Saint Cheese

Extra Sensory Perception, or ESP, is a subject most of us have read or heard something about at one time or another. ESP refers to a number of phenomena that happen to people, but have no scientific explanation. Clairvoyance, Precognition, Telepathy and Premonition are some examples of ESP.

Some people may believe in ESP with different degrees of conviction, some others may think that those phenomena are just a question of sheer coincidence, while some others may believe that ESP is just nonsense pure and simple.

Being the skeptical guy that I am, I wouldn't bet a penny on the predictability of such phenomena. I find it hard to believe that anyone may have a reliable ability to exercise any so-called ESP at will. I do, however, know for sure that there are some random things that happen to some of us that can be very startling and puzzling.

For example, how often has it happened to you that you spontaneously think very clearly about someone you know and shortly after you get a phone call from them or you run into them in the street or at the supermarket? This has happened to me many times and almost every time it happens I think "Ah! That's why I was thinking about them, because I was going to hear from them or meet them."

But there are also countless times when I have clearly thought about someone I know, but I did not meet them or hear from them in a long time. One Saturday morning, for example, I spontaneously thought very clearly about a good friend of mine from California, but the whole weekend went by and I didn't even hear a peep from her, nor did I stand a chance of running into her in the streets of my town (She lives in California and at the time I was living in Korea)

Does this mean that sometimes we have ESP and sometimes we don't? Maybe. But my question would be whether anyone can master any such ability to the point of exercising it at will. And here's where I adopt the Saint Thomas position and say that I would have to see that to believe it.

By this I mean I don't think that, for example, anybody can systematically predict who's about to call them on the phone or who they're going to find at what place and at what time. "OK, Sal, tell me where you want me to go right now and I'll tell you who I'm going to meet there." No such thing.

Yet, taking into consideration some of my past experiences with ESP, I don't doubt that I will continue to experience other similar situations in the future. The story of Saint Cheese, for example, is an experience I went through a few years ago that some strong believers in ESP might characterize as Premonition. I wouldn't suggest that that particular experience was definitely some kind of ESP, but I do think it was at least a curious little episode worth telling. The following paragraphs tell the story of "Saint Cheese."