HSP Plans Tests In Telepathy for Today, Tomorrow

The Harvard Society of Parapsychology needs student cooperation in experiments in telepathy and clairvoyance which it will conduct today and tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. in Emerson 211.

This is the second year of experiments led by this group, which last year set up an air-tight method of testing extra-sensory perception or "the ability to perceive one's environment without means of the senses." The highly significant results of the tests were reported in the September issue or the Journal of Parapsychology, published by Duke University.

Personality Influence

The method the group used was to have students try to duplicate an IBM examination sheet which had been checked at random and which was at the time 500 miles away. This year the society will conduct the same experiments and will try to determine how personality traits affect the students' attempts to duplicate the sheet. Previous experience suggests that personality traits do have a bearing on extra-sensory perception.

Due to the large number of test-class required to achieve significant results, David Kahn, president of the society, hopes that a large number of people will offer their services. A favorable attitude toward ESP is in no way necessary.

The experiments are being conducted because of criticism of the Duke University methods, which some did not consider air-tight enough to be significant.

Tests made at Duke University had shown the validity of Psychokinesis, the control of movement through thought. This was demonstrated, the Duke experimenters claimed, by people who apparently influenced the fall of dice by concentrating on what numbers would occur. So far the Harvard experiments have not borne out this theory.