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According to records the activity began with streaks of animal faeces or manure appearing on the floor of the house. A young boy, Dean, was blamed; however, when the boy was out of the house the stains continued to appear, proving that he was not the cause. Soon the activity increased: windows were smashed, objects were thrown and fires broke out. This time the focus was identified as 11-year-old Dinah McLean, an adopted child of the family.
In November 1889 an investigator named Percy Woodstock asked Dinah to take him to the woodshed where she had reported seeing a strange man. To Woodstock’s amazement, from the middle of the empty shed a few feet away came the clearly audible voice of an old man. It cursed them both in a deep, gruff voice, using language Woodstock would not record. It said, ‘I am the devil, I’ll have you in my clutches, I’ll break your neck.’ Woodstock talked to the voice for several hours, during which it admitted causing the fires, spreading the manure, smashing the windows and moving objects. Eventually it calmed down and admitted it was only doing the hauntings for fun.
A crowd soon heard about the phenomena and gathered around the house and woodshed, where the entity allegedly performed incredible feats for the audience. Woodstock organized a statement signed by 17 witnesses acknowledging that they had seen the phenomena of flying stones and a mouth organ playing by itself:
To whom it may concern:
We, the undersigned, solemnly declare that the following curious proceedings, which began on the 15th day of September, 1889, and are still going on, on the 17th day of November, 1889, in the home of Mr George Dagg, a farmer living seven miles from Shawville, Clarendon Township, Pontiac County, Province of Quebec, actually occurred as below described.
1st, That fires have broken out spontaneously through the house, as many as eight occurring on one day, six being in the house and two outside; that the window curtains were burned whilst on the windows, this happening in broad daylight whilst the family and neighbors were in the house.
2nd, That stones were thrown by invisible hands through the windows, as many as eight panes of glass being broken; that articles such as waterjug, milk pitcher, a wash basin, cream jug, butter tub and other articles were thrown about the house by the same invisible agency; a jar of water being thrown in the face of Mrs John Dagg, also in the face of Mrs George Dagg, whilst they were busy about their household duties, Mrs George Dagg being alone in the house at the time it was thrown in her face; that a large shelf [mouth organ] was heard distinctly to be played and was seen to move across the room on to the floor; immediately after, a rocking chair began rocking furiously. That a washboard was sent flying down the stairs from the garret, no one being in the garret at the time. That when the child Dinah is present, a deep gruff voice like that of an aged man has been heard at various times, both in the house and outdoors, and when asked questions answered so as to be distinctly heard, showing that he is cognizant of all that has taken place, not only in Mr Dagg’s family but also in the families of the surrounding neighborhood. That he claims to be a discarnated being who died twenty years ago, aged eighty years; that he gave his name to Mr George Dagg and to Mr Willie Dagg, forbidding them to tell it. That this intelligence is able to make himself visible to Dinah, little Mary and Johnnie, who have seen him under different forms at different times, at one time as a tall thin man with a cow’s head, horns and cloven foot, at another time as a big black dog, and finally as a man with a beautiful face and long white hair, dressed in white, wearing a crown with stars in it.
What is of particular interest is that the entity made itself visible in a variety of guises to Dinah and the two younger children of the house – as a devil, a black dog and a man in white robes. Finally, when the entity had got the attention it craved, it was said to have departed from the farm singing beautiful music in the sky.
Sceptics argue that Dinah and the children may have been responsible for the whole phenomena, tricking their parents into believing an entity existed, but this does not explain how they could convince a whole crowd of adults. The case has never been resolved but some experts believe that the poltergeist, having finally got some attention, calmed down and went away. According to this theory, poltergeists can act like humans at times, perhaps behaving badly out of boredom or a need to attract attention. Once they get the attention they want their disruptive behaviour ceases.
DAVENPORT BROTHERS
The Davenport brothers conducted one of the most popular and successful séance acts of the nineteenth century. Ira Erastas and William Henry Davenport added the spirit cabinet to the medium’s repertoire and their sophisticated performances amazed and mystified audiences all over America and Europe.
Ira Davenport was born in Buffalo, New York on 17 September 1839, and his brother William two years later, on 1 February 1841. Their father, a New York policeman, was interested in stories of rappings reported in nearby Rochester and decided to try a sitting at home with his family. Almost immediately they got results and Mr Davenport would later tell friends that the boys and their younger sister Elizabeth levitated about the room.
