Here's an ingenious protocol for testing telempathy, devised
in the 1960s by psi researcher Douglas Dean. Before the experiment began, names which were
emotionally charged for both sender and receiver were written on cards. Neutral names were
marked on other cards. The receiver was hooked up to a plethysmograph, a device for
measuring variations in blood-volume. In another room, a random generating system signaled
the sender to look at a new card, concentrate on it for 20 seconds, and then put it aside
and wait for the next signal.
In 11 sessions of 15 trials each the graph showed average drops of blood-volume
(indicating vaso- constriction) during the exact moments when the sender was concentrating
on those names known to both subjects. When the names were neutral, blank, or known only
to the sender, the receiver showed no physiological changes.
A somewhat different telempathy experiment was recently conducted by Deborah Delanoy and
Sunita Sah of the University of Edinburgh. First the sender wrote down several
emotionally-charged personal memories. These had to be strong enough to trigger an
especially positive and happy state of mind. Four other topics were also selected which
elicited no emotional response or interest. |
