What is "extrasensory perception"

extrasensory perception \extrasensory perception\ n. the ability to perceive or gain information about external facts or events by means other than the senses.

Note: the existence of such an ability, as well as other parapsychologial phenomena, is widely disbelieved among scientists, and no demonstration of the phenomenon satisfyng rigorous standards of scientific proof has been reported.

n. The supposed ability to obtain information without the use of normal sensory channels.

n. apparent power to perceive things that are not present to the senses [syn: clairvoyance, second sight, E.S.P., ESP]

Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense, includes reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke University psychologist J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as telepathy, clairaudience, and clairvoyance, and their trans-temporal operation as precognition or retrocognition.

Parapsychology is the study of paranormal psychic phenomena, including ESP. Parapsychology has been criticized for continuing investigation despite being unable to provide convincing evidence for the existence of any psychic phenomena after more than a century of research. The scientific community rejects ESP due to the absence of an evidence base, the lack of a theory which would explain ESP, the lack of experimental techniques which can provide reliably positive results, and considers ESP to be pseudoscience.

Extrasensory Perception is a 1934 book written by parapsychologist Joseph Banks Rhine, which discusses his research work at Duke University. Extrasensory perception is the ability to acquire information shielded from the senses, and the book was "of such a scope and of such promise as to revolutionize psychical research and to make its title literally a household phrase".