The family began to hold regular séances and at one in 1850 the family made contact with their spirit guide, an entity named John King. It was King who allegedly told the family to rent a hall and give public performances, and in 1855, the boys went on stage for the first time, aged 16 and 14. At first their act consisted of table tilting and rapping but soon the Davenport brothers began to introduce new phenomena, such as floating musical instruments playing under their own power and playful spirit hands that touched and pulled at audience members. By the end of the year the brothers had introduced escapes from complicated rope bindings and knots into their séances and, what would eventually become the signature for their act, the spirit cabinet.
The cabinet was a box, similar to a closet, which would be erected on stage. A sceptical member of the audience would be asked to bind and tie the brothers inside the cabinet, making it seemingly impossible for them to escape. However, as soon as the cabinet doors were closed, and the lights turned off, spirit music would play and disembodied hands would appear through apertures that had been left open on the exterior walls.
On occasion, a volunteer from the audience would be placed between the brothers in the cabinet. A few moments after the doors were closed the volunteer would be tossed out of the box with a tambourine on his head. When the doors were opened the Davenports would be found tied up, in exactly the same way they were before.
The act was billed as a séance and created a sensation. Although the brothers never admitted to being mediums – leaving that to the audience to decide – and critics labelled them mere stage magicians, spiritualists hailed their act as genuine proof of spirit phenomena.
In 1864 Southern preacher Jesse Babcock Ferguson joined the brothers to act as master of ceremonies. He travelled with them on their controversial but successful four-year tour of Europe, and claimed to know of no occasion when their phenomena were not genuinely paranormal.
William died suddenly in July 1877 on a trip to Australia and Ira, lost without his brother, retired from performing. During his retirement he was interviewed and befriended by the magician and antispiritualist Harry Houdini. According to Houdini, Ira confessed that the brothers were expert conjurers, not spiritualists, but had got carried away with the public’s enthusiasm for all things supernatural. Ira explained many of the brothers’ escape tricks, such as rubbing their hands with oil so that they could slip out of the ropes more easily, and employing as many as ten hidden accomplices at a time. The most important part of their escapes took place during the binding, when they managed to get plenty of slack into the ropes by twisting, flexing and contorting their limbs. Once they relaxed, the ropes could be easily slipped off.
Despite their natural ability many people remained convinced that they were spirit mediums and that Houdini’s testimony contradicted the signed statements of distinguished believers and reporters. Newspaper accounts, such as the one below, which appeared in the conservative London Post, gave them credit for producing miracles.
The musical instruments, bells, etc., were placed on the table; the Davenport Brothers were then manacled, hands and feet, and securely bound to the chairs by ropes. A chain of communication (though not a circular one) was formed, and the instant the lights were extinguished the musical instruments appeared to be carried about the room. The current of air, which they occasioned in their rapid transit, was felt upon the faces of all present.
The bells were loudly rung; the trumpets made knocks upon the floor, and the tambourine appeared running around the room, jingling with all its might. At the same time sparks were observed as if passing from south to west. Several persons exclaimed that they were touched by the instruments, which on occasion became so demonstrative that one gentleman received a knock on the nasal organ which broke the skin and caused a few drops of blood to flow.
With the media in awe of the brothers and convinced of their powers, it is hardly surprising that spectators were equally amazed and that the Davenports – who were never caught cheating once in their performing career – created a sensation.
DAVIS, ANDREW JACKSON (1826–1910)
A nineteenth-century medium who was able to detail the creation and spiritual evolution of the world through trance revelations, Andrew Jackson Davis was born in Blooming Grove, Orange County, New York on 11 August 1826. Davis’s family was poor and he had little formal schooling, drifting from job to job. In 1843 he began work as a clairvoyant after discovering that under trance he could see through the body as if it were transparent and make astonishing medical diagnosis.
In March 1844 Davis went into a trance and wandered about 40 miles from his home into the Catskill Mountains, where he had a series of mystical visions of Galen, the Greek physician, and Emanuel Swedenborg. Repeated visions convinced Davis that he was to serve as an oracle of divine truth, and he moved to New York City with S Silas Lyon, a botanic doctor who was to act as his mesmerist. Within a few months Davis selected Rev William Fishbough, a Universalist minister, to be his scribe and in November 1845 the three men began their work.
