[Music] over the last 100 years or so there have been many groups of people who meet regularly to sit in what are called mediumistic Circle this is done in the hope of receiving messages from the spirits of their deceased friends and relatives in a typical City or Seance the ticipants are seated with their hands on top of a table sometimes with their fingers touching sometimes not it is said that the spirit who is supposed to be present often causes a variety of strange physical effects to occur as is suggested by this engraving made in 1871 when spiritualism was in its haing in the old old days there was serious doubt as to whether these phenomena were genuine it was believed that for them to occur specially endowed person known as an Spirit medium had to be present if the spirits were to be able to manifest these effects undoubtedly many of these Spirit mediums were fored it was also easy to cheat because it was believed that the city or SE had to be in darkness or in a subdued light research by Sir William Crooks who worked with the famous medium D home in a good light and by Harry price and other famous investigators who studied Stella crankshaw in 1923 proved that some of these physical phenoma were genuine and not the result of person whether we believe in spirits or not shows that there are forces in the universe present unknown to science and different from the four forces known to physics in 1972 a group consisting of eight members of the society for psychical research in Toronto Canada decided to find out more about this m Serious Force they wanted to find out firstly whether it could be produced in full light secondly whether a spirit medum was necessary or if instead it could be generated by Ordinary People and thirdly the force was produced by a disembodied Spirit or instead was generated by the living participants in the surf Dr George Owen director of the Toronto Society for psychical research guided the sessions from the beginning the members of the group are regarded as perfectly normal people or as normal as anyone can actually be for a housew sue Dorothy Sid is a Salesman Bernice an accountant Al is an engineer and Lauren a designer none of them claims to be a media psychical research is just one of their many diverse interests as researchers group had to be scrupulous in their approach the first problem they had to solve was this how to be sure that if they got physical effects these were not due to a so they decided to make up a completely fictional character an imaginary person with a given name of Philip a completely imaginary biolog a week later she narrated The Story of it sh was an aristocratic Englishman living in the middle 1600s at the time of Oliver Cromwell he was married to a beautiful but cold and frigid wife DEA one day when out riding Philip came across a gypsy encampment and saw there a beautiful gypsy girl margle and fell instantly in love with her he brought her back secretly to live in the gate House near The Stables of did and Manor his family home for some time he kept his love nest secret but eventually Daria realizing he was keeping someone else there CL Margo and accused her of Witchcraft in stealing her husband F was too scared of losing his reputation in his possessions to protest at the trial of margle and she was convicted of Witchcraft and burned at the stake Philip subsequently was stricken with remorse finally one morning his body was found at the bottom of the Battlement when he had atted himself in a cic Agony and remorse Ed your imagination on that one the groups discussed the life and character they had until they were all agreed on the detail picture was drawn by Andy and agreed to be a true likeness of though dington manner is a real place there is no evidence that anyone like philli ever lived in addition some historical errors were deliberately introduced into the story to emphasize its fictitious nature this the way yes definitely espe the eyes to consolidate the idea of Philip and to put themselves in mutual report the group met weekly to meditate on Philip and his adventur no Apparition of Philip appeared but observers occasionally noted a slight MISD in the center of the circle however this may merely have resulted from visual fatigue in the fall of 1973 the group changed their approach as a result of reading articles by Mr bachelor Mr Brock Smith and Mr Hunt which appeared in the Journal of the British Society for psychical research we've been trying to levitate a table these investigators have got physical effects by sitting around the table as in the old spiritualist sance but they created an atmosphere of jolity and relaxation they told jokes sang songs and exhorted the table in a light-hearted way to obey their commands the Toronto group adopted the same approach singing such gities as Lloyd George knew my father to the tune of Onward Christian Soldier playing music such as green sleeve or Amazing Grace and addressing questions to the table as if it really were fil at between sittings objects suggested of filet such as fencing coils 17th century Manish pies of heading to the hall were kept for most sittings the same four-legged table was used it's not easy for eight responsible normal adults to fool around in this way they had to train themselves in a particular psychological attitude they had to imitate a stage comedian