Can Consciousness Nudge Randomness?

2026

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A single-investigator, two-year naturalistic RNG field study reporting a very small but highly significant deviation from randomness during a pre-identified “stressful” morning window. The paper reports every figure this audit could check against its own text, and its design carries genuine strengths: a collection window fixed in advance, all pre-defined time windows reported whether significant or not, and a conservative Bonferroni correction. Those sit alongside real interpretive limits the paper is largely candid about, including the absence of formal preregistration, an “attention” value that is derived from the model rather than measured, a distance effect shown only by simulation, and no external replication. This audit describes what the paper reports and how it was run; it takes no position on whether consciousness influences randomness.

Memory In Nature: A Study of Morphic Resonance Predictions on Learning

2026

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Three studies testing a prediction of Rupert Sheldrake’s morphic resonance theory, that the daily Wordle puzzle should get easier to solve as the day goes on, because earlier solvers seed a shared “morphic field.” The results are mixed and mostly unsupportive: Study 1 found no effect, Study 2 found players did slightly better on their first two guesses by evening (but worse on later guesses), and Study 3 failed to replicate Study 2 and mostly ran the opposite way. Every effect size was tiny (Cohen’s h around 0.01). Two problems dominate: the “significant” results come from samples of hundreds of thousands to millions of players, where trivial differences reach p < .001, and morning versus evening players are simply different populations (time zones, who plays when), a confound that can produce time-of-day differences with no morphic resonance at all. The authors report the mixed picture honestly and conclude any effect must be subtle. Sheldrake, who originated the theory, is a co-author. This audit reports what the studies found and how; it takes no position on whether morphic resonance is real.

A Forced-Choice Precognition Experiment with Selected Cohorts

Peter A. Bancel et al. · 2025 · Journal of Anomalous Experience and Cognition

precognitionmixed

Pre-registered binary forced-choice; confirmatory variance hypothesis null (p = .22/.97), hit rate at chance; a large variance signal appears only in exploratory and non-registered tryout data (Bonferroni-adjusted p = .00043).

Consciousness and the Environment: Maharishi Technologies of Consciousness and the Incidence of U.S. Landfalling Hurricanes, 1851–2021

2025

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A quasi-experimental time-series study claiming that group practice of Maharishi Technologies of Consciousness (a form of collective Transcendental Meditation) during 2006 to 2014 coincided with a large drop in U.S. landfalling hurricanes, which then rose again after the practice stopped. Using NOAA data and quasi-Poisson regression, the authors report a 57.7% lower predicted annual hurricane count during the demonstration period (incidence rate ratio 0.423, p < 10⁻⁸), with a replication analysis giving a similar result. The statistics are competently executed and the data are open. The decisive question, which the authors themselves raise, is causal: the 2006 to 2016 “hurricane drought” is a recognized meteorological phenomenon with conventional climate explanations, and an observational study that selects the treatment period to match the intervention cannot separate meditation from natural variability. The study is also not preregistered and is authored at institutions that promote the practice. This audit reports what the study did and how; it takes no position on whether consciousness can affect weather.

Observer influence on quantum interference: Testing the von Neumann–Wigner consciousness-collapse theory

2025

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A preregistered test of the von Neumann–Wigner idea that conscious observation can act like a weak quantum measurement, using 47 attention-trained participants who each ran a custom optical interferometer at home. The honest headline is mixed: none of the three preregistered hypotheses was supported once the full dataset was combined. One preregistered subgroup contrast held (outward-focus “magicians” outperformed inward-focus meditators, p = 0.008), and an exploratory trend analysis produced a spectacular result (a decline in interference at the observed spot but not a simultaneously recorded unobserved spot, p = 5.9 × 10⁻¹⁴). But the striking number is exploratory, not confirmatory, and the author himself flags plausible artifacts, feedback-related electromagnetic effects, laser noise, and the unsettling fact that two sensors just 3.5 cm apart behaved very differently. Two dataset revisions were also made after preregistration. This audit reports what the study preregistered, found, and cautioned; it takes no position on whether consciousness collapses the wave function.

