ESP & Financial Futures Article - Williams

8/9/2019 ESP & Financial Futures Article - Williams

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THE THETA ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER • SPRING 2014

A Psychic Walk on Wall Street:

Exploring ESP and Financial Futures

BY BRYAN WILLIAMS

When asked, people who choose to consult a psychic reader may give any number of reasons for

wanting to do so. For instance, some people may wonder whether they are really living the

lifestyle that is right for them, while others may be curious about the status of their love life. And

in the

wake

of

the

recent

economic

recession

period

within

the

United

States,

many

people

may

be concerned nowadays with their financial future and would like to gain a little foresight on what

the outcome might be.

According to an article printed in the September 23, 2008 edition of The New York Times,

some psychic readers claim to have seen a recent rise in business as more clients come to them

with questions about employment and the status of any personal investments they’ve made on

Wall Street.1 And it seems that these clients haven’t only been individuals from the financial

sector; they’ve been people from all walks of life.

If people really have been turning to psychics more often, then this raises some intriguing

questions: What psychological factors could be driving people’s sudden reliance in what might be

seen as an unconventional and rather taboo form of financial consultation? And is it really possible

that psychics could be helpful in predicting a person’s financial future? In seeking to shed some

light on these questions, we may find that several decades of psychological and parapsychological

research can provide useful illumination.

In the Client’s Seat

So what could be driving a person’s desire to consult a psychic reader? In an effort to find

out, anthropologist Geri‐Ann Galanti once conducted survey interviews with 20 psychic readers

and their clients in the Los Angeles area during the 1970s.2 Among the various reasons that the

clients gave for wanting to consult a psychic, several stated that they were experiencing a personal

crisis and

simply

wanted

to

know

what

the

eventual

outcome

would

be.

For

instance,

a client

named Doris said that she always went to see a psychic whenever she felt she was “...in very deep

water, very troubled. I wanted to get a hook on the future. The present was unbearable.”2, p.75

In a related situation, some clients felt indecisive in times of uncertainty and wanted some

guidance from a psychic about the direction they should follow. A client named Gilda told Galanti,

“I usually go [to see a psychic] when I’m faced with a lot of different options or I’m just generally

confused and don’t know which path to take.”2, p.74

Similarly, Renee said that she would go to a

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psychic, “...if I had some questions in my life. Confusion about big things, like a relationship, where

you’re living, what you’re doing. Or if I had to make a decision about something I was unsure

about.”2, p.74

When asked about their stress levels when going to visit a psychic, most of the clients said

that they were under a moderate to high amount of stress. They seemed to hope that a psychic

reading would

provide

some

degree

of

relief

by

helping

them

to

clarify

their

feelings,

decide

what

to do, and/or offer positive reassurance about things to come. Galanti noted that, in these cases,

the reasons that clients gave for their visit are the very same ones that a person might give for

wanting to visit a psychotherapist. But why did the clients instead choose to seek the help of a

psychic reader?

According to Galanti’s survey, the clients’ notion that psychics can be helpful in troubling

situations seems to partly stem from similarities in the way that the psychics and their clients view

life in the world around them. For example, rather than being set in stone from the beginning,

some people believe that they are able to exert a degree of control over their own destiny, and

that the manner in which they fulfill their purpose in life is ultimately determined by their own

choices and actions. About 70% of the psychics surveyed by Galanti had strongly agreed with this

view, as did about 60% of their clients. All of the psychics also agreed that human thought has the

power to affect change in the world, a view strongly shared by 80% of their clients. These

viewpoints suggest that, rather than resigning themselves to dealing with whatever fate has in

store for them, many clients are open to the notion that it’s possible for them to change things

around. If that’s the case, then perhaps receiving advice from psychics about what’s to come, and

how they could possibly affect it, may seem to be the most logical choice for them. For some, this

may seem especially sensible in today’s world when it comes to making financial investments or

deciding whether to switch jobs.