who may give a very possible performance on the stage the after stage sober and as soon as the gr adopted this new approach they got phenomen first there came a vibration in the table also RS came out they seem to come from inside the are you there morning philli good morning Phillip hi Phillip I heard you brought some more new horses come on speak up let's hear some kns come on let's get some bangs come on let's get going you brought doar with you have you lately no no would you like to see no no didn't you love Dorthy in your time yes we [Music] need did you like d did you would you like then the table would actually move it would Glide over the pile carpet or even rear up on one or two legs only attempts to reproduce this motion by pushing always fail it was impossible to imitate the table's spontaneous motion the group has succeeded many times visitors have watched their proceedings in bright light or even joined the group at the table it's clear that there's no possibility that phenomena are produced by TR the society's research committee under Dr ow has taken every precaution to obviate fraud and can State categorically that the phenomena are genuine and [Music] [Music] paranormal I found that the imaginary Communicator will answer questions put to him by sitters or visitors one RS for yes two Reps for no Philip of course has no independent existence he says just what a majority of the cens happen to think he ought to Ser it is a case of psychokinesis by committing so question has an obvious answer the response whether in the form of one r or two comes promptly and with emphasis if however the members of the committee take time to individually reason out what question means or are doubtful as to the right answer then the response is feebler and delayed Dr Joel Whitten a medical psychologist was asked to come well I'd first like to emphasize that this is an important experiment because it's done in the laboratory and it's reproducible now from a Psy pychological point of view there are several considerations first is I have to ask myself what are the psychological conditions necessary to produce this phen now it seems to me that group is in a childlike creativity this is brought on by the playing and by the singing uh and the humor the group lets their hair down as opposed to the adult who says um this phenomenon can't be done because it's against the laws of physics the child simply says if I want to do it it can be done now second I asked myself what does the wrapping and the table turning mean symbolically is some type of concentration of energy or uh is it an elaborate fence mechanism against some deep-seated unconscious conflict third group is involved in uh a joint feeling of neutrality each member almost intuitively senses the other person and their feelings as such it has important overtones in various group programs oh I think this the Philips experiment uh has forced me to look at the whole spectrum of Paras pychology I've always believed that there's a little bit of telepathy and precognition but two years ago if you have told me that a group of us were would be able to take this uh table and move it without any physical Force I I I think I would have lost I think the whole concept has made me much more aware of energy forces around before you you were aware of didn't really think about I can't see any way that any of his can uh move the table ourselves so there's got to be energy or something which would be very interesting if we could find out how it works the experiment on Philip has been a very exciting thing for me because it has been has taken an abstract thought of mine and made it into a concrete experiment it's uh often alternative explanations made to the uh the spirits of the Dead causing hauntings the hauntings seem to be real but and the spe I think it's been the most exciting Paras psychological experiment they ever taken part in we've been interested in these physical phenomena for so many years and I feel that at last we've made breakthrough Al of eight has shown that a team of normal non-m mediumistic people can acquire a kind of psychological skill enabling them to generate a strong physical Force without the aid of spirits or Supernatural influence they have proved that this force is latent in most ordinary human being to gain understanding of this Force they are continuing their work they hope also that with new and original variations it will be imitated by other EV [Music] [Music] on this program you meet ESP extra special people who explore that shadowy world that lies on the border between science and Superstition the known and the unknown and on the program today you won't believe it our guest is a talking table named Philip now just a moment before you tune out I I haven't freaked out completely uh we'll explain who and what Philip's talking table is I have a guest in human form um Mrs Iris Owen of the Toronto Society for psychical research and of course Iris we worked together in the society for some time now um tell us about Phillip talking table the imaginary ghost how the whole thing started well it sounds absolutely crazy of course but in fact it is a serious scientific experiment and um George and I my husband have been interested in this field for many years and let me say Iris because you might be too modest that your husband George