Past-life Memories and Foreign Languages: An Exploration of Xenoglossy in Cases of the Reincarnation Type

2025

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A database study from the University of Virginia’s reincarnation-research group examining xenoglossy, the claim that a child recalling a past life can speak a language they had no ordinary way of learning. Comparing 40 xenoglossy cases with 872 others in the CORT database (1959 to 2020), the authors report that xenoglossy was not linked to ordinary explanations (early speech, parental education) but was linked to emotion during recall, an intentionally violent mode of death, a desire to return to the previous family, and overall case strength. The study has an unusually honest feature, the authors disclose their own prior belief scores, and it applies a Bonferroni correction and directly tests mundane explanations. But it rests on a proprietary, non-public database and on subjective variables coded by a team that believes in the phenomenon, with a small number of xenoglossy cases (as few as 21 in the multivariate model). This audit reports what the study found and how; it takes no position on whether reincarnation occurs.

Psi Effects as a Result of Implicit Expectations About Probabilities – Investigating Micro-PK with a Biased Baseline

M. C. Dechamps et al. · 2025 · Journal of Scientific Exploration

psychokinesismixed

Pilot biased-baseline micro-PK coin-toss game; strong Bayesian evidence (BF10 = 10.87) that the ‘lucky’ (60%) group’s hits drifted toward the participants’ implicit 50% expectation, while the ‘unlucky’ (40%) group showed no such effect (BF01 = 3.76, moderate evidence for the null).

Testing Noetic Potential in Large Language Models: A 100-Trial Precognitive Forced-Choice Study with ChatGPT-4.1-Mini

Benjamin J. Amorim Boyle · 2025 · Journal of Scientific Exploration

precognitionpositive

LLM (ChatGPT-4.1-mini) forced-choice precognition; 32% vs 20% chance over 100 trials (p = .005, h = .28); single session, undocumented RNG.

Who is calling? An Independent Replication of a Telephone Telepathy Test

Tom Stedall et al. · 2025 · Journal of Scientific Exploration

telepathynull

Preregistered telephone telepathy replication; overall 48.6% (p = .76, null), with a post-hoc intuitive subgroup at 55.7% (p = .027).

Brain functional connectivity correlates of anomalous interaction between sensorily isolated monozygotic twins

2024

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A brain-imaging study asking whether one identical twin’s brain shows connectivity changes timed to images that the other, sensorily isolated twin is viewing. Using an EEG-based functional-connectivity method, the authors report that 11 of 38 observations showed significant changes in the Receiver twin’s brain, but only when those changes were aligned to the moments the Sender twin saw an image, and they aggregate this into an extraordinary experiment-wide result (p = 4 × 10⁻⁸, effect size d of about 0.85). The synchronization-only pattern is a genuine internal control. But the result comes from just five twin pairs, analyzed with a proprietary connectivity method developed by the lead author’s own company, and the tiny sample, the many observations aggregated, and the method’s limited independent validation mean the striking p-value should be read cautiously. A second hypothesis (that personal images would show larger effects) was not confirmed. This audit reports what the study found and how; it takes no position on whether anomalous twin interaction is real.

Childhood Trauma and the Emergence of Precognitive Abilities: A Correlational Study

2024

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A correlational study testing the idea that childhood trauma might foster precognition, on the theory that anticipating danger would be adaptive for a child in an unpredictable, threatening environment. With 227 adults completing a standard childhood-trauma questionnaire and four online ESP tasks, the severely traumatized group outscored the least-traumatized group on just one of the four tasks, long remote viewing (p = .039, a small effect, d = 0.36), while the other three tasks showed no differences. The finding is genuinely weak and mixed: a single marginally significant result out of four tasks that would not survive correction for multiple comparisons, a self-selected sample recruited from trauma-survivor and psi-interested communities, and post-hoc sub-analyses that were incoherent across abuse types (neglect associated positively, sexual abuse reversed). To the authors’ credit, the null tasks and the reversed pattern are reported plainly. This audit reports what the study found and how; it takes no position on whether precognition is real.

Confirmatory Study of Anomalous Experiences in Enchanted Spaces

2024

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A preregistered field experiment testing an “enchantment-psi loop”: the idea that immersive, atmospheric spaces (sacred sites, reputedly haunted locations, and augmented-reality environments) heighten both anomalous experiences and psi performance. With 22 “thin-boundary” participants toured through three enchanted conditions and a plain “disenchanted” baseline, the results were mixed and mostly did not support the psi predictions. Encounter experiences and felt enchantment were reliably higher in the enchanted spaces, but the predicted psi differences largely failed to reach significance (aggregate 1.85 vs 1.82, p = .23), and, contrary to the model, felt enchantment correlated negatively with psi. The study is preregistered with open data and unusually candid, all four deviations from the plan are disclosed, but the sample is very small, the facilitators were not fully blinded, and the central prediction did not hold. This audit reports what the study found and how; it takes no position on whether the enchantment-psi loop is real.

