David J. Acunzo, James E. Lenz, W. J. Ross Dunseath, Elizabeth Hanchak, & Edward F. Kelly
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA
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One approach towards understanding what facilitates psi experiences is to study the neural activity of participants while they engage in an overt psi task. Few studies have successfully reported a significant psi effect while concurrently measuring brain activity, and most date back to the 1960s and 70s, limited by the EEG systems available at the time. This study pursues a similar approach using contemporary 128-channel EEG acquisition and analysis methods with a remarkable participant: B.D., a 74-year-old male who had demonstrated high performance in laboratory psi tasks approximately 50 years ago. B.D. engaged in a computerized location-estimation task across 353 trials over 13 sessions, attempting to identify the unknown position of a target on screen. In roughly half the trials, an agent in a distant room could see the target location; in the other half, the agent saw a blank screen. B.D. never knew which condition applied. Aggregated results reached statistical significance, but a striking contrast emerged between conditions: trials without an agent showed no effect, while trials with an agent present yielded highly significant results. The effect magnitude was similar regardless of which agent participated, ruling out concerns about cheating while raising questions about whether the key factor was the display of targets in the agent room rather than anything the agents themselves did. The finding that B.D. could perform well at a psi task 50 years after his last laboratory experiment suggests that high psi performance in laboratory contexts can be a persisting individual trait. The presence of a reliable behavioral effect is encouraging for subsequent EEG analysis aimed at identifying neural features associated with higher task performance.
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David J. Acunzo is a researcher at the Division of Perceptual Studies, University of Virginia. His work focuses on the neuroscience of anomalous cognition, combining contemporary EEG methods with experimental parapsychology. Edward F. Kelly, senior co-author, has been a leading figure in consciousness research at UVA for decades and worked with participant B.D. in the original 1970s studies.
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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.
Follow the PA: https://linktr.ee/parapsychologicalassociation
Donate to support the mission of the PA: https://donorbox.org/support-the-parapsychological-association
Published on May 12, 2026
