Decades before Joseph Rhine's famous experiments at Duke University, a scientific approach to testing Extra-Sensory Perception (ESP) and other psychic phenomena was already being undertaken in England by the Society for Psychical Research (SPR).
The organisation was founded in the late 19th Century, with the stated aim of understanding "events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal by promoting and supporting important research in this area" and to "examine allegedly paranormal phenomena in a scientific and unbiased way".
I was introduced to the SPR, which still continues its work today, by a friend of mine who had read a number of their publications and was keen to recreate some of their early experiments.
In particular, he was interested in pursuing their "Closed Deck" experiments - conducted using playing cards. Because a pack of cards (with Jokers removed) contains 52 known "targets", it is a simple matter to calculate the odds of correct guesses, in order to see if a significant result has occurred.
Harry Price, who joined the society in the 1920s, wrote in his book '50 Years of Psychical Research': "The easiest, most simple, and cheapest way to test whether a person has ESP is by means of cards - especially playing cards - and for this reason they have been used by experimenters from the very earliest days."
Some experimenters would ask the subject to form an impression of the card as a whole (suit and value), while others would try to send and receive the colour, suit and value separately and analyse the success rates in each.
The image below is an excerpt from 'Experiments in Psychical Research' by John Coover, showing results from one of the early card guessing sessions:
SPR founder Sir William Fletcher Barrett, in his book 'Psychical Research' wrote that he conducted 260 trials with a subject trying to receive an impression of a playing card and saw a success rate of one in nine, rather than the one in 52 you would expect with pure guesswork.
"These and many other experiments made later on were submitted to one of the highest authorities on the Calculus of Probabilities, Professor Edgeworth," he wrote. "Mr Edgeworth, as the result of his calculations, stated that chance coincidence is certainly ruled out and 'the recorded observations must have resulted from collusion on the part of those concerned or from thought-transference'."
Such impressive results were too tempting. Over the course of several months, my friend and I spent hundreds of hours on card guessing. Our results were, to put it bluntly, rubbish compared to Sir William's. My friend showed little ability, with results often below the level expected with pure guesswork. My results were consistently a little better than guesswork, but not by much.
Disappointed with our apparent lack of any psychic ability, we quickly scaled back both our expectations and the scale of our tests, focussing only on the colour of each card rather than the suit and the value. We also slowed down and began consciously taking more time to let an impression form. My friend's results stayed the same - running around 45% correct (less than you'd expect from blind guesswork) but my own results improved dramatically.
On one run through the pack I recorded 41 correctly identified colours out of 52 cards. Over dozens of runs I was averaging 66% correct. My knowledge of statistics is shaky, but my calculations suggest that while this success rate is exciting to me, it is probably not statistically significant proof of my psychic capabilities.
One point of interest came out of our later experiments, my results were a lot more impressive when I took the time to put myself in a relaxed, open state of mild hypnosis. I wasn't in a deep trance, but what I would call a 'receptive state' wherein I find it easier to listen to my own sense of intuition.
So there you go. An easy test of psychic ability that anyone can replicate. If you carry out your own experiments, please do contact me with your results - I'd be fascinated to hear how it goes for you.
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