You say you don't believe in the power of Psi? That's P-S-I, not P-S-Y. Psi is defined as "supposed parapsychological or psychic faculties or phenomen" by the Apple Dictionary, and while the entry thankfully says "supposed," others say there's a simple demonstration that can make you a believer.

Swift reader Austin wrote to ask what I thought about psiballs. Psiballs are balls of energy that you create between your hands with the power of your mind. With practice, it's reported that you can program these balls to do "complex tasks," but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

According to WikiHow, here's one way to make one of your very own:

1. Gather your energy. This could be from your own body or from another source. You could visualize the energy entering and filling every part of your body from the Earth through your feet, or from the sky and the sun through your crown chakra. Some people imagine energy coming into the body on the in-breath and out through the hands on the out-breath.

2. Hold your hands steady. When you feel like you have enough energy hold out your hands. You can either hold them like you hold a basketball, you can cup them like you are holding a baseball, or you can even hold out one hand. Do whatever feels natural to you.

3. Picture a hole appearing in your hand. Picture a trapdoor cover opening and letting the energy flow out. Imagine a hose in each of your palms slowly emitting psi. It doesn't have to be very fast, or have very much pressure, it just has to naturally flow. Don't let it out of your hands.

* At this point you should be able to sense the psi. It could feel like heat, pressure or tingling. When you feel this, move your hands closer together a bit - if there is resistance (even a little) you will know you're sensing it.

Austin has created one, he believes, and he said "it was like taking two powerful magnets positive side up, resting them in the palm of your hand and trying to force your hands together."

I've actually done that with two very large neodymium magnets, and if he's truly feeling something THAT strong, I'd find it interesting.

YouTube has many videos of people attempting to produce this phenomenon, and some claim to even produce light as well as just a force. Here are three typical ones that you might want to look at:

  • Simple Psiball Lesson

    I'm wondering if this short video is a prelude to a terrorist of attack of some sort. If terrorists are resorting to psiball attacks, I say we encourage them.

    Chi Psiball Tutorial

  • This one claims it feels like "heat" and comes from your second chakra. From the video, my guess would be that it draws energy from the spelling chakra, because his is clearly depleted.

    Psiball with Blue Light

  • It appears that the poor lighting and low resolution has caused some video artifacts that the creator thinks is "blue sparks," but even this is hard to see.

So what's my take on this? I'm going to follow the instructions and try to make one now. Here goes.

Well, I felt something. Yep, there was the definite sensation of a "force" of some kind, but I believe what I was feeling was tension in my hands as I put pressure on them to maintain their cupped position. More than that, I think a stronger correlary of skepticism is at play here, and that is: believing is seeing. Or in this case, feeling.

Pattern seeking creatures that we are, we can form an idea in our minds and then scour our environment for it. If we focus on something small and discrete long enough, the sensory pathways start to fatigue and noise is introduced into the system. Our brains detect this noise, and try to make sense of it. And the sense that it's all too easy to make is that the searched for phenomenon is occurring.

In the case of psiballs, I think people are so desperate to have this ability, that they're interpreting the tension in their hands as an object. If there was an actual object there, it should have an effect on its surroundings. What would happen if you made a psiball in a glass of beer or over a moving candle? I'll bet people testing this over a candle would only reinforce their belief as candle flames are anything but stable, and their movement could be interpreted as the effect of the psiball. Add to that that they also give off heat, and you have the perfect recipe for a false confirmation.

So how could you accurately detect an actual psiball? We're talking about a ball of energy that is invisible, but can be felt. How else could it be reliably detected? I think you'll find the answer to that more illusory than it may first appear. Feel free to comment if you have a concrete idea though. This could come up for a challenge application.

In the meantime, there was one video that actualy DID show something interesting. If you didn't watch any of the others, I urge you to watch this one, and I guarantee you'll actually see something.