coincidences capture attention, but closer inspection reveals constrained possibilities and prior knowledge that make them more understandable.[39:45]

Subliminal cues and unconscious perception

Josh suggests that our brains pick up far more sensory information than we consciously attend to, such as peripheral sights or faint sounds.[41:12]
An example: if Chuck hums a song quietly while Josh reads, Josh's brain might register it unconsciously, and later when he notices Chuck humming, it feels like a shared thought or ESP.[43:21]
They point out that some people seem to have "the gift" because they are unusually observant and attuned to micro-details and micro-expressions, not because of paranormal powers.[43:49]
Chuck recalls often sensing a landline phone would ring just before it did, and speculates it might have been due to subtle mechanical sounds in the phone that he unconsciously noticed.[41:40]
• He notes that this has never happened with cell phones, which supports the idea that physical phone hardware may have provided unconscious cues.

Selective memory and narrative embellishment

They stress that people naturally forget failed predictions and remember hits, building personal narratives of ESP based on a small, biased sample of experiences.[43:16]
Josh highlights how stories like Robertson's "Futility" gain extra elements over time-such as claims of trancelike inspiration-that strengthen an ESP narrative but lack original evidence.[23:41]

Skeptics, stage psychics, and tone of debate

Standard skeptical position: extraordinary claims and evidence

Chuck cites the maxim that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and says ESP qualifies as an extraordinary claim without such evidence so far.[51:30]
They also mention unresolved issues in ESP research like sensory leakage, experimenter bias, and inconsistent replication that fuel skepticism.[52:27]

Stage psychics and cold reading

Chuck contrasts academic researchers with onstage television psychics who use cold reading techniques to appear psychic.[52:35]
He explains cold reading as throwing out broad prompts (such as a name starting with certain letters) and letting the subject supply specifics, which the psychic then echoes back as hits.[52:35]
They emphasize that it is straightforward to expose such performers as non-paranormal, distinct from the more nuanced evaluation of lab-based psi research.[54:10]

James Randi's million-dollar challenge and criticism

Chuck mentions James Randi's widely publicized offer of $1 million to anyone who can demonstrate genuine psychic abilities under controlled conditions, noting no one has won it.[53:17]
They point out that some critics see Randi's approach as theatrical and mocking, likening his style to the showmanship of the very stage psychics he debunks.[54:12]
Josh argues that mockery indicates a lack of objectivity and pits belief systems against each other rather than objective inquiry versus fraud, especially when serious researchers are lumped in with stage performers.[53:53]
Both hosts express support for rigorous, open-minded scientific inquiry into controversial topics, including ESP, rather than dismissal by ridicule.[55:32]

CIA remote viewing and cultural context

CIA experiments and Nightline coverage

Josh mentions a 1995 Nightline episode in which Ted Koppel reported that the CIA had secretly funded ESP and remote viewing research, later declassified.[54:42]
He notes that this connects to the themes covered in "The Men Who Stare at Goats" about military interest in paranormal abilities.[54:56]
Former CIA Director Robert Gates appeared on the program and, according to Josh, politely indicated his disbelief in the validity of the ESP findings.[55:08]
Josh recommends watching the Nightline segment to see how mainstream institutions treated such research once it became public.[55:01]

Listener shout-out and mail

Listener carpenter anecdote

Chuck briefly recounts that a listener who is a carpenter traveled from Kansas to help him fix a poorly done home renovation he had discussed on another show.[56:30]

Botanist email about plant family pronunciation

They read an email from Jane, a botanist, who explains how to pronounce plant family names ending in -aceae.[57:49]
Jane suggests mentally breaking off the -aceae as the word "A-C-E" (ace) and pronouncing the rest of the word normally, such as "Anacardi-aceae" pronounced "Anacardi-aceae."[58:13]
She notes European and some other regional pronunciations differ, but this "ace" convention is standard in California and parts of the U.S.[58:58]
Josh and Chuck thank Jane for the helpful correction and encourage listeners to email them with similar clarifications.[59:26]

Closing remarks

Wrap-up on ESP

Josh reiterates that the internet is full of additional resources on ESP for curious listeners.[59:04]
They transition from the ESP topic into listener mail and standard show outro, noting the email address for contacting them.[59:27]

Lessons Learned

Actionable insights and wisdom you can apply to your business, career, and personal life.

1

Striking coincidences often feel mystical, but considering the full context and the sheer volume of daily events usually reveals they are statistically inevitable rather than paranormal.

Reflection Questions:

  • • When have you recently experienced a coincidence that felt uncanny, and what wider context or background factors might have made it more likely than it first appeared?
  • • How could you train yourself to notice not only the hits that stand out but also the many misses you normally ignore?
  • • What is one current situation where you can deliberately look for mundane explanations before attributing it to something extraordinary?
2

Our brains continuously take in subtle sensory and social cues that we do not consciously register, and these unconscious perceptions can create the illusion of ESP or mind-reading.

Reflection Questions:

  • • In what situations do you find yourself intuiting what others are thinking, and how might micro-expressions, tone, or context be informing you without your awareness?
  • • How could becoming more aware of your environment's small details improve your decision-making or interpersonal skills?
  • • What is one interaction this week where you can consciously slow down and ask yourself which concrete cues led you to your impression of the other person?
3

Extraordinary claims can be worth exploring, but they demand rigorous, transparent methods and a willingness to challenge your own biases rather than cherry-picking supportive data.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in your work or life might you be unconsciously favoring data that supports what you already want to believe?
  • • How could you build simple checks-like predefining criteria or including all outcomes-to reduce bias in your own small-scale experiments and projects?
  • • What is one belief you hold strongly that you could deliberately subject to a more formal, critical test in the next month?
4

The tone of skepticism matters: mockery may feel satisfying, but it tends to shut down honest inquiry and polarize debates instead of improving the underlying science.

Reflection Questions:

  • • When you encounter ideas you strongly disagree with, how do you usually respond-critically but respectfully, or dismissively and with sarcasm?
  • • How might adopting a more curious and less derisive stance toward controversial claims change the quality of your conversations and collaborations?
  • • What is one ongoing disagreement in your life where you could consciously shift from ridicule to rigorous questioning and see what happens?
5

Stories that circulate over time often gain embellishments that make them more compelling but less accurate, so it is essential to trace claims back to original sources before drawing conclusions.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What influential story or case study have you heard repeatedly that you've never actually checked against the primary source?
  • • How could you build a simple habit of source-checking before sharing striking anecdotes or statistics with others?
  • • Which current narrative in your field or social circle might change if people focused on original data instead of retellings?

Episode Summary - Notes by Skylar

Selects: How ESP Works (?)
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