Psychics

The word psychic refers to the ability to perceive things hidden from the senses through means of extra-sensory perception. The term also refers to theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation and cold reading to produce the appearance of having such abilities. The existence of psychic abilities is disputed by skeptics who attribute demonstrations of psychic occurrences to be intentional trickery or self delusion. Some parapsychologists have reported that their experiments to test for extra-sensory perception and psychokinesis have yielded evidence of psychic ability. The scientific community outside parapsychology does not accept these experiments as sufficient evidence for psychic functioning partly due to the intrinsic unliklihood of psychic phenomena. Early examples of psychics include the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi who, according to Greek mythology, provided prophecies from Apollo himself, as well as Nostradamus, a French apothecary who is said to have had the ability to predict the future. During the 19th century belief in psychics became more common and many individuals gained notoriety as psychics, including Daniel Dunglas Home. Psychics appear regularly in fiction, and science fiction such as the The Dead Zone by Stephen King, and Jean Grey from the Marvel comic book universe. Belief in psychic phenomena is widespread in the United States where a 2005 Gallup poll revealed that 41 percent of Americans believe in extra-sensory perception.