Enhanced mind-matter interactions following rTMS induced frontal lobe inhibition

2024

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A study in the mainstream neuroscience journal Cortex testing a novel idea: that the brain acts as a filter suppressing psi, so temporarily inhibiting a specific left-frontal region with rTMS should let a mind-matter (psychokinesis) effect emerge. With 108 healthy participants trying to push a random-number-generator-driven arrow, the study’s pre-specified primary test was null (p = .31). A significant effect (p = .006, d = .38) appeared only after the authors applied a post-hoc trial-weighting procedure that gave more weight to early trials, on the reasoning that the rTMS effect fades over time. The design is genuinely strong (random allocation, a sham condition, and a NIST-validated generator), and the authors are unusually candid that the weighting was post hoc and the unweighted analysis did not reach significance. Whether the result is a real effect or a product of analytic flexibility is exactly the question a reader must weigh. This audit reports what the study did and found; it takes no position on whether psi exists.

Measuring Paranormal Beliefs: Reconceptualization and Empirical Validation of the Paranormal Belief Construct

2024

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A large psychometric study testing whether a widely used questionnaire, the extended Revised Paranormal Belief Scale, measures a coherent, well-structured construct. With 6,584 Spanish participants, the authors fit a hierarchical model (twelve subscales feeding three factors and one overall paranormal-belief factor), found strong and significant factor loadings (.65 to .91), replicated the structure across two independent subsamples, and showed the scale works equivalently for men and women. This is careful measurement work, and it is important to be clear about what it does and does not test: it validates a tool for measuring how strongly people believe in the paranormal, not whether paranormal phenomena are real. Its main methodological wrinkle is that adequate fit required removing the reverse-worded items, a known and debated issue with this scale that can mask response biases. This audit reports what the study found and how; it concerns belief measurement, not the existence of psi.

Parapsychology

2024

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The meta-analysis of ganzfeld ESP research written for the U.S. National Research Council by Monica Harris and Robert Rosenthal (a founder of modern meta-analysis), prepared around 1988 and republished in 2024. Across the 28 direct-hit studies in Honorton ’s 1985 database it found a combined Stouffer z of 6.60 (mean Cohen’s h of .28, a 38% hit rate against 25% expected), a file-drawer tolerance of 423 null studies, and, most consequentially, no statistical relationship between Hyman’s six methodological-flaw variables and study outcomes. The authors’ own conservative estimate, after allowing for statistical errors and the file drawer, was an accuracy of about one in three (33%). Its lasting value is the flaw analysis and the episode around it: asked to evaluate psi, the authors reported that ganzfeld research followed the most rigorous protocols of the areas they reviewed. This audit reports what the paper argues and how it was done; it takes no position on whether ESP is real.

Stage 2 Registered Report: Anomalous perception in a Ganzfeld condition – A meta-analysis of more than 40 years’ investigation

2024

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A preregistered (Stage-2 Registered Report) meta-analysis of the entire ganzfeld literature from 1974 to 2020: 78 studies, 113 effect sizes, 46 principal investigators. It reports a small but statistically robust overall effect (Hedges’ g of about .08), matched almost exactly by frequentist and Bayesian random-effects models, that survived four publication-bias tests and showed no decline across four decades. Its real strength is procedural: the analysis plan was locked and peer-approved before the data were pooled, the full database and code are open, and null studies are included. Its honest limits are that individual-study effects are tiny and mostly non-significant (median power .088), the effect is dominated by telepathy-style Type-3 designs, and the meta-analysis inherits whatever methodological quality the primary studies had. This audit describes what the paper reports and how it was conducted; it takes no position on whether anomalous perception is real.

