Ganzfeld ESP Research: Building on Lessons Learned
Caroline A. Watt & Abby L. Pooley
Department of Psychology, School of Philosophy,
Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, UK
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With a few exceptions, meta-analyses of ganzfeld ESP studies have tended to obtain results supporting the ESP hypothesis, suggesting that this line of research merits further effort. While some have suggested that questionable research practices may inflate the overall hit-rate, internal patterns have been detected within groups of studies. Such patterns, notably correlations between participant characteristics and study outcome, are less likely to be attributable to questionable research practices and may reveal something about underlying mechanisms. Therefore, some reviewers recommend that researchers aiming to maximise ganzfeld task performance should only recruit selected participants.
Our previous pre-registered exploratory ganzfeld study with 60 selected participants tested by three experimenters obtained results supporting the precognition hypothesis. The present paper reports our follow-up confirmatory study seeking: to optimise psi-conduciveness with participant and experimenter selection and by limiting how many participants each experimenter could test; to optimise security including by using a precognition design; and to minimise QRPs with pre-registration and sufficient power for a confirmatory study. We also aimed to explore the previously observed link between self-reported creativity and ganzfeld task performance using validated creativity measures.
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Prof Emeritus Caroline Watt is a founder (1986) member of the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at University of Edinburgh, and former holder of the Koestler Chair of Parapsychology (2016-2024).
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The Parapsychological Association is an international professional organization of scientists and scholars engaged in the study of psi (or ‘psychic’) experiences, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, psychic healing, and precognition. The primary objective of the PA is to achieve a scientific understanding of these experiences.
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Published on October 30, 2026
