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PSI Experiments and how to make sure they fail. By Chris Robinson
Dd.
For a number of years I have produced what is to most people, and that includes police and scientists alike,
outstanding evidence of what I call dream precognition. (Probably not a good description.) At a very early stage I satisfied
very senior police and intelligence officers who properly monitored me that this was genuine psi and I was not a participant
in the crimes I predicted or provided information about. More about this can be found at
http://www.dream-detective.com
At
the same time as I started to become a “public psychic” skeptical paranormal investigators started to try and debunk my work.
This troubled the police as they had properly checked in to me and my background and satisfied themselves I was not a criminal
or terrorist. They disliked criticism from individuals who had little or no knowledge of police work or our relationship.
I
have now been producing what many call psi evidence for almost 20 years and I think it is about time I started to make comments
about the conduct of some of these skeptics who claim to conduct open minded psi research. I have been looking into the claims
and the conduct of the published findings of many skeptics over the last 2 years and I am not at all happy with what I find.
In writing this, I hope to stir up proper debate as to how proper unbiased psi experiments are conducted in the future.
This
is how the article starts…….
“Journal of the Society for Psychical Research [Vol.61, No. 842
AN EXPERIMENTAL
TEST OF PSYCHIC DETECTION by RICHARD WISEMAN, DONALD WEST and ROY STEMMAN
ABSTRACT
The media often describe how people
claiming to be psychic have helped to prevent and solve serious crimes. In addition, some American law-enforcement agencies
have reported using 'psychic detectives' to help resolve their investigations. Scientists in both Holland and America have
carried out controlled studies investi¬gating the efficacy of these claims. In August 1994 the authors added to this data¬base
by undertaking the first British scientific evaluation of psychic detection. The study involved three well-known psychic detectives.
Two of these worked as professional psychics whilst the third had recently received a great deal of attention from the British
media. These psychics were compared with a control group of three students (none of whom claimed to be psychic). All six participants
were shown three objects, each of which had been involved in one of three solved crimes. They were asked to handle these objects
and describe the nature of the crimes. Next, they were shown a list of eighteen randomly-ordered statements (six related to
the first crime, six to the second and six to the third), and asked to select the six statements which they believed were
related to the crime involved with each of the three objects. Results showed that the psychics were no more accurate than
the students and that neither group performed at above-chance levels. An analysis of the comments made by the participants
whilst they handled the objects revealed that the psychics made many more comments than the students but were no more accurate,
and no comment made by either the psychics or the students would have been of value to the investigating officers. The methodology
of this study is discussed, along with its implications for future research into psychic detection.”
As you
can see, the article starts by saying he media often describe people who claim psychic ability helping the police…… It says
3 psychics were involved in the test and 3 control subjects who were students who claimed no psychic ability. It claims two
of the psychics were professional psychics and the third had recently received a large amount of publicity.
It says
all 6 were shown 3 objects, each of which had a connection to a solved crime and were asked to handle the objects and describe
the nature of the crimes.
That was the idea on the day of the experiment, I was the psychic who had received the large
amount of recent publicity and that is not what I was told I was going to be asked to do on the day of the test. I was asked
to dream about each of the objects and send the notes of the dreams to Wiseman and then on the day of the test I would use
what I had dreamt to describe the crime to which each object related.
The article then goes on to mention other experiments
that have been conducted over a number of years by others into psychic detectives.
It states “This test compares
the performance of two groups of participants: psychic detectives and a “control group” of students. The authors initially
suggested a design which was conceptually similar to a free- response ESP tests. Participants would have been presented with
several sealed boxes each containing an object associated with a different crime. For each box participants would have been
asked to describe what they believed happened during the crime. They would then have been told about each of the crimes and
asked to decide which of their sets of descriptions correspond to which crime. Their accuracy would then have been determined
by examining the degree to which they had matched their descriptions to the correct crime.”
Now, this is what I had
been told would happen and what I was expecting to happen on the day. It is not what did happen. As you will see, not only
were the goal posts moved but we were now playing tennis and not football. This had become some sort of psychometric test
and one to answer mainly irrelevant questions with little direct link to the crimes themselves or the motives.
The
article goes on to say, “Unfortunately, this design had to be abandoned as the psychics asked that they be allowed to see
and touch the objects involved in the crimes. . Allowing the participants to handle the objects presented a major problem.
