Second sight
Shari A. Cohn-Simmen
Routledge eBooks August 2, 2004 DOI: 10.4324/9780203334492-8 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Peer reviewed |
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| Key points | The text presents precognition as a category of psi experience, noting Louisa Rhine's 1955 finding that 40 percent of anecdotal psi effects involve precognition and Cox's 1956 observation that train occupancy was lower on accident days than the day before. It outlines the 'precognitive' explanation that information may travel across time, without asserting this as established fact. |
Abstract
A premonition is an experience which appears to anticipate a future event and which could not reasonably have been inferred from information available before that later event. The premonition may consist of apparent actual detailed knowledge of a later event, or a non-specific feeling of foreboding that something will happen. The more neutral term precognition is often applied in scientific literature. Prophetic dreams are mentioned in the Bible, perhaps the most famous being that of the Pharaoh who dreamed of seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine, as interpreted by Joseph. In 1955, Louisa Rhine found that 40 per cent of anecdotal psi effects concern precognition in some form. In 1956, Cox wondered if forebodings could affect action without reaching conscious awareness. He found that the occupancy rate on trains having serious accidents was lower than the occupancy rate on the day before. The &s;precognitive&s; explanation suggests that information can somehow travel across time.