Telephone Telepathy Study: Participants wanted
Dear All,
As some of you may already know, the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit is currently engaged in a collaborative research project with Dr Rupert Sheldrake investigating the phenomenon of "telephone telepathy". This is the fairly common experience of feeling that you know who is calling you on the telephone before you answer it - even on occasions when you had no particular reason to expect a call from that person. Obviously, sceptics and believers in the paranormal have different explanations for what is going on in such situations, but Rupert Sheldrake claims to have demonstrated that a genuinely paranormal phenomenon may be in operation here. The only way to find out is to carry out well controlled empirical studies and that is what we are doing.
We are looking for volunteers to act as participants in this experiment, people who feel that telepathy is possible in relation to phone calls - knowing who is ringing before they answer the phone. Each volunteer is asked to find 4 people who this might happen with. The test itself should take less than an hour and a half. During this period, the volunteer will be in one building, being filmed on videotape, and the four callers will be in another building. They will be selected at random by the throw of a dice for a series of ten trials. The person who is selected to make the call will also be filmed on video while calling the participant.
These videos are for research purposes only, and will not be shown in public unless those involved give their permission. All those who take part will remain anonymous in any publications or reports about this work. We have limited funding for this project but are offering a payment of £50 total to each group of people who take part, that is to say the volunteer and his/her four callers. We can also cover some travel costs, and can provide more details if requested.
Note that we only want people who genuinely believe that they often have this experience to take part as the "receivers" in this study. Obtaining null findings from a bunch of sceptics wouldn't really prove anything...
If you might be interested in taking part (or know someone who might be), further details can be found at http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/apru/telephone-telepathy.php
You can sign up for this and other projects at http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/apru/participate-research.php
Best wishes,
Prof Chris French
As some of you may already know, the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit is currently engaged in a collaborative research project with Dr Rupert Sheldrake investigating the phenomenon of "telephone telepathy". This is the fairly common experience of feeling that you know who is calling you on the telephone before you answer it - even on occasions when you had no particular reason to expect a call from that person. Obviously, sceptics and believers in the paranormal have different explanations for what is going on in such situations, but Rupert Sheldrake claims to have demonstrated that a genuinely paranormal phenomenon may be in operation here. The only way to find out is to carry out well controlled empirical studies and that is what we are doing.
We are looking for volunteers to act as participants in this experiment, people who feel that telepathy is possible in relation to phone calls - knowing who is ringing before they answer the phone. Each volunteer is asked to find 4 people who this might happen with. The test itself should take less than an hour and a half. During this period, the volunteer will be in one building, being filmed on videotape, and the four callers will be in another building. They will be selected at random by the throw of a dice for a series of ten trials. The person who is selected to make the call will also be filmed on video while calling the participant.
These videos are for research purposes only, and will not be shown in public unless those involved give their permission. All those who take part will remain anonymous in any publications or reports about this work. We have limited funding for this project but are offering a payment of £50 total to each group of people who take part, that is to say the volunteer and his/her four callers. We can also cover some travel costs, and can provide more details if requested.
Note that we only want people who genuinely believe that they often have this experience to take part as the "receivers" in this study. Obtaining null findings from a bunch of sceptics wouldn't really prove anything...
If you might be interested in taking part (or know someone who might be), further details can be found at http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/apru/telephone-telepathy.php
You can sign up for this and other projects at http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/apru/participate-research.php
Best wishes,
Prof Chris French