Participants might be able to derive a great deal of accurate information about the crimes through informed but non psychic
guesswork ( e.g. if the object was a bullet the participants would be likely to guess that the crime involved a shooting).”
The
article goes on more about this, but I need not continue for my present purpose. What concerns me about the experiments conducted
by certain skeptics and published in journals and more recently on the skeptics own web sites is the moving of the goal post
and what may be deliberate misrepresentation of what an experiment is actually testing. It is claimed that this experiment
was to see if psychics could obtain information about crimes, and crimes that were solved to see if they could help the police.
Now, in all my experience as a psychic detective the police have never asked me for assistance in solved crimes. It strikes
me that it is improper to test psychic detectives in a way they would never be asked to work and to me this must be fundamental.
The fact that goal posts are in my experience almost always moved and sometimes the game is changed completely is not relevant
to this point.
We do not know how psychics obtain their information….. How did I obtain advanced information that the
IRA were going to blow up a bank in St Albans for example in 1991, 5 days before they did, I named the town, and the day and
time of day it would happen, and how did I obtain psychically at the request of the police the names of the two IRA terrorists
who did it a week before the anti terrorist squad knew their names. This is one of the game set and match psi dreams I have
reported to the police and one that to this day the police remind me of. It must be right to set up an experiment to as closely
as possible follow the actual phenomenon you are asserting that you are putting to the test. This was not done it this case
and for more reasons than we have examined so far here.
Now we have 3 psychics and 2 or may be 3 skeptical experimenters
and 3 students…… What happens next? The article explains it like this,
“Response Sheets
The second author, having
examined the descriptions of the crimes and having received further information about them from Sergeant Fred Feather, constructed,
for each crime, six statements that were true for that crime but untrue of the other two crimes. As well as comprising the
type of information that would have been useful to an investigating officer, most of these state¬ments concerned idiosyncratic
details about the crimes in question that would be impossible to predict on the basis of any known patterns of criminal activity.
These three sets of six statements were then randomly ordered into a single list of eighteen statements (see Appendix B).
Procedure
The
testing was carried out in September 1994 in the University's Social Observation Laboratory. This consists of two rooms which
are specially designed to allow the unobtrusive observation and filming of behavior. One room (the 'Studio') contains three
remote-controlled cameras, whilst an adjoining room (the 'Gallery') contains tiered seating facing the Studio. The two rooms
are separated by a large (5ft x 10ft) one-way mirror. With appropriate lighting conditions people seated in the Gallery can
see into the Studio, but those in the Studio cannot see into the Gallery.
The film crew arrived in the morning and set
up their equipment in the Gallery. The one-way mirror would allow them to film the entire test unobtrusively. A few hours
later Sergeant Fred Feather arrived with the target objects. These were labeled 'A', 'B' and 'C' and laid out on a table in
the Studio.
1 The first author contacted Sergeant MacGregor concerning this matter and received confirmation that the above
statement was correct (personal communication, 19th December 1994).
It was important that the information relating
to these crimes was not known to the participants nor to anyone who might come into contact with them. For this reason everyone
who interacted with the participants prior to the test (including, for example, the first author, the television producer
and researchers, the camera and sound operators) knew nothing about the nature of the crimes. Those who were aware of this
information (including Sergeant Fred Feather and the second author) waited in a distant part of the building until the test
had been completed.
All the participants arrived in the late morning and were shown into a room adjacent to the Social
Observation Laboratory.
Each participant was tested individually. At the start of each test the participant was shown into
the Studio and seated at the table containing the three objects facing the one-way mirror. The participant was told that each
of the objects related to a different crime and was then asked to handle each of the objects in turn and speak aloud any ideas,
images or thoughts that might be related to these crimes. Participants were told that they were free to take as long as they
wished and to say as little or as much as they felt necessary. During the test they were left alone in the room but everything
they said or did was filmed.
After each participant had finished commenting on all three objects, the first author returned
to the Studio and provided three response sheets (one for each object). Participants were told that six of the statements
were true for each crime, and were asked to tick the six statements which they believed corresponded to the crime in question.
