                            TELEPATHY EXPERIMENT

 The purpose of this file is to serve as a guide for conducting
 experiments in telepathy, or thought transferrence, over the BBS. First,
 some general background material on the theory of telepathy is presented.
 Then, the concept of the experiment is discussed. Finally, specific
 details for scheduling, conducting, reporting, and analyzing the
 experiment will be given. This file includes material adapted from books
 titled, "How To Read the Aura, Practice Psychometry, Telepathy, and
 Clairvoyance," by W.E. Butler, and "Natural ESP," by Ingo Swann.

 In order for an experiment in telepathy to be successful, a necessary
 condition is that the participants come to the subject with at least some
 belief in its possibility. Our belief may amount to nothing more than a
 mental endeavor to be neutral in our approach to the subject, or it may
 be a firm faith that telepathy exists. But if a participant rejects out
 of hand the possibility of psychic phenomena in general, or telepathic
 thought transferrence in particular, it is guaranteed that the experiment
 will not succeed. It is best if the participants not only believe in
 telepathy, but actually WANT it to occur.

 It is usually thought that it is necessary for the sender to
 "concentrate" for a fair length of time on the thought image to be
 transmitted. This is not so. The period of time in which the sender is
 active need be only a fraction of a minute; indeed, hard concentration
 over a considerable period of time may actually prevent any thought
 transferrence.

 The actual machinery of the telepathic faculty is in the subconscious
 level of the minds of both the sender and the receiver. The image must be
 transmitted from the conscious mind of the sender into his subconscious,
 on the one hand, and on the other to transfer the image from the
 subconscious to the conscious mind of the receiver. All that is required
 of the sender is that he form as clear a picture as possible of the
 thought to be sent, together with the emotion connected with it. It is
 the lack of this emotional charge which so often causes the telepathic
 sensitive to fail. However, it is also necessary for the sender to be
 physically relaxed, and there are various techniques, such as breathing
 exercises, to facilitate relaxation. Having attained the relaxed state
 the sender is ready to transmit the message to the receiver. There should
 be no straining to send the thought. All that is necessary is to have as
 clear a mental picture as possible. This picture can be built up by
 visualizing it clearly in one's mind.

 Sitting in the relaxed conditionm, and asserting his intention to
 transmit, the picture or image in his or her conscious mind will be
 imposed upon the sensitive subconscious levels of the mind, and will be
 open to the corresponding levels of the receiver's mind. From there it
 will, when the conditions are right, emerge into the receiver's conscious
 mind and be recorded by him or her. We have said when the conditions are
 right, for there may sometimes be a curious time lag which is often
 observed in this telepathic work. The message is received at the time it
 is sent, but for some reason or other, it is delayed, or totally
 suppressed. This has to do with the activities of the conscious mind of
 the receiver. How this is done is largely a matter of psychological type.
 It may be an inner voice speaking, or a visual image may be seen.
 Sometimes it comes as a clear and definite knowledge -- without any image
 at all. Sometimes it may be a strong mental impression. Yet again it may
 not come into the receiver's conscious mind at all, but may emerge
 through what is known as "automatic writing".

 It is important to address the factor of distance. If the sender
 transmits the message with the thought that the receiver is quite close
 to him, it stands a better chance of being received. We are used to
 regarding our surroundings as separated from us by space or distance,
 and, of course, normal life on earth could not be carried out if we were
 to ignore this factor of distance. The trouble is that we tend to project
 the idea of physical distance into the non-physical area in which we are
 conducting our telepathic experiments. We are used to thinking of
 ourselves as encapsulated beings -- units of life that are separate from
 all other units -- but experience in the use of the telepathic and
 psychic faculties soon convinces us that there are aspects of our inner
 nature that are always in some kind of actual contact with all other life
 units. This being the case, if we think of the receiver as being
 separated by distance from the sender, then the results we obtain will be
 affected by that belief, the idea of sending the message over a distance
 will cause us to think of it in terms of limitation, and we may inwardly
 doubt whether we can project our thoughts so far. The subconscious mind,
 ever willing to carry out the slightest suggestion from our conscious
 mind, will, therefore, respond by limiting the results of the experiment.
 If, on the other hand, we think of the receiver as being near us, then
 the subconscious will again oblige, and will not allow the impression of
 distance to interfere with the results.

