When researchers test to find if there is evidence for extrasensory perception among humans or animals, they try to approach their experiments with as neutral an attitude as possible. This is not really achievable. Somewhere in their minds is a small allowance that psychic powers might be real. Otherwise, they would not be interested in the subject enough to even look into it.
They go into the subject with a small amount of belief that these powers could be there. And what do they discover?
An equally small amount of evidence that ESP is real.
In academia, it will never do to enter a scientific study with strong beliefs a priori. Your colleagues would laugh you out of your laboratory. Science after all is a very strict religion… er… sorry, I meant “belief-system”.
So what happens when a person who completely believes in their ability to read minds or remote view experiments along these lines? They will find that they have these powers. They will also soon learn to keep this information to themselves (for the most part) because of the ridicule they will face at the hands of society at large.
Disbelievers are still believers. They just believe in something else. Large numbers of people who believe in the same thing will share a common reality. They will also be unable to perceive the countless different realities unfolding all around them.
We each create the reality we believe we are in. The problems arise when we mistakenly believe that there is only one true reality. When we limit ourselves to a single inflexible set of rules to define what is real, we trap ourselves in a box that becomes a prison of our own making.
We can escape this. In my own case, I always had a burning need to know the “Truth”. As a fundamentalist Christian at the time, this presented a problem since I had been told (and believed) to never question God. I thought I might be risking my soul. Eventually my desire to know the true nature of reality outweighed my desire for self-preservation. I let go of everything I “believed” and started from scratch.
“Who am I?” I asked myself.
“Whose asking?” I replied.
Then it was off to the races! Using simple logic and concentration, I discovered who I was and what the world was. That could not have happened if I didn’t go into it without expectations. Without beliefs.
Anyone who wants to possess the Stone of the philosopher’s must first possess the innocent heart of a little child. Only then can you actually become “born again”.
” And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”