They were allowed as long as they Wished to complete these sheets. The sheets were then collected and placed in » safe location
(a locked office drawer in a nearby room); the participant was thanked and shown into a general waiting area away from others
who had yet "Sto be tested.
results
Table 1 presents the individual scores for each of the six subjects. Because lie
subjects' guesses may not have been independent, the data were assessed a 'closed deck' analysis recommended by Palmer (1986,
pp.148-149). tone of the subjects' scores was significant and the psychics' scores were no different from those of the students.
It
could be argued that the above method of testing might underestimate participants' psychic ability. For example, a participant
may have made several curate comments describing the crime in question but nevertheless obtained |a low score because this
information was not included on the list of eighteen statements. For this reason a judge not involved in the test transcribed
and separated all the comments made by the participants as they handled the objects (see Appendix C). The order of these statements
was then randomized for each crime and presented to two additional judges. These judges were ed to read about each crime and
rate the accuracy of each statement from L(very inaccurate) to 7 (very accurate). Table 2 contains the average of the *w>
judges' ratings (inter-rater reliability a 0.77).
Overall, the psychics made a total of 39 statements whilst the students
de 20 statements.”
I am not concerned with the results these experiments claim to have obtained or weather or not
they say it proves anything about these particular psychic detective or how any one test result, positive or negative.
I had previously sent by post to Wiseman the notes of my dreams where I had asked about the objects and the crimes.
When I arrived at the lab in the university I was told that I would not be allowed to use my dream notes that I had mailed
to Wiseman. I was told the objects were not in boxes either. I could have at this point walked away and refused to continue
as the rules had changed as far as I was concerned and I was now being asked to do something I had not done before and was
not expecting to do…. But if I had walked away, it is almost certain that some skeptics would have shouted from the highest
tree, “I chickened out” as my kids would put it. No, I was not about to do that, so I decided not to play into the hands
of skeptics who I thought may be out to destroy all the hard work I had and others had done in psi research done; I decided
to continue……. I could remember some of the details of the dreams and I felt that if this was a proper and fair test I would
at least have got the main details of the unknown crimes correct…… for example I could remember that object A would link to
a crime of murder, and the murder of a woman by as I put it a jealous lover…. And this woman was shot. I had more information
in the dreams but the hub was this….. For object B, I was sure this was the shooting of a man and I was certain that I was
likely to see the murder weapon and my dreams were about the murder of a policeman, PC Keith Blakelock. I knew Keith was murdered
by a knife so it was not his murder I would be looking at…… I thought possibly the gun….. For object C, I was sure it was
a woman who had been killed and I was expecting to see something soft that had been used to stop her breathing, may be a pillow
or something… I also had a strong link to bottles of milk.
Now, Wiseman tells us that we will be shown into the studio
one at a time and be shown the objects on open display on a table. I cannot remember now what order we were shown in to see
the objects but I was shown into the room as were the others. At this point I am told that what I am expected to do is look
and if I wanted to hold the objects and answer which 8 of 24 statements on a sheet of paper were true for each crime.…… So,
to me at that time it did not matter how much I knew about the crimes, what I had to know were the answers to specific questions
Wiseman West and Stemman had set. That is not how the police would ever work and not how a psychic detective ever works……..
I do not know of any psychic detectives who claim to be able to answer set questions about crimes, and certainly never to
be asked about three separate crimes at the same sitting.…. In my experience psi does not work that way but what I feel is
most critical, is that I was now confused and was being asked to do something I had not been expecting to do. How would an
Olympic runner feel if suddenly they were asked to ski instead of run and 30 seconds before the start?. The emotional turmoil
produced in a human mind when presented with a sudden change of tactic could and most probably would impair judgment even
if just for a short time. Looking back at what I said on the tape of that day and looking at the known details of the crimes
I consider I did very well. We were not told what kind of crimes we were to be asked to look at or what or how the objects
may connect to those crimes, yet before I even got to the lab, my dreams had told me that A was to do with a woman shot.
B was connected to a male Police Constable and a shooting and C was the murder of a woman with something soft linked to bottles
of milk. If one looks at the notes of my dreams it may be possible to deduce more but I do not like to do that All what
I call fundamentals were correct, other information may or may not have fitted and in my experience there is always some information
that does not seem to fit.
