A supposed ability of some individuals to alter the state of an object by the power of the mind alone, without any physical intervention.
Explosive or impulsive maniacal action caused by defective inhibition.
Literally meaning “mind movement,” sometimes known as telekinesis, the direct action of mind on matter. As a result of mental concentration directed on an inanimate object, the object is supposedly caused to move or change its shape. PK is the physical side of psychic phenomena in contrast to the cognitive side, which is extrasensory perception. Some writers on the subject include within psychokinesis: poltergeists, table rapping and levitation of one’s own body. Although related activities, none of these can be strictly included because spirits, rather than a human person’s mind, are involved in poltergeists and table rapping. In levitation, the influence is not on an external object but on the practitioner’s own body. However, table turning or lifting, the bending of metal spoons, and the causing of dice to land with a certain number upward all fall into this category because the medium’s concentration alone is used to move a real object.
The first attempt to test psychokinesis critically involved the f9th-century British scientist Michael Faraday, who was skeptical when a craze of table turning first hit his country in 1812 and thought it likely that physical force by the medium’s hands, rather than any psychic influence, was the cause. With this in mind, he devised a complicated system of experiments with cards glued to each other (one over the other), with soft cement. When the medium sat at the table with her hands lightly placed on the upper cards, the table moved as he had expected. On close inspection Faraday found that the displacement of the cards showed that the medium’s hands always moved in advance of the table; in fact, the table had been dragged along by her hands.