In their New York apartment Lyon would hypnotize Davis. After a few minutes Davis would go into shock and become rigid and cold, hardly breathing. Then Davis would begin talking and Fishbough would write everything down. Typically there would be three witnesses watching the dictation. Edgar Allan Poe was frequently present. The most influential visitor was a professor of Hebrew at New York University, George Bush, and he endorsed the accuracy of Davis’s trance pronouncements, calling Davis the greatest prodigy since Swedenborg.
It took around 157 sessions for The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind, By and Through Andrew Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie Seer and Clairvoyant to be written down and published in 1847. It was an overnight success and the 21-year-old Davis became an instant celebrity. He did not get instantly wealthy though, as he assigned all copyright of the book in trance to Lyon and Fishbough.
The book seems rambling and dense to the modern reader but in the mid-nineteenth century people were fascinated by complicated creation, philosophy and religious theories. Covering a huge range of topics, from the evolution of the solar system and the biological history of earth to the life of Jesus and the precepts of Swedenborg, Davis defined God as the great positive mind that is by its nature progressive. According to Davis, after death man progresses through the celestial spheres to the seventh sphere, where he becomes one with God’s infinite mind, wisdom and love; throughout the book he gives hope to readers for future regeneration, both in the secular and the spiritual world:
It is a truth that spirits commune with one another while one is in the body, and the other in the higher spheres, and this, to when the person in the body is unconscious of the influx, and hence cannot be convinced of the fact: and this truth will ere long present itself in the form of a living demonstration. And the world will hail with delight the ushering in of that era when the interiors of men will be opened, and the spiritual communion will be established.
Davis claimed to have had little or no formal schooling and critics, recognizing creation theories and spiritual concepts of the likes of Robert Chambers and Swedenborg, accused him of fraud. It is unlikely that Davis could have recited from all these texts under trance but some believe that Davis simply had a remarkable memory.
On 31 March 1848, Davis predicted the birth of spiritualism when he wrote in his diary that he felt a warm breath on his face and a voice telling him that the good work had been done and a living demonstration was born. It was on that day – 31 March 1848 – that the Fox sisters allegedly first made contact with a spirit from the afterlife.
Davis continued to lecture and write about divine philosophy and healing for the next 30 years, until he became a legitimate physician at the age of 60 with a medical degree. In addition to healing, another subject that interested him was the discovery of electrical vibrations, as early evidence of psi. Despite being hailed by the spiritualist movement as their John the Baptist, Davis faded into obscurity in his later years. He ran a bookshop in Boston until his death in 1910, where he sold occult literature and prescribed herbal cures to patients.
DAY OF THE DEAD
A festival held every year that brings the living and the dead together for a great feast and celebration, to remember the dead and placate them for another year. It often involves parties, songs, parades and special foods.
Ceremonies for the dead are part of Chinese and Japanese culture but perhaps the most elaborate ceremonies occur in Mexico on 2 November, All Souls’ Day. A few days before, offerings of food and toys for children who have died are placed on clay altars. Around midnight the spirits of the dead children are thought to come and enjoy their presents. On All Souls’ Day itself children enjoy special food and adults prepare an even bigger feast; altars are decorated with skulls and bones made from bread for the spirits. Later in the day neighbours go from house to house sharing memories of the deceased, who are thought to gather to listen to what is said about them. No dead soul is neglected for fear it may become sad or angry. These visitations last all night and are followed by a mass early the next morning, at which time the dead return to their graves. After a day of rest everyone goes to the cemetery to enjoy a picnic with the departed so that they can rest happily until they rise again to mingle with the living next year.
DEATH
The opposite of life, ceasing to exist. Also a personification of the destroyer of life, typically represented as a skeleton holding a scythe. Dying, when all bodily functions cease, is the great unknown that neither religion nor science has been able to fully explain or understand. Because it is unknown and inevitable, death has always both fascinated and terrified the living. Some cultures, such as the Egyptians and the Christians of the Dark Age, have been absolutely obsessed by it. All cultures have had their own myths about it.
Most people see death as a time of sorrow and regret but some religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, see it as a blessed release for the soul that has gone. Funerals are a time for great rejoicing as to cry and mourn will literally hold the soul to the earth.