Stage 2 Registered Report: Testing mediumship accuracy with a triple-blind protocol

2024

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A triple-blind Registered Report testing whether self-defined mediums can retrieve accurate information about deceased strangers, using 64 readings scored by the sitters themselves. Of three preregistered hypotheses, only one was confirmed: sitters rated the reading intended for their own deceased slightly higher on a 0-to-6 scale than a control reading (1.48 vs 1.09, p = .01), but at a weak Bayes factor of 2.8. Reading identification did not beat chance (53.1%, p = .08), and the correct-minus-incorrect information difference was non-significant (p = .06). The design is a genuine strength (three levels of blinding that shut down cold reading), but the result is predominantly null, one confirmed hypothesis is only anecdotally supported, the stronger post-hoc finding was not preregistered, and 78% of the readings concerned just 11 deceased people, so the readings are not independent. This audit reports what the paper found and how it was run; it takes no position on survival of consciousness.

State, Trait, and Target Parameters Associated with Accuracy in Two Online Tests of Precognitive Remote Viewing

Julia Mossbridge et al. · 2024 · Journal of Anomalous Experience and Cognition

remote viewingmixed

Two online experiments: forced-choice accuracy at or below chance, free-response target matching above chance, with target interestingness associated with accuracy in both.

Testing the Effects of Personality-Related Beliefs on Micro-PK

M. Jakob et al. · 2024 · Journal of Anomalous Experience and Cognition

psychokinesismixed

Preregistered quantum-RNG micro-PK quasi-experiment; 1 of 3 personality-target hypotheses confirmed (dependent trait, BF10 = 10.41), with the headline effect reversing to no support under the prior actually written into the preregistration.

VR Video Game-induced Psi Communication With Red and Green Ganzfeld: A Proof-of-Principle Study

Yannick Lieb et al. · 2024 · Journal of Anomalistics

telepathynull

Sender-receiver ganzfeld with VR video-game targets and red/green ganzfeld light; confirmatory hit rate 15/48 (31.25%) vs 25% chance (p = .199, null), green-vs-red comparison non-significant (χ² = .814, p = .367).

Raising the value of research studies in psychological science by increasing the credibility of research reports: the transparent Psi project

2023

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A 10-laboratory, preregistered registered-report replication of Bem’s (2011) precognition experiment, built from the ground up as a credibility showcase — born-open data, tamper-evident software, formal external audit, and a design co-authored by a consensus panel of ESP proponents and opponents. Across 37,836 trials from 2,115 participants it found no above-chance guessing (49.89% versus a 50% chance baseline); all four pre-specified statistical tests supported the no-effect model at the minimum planned sample size. Methodologically it is among the most rigorous studies in this literature; the honest limits it states are that a design powered for a 51% effect cannot exclude a still-smaller one, and that one well-run replication of a single experiment cannot settle the field. This audit describes what the paper reports and how it was run; it takes no position on whether precognition exists.

Remote Viewing: A 1974-2022 Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

2023

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The first meta-analysis to pool all remote-viewing studies from 1974 to 2022, reporting a notably large average effect and concluding that remote viewing is the most efficient ESP protocol. Across 36 studies (40 effect sizes, 39 after outlier exclusion) the authors find an average effect size of .34 (95% CI .22 to .45), a raw hit-rate elevation of 19.3% above chance, agreement between frequentist and Bayesian models, no sign of publication bias, and only a minimal decline. The reproducibility is exemplary, the full database and analysis code are openly posted. Two things a reader should weigh: the effect is much larger than other ESP meta-analyses report, and the headline claim that remote viewing beats ganzfeld, forced-choice, and presentiment rests on comparing separate meta-analyses that used different designs and metrics. One author is also affiliated with a remote-viewing advocacy organization. This audit reports what the study found and how; it takes no position on whether remote viewing works.

Who’s calling? Evaluating the accuracy of guessing who is on the phone

2023

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A preregistered, automated test of “telephone telepathy,” whether people can guess who is calling before answering, cleverly split into two trial types the participant could not tell apart. When the caller was chosen before the guess (a telepathy design, with a sender who knows they are calling), accuracy was 50.0% against a 33.3% chance baseline (p < .001). When the caller was chosen after the guess (a precognition design, with no sender yet), accuracy was at chance (31.9%, p = .61). The pre-versus-post contrast is a genuine internal control, and the data are open. But the confidence is tempered by significant caveats the authors disclose: several protocol changes were made mid-study, including fixing a randomization bug, in a study whose validity depends entirely on correct randomization, and the moderator findings (genetic relatedness, communication frequency) are exploratory and mostly null. This audit reports what the study found and how; it takes no position on whether telepathy is real.

