Post #5

There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance. -Albert Einstein


Lately I have been catching up on the re runs of the show Switched at Birth, shown on ABC Family. One of the episodes I recently watched was about the son's, Toby, gambling addiction and how he employed his new found sister and her best friend, who are both deaf, to help him win back some money. They claim, by being deaf they are capable of better seeing competitors tells and basically have a knack for winning a lot of money playing poker against hearing people. This instance reminded me of the section in chapter four where it talks about ESP, subliminal messaging, and psychic connections. Of the three, extrasensory perception is what really interested me and how variable it is in sensing things and how much it can affect people.

Extrasensory perception can be split into three categories; precognition, telepathy, and clairvoyance. Precognition is when a person can predict events before they occur. Telepathy is the act of reading other people's minds, and clairvoyance is being able to detect the presence of objects or people who are hidden from view. In different trials, no aspect of ESP could be replicated and so lost much of its poignancy fast. It is still something of huge interest today, but the validity and reliability of it is lacking. It being  still of interest causes many people to ask why, including myself; why someone could believe so whole heartily about such a lost cause. It seems as though people tend to believe in the practice so earnestly because of coincidence. People can see all the coincidences between events in their own lives, and are blind to the many times nothing happens. 

Extrasensory perception involves reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed through the mind. It can also sometimes be referred to as intuition. Intuition is something I can more so relate to than telepathy or one of those other specifics. Everyone, including myself, has those moments where you think about doing something for a split second and doing something in its place, and then regretting not doing the split second thought. For example, I was debating between two knitting needles to buy today at JoAnn Fabric Store, and my gut was telling me to go with the larger one but I went with the smaller one because it was cheaper. When I got home and was about to use them, one of the sticks I had bought had a huge crack down the center of it. This was a situation where my intuition was pulling me in the right direction. 

I think trusting my intuition will definitely be something I will be following from now on. It tends to pay off more in the long run. And although I still do not believe in ESP I can see the benefits and drawbacks from all angles.