Owen is a distinguished parapsychologist as well as being a noted scientist in other areas yes indeed and we were very fortunate to come to Canada 5 years ago to devote most of our time to The Fringe areas of Science and particularly parapsychology and this actual experiment arose out of a discussion we were having one night on what was the nature of a ghost and it followed the investigation that we had done in Toronto of a haunted house where in fact some of our investigating team had seen what they thought was an hallucination or ghost and we discussed what um what it could be uh was it really the spirit of departed people and we could believe that this was so um but if it was an hallucination which was the conclusion we came to we said to ourselves well why can't we create our own hallucination if we could create a hallucination ourselves uh then we would know what um know a bit more about this so you decided to try to make we decided to try and make our own ghosts and we called the uh group that we doing it ghost the ghost creating group well um we just know at first how to go about it um there aren't any sort of do-it-yourself ideas about job training and gos and so we decided that if if it was if we were going proof that it wasn't a departed Spirit we had to invent a story we had to invent a character um and not even an a well-known storybook character would do and one of our groups Sue who has a beautiful imagination invented our ghost for us and then we spent a year um and I mean one night every week for a whole year we spent in uh meditation and thinking about our ghosts and trying to conjure up a vision of him now you had a character you invented him you gave him a name Philip and you gave him a history then you tried to get him to communicate this was the idea all right what was the history of Philip well we we set him in the 1500s in England at the time of Oliver Cromwell um he was a Cavalier he had been a a supporter of Charles uh he was married to a beautiful and frigid wife dtha married for the uh sake of the joining the Estates and he while um riding around his Estates one day he met a beautiful gypsy girl Margo Dark Eyed beautiful gypsy girl and he fell instantly in love with her back to the castle where he hid her in the um in the tables or in the do house and uh later his wife discovered her and blamed her for as a charged her for being with being a witch charged her with witchcraft and said she'd stolen her husband and Philip himself was too concerned both for his own personal safety by then Cromwell was on the throne and uh also for the uh financial side of his Estates to defend her and so she was tried and burnt at the stat he was a craven wretch well uh we didn't think he was quite that Craven as a matter of fact he was so distraught afterwards that he finally um jumped from the battlements of of the castle one night his body was found at the foot of the battlements and then the story that Sue invented uh every Century or so his ghost is seen walking the back battlements searching for his l love okay how did you go about getting this imaginary ghost into Community well uh as I say first we we uh meditated for a whole year and we didn't get anything very much in the way of results and we're beginning to feel a bit despondent and maybe maybe we were wrong us all and then we came across some um work of some English experimental in the British Society for psychical research some eight to nine years ago where they had um worked on the on an experiment to make the table rise levitate a table they were working on physical what we call in the trade I was going to say but as parapsychologist the physical phenomena rappings movements the sound of trumpets the kind of thing that happened a great deal in the Victorian type sance room in the Victorian days when spiritualism began and when this kind of thing was in fact a more of a par game than anything in its beginning but uh in spal door had evolved a theory that if you trained yourself in a certain psychological skill uh which was um similar to torian S room in other words if you sat around and you sang repetitive songs and you told jokes and you work in a relaxed atmosphere got into the spirit of got the the spirit of the thing you would produce these um uh physical phenomena the RS and so on and did Phil you're jumping the gun a little at that stage we we said to ourselves well if this works for physical phenomena why shouldn't it produce our growth and so we decided to try this now it uh we we read the literature very thoroughly and there are many many papers on it and there is a a philosophical reasoning as to why it works and it's this is too short a program for me to explain it but we tried it and the first the first um sitting or two we were a little bit conscious it's not very easy we're all serious scientifically minded people really and to sit around and do all this sort of nonsense table talk to the table wasn't there we went to that stage thinking that we were talking to the table we surprised when suddenly one night we heard a r on the table quite a loud W and we thought you know all and we sat there very much surprised and I think was do s well that's and immediately there was another R and so we said well um R once the yes and two for no are you Philip and there was another R and so um this this did surprise