A Closer Look at Visual Life Reviews and Age in Adulthood During Near-Death Experiences

2022

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An observational study of 3,394 near-death-experience accounts from the public NDERF archive, asking whether the visual life review (seeing scenes of one’s past) becomes less common with older age at the time of the experience. The author read and classified every account himself and found a small but statistically significant age gradient: the visual life review was most common in adolescents and emerging adults (16.5% at ages 10 to 25) and least common in older adults (7.9% above age 50), chi-square p < .001, Cramer’s V = .09. The strengths are a large sample, a tightly specified definition, and a candid, exploratory tone. The central limitation is that a single, non-blinded rater classified subjective narratives with no independent inter-rater check, on a self-selected retrospective online sample. This audit reports what the study found and how; it takes no position on the nature of near-death experiences.

A Pre-Registered Test of a Correlational Micro-PK Effect: Efforts to Learn from a Failure to "Replicate"

Markus A. Maier et al. · 2022 · Journal of Scientific Exploration

psychokinesisnull

Pre-registered quantum-RNG micro-PK replication; both standard micro-PK tests favored the null (Bayes factors 11.00 and 13.95 for no effect), and the correlation the study was built to replicate proved to rest on a coding error in the original dataset, corrected to strong evidence for no effect.

Quantum Measurement as Pragmatic Information Transfer: Observer Effects on (S)Objective Reality Formation

2022

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A large, preregistered micro-psychokinesis study testing whether intention can bias a quantum random number generator, with an unusual central prediction: the effect should appear only when scientific objectivity is reduced . With 898 participants, the authors found strong Bayesian evidence for an intention-congruent bias in the condition where the objective computer record was never inspected and then erased, so the measure was the participant’s recalled count (Bayes factor 17.14), while the conditions that kept an objective record showed evidence for no effect. A follow-up confirmed the pattern: the bias appeared only where data were permanently erased, not where they were restored. This is exactly what the guiding theory predicts, but it is also its central vulnerability: an effect that exists only in subjective memory and vanishes whenever an objective record is kept is precisely the pattern that memory bias, demand, or the recall-order confound the authors themselves found could produce. This audit reports what the study found and how; it takes no position on whether micro-psychokinesis is real.

The Future Failed: No Evidence for Precognition in a Large Scale Replication Attempt of Bem (2011)

2022

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A high-powered online replication of three of Bem’s (2011) time-reversed “precognition” experiments, run with more than 2,000 participants. All three backward (precognition) tests were null, while the forward control versions reproduced the ordinary, non-time-reversed effects — showing the tasks themselves worked and the study was sensitive enough to detect a real effect had one been present. It is a large, transparent, open-data direct replication; the limits the authors state are that it was not formally preregistered and that a wide battery of exploratory post-hoc analyses (from which a few scattered significant effects emerged) inflates the risk of false positives. This audit describes what the paper reports and how it was run; it takes no position on whether precognition exists.

Validating the GCP data hypothesis using internet search data

2022

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An econometric study testing the Global Consciousness Project (GCP) hypothesis indirectly: if mass-attention events really nudge the GCP’s random-number network, those same events should spike internet searches, so GCP data and Google Trends should correlate. Using time-series models, the author finds that monthly GCP aggregates do correlate positively with search indexes, improve model fit in 15 of 18 specifications, and can even sharpen out-of-sample forecasts (by up to 8.26%), though 2020 broke the pattern (attributed to COVID). The reproducibility is a real strength, both data sources are public. But the central inferential limit is that a correlation between GCP data and searches is equally consistent with both simply responding to real-world events by ordinary means, so it cannot by itself isolate a mind-matter mechanism, and the large specification space with no preregistration adds analytic latitude. This audit reports what the study did and found; it takes no position on whether the GCP hypothesis is true.

Anomalous Cognition in the Context of Time: Does the Viewer Describe a Deterministic or a Probabilistic Future?

Maximilian Müller et al. · 2021 · Journal of Scientific Exploration

remote viewingpositive

Five viewers, 100 ARV trials: hit rates above chance in both time conditions, with present targets judged more accurately than future ones.