For psychics and mediums, who say they can communicate with the dead, and those who have had near-death experiences (i.e. they have technically died and have been revived to tell their story), death is almost always described as a beautiful process. However much pain the physical body is experiencing the moment the soul gets into the astral body this disappears and there is a feeling of lightness and peace. Typically a loving soul appears to tell them that their work on earth has not been completed and they need to go back. That marvellous feeling of peace and oneness, however, stays with them and the person is left with an understanding that death is not the end but simply the end of a cycle, for the soul goes on eternally learning lessons and seeking perfection.
DEATHBED VISIONS
Visions experienced by the dying. Most are visions of the afterlife, glowing entities of light and apparitions of the dead known to the person dying, or great religious or mythical figures such as the Virgin Mary. Deathbed visions are extremely significant because they provide evidence in support of life after death. Although most religions and cultures believe in an afterlife, Western science believes that consciousness cannot exist separately from the body and death is the destruction of the personality.
Deathbed visions have been recorded in the literature of all ages and have been researched scientifically since the late nineteenth century. In the early twentieth century Sir William Barrett, professor of physics and a psychical researcher, conducted the first systematic study of such visions. Barrett’s interest in the subject was fuelled by his wife, an obstetric physician, who told him about a woman who spoke of seeing a vision of great beauty and seeing her dead father and sister before she died. What impressed Barrett was the fact that although the woman’s sister had died a few weeks earlier there was no way she could have known that.
The next systematic study of deathbed visions took place in 1960, when American Society for Psychical Research investigator Karlis Osis collected information from doctors and nurses on thousands of deathbed visions in the US and India. Other studies followed, including an Indian survey in 1972. The findings and observations found in these studies confirmed those made by Barrett.
Typically deathbed visions occur to those who die gradually from a terminal illness or injury rather than those who die suddenly. Many of the visions are of apparitions of dead loved ones or family members known to the dying person, such as parents, siblings and spouses, or beings of light perceived as mythical or religious figures. The purpose of these apparitions – called take away apparitions – appears to be to command the dying to come with them and thus assist them in the transition to death. The response of most of the people dying to these visions is one of happiness, peace and a willingness to go. Their mood changes from one of suffering to one of radiance and joy.
Approximately a third of deathbed visions involve a vision of the afterlife, which is typically described as a beautiful garden. Some see apparitions there, others see streams, bridges and boats and other symbols of transition. Again the emotional response is one of great happiness and peace. The great majority of visions appear just before death with the patient dying shortly afterwards.
There are various natural explanations given for deathbed visions. Drugs, fever, disease, the brain suffering oxygen deprivation, hallucinations and wish fulfilment have all been given as possible causes. Although they are plausible explanations, Osis’s research showed clearly that deathbed visions are most likely to occur in the fully conscious and that medical factors do not trigger visions. Wish fulfilment is not a likely explanation either because visions appear both to those who believe and to those who do not believe in an afterlife, and also appear to those who want to recover and live. Finally there have also been reports by the living who are in attendance to the dying of clouds of silvery energy floating over the body, as well as take away apparitions and angels.
Deathbed visions are significant not just because they suggest the possibility of survival after death, but because they also demonstrate that the moment of transition to death should not be feared. If reports of deathbed visions are to be believed, for the person who is dying death can be a wonderful and beautiful experience.
DEATH OMENS
In folklore a death omen is a sign of an impending death. Every culture has its own unique death omens.
Death is frequently foretold by the appearance or behaviour of certain animals, insects or birds associated with the afterlife. Black birds – crows, owls, ravens, rooks – are often thought to be death omens when they appear in a village or cluster around a house. The howling of a dog or a black cat crossing the path are also thought to be signs that portend the death of someone nearby. Spiders are often associated with death, and according to American, British and European lore the deathwatch beetle, which makes a ticking or tapping sound during the summer months as it bores into wood, is considered the harbinger of a death in the family.
Death omens can be natural occurrences, for example the way wax drips from a candle, or accidents, such as a chair falling over backwards as a person gets up, or signs of nature, such as cloud shapes or star formations. They can also be supernatural occurrences, such as candles and lights that flicker in the night – see corpse candles and corpse lights – or the appearance of an apparition, such as the banshee, or a phantom coach with a headless coachman, or spectral black dogs, or other animals.
DECATUR HOUSE
The haunted house of one of America’s most celebrated naval captains in the war of 1812, Stephen Decatur. Located in Lafayette Square, Washington, DC Decatur House is said to be haunted by the ghosts of both Stephen and his wife, Susan.
