Retrocognition

Last updated

Retrocognition (also known as postcognition or hindsight [1] ), from the Latin retro meaning "backward, behind" and cognition meaning "knowing," describes "knowledge of a past event which could not have been learned or inferred by normal means." [2] The term was coined by Frederic W. H. Myers. [3]

Contents

Overview

Scientific researchers into psychic phenomena have long considered retrocognition untestable. To verify an accurate retrocognitive experience, existing documents and human knowledge must be consulted, which raises the possibility that the information was already known contemporaneously. [4]

For instance, if you purport retrocognitive knowledge that "Winston Churchill killed a parrot", the only way of verifying that knowledge would be to consult extant sources of Churchill's activities. If it is found that he did, indeed, kill a parrot at one time; it could be said that you "simply" obtained contemporary knowledge of this fact (by clairvoyance or telepathy, if need be, of the relevant documents, or someone's knowledge of them), rather than directly perceived – in the manner of retrocognition – any event in Churchill's past. Given this fundamental logical difficulty, there has been very little experimental investigation by parapsychologists of retrocognition. The evidence for retrocognition has, therefore, been limited to naturalistic cases suggestive of the phenomenon.[ citation needed ]

The most popularly celebrated case of retrocognition concerns the visions in 1901 of Annie Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain – two scholars and early administrators of British university education for women – as they tried to find their way to Marie Antoinette's private château, the Petit Trianon. Becoming lost on their way, they believed that they instead came unto the Queen's presence itself. They published an account of their experience in 1911 as An Adventure. Moberly and Jourdain described how they had become convinced, over the following weeks, that persons they saw and even spoke to on that occasion – given certain details of dress, accent, topography and architecture – must have been of a presumed recollection by Marie Antoinette, on 10 August 1792, of her last days at Trianon in 1789. While often considered in popular literature as evidence for retrocognition, the book was immediately dismissed by Eleanor Sidgwick, a leading member of the British Society for Psychical Research, in an article published in its Proceedings, as the product of mutual confabulation. [5] [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clairvoyance</span> Claimed form of extrasensory perception

Clairvoyance is the claimed ability to acquire information that would be considered impossible to get through scientifically proven sensations, thus classified as extrasensory perception, or "sixth sense". Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant.

Extrasensory perception (ESP), also known as a sixth sense, or cryptaesthesia, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke University botanist J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as intuition, telepathy, psychometry, clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, empathy and their trans-temporal operation as precognition or retrocognition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parapsychology</span> Study of paranormal and psychic phenomena

Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near-death experiences, synchronicity, apparitional experiences, etc. Criticized as being a pseudoscience, the majority of mainstream scientists reject it. Parapsychology has also been criticized by mainstream critics for claims by many of its practitioners that their studies are plausible despite a lack of convincing evidence after more than a century of research for the existence of any psychic phenomena.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telepathy</span> Psychic ability

Telepathy is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), and has remained more popular than the earlier expression thought-transference.

Precognition is the purported psychic phenomenon of seeing, or otherwise becoming directly aware of, events in the future.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Out-of-body experience</span> Phenomenon in which the soul (astral body) is said to exit the physical body

An out-of-body experience is a phenomenon in which a person perceives the world as if from a location outside their physical body. An OBE is a form of autoscopy, although this term is more commonly used to refer to the pathological condition of seeing a second self, or doppelgänger.

Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Notable paranormal beliefs include those that pertain to extrasensory perception, spiritualism and the pseudosciences of ghost hunting, cryptozoology, and ufology.

Hindsight bias, also known as the knew-it-all-along phenomenon or creeping determinism, is the common tendency for people to perceive past events as having been more predictable than they were.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian Stevenson</span> American psychiatrist

Ian Pretyman Stevenson was a Canadian-born American psychiatrist, the founder and director of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He was a professor at the University of Virginia School of Medicine for fifty years. He was chair of their department of psychiatry from 1957 to 1967, Carlson Professor of Psychiatry from 1967 to 2001, and Research Professor of Psychiatry from 2002 until his death in 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mediumship</span> Spiritual practice

Mediumship is the pseudoscientific practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spirit channelling, including séance tables, trance, and ouija. The practice is associated with spiritualism and spiritism. A similar New Age practice is known as channeling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eusapia Palladino</span> 19th and 20th-century Italian spiritualist

Eusapia Palladino was an Italian Spiritualist physical medium. She claimed extraordinary powers such as the ability to levitate tables, communicate with the dead through her spirit guide John King, and to produce other supernatural phenomena.

Robert Lyle Morris was an American psychologist, parapsychologist and professor at the University of Edinburgh, where he was the first holder of the Koestler Chair of Parapsychology at the Koestler Parapsychology Unit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moberly–Jourdain incident</span> 1911 purported time travel occurrence

The Moberly–Jourdain incident is a claim of time travel and hauntings made by Charlotte Anne Moberly (1846–1937) and Eleanor Jourdain (1863–1924).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eleanor Jourdain</span> Principal of St Hughs College, Oxford

Eleanor Frances Jourdain was an English academic, Principal of St Hugh's College, Oxford, 1915 to 1924. She died of a sudden heart attack after being forced to resign her post.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telekinesis</span> Influencing of objects without physical interaction

Telekinesis is a hypothetical psychic ability allowing an individual to influence a physical system without physical interaction. Experiments to prove the existence of telekinesis have historically been criticized for lack of proper controls and repeatability. There is no reliable evidence that telekinesis is a real phenomenon, and the topic is generally regarded as pseudoscience.

The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual, who is communicating with others, assumes that others have information that is only available to themselves, assuming they all share a background and understanding. This bias is also called by some authors the curse of expertise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edith Olivier</span> English writer

Edith Maud Olivier MBE was an English writer, also noted for acting as hostess to a circle of well-known writers, artists, and composers in her native Wiltshire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Everard Feilding</span> English barrister, naval intelligence officer and psychical researcher

Francis Henry Everard Joseph Feilding best known as Everard Feilding was an English barrister, naval intelligence officer and psychical researcher.

According to some literary and religious studies scholars, modern Theosophy had a certain influence on contemporary literature, particularly in forms of genre fiction such as fantasy and science fiction. Researchers claim that Theosophy has significantly influenced the Irish literary renaissance of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, notably in such figures as W. B. Yeats and G. W. Russell.

References

  1. ↑ Fischhoff B (2003). "Hindsight not equal to foresight: the effect of outcome knowledge on judgment under uncertainty. 1975". Qual Saf Health Care. 12 (4): 304–11, discussion 311–2. doi:10.1136/qhc.12.4.304. PMC   1743746 . PMID   12897366.
  2. ↑ Dale, L. A., & White, R. A. (1977), or in other words someone gets knowledge about the past life of someone else without the known or ordinary sources but with some kind of power of the brain. It is also considered sixth sense by some people. Glossary of terms can be found in the literature of psychical research and parapsychology. In B. B. Wolman (Ed.), Handbook of Parapsychology (pp. 921–936). New York, NY, US: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
  3. ↑ Parapsychological Association (2007). Glossary of Parapsychological terms – Retrocognition Archived 2010-08-24 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ↑ Rhine, J. B. (1977). History of experimental studies. In B. B. Wolman (Ed.), Handbook of Parapsychology (pp. 25–47). New York, NY, US: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
  5. ↑ Sidgwick, E. M. (1911). [Review of An Adventure]. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 25.
  6. ↑ Iremonger, L. (1957). The ghosts of Versailles: Miss Moberly and Miss Jourdain and their Adventure: A critical study. London, UK: Faber & Faber.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.