By Ruby Lang
IN Sydney, Australia a group of researchers have
been turning the tables on parapsychologists - or to put it more
succinctly, table turning, or tilting, their way into a field that is
principally the domain of psychologists and academics.
The group
has borne witness to noises and movement of an ordinary card table that
defy conventional physics - and recently their experiences made it into
the Australian Journal of Parapsychology, a publication devoted to
theories, statistical analysis and experiments relating to Psi
(Psychokinesis) and ESP (Extrasensory Perception).
Inspired by
the work of the Philip Group, a ‘70s research project initiated by the
Toronto Society of Psychical Research, the group of non-academics was
established in May 2001 in a bid to replicate the successes of the
Canadians in creating an "artificial ghost".
Briefly, the Philip
Group were able to direct Philip to effect lights, tap under the table,
tap on walls and move the table vigorously around the room. During
later sessions Philip produced - upon request - raps in the adjoining
plaster walls.
The Philip group also found that if the table
flipped over, the tap noises started coming through from the top of the
table, which was now the underside.
Of course for the Aussies it
all went horribly wrong. Or to put it another way, absolutely nothing
happened. For five long months the group sang, chanted, meditated and
pleaded with the powers that be for some kind of response - be it a
rap, creak, groan or shuffle from the table around which they had
dutifully gathered every fortnight.
But for whatever reason
Skippy Cartman, the improbably-named entity they had created and with
which they were trying to make contact, had declined to comment.
So
what to do? Well, the Philip Group certainly wasn't the only
table-tilting act in town, so the group threw out the Philip Group
brief and decided to turn to the works of Kenneth Batcheldor for
further inspiration.
Batcheldor's group achieved knockings,
table movements and eventually, they claim, complete table levitation
by their eleventh sitting - all conducted in complete darkness.
So
with a change in methodology - albeit in semi-darkness as opposed to
completely in the dark - came the results they had so keenly awaited.
First came the lightest of taps, then strange groans as if the wood in
the flimsy card table were contracting and expanding, then movement -
in fits and starts - before graduating to wild spinning on one leg.
Instead
of trying to make contact with a fictional character, in this case a
non-entity [pun intended], the group simply began to concentrate on the
table itself for a direct response.
The group of eight, headed
by Australian paranormal researcher Michael Williams, has now started
to film its activities in the hope that they too will achieve total
levitation of their table - a cheap $5 card table with folding legs not
unlike that used in the original Philip Experiment.
Revision of
the raw video footage shows table legs lifting off of the ground and
the sitters virtually being dragged along behind the table as it starts
to build up momentum and spin around on one leg. The video camera light
fitting has also been known to falter and go out just as the movements
start to occur.
The infrared video footage has also turned up
strange balls of light, which appear to roll across the floor in random
directions near the sitters. Williams has caught similar moving balls
of light after filming in reputedly haunted homes and locations, but he
is none the wiser about exactly what they are.
"Some people
hypothesise they are the spirits of the dead, but all we can
definitively say is they appear to be spheres of infrared energy - and
they're definitely not normal," Williams said.
In the meantime
the series of guest sitters - which has included a psychiatrist, a
psychologist, a zoologist, a sceptical film critic and a journalist -
have all had to re-adjust their personal belief systems to deal with
what they are seeing.
After all, furniture is not supposed to move by itself. If it did, furniture removalists would surely be out of a job!
[BB]
Understandably,
anyone viewing the footage is quick to throw up reasons as to how the
entire thing could be faked. Indeed, the videotape supplied to the
Australian Journal of Parapsychology along with the original paper was
quickly dismissed - not so much as a hoax, but as "too ambiguous to be
definitive evidence of PK". PK being psychokinesis for the uninitiated,
the apparent ability of a human being to affect objects, events and
people around them via their consciousness.
"So-and-so must be
leaning on the corner of the table" or "it must be unconscious muscle
movement" are just some of the other responses the group has received
from casual observers. It seems unless someone experiences this odd
phenomenon firsthand, then it cannot possibly be real.
"The
group have been filmed by independent television producers, and
disinterested persons who have accidentally walked in on sessions have
been rooted to the spot as they watch the phenomena occurring,"
Williams said.
Williams, who has been investigating reports of
strange phenomena for the last 20 years, is amused by the reluctance of
the parapsychology community to warm to his experiment, or to the
notion that such things are possible - particularly when his group is
only replicating the work of others before them.
"It is
difficult to ascribe fraud when taps occur under each person's hands,
whilst all hands are resting lightly on top," Williams said.
"A
mysterious rod under the table is highly unlikely, and would have to be
manipulated unseen by a person's foot. And for the table to rotate
around on one leg is difficult as well, since the person has to raise
the table, with hands on top, and then move it around. And if someone
were manipulating a corner, we would all have to be cheating, since it
has rotated under the hands/corners of everyone.
"Many
intellectually constrained philosophers may resort to the old hoary
trick of 'If I can think of how something could be faked, ergo it was'".
"The trouble is, it would be applicable to most scientific experiments!"
For those unfamiliar with the whole thing, rest assured the group's experiments with table-tilting are nothing new.
Some
of the earliest table-tilting experiments were conducted in the
mid-1800s in America and Europe, more often than not for amusement than
any other purpose.
The past-time found favour with Spiritualist
circles and was regarded by some as stunning evidence of "physical
mediumship", the ability of practising mediums to affect physical
objects around them.
But while the results are replicable, they
are far from predictable, and one of the chief challenges for the
Australian group has been getting the phenomena to occur on demand.
While
Williams acknowledges that there are preferred conditions that
encourage table-tilting, there is no guaranteed formula for getting
results from the table.
"There is no methodology whatsoever - it
doesn't respond to yes/no questions, and words or actions used
successfully on previous occasions to elicit noise or movement are just
as likely to evoke no response at all at the next sitting,'' Williams
said.
Thus the group acknowledges that scientific study of the
forces at work moving the table is perhaps harder than otherwise might
be the case.
To that end they will keep turning up to their
fortnightly sessions over the card table in the hope that the secrets
of psychokinesis might just be right under their fingertips.
***For further information about the group's activities, Michael Williams can be contacted at ozestrange@hotmail.com.
References
Batcheldor.K
(1984) Contributions To the theory of PK Induction from sitter-Group
Work, The Journal of The American Psychical Research Vol.78, April.
Morris.L. Advisory Editor (1975) Perspectives in Psychical Research ,New York, Arno Press.
Owen.I, Sparrow.M (1976) Conjuring Up Philip: An Adventure In Psychokinesis. New York, Harper & Row Publishers.
Williams.M, Lang.R (2002) Private notes and video recordings from the Meson Archives, Sydney, Australia.
Ruby Lang is an Australian paranormal researcher and web mistress of
www.strangenation.com.au,
a website devoted to all things Fortean in Australia. When she isn’t
ensconced behind a computer she can be found perusing haunted houses or
investigating thickets of bushland for Yowies, Big Cats and the
occasional UFO.
Tags:
parapsychology mystery 