I have no way of knowing how much by chance this was or what the statistics would say,
but I felt that was a good start and that I must did well. They need not even have been murders and could have been all men
or all women, A and C could have been men and B a woman. Knives could have been used? The possibilities are endless, the
fact remains that what I call fundamental psychic information was correct……. To me it was a great hit. I have learned that
scientists very seldom seem to check each others work, so far after ten years I have not seen reported the obvious flaws in
this experiment, yet Wiseman seems to me to have used the result to claim that psychic information is not real or at least
the three psychics tested that day are frauds. From reading much of what Wiseman has done he always concludes fraud or delusion.
Yet only a little examination of his and other skeptics methods reveal, at the least sloppiness in design at the worst deliberate
moving of the goal posts and ones mind boggles as to why any scientist would want to do this. Why would any scientist think
that one or two or even five or ten negative results proves something does not exist, yet as wel all know, find it only once
and we know its real.
In my experience psi often works, but never 100% to order at the request of an experimenter.
I have on occasions been asked to try and provide specific information, like the names of the IRA terrorists who blew up a
bank and themselves in St Albans in 1991 and on that occasion I did get the names correct. But that is a rare happening. It
can happen but it’s not common. But who can blame the police for listening to a man who tells them where and when terrorists
will strike and also provides their names. The police would be stupid not to be interested. Yet because of all the negative
reports from bad scientific experiments like the one in question here, it is little wonder they want to keep their relationships
with psychic detective secret. I was lucky, I have had dozens of police officers prepared to speak up for psi amd my work.
So Wiseman and the others had set 8 questions that they say connected to each of the crimes. I also disagree with
that, most of the questions as you will see had nothing to do with the actual crime and they were not questions the police
would ask a psychic detective to answer in a real life investigation.
This is the information the article included
about the 3 crimes and the list of questions we were to allocate to the crimes. We had to match 8 to each crime / object.
If one looks at it for just a moment, it is easy in my view to see how unconnected to the actual crime most of the questions
were.
“CRIME 1 The Moat Farm Murder, 1889-1903
Samuel Herbert Dougal was a Sergeant-Major in the Royal Engineers
and had spent much of his military career in Canada. In addition to having been married three times, he was known to have
had many mistresses and had fathered several illegitimate children. In 1889 he was living with his third wife (a middle-aged
Londoner named Miss Camille Cecile Holland) at Moat Farm in Clavering, Essex. In May of that year he tried to force his attentions
on their 19-year-old maid, Florrie Havies. Havies resisted and protested to Miss Holland. On 16th May, Dougal and his wife
decided to go out for a horse-and-trap ride into the town. During the trip Dougal drew a gun and shot his wife in the head.
He buried her in an open drainage ditch and returned home. Holland's body remained buried for four years before the police
heard rumours about the murder and launched an investigation.
•Using clues provided by a local farmer and the couple's
dog (called Jacko) the police eventually discovered the body. The shoes worn by the corpse were identified by a London
;
cobbler as belonging to Holland. Dougal was hanged for the murder in 1903.
The target object was Holland's shoe. The shoe
was clearly very old and in a dilapidated, rotting, condition.
.CRIME 2 The Murder of Constable Gutteridge, 1927
In
1927 two white men stole a car from Billericay. At 3 30 a.m. the following morning a police officer (Constable Gutteridge)
stopped the car at Stapleford Abbots. Constable Gutteridge asked the driver several questions about the car and was about
to take down a few details when the driver suddenly pulled out a gun and shot him in the side of the head, the driver then
fired two additional shots—one into each of Constable Gutteridge's eyes. : car was later found abandoned in Brixton, London.
A six-month investigation resulted in both men being caught and hanged. An important part of the incriminating evidence was
the bullet removed from the scene of the crime. A ballistics expert (called Churchill) fired bullets from over 1500 revolvers
to show that the marks on the bullet could only have been caused by the revolver in possession of the two suspects.
The
target object was one of the two spent bullets recovered from the scene of the crime.
CRIME 3 The Killing of Margery
Pattison, 1962
Margery Pattison, a 71-year-old eccentric widow, returned to her flat (which faced the waterfront in Westcliffe)
and disturbed her milkman (aged in his mid-twenties), who had entered through an unlocked door and had started to look for
money. The man asked her for money. An argument ensued and the man grabbed the scarf around her neck, pulled it tight and
strangled her. The man was later caught and said that he had not intended to kill the woman and did not realize that the scarf
was strangling her. On the basis of this plea the charge against the man was reduced from murder to manslaughter.