Associative Remote Viewing for Profit: Evaluating the Importance of the Judge and the Investment Instrument

John G. Kruth · 2021 · Journal of Scientific Exploration

remote viewingmixed

A blinded dual-judge ARV stock-prediction pilot: the two judges diverged sharply on identical material, and the paper reports its own investment loss plainly.

Effects of Background Context for Objects in Photographic Targets on Remote Viewing Performance

Debra Lynne Katz et al. · 2021 · Journal of Scientific Exploration

remote viewingmixed

Exploratory triple-blind remote viewing, 12 viewers and 360 trials over photographed objects on white, normal, or unusual backgrounds; the two scoring methods gave significant but opposite background effects (sum of ranks favored white, p = .005 vs normal; viewer self-rated hit rates favored normal and unusual, p = .02), and independent judges’ hit rates showed no condition effect (p = .19).

Emulating alien and UFO encounters in REM sleep

2021

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A study testing a naturalistic explanation for alien-abduction experiences: that they can be products of REM-sleep states (lucid dreams, sleep paralysis, out-of-body experiences), and can therefore be deliberately emulated. Given the task of producing an alien or UFO encounter during a lucid-dream or related “phase state,” 114 of 152 self-selected practitioners (75%) reported succeeding, and the successful encounters were significantly more likely to involve fear or sleep paralysis. This supports the plausibility that some real abduction reports are sleep phenomena, and it is included here because ESP-Nexus audits naturalistic explanations of anomalous experience to the same standard as psi studies. Its limits are substantial: everything is self-reported by motivated enthusiasts practising unsupervised at home, with no verification that the sleep state occurred and no blinding of the researchers who coded the reports. This audit reports what the study found and how; it takes no position on the origin of alien-encounter experiences.

ESP Contributes to the Unconscious Formation of Preferences

2021

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A two-experiment test of First Sight Theory, which proposes that ESP is an ongoing unconscious process feeding into everyday judgments, here tested on picture preferences using a variant of the mere-exposure effect. Crucially, the theory predicts no simple overall effect, because unconscious influence is held to be bidirectional (sometimes increasing liking, sometimes decreasing it, the “psi-missing” pattern), so the study instead tries to predict the direction and size of the effect from personality and mood. That is roughly what happened: there was no overall mere-exposure effect for either subliminal or extrasensory pre-exposure, but a personality composite predicting extrasensory preference, derived in Study 1, was independently confirmed in Study 2 (r = .29). Several other predictions, including the subliminal effects and an extrasensory mood manipulation, failed to replicate. The derive-then-confirm design is a genuine strength; the reliance on a data-derived moderator in the absence of any main effect is the main caution. This audit reports what the study found and how; it takes no position on whether ESP is real.

Hocus Pocus: using comics to promote skepticism about the paranormal

2021

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A science-communication experiment, from the skeptical side of the field, testing whether comics are better than plain text at making people more skeptical about the paranormal. With 517 online participants randomly given a skeptical account in one of three formats (text, a comic, or a comic containing an interactive magic trick), the main prediction largely failed: there were no significant differences between formats in skepticism shift or recall, and the plain text was actually rated more interesting and entertaining than the comics. The positive findings are secondary and correlational, people who already liked comics engaged more with the comic versions and, in the comic condition, shifted more toward skepticism. The design is clean (matched materials, an a-priori speed exclusion, analyses pre-planned to mirror a prior study), but the sample was an opportunistic 24-hour social-media recruitment and the moderator finding is partly post hoc. Auditing skeptic-side research to the same standard as proponent research is deliberate: ESP-Nexus takes no side. This audit reports what the study found and how.

Mind–Matter Entanglement Correlations: Blind Analysis of a New Correlation Matrix Experiment

Hartmut Grote · 2021 · Journal of Scientific Exploration

psychokinesisnull

A pre-registered blind-analysis replication of the correlation matrix experiment with 200 participants; the pre-specified main analysis returned a null result, reported as such.

Nailing Jelly: The Replication Problem Seems to Be Unsurmountable – Two Failed Replications of the Matrix Experiment

2021

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A rare and admirable piece of scientific self-correction: the same group that had reported a positive psychokinesis result (the “matrix experiment”) preregistered a strict protocol, ran two independent replications, and reports that both failed. Neither replication produced more significant participant-to-generator correlations than chance at the predefined counting level; one showed a very small non-significant effect, the other nothing at all, and the control analyses were also null. The authors conclude plainly that the matrix experiment is not a replicable paradigm. Methodologically this is close to exemplary, preregistered, adequately powered, with a clean randomization test and control matrices, and publishing the failure of one’s own prior positive finding is exactly the practice critics say the field lacks. The one point a reader should weigh is the interpretive move: the authors read the failure as confirming their theory that psi effects are inherently elusive, a framing that is hard to falsify. This audit reports what the study found and how; it takes no position on whether psychokinesis is real.

