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History
The notion of extra-sensory perception is a very old one, and in many ancient cultures it was taken for granted that certain people had such powers of perception, be it second sight, or the power to communicate with deities, ancestors, or spirits. However, in recent centuries this idea has been widely classified as superstition and denounced as fictitious, or at best unprovable and unscientific.
Source: Wikipedia
Person
The Delphic Sibyl was the priestess presiding over the Apollonian Oracle at Delphi, a Greek colony, located in a plateau on the side of Mount Parnassus. She lived on Mount Parnassus and was believed by many to be a prophet. The word sibyl comes (via Latin) from the ancient Greek word sibulla, meaning "prophetess". There were many Sibyls in the ancient world, but the Delphic Sibyl was among the most renowned because of the famous receivers of her advice, who were said to be Aegeus, Cadmus, Herakles, Oedipus, Orestes, Perseus and Xuthus.
Source: Wikipedia
Film
The X Files (1993) [TV-Series 1993-2002]: created by Chris Carter and starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. Tagline: The Truth is Out There. Plot Outline: Two FBI agents, Fox Mulder the believer and Dana Scully the skeptic investigate the strange and unexplained while hidden forces work to impede their efforts.
Source: IMDb
Number
$1 million: the Randi Prize. James Randi made his name and fortune as a stage magician, and later became a skeptic devoted to debunking the claims of performers who pretended to offer more than a good show. In 1996, he set up the James Randi Educational Foundation to explore paranormal phenomena and educate the public about them. The foundation has famously made a standing offer of a $1 million prize to anyone who could demonstrate ESP or any psychic phenomenon. The prerequisites for trying to claim the "Randi Prize" are non-trivial, however; as of 2005, no would-be claimants have passed Randi's preliminary test (which has a lower significance level than the formal test), and no offers to conduct a formal test have been extended by the Foundation.
Source: Wikipedia
thing
Jaytee: an allegedly psychic dog in England whose owners claim has a supernatural ability to sense when one of them was leaving work to come home (which he allegedly displayed by running out to the porch at that time). Parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake proclaimed that his tests had shown that the dog had ESP ability. Two scientists from the University of Hertfordshire, Richard Wiseman and Matthew Smith, then tested the dog under scientifically controlled conditions, and found that the dog had no such ability -- after four experiments, the dog showed no evidence of ESP.
Source: Wikipedia
song
Crown of Creation by Jefferson Airplane was inspired by the Chrysalids (a novel by John Wyndham in which David, the hero, is telepathic in an imaginary future time when mutations were seen as evil) and some of its lyrics come from the book
See lyrics
recipe
Chinese fortune cookies
See recipe
wordplay
The letters ESP are an abbreviation for:
Extra-sensory perception; English for Special Purposes; Electronic Stability Program (also known as Electronic Skid Prevention); Effective Sensory Projection; Electronic Shock Protection; Escapade (ESP for short - a server-side scripting language); Equally spaced polynomial; Encapsulating Security Payload (an encryption protocol) and Electrostatic Precipitator.
Source: Wikipedia
literature
Mr. Sludge, “The Medium” by Robert Browning
Read poem
place
University of California, Berkeley: where the first and only Ph.D. in Parapsychology was awarded to Dr Jeffrey Mishlove in 1980. Subsequently some activists unsuccessfully lobbied the Berkeley administration to revoke the degree.
Source: Wikipedia
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