The target
object was the red woolen scarf used to strangle the woman.
List of Eighteen Statements Used in the Experiment
Crime Statement
3 A
link with milk
2 A connection with Churchill
2 Involves injury to the eye
2 Victim had only son, aged
four
2 An accomplice involved
3 Victim was eccentric
2 Victim's Christian name starts with G
1 A
link with a dog
1 Sexual jealousy involved
2 Perpetrator arrested in South London
3 Crime took place
in a flat
3 Perpetrator sentenced to imprisonment
1 Victim's Christian name begins with C
3 Victim was
a senior citizen
1 Perpetrator had many children
1 Perpetrator linked to Canada
1 Perpetrator's
Christian name begins with S
3 Perpetrator aged in his twenties
……”
One question related to a man who pioneered ballistic examinations, Churchill and it is true that
the case in question was the first or one of the first that tested ballistics in a court of law, but it had nothing to do
with the reason the person was killed directly and it seems to me an erroneous question if it was to be said it was to do
with testing if a psychic can obtain information about a crime….. It as I see it had nothing to do with the murder at the
time of the murder…… And we have no idea if Churchill was an important name to any of the other victims or was connected
to the crimes in another way. I do not think it at all scientific for an experimenter to have open ends and this is what we
have here. For all we know the name Churchill could have been more connected to the victims that some technical expert who
later examined the murder weapon, the bullet. For all we know the victims and the perpetrators and the investigating offices
for that matter could all have links to Canada. It is true that the PC was shot in the eyes, but we are not told if the other
victims had damage to the eyes. It is highly likely that they may have. We just do not know and for experienced professors
to allow such sloppy questions to be set in an experiment that has such importance is in my view unforgivable. I have to
say it seems that these type of skeptical investigators conduct this kind of sloppy experiments all the time, yet they are
well respected members of academia. How is it possible that this can happen and it be left to a psychic to raise the questions
some ten years later.
In my experience the information about a crime or intended crime available psychically
is related to the use that the information will be put to…… I do not intend to elaborate on this theory I have now as it is
not relevant to what I am saying about experimental procedure when testing psychic detectives.
The questions that
the police would ask a psychic detective should have been the questions Wiseman and the others asked if questions were proper
at all. It may very well be that asking about solved crimes provides must less information than asking about unsolved crimes.
So to sum up this experiment, I would conclude that experiments must be conducted exactly as the subjects of the
experiments have been told and have been expecting and that until we understand more about psychic detectives we must do as
the police would do and test using unsolved crimes and seek the kind of information police would seek. The article by Wiseman
West and Stemman also contains a quote from Hertfordshire Police,
It says, “When Chris Robinson comes to the police
with his dreams, he is taken seriously and the information he passes on to his established contact, Sgt Richard MacGregor
is acted upon immediately.”
This is from the police HQ in Hertfordshire; they have experience of my dreams, but
so do New Scotland Yard and Bedfordshire police. They have also given very positive quotes like that about my ability as they
have experienced it. Customs Intelligence and the police have recorded my psychic crime predictions for almost 20 years. Did
the experimenters think that the police are stupid? Did they think that the police tell lies to help psychics get credibility?
I do wonder why these experiments conduct experiments that are fundamentally not the same as the police would do. The police
want information not known to them at the time of asking, what is needed is for any future psychic detective experiments to
match the police requirements and may be then we will understand more about the way psychic detectives can and do operate.
I
now come on to another article published about an experiment with me conducted by Dr Susan Blakemore, the science and statistics
of which was later commented on in another article by Dr Jessica Utts. This article can be found in JSPR Vol 60 No 840. WHATS
IN THE BOX and ESP test with Chris Robinson.
Dr Blackmore and millions of others had seen me attempt to dream what
is in a box that I am presented with on the TV show. She quotes 2 of the many times I have done this type of test on live
TV.