us very much and so we carried on a little conversation like this rather non-class the first time did you get movements then rather quickly uh shortly afterwards the table kind of slid right and of course then we all accused each other of pushing it naturally I mean uh we we couldn't believe that it would move by it really happened you couldn't believe it your say oh no not at first and in fact the first few months we were watching each other like HS and if if anybody's finger move the flest bits you're pushing you know this sort of thing well Iris we're going to take a break we're going to come back we're going to introduce our viewers to philli talking table and the rest of the Philip group and uh we're hoping that Philip will put in an appearance and do some communicating with us [Music] today [Music] give a nice big loud one for the cameras will be quiet here we are here we are and my guest is Philip the talking table and his eight friends and you're going to be introduced to each one of them in a moment but right now Philip has been communicating through some wraps come on come on a real loud one say hello on say hello that's now say hello to all the people there sence you've got out there say hello to everybody come on show you know you're a ham actor come on you can say it you can do it a real a loud one no we don't want you to move we want nice loud reps come on come on come on let's will he say hello to each one of you in turn why don't we go around the table each one of you you give your name and say hello to Phillip and we'll ask Philip to respond starting with you Iris he pH this is Iris you know me say hello not who's on hi Phil this is syney going to say hi today wa a little one there was a little one yeah I should say we've got a microphone under the table to pick up these these te or grass H me it hello hello Philip it's Bice you going to say hello tonight louder please hello Philip did we get one there nope help a little louder philli if you please hi philli it's Dorothy here oh there hello Philip too ohello to Alan you hello Philip another one now I think we should say that these RS have come in a number of different circumstances with the outside Witnesses present yes uh including a psychiatrist and they have agreed that the wraps do indeed seem to come from inside table they're not being produced by anybody the microphone is picking up these wraps and they here to come from inside the table well you can see that all our hands are absolutely still and we're standing up and our feet are on the on a carpeted floor so nobody could be kicking or tapping or the the sort of things that are usually alleged in the what see if Philip will put on some Antics for us oh I'm sure he will some come on come on show them what you can [Music] do don't right on your come on the other way how many T have you demolished since you started no I I should say that I was present on one occasion when you were using a rather heavy wooden table and the leg broke off it that that's right yes and we actually we Havey wood tables turn the table right up down down what are you doing get away get that's Le now in some experiments you have put uh paper doilies on the table under your hands to show that you couldn't possibly be applying pressure or fiction that's right the table has bounced around around just the same way to the table if we put a suite or or something like this it was e there the table suppose I put my ring on there do you think it might I'm putting my ring onto the table not the leg not the you know table table I take it that if you've demolished several tables Philip then doesn't have a preference preference for one particular table he moves from one to dining room table one why we don't use the B tables F so much is because we frightened the house getting damaged the last time we used a wooden garden table table he went and knock holes in the wall and he's also produced wraps and pumps in the wall of the um what about uh the the the big question has Philip ever been able to get the table off the floor completely all four legs well what um he did he did one only about half an inch of floor and it only went 2 or 3 ft but there were two other Witnesses in the room and it was was carpeted floor if it had been you know you could let's try it now Philip come on Phil then come on this is your big opportunity maybe your last opportunity come on right [Music] up [Music] [Music] he's wed four tables and now he's working on his F has just beened for about what about what about turning the table upside down and uh I know that happen getting the wraps while the table is upside down let's do that do anything you want all right within let's keep it within range of our trusty microphone here yes all right now the bottom of the table is clearly exposed come on come on to it now every you got's enjoying being here are you enjoying being here tonight are you still there he loves his beer perhaps if you perform you should have a nice big pint of beer would you like that good now that was the loudest rrap of the evening a little bit Lou louder than that here that you want to pH who can hear you there yeah there's now all hands are visible let's just dwell on this point all hands are visible at this point yet the wraps are clearly coming from would appear certainly from within that table let's try