One of the best-known and most controversial figures in ESP research today is Daryl Bem, a professor of psychology at Cornell University. If they selected the target image, it was considered a 'hit.' Similar to the results of Rhine's earlier research, a review article aggregating the results of dozens of these studies found that people consistently selected the target more often than one would expect based on chance. Afterward, the study participants would view a set of images, one of which was the target. The researchers would ask participants to focus on whatever images floated into their minds while a 'sender,' sitting in another room, viewed a 'target' video clip or image and attempted to transmit the information to the participant. The goal was to deprive the participants of sensory stimuli, making it easier to focus on ESP messages. In the 1970s, researchers began conducting ganzfeld experiments, in which participants would sit in darkened rooms with their eyes covered, listening to white noise. Many of these studies appear to provide evidence for the existence of ESP. Today, ESP research appears alongside orthodox psychology research in high-profile, peer-reviewed journals, including American Psychologist and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The program, later nicknamed ' Stargate,' was devoted to ESP applications in the Cold War. This research hasn't just taken place on the fringes between 19, the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), spent $20 million on ESP-related research efforts conducted largely at Stanford Research Institute, according to a 2015 article published in the journal SAGE Open. Since parapsychology took off, some scientists have devoted their careers to investigating the existence of ESP. (Image credit: Getty Images/Hulton Archive) Does extrasensory perception exist? This illustration of amateur thought-reading was published in the Illustrated London News on Oct. Fascination with ESP phenomena, including thought-reading, took off in the late 19th century.

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