Psychophysical interactions with a double-slit interference pattern: Exploratory evidence of a causal influence

2021

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The long-delayed full report of a 2012 to 2013 double-slit experiment (25 people, 250 sessions, no real-time feedback), notable because its pre-planned analysis found nothing. This is the unusually candid one: the paper’s title says “exploratory,” and its abstract leads with the fact that the planned directional analysis showed no psychophysical effect. Every significant result reported here comes from two metrics the authors developed after the planned analysis came up null (a simplified spectral measure and a fringe-visibility measure), which then produced effects while the matched sham sessions stayed null. The authors are explicit that these are post-hoc and require independent replication, and the study is also the one a funder-affiliated group publicly called a false positive. The transparency is a real strength; the post-hoc status of the positive results is the real limitation. This audit reports what the paper planned, ran, and found; it takes no position on whether consciousness influences quantum systems.

Psychophysical Interactions with Photons: Three Exploratory Studies with Unexpected Results

2021

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Three exploratory experiments testing whether focused mental intention can alter the polarization or scattering of a laser beam, all of which produced significant effects in the direction opposite to what the authors predicted. In two polarization experiments, intending to “twist” a beam between crossed polarizers was predicted to increase the transmitted intensity; instead it significantly decreased. In a scattering experiment, intending to block a beam through a reflective sphere was predicted to dim it; instead it significantly brightened. Matched control sessions were null throughout. The authors treat the reversals candidly, arguing they weaken the “experimenter wish” explanation, but they also list mundane accounts (an effect on the sensors or polarizers rather than the photons, the fact that the first two experiments used the investigators themselves as participants, and a likely misread of the third experiment’s feedback) that would mean no photon effect at all. This audit reports what the paper predicted, ran, and found; it takes no position on whether mind can influence light.

The Effects of Meditation and Visualization on the Direct Mental Influence of Random Event Generators

Tayzia Collesso et al. · 2021 · Journal of Scientific Exploration

psychokinesismixed

A two-experiment REG study: no significant deviation in the control experiment, a significant deviation after meditation and visualization exercises, with the device error and sampling differences disclosed by the authors.

Performance at a Precognitive Remote Viewing Task, with and without Ganzfeld Stimulation: Three Experiments

Chris A. Roe et al. · 2020 · Journal of Parapsychology

precognitionmixed

Three counterbalanced experiments; ganzfeld hit rate 39% (p < .001), waking 27.5%, between-condition contrast p = .065.

Testing Precognition and Alterations of Consciousness with Selected Participants in the Ganzfeld

Caroline Watt et al. · 2020 · Journal of Parapsychology

precognitionpositive

Pre-registered precognitive ganzfeld with selected participants; 37% direct hits (22/60) vs 25% chance (p = .03, 1-tailed), with both secondary altered-state hypotheses null.

Using Virtual Reality to Test for Telepathy: A Proof-of-Concept Study

David Vernon et al. · 2020 · Journal of Scientific Exploration

telepathynull

VR-immersed sender, partially isolated receiver; primary direct-hit 25% vs 20% chance (p = .17, null), post-hoc top-two 52% vs 40% (p = .018).

Psychophysical modulation of fringe visibility in a distant double-slit optical system

2016

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A two-year online double-slit experiment (1479 people, 2013 to 2014) testing whether directed attention shifts the visibility of interference fringes, with computer-run robot sessions as controls. The pattern is the whole story: in 2013 fringe visibility significantly decreased (4.78 sigma) and in 2014 it significantly increased (3.41 sigma), the opposite direction. The headline 5.72 sigma result is obtained only by reversing the sign of the entire 2014 dataset, which the authors justify by a feedback coding bug that inverted the 2014 goal and which they present as evidence for an active steering effect rather than passive observation. The control apparatus, optional-stopping tests, outlier-robustness checks, and an independent reanalysis are genuinely strong, but the absolute effect is about a 0.001% change in fringe visibility and the significance rests on a post-hoc sign flip. This audit reports what the paper ran, found, and disclosed; it takes no position on whether consciousness modulates quantum systems.