Stephen Decatur moved to Washington with his wife in 1818 after the war ended. He was admired and even considered a presidential hopeful, but unfortunately for him, in 1807 he had served on the court-martial board of his friend, Commodore James Barron. Decatur had agreed with the rest of the board that Barron should be court-martialled, starting a feud that ended in Decatur’s death at Barron’s hands during a duel 13 years later in Bladensburg, Maryland (duelling being illegal in Washington). On 14 March 1820, the morning of the duel, Decatur was mortally wounded and taken home to die. His wife was so broken-hearted she could not bring herself to look at him or to live in the house after he had died.
A year after his death his apparition was allegedly seen looking sadly from the window where he had stood on the eve of his death. The window was walled up but this did not stop the ghost returning. Later sounds of a woman weeping – said to be Susan Decatur – were also heard.
Residents of Washington still report seeing Decatur’s spirit peering out of the second-storey window or slipping out the back door of his house with a black box under his arm, just as he had done on that fateful day of the duel.
DéJà VU
An expression of familiarity that is unexpected, déjà vu is the sensation of having been to a place or experienced a situation before. The French term for ‘already seen’ can apply to feelings, thoughts, places, dreams, meetings and living in general – whenever something familiar seemingly happens for the first time. The idea was first introduced to science in 1896 by F L Arnaud.
Studies conducted on déjà vu suggest that it is a common experience, with more than half of those polled reporting instances of déjà vu. It also seems more common in children and women than men. The phenomenon is thought to be a psychological process where the unconscious mind is stimulated to recall past events of a similar nature that somehow get mixed up with the present event. Some feel that it is evidence for reincarnation, memories of past lives being pushed to the surface of the mind by familiar surroundings or people in the present. Some say it happens when one draws on the collective memories of mankind while others believe it to be the result of out-of-body experiences during sleep, or other extra-sensory phenomena.
DEMON/DAEMON
To the ancient Greeks daemons, from the Greek word daimon meaning ‘divine power’, ‘fate’ or ‘god’, were intermediary spirits between the gods and humankind, rather like guardian spirits. They could be either good or evil. Good daemons were supportive and encouraging but evil daemons could lead people astray with bad counsel.
The Christian Church labelled all such pagan spirits as evil, which is why daemons, better known to us today as demons, are traditionally associated with evil. For centuries demons have been blamed for a host of ills and misfortunes including demonic sexual molestation, where a demon masquerades as a man or woman to molest its victim. Many possession cases in the Middle Ages involved sexual molestation by demons, although this may have been more to do with repressed humans than supernatural activity. In many cultures and religions demons have been exorcied. In Catholicism cases of demonic possession – in which demons battle for a person’s soul – are dealt with by formal exorcism rites that date back to 1614.
DEMONOLOGY
The study of demons or malevolent spirits and their powers, attributes and derivations. Demons were thought to be extremely evil and extremely clever, masters in the art of persuasion. Humans had to be constantly on their guard against them. In 1580 philosopher Jean Bodin claimed that:
It is certain that the devils have a profound knowledge of all things. No theologian can interpret the Holy Scriptures better than they can; no lawyer has a more detailed knowledge of testaments, contracts and actions; no physician or philosopher can better understand the composition of the human body, and the virtues of the heavens, the stars, birds and fishes, trees and herbs, metals and stones.
The hierarchy of demons was much discussed among theological experts in the last centuries. According to Alphonse de Spina (1467) there were ten types of demon:
Fates that can change destiny.
Poltergeists that cause mischief.
Incubi and succubi – demons who stimulate lust and perversion.
Hordes – demons that bring conflict.
Familiars that assist witches.
Nightmares that disturb sleep.
Demons formed from human semen.
Disguised demons.
Demons that trouble the saintly.
Demons that instigate witchcraft.
DEPOSSESSION
Also known as spirit releasement. Depossession is practised all over the world and is the exorcism of human and non-human spirits, such as elemental spirits and demons thought to be attached to an individual and causing physical, mental and emotional distress.
American psychologist Edith Fiore used depossession in her past-life therapy, believing that in regressing patients to past lives interference from attached spirits could be observed. According to Fiore, amongst about 70,000 cases 70 per cent were unaware that they were showing signs of spirit attachment, such as mood swings, chronic pains, illnesses and addictions.