it again Philip give us a good loud clear wrap to one bottle of beer loud that come on loader Phillip come on Phillip philli you want a bottle beer wrapped loudly that louder philli come on louder here comes the microphone it has to be louder Alan won't buy it come on philli come on right under the microphone Phillip wa here Phil here no he's doing it over louder louder louder that's oh good for you pH you Havey a bottle of a congratulations Philip all right let's stand him up right side up the blood what uh what sort of questions uh does philli respond to can we ask him about that's and beer well let's ask him some ask him some questions cavali Daria here I've got Dar with you no no but you got Marg with you yeah Margo was his mother girl yeah yes um what else should we on bring another um I told you that this was a scientific experiment and experiments have to be reputable so we decided that if this if f this was true another group of people should be able to do the same thing with a different story so L imaginary another imaginary G she is a heroine of the French heroine of the French Resistance who was um lived in Canada was sent out FR during the war time to work with the French assistant was betrayed and shot as a sky by the joury and she had a Canadian officer lover andth and he's he's quite friend you just ask any of you who would like to answer now you are all thoughtful intelligent people uh you have professional backgrounds um you're skilled in your various Fields how do you really feel about this Philip phenomenon Su I think that it is um a purely physical thing coming from the brain that any human being who was trained in the skill could do it it's just it takes some training to develop the skill and I think it's a source of energy which uh perhaps we have helped find and that it may someday be used as a source of energy Lauren hin what how do you feel about I'm just think of it respect to the fact we've produced uh I officially the sort of effects that you generally get from where it's generally supposed to ghost in other words the minds of you people working on this together have been able have produced movements in this table wraps and answers to your questions all the things that traditionally ghosts have done so are you saying then that the traditional ghost may have been a projection from the minds of living people that's my do you all agree with that yeah could be could be a could be yes this is one of the answers okay let's ask Phillip a question we've got about one minute left for philli here in this Command Performance uh uh what What's going to get him to give us a good loud answer there a kind of grand finale for him you people know his feelings ask does he love does he love what's the Gypsy Mar yeah are you do you still love Maro Philip so you ask your question do you want come on TV again philli are you still there philli one more WP for goodbye say goodbye to Alan a real loud one other than that he's saying no he doesn't want to go give us one wrap Philip we must go Philip one loud goodbye for everyone go that's L say goodbye to George we're going to have to say goodbye to Philip peral and we'll be back in a moment to wrap this up with some more information about pH my guest on extra special people is Iris Owen of the Toronto Society for psychical research and Iris that must be just about the wildest sequence ever seen on television a group of grown people with a table bouncing around and answering questions but uh let's get serious now it's a marvelous party game having a talking table but there's something deeper than that involved what are the implications of this Philip experiment well of course as you say Al and it is a a serious scientific experiment and there are two uh aspects of it that are important first the part that is in of interest to the physicist how does a combined thought from a group of people transform itself into something that can produce a physical effect such as a a noise or a table movement I should say that to me the these pings from within the table are the most singular thing about the phenomenon and I have put my hand on the table more than once and felt the vibration the pulsation directly under it yes there it is it is the most extraordinary the second thing the second thing of course is of interest to psychologists the physical the psychological background of a a group of people getting themselves into a state of mind where they can in fact share a common thought and uh uh produce produce these things for one thing you have to be in a kind a childlike frame of mind don't you we describe it as a psychological skill and it's learned just as in the same way that when you're learning to play the piano you have to start with the scales and go all the way through until you can play something in the nature of classical music this is a psychological skill that we learn in this way and this is why it's um it doesn't happen as often as one would think it well maybe we'll have some more imaginary ghosts around Iris Owen it's been marvelous having you on the program and we will be back again with more extra special people and we'll be talking to interesting folks who inhabit that shadowy world that lies on the border between science and Superstition the known and the unknown they're all unusual they're all extra special people [Music] oh