Psychophysical interactions with a single-photon double-slit optical system

2015

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Six experiments using a single-photon (rather than bright-beam) double-slit apparatus, testing whether directed attention changes the number of photons arriving at an interference minimum. The honest headline is mixed and the authors present it that way: combining the six experiments for a mean shift in photon counts gave nothing (Stouffer z = 0.58, p = 0.56), and the single largest effect (Experiment I, z = 4.50) went in the direction opposite to the paper’s primary prediction. The significant result the paper rests on comes instead from a second, variance-based combination (chi-square = 30.1, p = 3.77 × 10⁻⁵), driven by two experiments that reached significance in opposite directions, and the authors reinterpret this post hoc as a goal-oriented rather than a passive observation effect. The single-photon runs also report no observer-free control sessions (unlike the authors’ earlier beam-laser work), and two of the six experiments used just two hand-selected participants. This audit reports what the paper predicted, ran, and found; it takes no position on whether consciousness influences quantum systems.

Anomalous 'Retrocausal' Effects on Performance in a Go/NoGo Task

Dick J. Bierman et al. · 2014 · Journal of Scientific Exploration

precognitionpositive

Behavioural retrocausation; target shape ~2% faster (t(66) = 2.59, p = .024, d = .22), effect only in “intuitive” thinkers; the authors openly discuss Questionable Research Practices.

Psychophysical interactions with a double-slit interference pattern

2013

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Three experiments testing whether focused human attention toward a double-slit optical system reduces the interference pattern, as a possible probe of the quantum measurement problem. The reported pattern is internally consistent in direction: a strong supervised effect (50 sessions, effect size 0.73, p = 2.4 × 10⁻⁷), a much smaller but well-powered online effect (685 people, effect size 0.09, p = 2.6 × 10⁻⁶), and a small third replication (effect size 0.62, p = 0.006), with matched no-observer control sessions null throughout and a combined Stouffer z of 6.81. But the participants were hand-selected for prior performance and high absorption rather than sampled at random, the large modeled effect sizes come from a subset of 12 sessions chosen because they were already significant, the psychological-modulator table runs many uncorrected comparisons, and the paper carries four internal numerical inconsistencies (documented below). This audit reports what the paper preregistered, ran, and found, and surfaces its own internal conflicts; it takes no position on whether consciousness affects the wave function.

Science and Psychic Phenomena: The Fall of the House of Skeptics by Chris Carter

2013

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Consciousness and the double-slit interference pattern: Six experiments

Dean Radin et al. · 2012 · Physics Essays

psychokinesispositive

Optical double-slit test of a consciousness-collapse hypothesis; combined z = -4.36, p = 6e-6 (4.4-sigma) across 137 people and 250 sessions, with no-observer controls null (z = 0.43, p = 0.67).

Psi in a Skeptic's Lab: A Successful Replication of Ertel's Ball Selection Test

2010

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Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands

2001

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Notes on Random Target Selection: The PRL Autoganzfeld Target and Target Set Distributions Revisited

1998

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A post-hoc methodological re-analysis, co-authored by parapsychologists including Rick E. Berger , that scrutinizes the target randomization behind the influential PRL autoganzfeld database (Bem & Honorton , 1994). Applying a deliberately conservative response-bias correction, the authors find the overall hit rate barely above chance (.2598 versus a theoretical .25) and, more pointedly, they weaken one of the original study’s firm claims: the reported roughly 10% scoring advantage of dynamic over static targets shrinks to a non-significant 6.8%. They also document a genuinely odd target-set frequency distribution (one set used about three times as often as expected) but conclude it cannot explain the reported excess of hits. It is a notable example of a field auditing its own flagship data and downgrading a secondary claim in the process. This audit reports what the paper argues and how; it takes no position on whether the autoganzfeld results reflect psi.

Exploring the Links: Creativity and Psi in the Ganzfeld

Kathy Dalton · 1997 · Proceedings of the 40th Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association

telepathypositive

Sender-receiver ganzfeld telepathy, 128 sessions; 47% direct hits vs 25% chance (p = 7e-8, ES .46); creativity correlations mixed.

Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism

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