Most spirits are thought to be those of humans who have died but not left the earthly plane. They are believed to attach themselves to humans during moments of poor health and emotional weakness. Depossession is typically accomplished by persuading the spirits that they need to leave, and patients subsequently say they feel much better afterwards. Depossession was common practice at the height of the popularity of spiritualism, but the first medically trained person to approach mental illness as caused by spirit possession was the American physician and psychologist Carl Wickland.
Wickland and his wife, Anna, a medium, attributed all sorts of mental illness to confused spirits trapped in the auras of living people. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Wicklands depossessed a large number of their patients. They used a static electricity machine that transmitted low voltage electric shocks to the patient, causing the possessing spirit distress and forcing it into Anna’s body and then to leave. If the spirit resisted, Wickland called on spirit helpers to keep the spirit in a ‘dungeon’, out of the aura of Anna or the victim, until it stopped its selfish quest and departed.
DERMOGRAPHY
Skin writing. Although dermography is similar to stigmata it has one very essential difference: stigmata last for years or an entire lifetime, skin writing usually lasts only for a few minutes. Some cases appear to be genuine, such as that of Charles H Foster cited by Nandor Fodor in his Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science (1934):
Charles H Foster, the ‘Salem Seer’, gave abundant demonstrations of the phenomenon. Before the Dialectical Society Edward Laman Blanchard told the story of how the name of his father appeared in red letters on the arm of the medium and immediately afterwards, in answer to a question, the numbers 24 on the palm of his hand, indicating the number of years since his death. The phenomenon was very rapid, the letters and numbers disappearing in the sight of those present without the arm of the medium being withdrawn. Dr Ashburner examined Foster’s skin-letters under a powerful magnifying glass. He observed clearly that they were in relief and that the colouring matter was under the skin. Foster’s biographer, George C Bartlett, describes an amusing incident. A certain Mr Adams came to consult Foster. He saw the room filled with spirits in his presence. About two o’clock the next morning he woke up, complained to Bartlett that he could not sleep as the room was still filled with the Adams family. They were writing their names all over him. To his astonishment Bartlett counted eleven distinct names, one written across Foster’s forehead, others on his arms, and several on his back.
Fraud in skin writing is thought to be widespread. Given the sensitive skin of neuropsychopaths writing may appear in a few minutes after the letters are directly traced on to the skin by any blunt instrument or the nails. Many ‘mediums’ of skin writing burn up a pellet on which a question or name is written. They then rub their forehead or arm with the ash, which gives the opportunity for covertly tracing the message.
DEVAS
From the Sanskrit meaning ‘shining’, in Hinduism and Buddhism devas are believed to be exalted beings with great powers. In Theosophy and occult traditions they are a class of beings midway between angels and elemental spirits, having special authority over the world of nature. In modern times devas are popularly thought to be nature spirits, in charge of the elemental spirits of air, water, fire and earth. They are invisible and etheric in nature, inhabiting the astral plane. They communicate with people by psychic means, such as channelling and ESP. It is thought that the channelled wisdom of devas was responsible for the location of the Findhorn community in Scotland.
DEVIL
An evil spirit or demon and the supreme personification of evil. The word devil is derived from the Hebriac Satan via the Greek diabolos, but over the centuries the devil has collected a number of other names, including Beelzebub, Lucifer, Belial, Abaddon and Asmodius. In modern times the theologically conceived supreme embodiment of evil that the devil represents accommodates in one supernatural being all that is evil, ugly, perverse and unjust in the world.
DEVIL’S MARK
A name given by demonologists and medieval witch-hunters to a scar, blemish or mark on the skin said to be imprinted by the devil as a seal or sign of his possession of the person.
The finding of such marks became an important business of the expert pricking that took place at many witch persecutions. Devil’s marks were said to be insensitive to pain and pricking pins into such areas was supposed to draw no blood.
DICE TEST
Experimental technique used in psi testing for investigating psychokinesis, the psychic power of the mind to influence objects, in which a subject attempts to influence the fall of dice, for example, by trying to throw more sixes than any other number (chance would give a success rate of 1 in 6 correct throws).
DIY psychokinetic dice
Concentrate your mind upon the throwing of a six. You can speak or shout at the dice but you may not in any other way influence it. If you score a six write this down. Do this 30 times. How many sixes did you score?
8+: There is less than 1 per cent chance of attaining this score. Good evidence for psychokinetic ability.
7: Psychokinetic potential high – there is less than 8 per cent chance of attaining this score.
6: Psychokinetic potential still likely as this is above chance.
3–5: Within the area of chance.