I had challenged her on live TV the Esther Rantzen show, to replicate the tests as it was obvious Dr Blackmore
either thought I was cheating or that I had just got lucky on the two shows she had seen me perform in. Live on TV Dr Blackmore
accepted the challenge to test my ability to dream what’s in the box…. Now we all know don’t we, that a few negative results
just mean that the test in question did not work and it is not proof that what we are seeking does not exist. How often does
a golfer score a hole in one? Not very often but they do sometimes score them. So when the first golfer scored a hole in one
it was proof a hole in one score was possible.
I agreed to conduct some preliminary experiments with Dr Susan Blackmore,
I had explained to her about what I called dream precognition but I am not sure she understood what I meant. She suggested
that in the first instance she would like to try and see if I could using my dreams see what she had placed in a box in her
home and that we could try this for 12 or so times to see what happened. She assured me that this was a preliminary test to
see if it mattered whether or not I actually saw the objects in real life as I did when I conducted this test on live TV and
had been so successful. I explained to Dr Blackmore that in my experience it was vital that I was present when the box was
opened and that I did see the contents of the box. I did agree however to try this preliminary experiment to see if I could
see what’s in the box without ever seeing the objects. I felt I had nothing to loose by conducting any experiment as the reason
I was doing all this was to learn. I was not setting out to debunk or make claims other than I wanted to accurately report
what happens in experiments.
What happened next was more or less what Dr Blackmore reported in her article, she did
have some problems with the objects not being changed on the days it was previously agreed to be changed but I did not consider
that was much of a problem. I did not expect her to write any articles about the first preliminary experiment that was to
test something I had never tried before and I think I detect glee in her tone of writing that she was able to report the experiment
failed. I seem to see this glee when any of these skeptical scientists report negative results. I may be wrong about this
but I will leave it for others to decide what they think. I am not sure I would even call them scientists.
I have this
to say about the test with Dr Susan Blackmore. First, I had explained to her that when I conduct the box test live on TV it
is always the case that I see the objects. I am present when the box is opened. I call this my dream precognition. I do believe
that it is at least partly some kind of precognition. I also consider the possibility that other mechanisms may be involved.
I
do not think it is correct that Dr Blackmore did not make it clear she was reporting on an experiment I had not ever tried
to do and one that we both considered to be a preliminary experiment. I have learned however that all too often when skeptical
scientists conduct experiments they not only move goal posts but change the game played. I am left wondering if there is some
strange desire in some skeptical scientists to ensure that genuine and honest psi research is sabotaged. What is obvious to
me is that just as there are a large number of people fooled by dishonest psychics, there are perhaps and equally large number
of people fooled by bad science and skeptical magicians who think they represent science.
In order to keep this article
short, I will mention just one more case where skeptical scientists move goal posts and in my view behave in a manner not
fitting of honest scientists.
An experiment with Natasha Demkina, a Russian girl that was conducted in the USA in 2004
is a case similar in many ways to the two cases I have mentioned so far. She was flown from Russia to the USA to be tested
by Wiseman and others and on that occasion also, the goal posts seem to have been moved. My main objection to the experiment
with Natasha that has not be cover by other scientists who are just as appalled as I am by the conduct of the scientists is
that she was expected to perform he psychic testing while she must have been totally exhausted from a journey of 6 thousand
miles. I would have expected any psychic experiment to have been conducted when she was rested from her long journey and when
she fully adjusted to the new time zone. I have taken this up with the experimenters and I have been told that pressures
of time and the TV company who filmed the experiment did not allow for her to be given time to recover from the journey.
I do not think it is acceptable for leading academics to conduct experiments in unfavorable conditions where they are then
going to claim the psychic is a fraud or deluded or both and we must remember that just one genuine success proves its real
no matter how many misses you get. A search of the internet will provide you with pages on the controversy with Natasha Demkina.
This web address will allow you to see the view of another scientist.
http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/propaganda/
When I have traveled across the world to conduct experiments I always allow myself a week to adjust and if
this time is not easily going to be available I take the dream data with me. In 2001 when I conducted the first Arizona experiments
I asked the dreams to provide the answers weeks before I knew I when I was going to the USA, I do this with the Japanese experiments
as well. One day I hope that some of these experiments will be reported but while the standard of investigation of psychic
detective is as poor as it has been so far it may be a longtime before you read it..
Chris Robinson December 2005.
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