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In this book Professor Rhine gives an abridged and popular account of certain experiments conducted under his direction into the possibilities of telepathy and telesthesia (clairvoyance). The subjects were required to
name a card they could not see. Usually this card was taken from the top of a shuffled pack by the experimenter; but in tests for pure telepathy he merely thought of it, and in tests for pure telesthesia he did not examine it until after the experiment. Since there were five types of card the chance score was one in five. Most subjects, as we should expect, came somewhere near this figure. But a few averaged far higher scores even over a long series of trials. These in Professor Rhine's terminology possessed the power of extra-sensory perception (ESP).
The attitude of the reader to such results will probably depend on his personal philosophy. If it includes a place for what is called the supernatural he would have accepted them on a tenth of the evidence Professor Rhine brings in their support. If it includes no such place he would have rejected them even if they had been confirmed by all the psychological laboratories of Europe and America. Everyone's unconscious retains its infantile belief in animism and magic; but whether he consciously denies or defends this belief depends not only on rational considerations, but also upon the nature of his mechanisms for dealing with anxiety.