Discovery Lab Answers

William G. Roll, PhD was one of parapsychology’s most prolific field and laboratory researchers, with a career spanning more than five decades. His work ranged from systematic poltergeist investigations to neuropsychological studies of psi and laboratory sitter-group experiments. His profile is at William G. Roll, PhD.

Experiments

Roll’s research program covered several distinct lines of work:

Poltergeist and RSPK field investigations. The most sustained thread of his career was the systematic investigation of poltergeist cases — what he termed recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis (RSPK), a label he and J. Gaither Pratt introduced in 1958 to shift focus from haunted locations to the person around whom disturbances clustered. His field investigations included well-documented cases such as the Miami disturbance and the Olive Hill case. Across a survey of 116 poltergeist cases spanning 1612 to 1974, Roll examined the relationship between reported physical disturbances and a central “agent” or focus person. Collaborative work with Michael A. Persinger examined whether geophysical variables — seismic precursor activity and geomagnetic conditions — could help explain the timing and clustering of poltergeist reports, including analysis of cases such as the White Ranch haunting.

Laboratory ESP with Lalsingh Harribance. Beginning in the late 1960s, Roll conducted laboratory forced-choice ESP investigations with the subject Lalsingh Harribance, combining standard ESP protocols with electroencephalographic (EEG) recording. These experiments sought correlations between specific brain-activity patterns and psi scoring. Subsequent experiments with the same subject extended the protocol to free verbal response formats and continued to examine neurophysiological correlates.

Psychomanteum research. Roll conducted a pilot study examining visionary reunion experiences — purported contact with deceased individuals — using the psychomanteum method (mirror-gazing in low-light conditions). Fifty-seven participants across 31 workshops completed questionnaires covering ESP-type experiences, out-of-body and aura experiences, survival-related experiences, and psychokinetic experiences. Audiotapes were transcribed and questionnaire scores computed. Roll also explored personal and environmental variables that might predict reunion experiences ^[3].

Sitter group and RNG investigations. Roll was a co-investigator on the Daniel Experiment, a sitter-group study designed to explore macro-PK effects using field random number generator (RNG) and MESA environmental recordings. The study attempted to replicate the Philip/imaginary-entity tradition in which a group collectively tries to produce anomalous physical phenomena ^[1].

Conceptual and review contributions. Roll also contributed to the theoretical framing of parapsychological concepts, engaging with the definitional and conceptual structure of terms such as ESP, telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and psychokinesis ^[4].

Methodology

RSPK/poltergeist field work. Roll’s approach to poltergeist investigation was systematic and agent-centered: rather than treating reported disturbances as properties of a location, he focused on identifying the person around whom effects clustered and examining their psychological state, stress levels, and family environment. His survey of 116 historical and contemporary cases used comparative case analysis to identify recurrent patterns. Collaborative work with Persinger added geophysical instrumentation — examining seismic and geomagnetic data alongside case timelines to test whether environmental electromagnetic conditions correlated with the onset and clustering of disturbances.

EEG-ESP protocol. In the Harribance studies, the design combined forced-choice ESP tasks with simultaneous EEG recording. This allowed a within-session analysis correlating specific EEG characteristics (patterns of brain activity during trials) with ESP hit rates, rather than simply reporting an overall hit rate. Later sessions extended this to free verbal response protocols. The goal was to move psi research toward identifying neurophysiological markers that might predict psi performance within an individual.

Psychomanteum pilot. The psychomanteum study used a multi-component questionnaire (the Psi Questionnaire, divided into four subscales) administered after workshop participation. Conditions were varied across a subset of eight workshops — different session lengths and illumination levels — to test environmental predictors of reunion experiences, though Roll himself noted that eight workshops were insufficient to draw conclusions about those variables ^[3]. Audiotapes of sessions were transcribed for qualitative analysis alongside the quantitative questionnaire data.

Sitter group / RNG. The Daniel Experiment used a field RNG running continuously during sessions, with MESA environmental sensors recording temperature, humidity, and related variables. The RNG output was scored using a cumulative Chi-square approach — summing Chi-square values across time to obtain an overall deviation measure — allowing session-by-session as well as cumulative analysis ^[1].

Data

No structured quantitative evidence block was retrieved for this question, so statistics below come only from what the numbered sources directly state, and are presented at that level of specificity.

Poltergeist survey. Across Roll’s survey of 116 poltergeist cases (1612–1974), 92 cases (79%) appeared linked to a specific focus person. This is a descriptive finding from case-file analysis rather than a controlled experiment.

Psychomanteum pilot. The study enrolled 57 participants across 31 workshops. The retrieved excerpt identifies the questionnaire structure and notes that environmental variables were explored across eight workshops, which Roll acknowledged as insufficient for reliable conclusions about those conditions ^[3]. The retrieved excerpts do not contain the outcome statistics from the questionnaire subscales; readers should consult the primary publication for those figures.

Daniel Experiment / sitter group RNG. The overall RNG analysis did not produce a significant positive deviation from chance across sessions. Individual sessions produced a range of outcomes: Session 4 (p =.103) and Session 7 (p =.093) were weakly suggestive; Session 11 reached significance (p =.008); Session 1 produced a significant result in the negative direction (p =.986, i.e., below chance). The overall cumulative result was not significant ^[1].

EEG-ESP (Harribance). The retrieved excerpts reference these studies and confirm that EEG characteristics were found to correlate with ESP scoring in forced-choice tasks, and that subsequent free verbal response experiments extended this work, but the specific trial counts, hit rates, and effect sizes are in the primary publications rather than in the retrieved excerpts. The retrieved excerpts do not contain those figures.

Skeptical critiques

The sources retrieved for this question include methodological cautions raised by Roll himself rather than named external critics with formal published critiques.

What the data show regarding internal cautions. In the Daniel Experiment, Roll and co-authors noted that the entry of a participant claiming exceptional abilities disrupted group rapport and likely affected the study’s outcome, with several participants opting out. The authors flagged this as a procedural vulnerability and recommended that future sitter groups carefully monitor group dynamics ^[1]. In the psychomanteum study, Roll acknowledged that the subset of workshops run under varied conditions was too small to draw conclusions about environmental predictors ^[3]. These are author-acknowledged limitations rather than external critiques.

The sources retrieved for this question do not include a named external critic with a formal published critique of Roll’s specific experimental work. Readers interested in the broader methodological debate around field poltergeist investigations — including concerns about fraud potential in uncontrolled domestic settings and the agent-centered interpretation — can find relevant discussion on the Poltergeist Cases page.