 It is important also to consider the physical environment of the
 participants during the experiment. It is most important for the
 participants to be as physically comfortable as possible, although not
 lying in bed and on the verge of sleep. The overall environment should be
 quiet and dimly lit or dark.

 Finally, and most importantly, both the sender and the receiver should be
 emotionally calm; there should have been no heated exchange of views
 before the start of the experiment. This point is critically important,
 for such emotional upset weakens the emergence of the psychic faculty,
 or, if it does manage to appear, it may well pick up and transmit the
 emotional ideas instead of the image which should have been sent. This
 will still be an example of telepathy, but not an example of controlled
 experimental work. We are not saying that such emotional telepathy is
 wrong, since most spontaneous telepathy has an emotional content. What we
 are saying is that in controlled experiments this emotion tends to
 interfere with the results.

 One of the most important conditions of experimental telepathic work is
 patience. So many people who attempt to work in the field of ESP,
 telepathy and psychic phenomena in general, fail to realize that results
 are not, as a rule, obtained at the first sitting -- or the fifth, and
 for this reason are apt to drop the whole subject in disgust. I heard it
 stated recently, "Telepathy? Oh, yes, I've tried five experiments, but
 got nothing. I doubt whether it ever happens." What such people do not
 understand is that just as we have the physical organs of the senses, so
 it may well be that there are similar super-physical organs through which
 the mind receives, and reacts to, impressions derived from a
 super-physical source. The physical sense organs have evolved over
 millions of years, but perhaps the super-physical sense organs are not so
 highly developed. Here and there, however, and in an ever-increasing
 degree, people are emerging in whom these deeper senses seem to be
 active, and even though, in some cases, these senses do not normally
 surface in the waking mind, they need very little stimulus to do so.

 Such people make the best receivers, and since the use of a faculty
 strengthens and widens its scope of action, these natural sensitives
 prove most useful. It is not always possible to say whether a particular
 percipient is telepathic, only repeated experiment will give this
 knowledge. One thing is clear, however, as has been found from long
 experience in this field: these people will be found to be particularly
 sensitive to outer conditions such as lunar, solar, atmospheric, and
 emotional. This sensitivity to outer conditions introduces an element of
 continual uncertainty as to results. Indeed, it may well prevent any
 experiment from being successful, until it has been controlled. It is
 very important that those who take part in these telepathic experiments
 should realize that both those who send and those who receive are human
 beings and are therefore liable to emotional reactions that can affect
 the success or failure of the experiments.

 For this reason, it is suggested that a series of twenty-five trials
 should be made without either sender or receiver being told of the number
 of "hits" or "misses." This will prevent their getting unduly discouraged
 at the high percentage of misses common in the early stages of
 experience. By using a unit of twenty-five trials at a time it is easy to
 check the percentage of successes and failures. Usually the latter is
 much greater, unless you have had the good fortune to get two people who
 are strongly sensitive, and who are emotionally compatible. This
 emotional sympathy is usually a sign of an inner psychic sympathy, or
 rapport.

 If possible, a team of three or four pairs of senders and receivers
 should be chosen, and the various permutations should be worked out until
 it is found which sender works best with which receiver. These two will
 constitute the first line of research. It must, however, be remembered
 that the faculty grows with use, so the other members of the team should
 be paired off, and act as senders and receivers, in another set of
 experiments. Their percentage of failures may be greater than those of
 the first set of sensitives, but any faint telepathic reactions will be
 strengthened by practice and a second team may be established. With time,
 the second team may well become very successful, and again, the value of
 patience is obvious.

 It has been observed by those who have studied the results of psychic
 experiments such as these, that the percentage of failures tends to
 increase when the subjects become bored. This is always an uncertain
 factor, since people vary greatly in their reactions. When the experiment
 has lasted too long, or for other reasons they lose interest, the
 mistakes begin to pile up, until there is practically no success at all.
 If, however, the experiments are not carried on too long at any one time,
 and if the subject matter of the messages is made interesting, the
 percentage of successes begins to rise. When telepathic rapport between
 two individuals has been developed and stabilized, however, the
 percentages of success will normally increase, and with practice the
 experiments will become more or less independent of the emotional and
 other factors which formerly prevented their successful working. These
 adverse factors will never be entirely overcome, but they will not get in
 the way as they formerly did. Also, the way in which they affect the
 results will have been found, and can be allowed for in any experiment.

