Psychic Crapshooters

Of the two psychic games which Psychologist Joseph Banks Rhine introduced to science--Extra-Sensory Perception (card-guessing) and Psychokinesis (crap-shooting)--psychologists have found crapshooting more fun. Rhine's PK ("mind over matter") theory, that man can control the fall of dice by will power (TIME, July 26, 1943), is now being tested on both sides of the Atlantic.

Some British investigators think the evidence in favor of dice control is "even more clear-cut" than for ESP. Last week the eminently respectable American Society for Psychical Research (founded by William James) got into the game.

Chairman of the society's research committee is famed Psychologist Gardner Murphy, of Columbia University. With his backing, Miss Laura Abbott Dale, editor of the society's Journal, rounded up 54 college students, put them to work shooting dice. To rule out physical skill, she had them roll the dice four at a time, down a specially built washboard chute with 55 baffles, made each subject try for every number (from one to six) in turn. Results:

P: In 31,104 tries, they got 5,355 hits, 171 better than pure chance.* According to their calculations the odds against this occurring: 199 to 1.

P: Women got much better scores than men.

P: About 15 operators "gifted with PK" accounted for the group's good score; the rest got chance results or worse.

P: After the first few rolls, each shooter got consistently fewer & fewer hits.

*Since in trying to hit one of six numbers, the probability of success on the basis of chance is one-sixth, the expected number of hits is 5,184.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.