What happened
In September 1972 members of the Toronto Society for Psychical Research, led by the mathematician and geneticist A.R.G. Owen – the same man who had investigated the Sauchie poltergeist – set out to test whether they could “summon” a ghost who had never existed. Eight participants, among them Owen’s wife Iris, invented Sir Philip Aylesford: a 17th-century royalist and spy for Charles II who took his own life after his beloved, a young Romani woman, was burned as a witch. For many months their group meditations produced nothing. When the group dimmed the lights and recreated the atmosphere of a traditional séance, raps sounded at the table answering questions about “Philip’s” life, and the table shook, tilted onto one leg and moved across the room. The sittings were tape-recorded and filmed.
Witnesses
Members of the Toronto Society for Psychical Research (including Iris Owen and Margaret Sparrow), A.R.G. Owen, psychologist Joel Whitton.
Explanations and hypotheses
The participants described the experiment in “Conjuring Up Philip” (1976) and concluded that the phenomena were caused by their own collective, unconscious psychokinesis, not by any spirit. Sceptics point to the lack of strict controls and to the ideomotor effect – small, unintentional movements of many hands on the tabletop, which can slide and tilt a table, especially in dim light and with strong expectations. Later groups that “created” characters named Lilith and Humphrey obtained similar, ambiguous results. For many researchers the experiment shows above all how a séance works.
Disputed A likely explanation exists, but some of the facts are still disputed.
Sources
More: Wikipedia (en)