 The subconscious mind is primarily a "picture consciousness" and responds
 far more readily to images of objects than to abstract ideas. By images
 we do not, of course, mean visual images alone, but include those which
 are built up by the other senses such as touch, taste, hearing and scent.
 If the message to be sent contains more than one of these sense pictures,
 it will have a much better chance of being recorded by the receiver.
 Whatever picture is used for the development of concentration, it should
 be as interesting as possible, and, like the messages of telepathy,
 should preferably include some of the "picture" produced by the other
 senses.

 The same principle applies to telepathic transmission. An example would
 be if the sender was told to send a picture of a rosebush in full bloom.
 Not only should the visual picture be held in his mind, but also the
 scent of the blossoms, the crispness of the leaves, the softness of the
 petals, and the sharp prick of the thorns on the branches.

 However, the pictures or objects used should at first be those that are
 relatively simple and easy to recognize. The less information your ESP
 faculty has to process, the easier the task will be. To our eyes, all
 objects are more or less familiar and easy to recognize. But the
 telepathic faculty processes bits and pieces of information, and the more
 of these there are about the target, the more difficult the effort will
 be. If you use a complicated target at first, you will probably

 The sensory picture, which as a rule is the basis upon which the
 telepathic impression is based, can be transmitted more effectively if it
 is isolated from its surroundings. Otherwise, some of these surroundings
 may be transmitted unconsciously, and, not being included in the image it
 is desired to send, although they are received by the receiver, may
 easily be dismissed as of no consequence, and the experiment deemed a
 failure. In reality it may have been a decided success as far as
 telepathy goes, even though the intended picture was not received.

 One method of isolating the picture to be sent is to use the artist's
 trick of putting the hands around the eyes so as to shut out all
 surrounding images except the one you require. Another form of this is to
 construct a hollow cardboard tube through which the picture is gazed at.

 The sender concentrates upon the object or picture, examining it
 carefully, with a deliberate intention to transmit it to the receiver. In
 a quiet, relaxed way, he continues to look at it. There must be no strain
 whatsoever, whether physical or mental. At the same time, he should
 quietly assume in his mind that the receiver is actually in the room,
 quite close to him. The stronger this assumption becomes, the better for
 the success of the experiment. To assume the close proximity of the
 receiver has a very real effect, as the doubts and inhibitions about the
 projection of images over a distance will have been removed temporarily
 from the sender's subconscious.

 The procedure to be used by the receiver is slightly different. He should
 be in the same relaxed condition as the sender. Maintaining calmness
 might not be possible for the first few trials. We tend to anticipate, to
 get worked up, feel that we are going to fail, or feel that we are "hot"
 and will get the target right away. It might take a few trials to bring
 about a detached poise, a sort of disinterest. When you can achieve this,
 the telepathic process will work its best. This calming procedure doesn't
 mean that you have to spend a half hour preparing yourself, trying to put
 yourself into a semitrance. Try to conduct the trial like you would any
 other task that involves all your attention for a few moments.

 Now, for about five seconds, he deliberately reaches out to the sender,
 with the intention of receiving from him the message being held in his
 brain. Then the receiver should rest quietly and wait for any impressions
 that may come to him. These he should describe aloud if possible, perhaps
 into a small tape recorder. He should at the same time write down the
 impressions, and make a drawing of any image he receives. He should also
 record any sound, scent, taste or tactile impressions he receives as a
 background of the main impression. The picture drawing is much more than
 just a sketch of your conscious impressions. You will find that the
 picture drawing sort of draws itself, frequently without any
 decision-making characteristic or consciousness. It is not a matter of
 actually focusing on the target material consciously. It is more a
 function of just "spotting" the incoming information that is trying to
 get along up the pathway. Sketch it out simply, even rather quickly.

 The incoming telepathic information can get lost in the quagmires of
 consciousness. It gets added to, manipulated, thwarted, occluded,
 changed. The semiautomatic picture drawing undercuts all these
 complications. The picture drawing provides both a record of your
 experiments, and will show you which information your telepathic faculty
 is coping with, and which information it is not.

 To do all this will obviously take several minutes, and ten minutes to a
 quarter of an hour may be allowed. The impressions arrive in one block in
 the receiver's subconscious, but they take time to filter into his
 conscious mind, and for this reason time must be given. Some impressions
 may not come up until several hours later, and it is this delayed
 reception that frequently complicates these experiments. Later on, some
 of these dalayed impressions will emerge under some new conditions. So
 the receiver should note down any irrelevant thought images which
 suddenly pop up from nowhere, and because of the tendency for these
 impressions to fade quickly, it is helpful if he writes them down as they
 appear.

 One of the drawbacks of conducting telepathic experiments in the
 conventional way, that is, with face to face contact, is the risk that
 the subjects and the coordinators may inadvertently and unconsciously
 exchange information relating to the image to be transferred. That is,
 through subliminal, nonverbal communication, data on the desired result
 may be sent between the participants, invalidating the experiment. This
 information must be initially unknown to the receiver. Another drawback
 is that there must be a place to meet and to conduct the experiment, and
 at least some of the participants must travel to that place, a
 time-consuming and sometimes inconvenient chore. The use of a BBS
 eliminates these problems, and allows the experiment to be conducted with
 a maximum of convenience and a minimum of time. The sender and receiver
 may even be anonymous to each other, completely isolating the thought
 transferrence process from other factors.

 Information on interested subscribers to this BBS will be collected and
 experimental subjects will be paired off, identifying discretely to each
 whether he or she is to be the sender or the receiver. A series of
 twenty-five trials will be conducted for each such pair, each trial
 lasting for five minutes and taking place during a separate day so as not
 to tax the subjects. Although the subjects will not know each other and
 will be in separate locations (their homes, nominally), it is critical
 that the events be synchronized as closely as possible. Each subject is
 asked to use a highly accurate (quartz) timepiece, and to call the
 telephone time reference (844-2525) to set their timepiece shortly before
 each experiment. The sender will attempt to transmit and the receiver
 will attempt to receive during a pre-scheduled, precise five minute
 interval.

 The schedule of these sessions will be sent beforehand to all subjects
 via this BBS. As soon as practicable after each session, the sender and
 receiver should log on and send a PRIVATE message to the experiment
 Director (Alf Erikson) describing in detail their impressions. A post
 office box will be established to receive any drawings or other hard
 material that the subjects wish to provide.

 Senders should select the image or object to be telepathically
 transferred, beforehand, and should inform the experiment Director what
 it is, again using PRIVATE messages. . The image/object may be repeated
 for several trials or may be changed from trial to trial, depending on
 circumstances. Enough time will be allowed between trials to account for
 subscribers' capabilities to log on to this BBS for sending and receiving
 messages. We are not in a hurry.

 After each set of twenty-five trials, experimental data will be analyzed
 and posted on this BBS for all to see the results. Participants who wish
 to continue will then be paired off with others, or successful pairs will
 be continued, as appropriate.

 Interested subscribers of this BBS are asked to inform the experiment
 Director, via private message, whether they would feel more comfortable
 as a sender or as a receiver, or as either. They should also specify what
 dates, and what time frames during those dates, over the next 30 days,
 they would be willing to devote to the experimental trials. For example,
 a participant might say that she is available weeknights between 8 PM and
 9 PM, and weekends from 12 noon until 5 PM. Senders and receivers will be
 matched according as their availabilities overlap, and the experiment
 Director will select five minute intervals within those overlaps and
 inform each subject on the schedule for all twenty-five trials.

 Participants are asked to be sincerely interested in telepathy, and to
 reliably adhere to the agreed schedule. They are also asked not to
 attempt to discern each others' identity before the trials. After all
 trials are completed, they will be introduced to each other and
 encouraged to compare notes. It is also important for participants to
 maintain a postitive outlook, and to avoid thoughts or feelings of doubt
 from other individuals with whom they may be associated, as this may
 inhibit their telepathic response.

 Results of this project will be made available to a wide audience.

  To the experiment Director's knowledge, nothing like this has ever been
 attempted before, and it is a unique "first" in the history of psychic
 research. The potentialities of this sort of experiment are as boundless
 as they are exciting.