Similar surveys of people in various parts of the world who have visited psychic readers

have shown varying degrees of influence. In the 1970s, psychologist John Palmer surveyed the

students and

people

living

in

the

college

town

of

Charlottesville,

Virginia.

Of

the

students

who

had

visited a psychic, 67% found their reading to be helpful, and 78% claimed to have made choices or

actions based on it.3 Around the same time, psychologist Erlendur Haraldsson conducted a

national survey of the people living in Iceland. He found that just over half of the responders had

been to see a psychic at least once, and that of these people, 28% found their reading helpful.4

More recently, psychologist Chris Roe surveyed local residents of Edinburgh, Scotland. About 30%

of the residents said they had been to a psychic, and of these residents, half of them thought their

reading was helpful. In addition, a notable minority of these residents – nearly 30% – had taken

the psychics’ claims seriously enough to visit them for direct advice or reassurance.5

Although it seems that a considerable number of clients felt that their psychic readings

were

helpful,

it’s

important

to

distinguish

this

feeling

from

how

accurate

the

reading

may

have

been. From a therapeutic perspective, it can be argued that if the clients really found their reading

to be personally meaningful and reassuring in some way, then it really may not matter much

whether (or not) it was indeed accurate about the things to come in their future. On the other

hand, this can be a central matter from a scientific perspective. Is it possible for some psychics to

accurately foresee the future, and in a way that could be practically applied in the financial

market? To address this question, we must now turn from surveys of commercial psychic readers

to more controlled parapsychological research conducted with some seemingly gifted individuals.

4




ESP, Remote Viewing, and the Future

Parapsychologists commonly use the term precognition to label any experience in which a

person seems to gain awareness of a future event without using the five bodily senses or logical

inference. To study precognition, researchers have used a variety of experimental methods over

the years,

ranging

from

people

guessing

the

resulting

order

of

symbols

in

a pack

of

ESP

cards

before it is thoroughly shuffled, to having them predict the outcome of rolling dice, to having them

identify which picture out of several on a computer screen will later be chosen at random by the

computer. In 1989, researchers Charles Honorton and Diane Ferrari had published a study in which

they collectively analyzed all of the various precognition experiments conducted between 1935

and 1987.6 Together, their collection of 309 experiments by 62 different researchers showed a

statistically significant result that conservatively amounted to odds of around 900 million to one

against chance, providing considerable supportive evidence for a precognitive effect.7 Nearly a

decade later, psychologists Fiona Steinkamp, Julie Milton, and Robert Morris published a second

study in which they analyzed all of the experiments conducted from 1935 to 1997 that compared

precognition with clairvoyance (the real‐time ESP ability to perceive hidden or distant objects).8

Taken on their own, the precognitive aspect of these experiments again showed strong statistical

evidence for an effect, with odds of just over a million to one against chance.9

Precognition and clairvoyance are usually regarded as separate abilities, but there have

been a few instances in which the two have seemingly worked in tandem. One such instance has

been the exploration of precognitive remote viewing. (Remote viewing is a simple ESP technique

through which people attempt to perceive hidden objects or distant locations, usually just by

closing their eyes, relaxing, and observing the images and impressions that freely come to mind as

they try and focus their thoughts toward the object or location in question.)

From the early 1970s to the mid‐1990s, several military branches of the U.S. government

had funded an experimental program to explore the potential use of remote viewing in

intelligence gathering.10

Leading

this

program

early

on

were

two

physicists

at

Stanford

Research

Institute (SRI), Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ, who found that volunteer participants were able to

accurately describe the features of a distant geographical location being visited at random by a

group of SRI experimenters.11

A statistical evaluation of all 154 experiments on remote viewing

conducted at SRI further attests to their success, with the overall result having estimated odds of

over a quintillion (i.e., a one followed by 18 zeros) to one against chance.12

Eventually, Puthoff and Targ discovered that some of the remote viewers were able to

describe the distant location before the experimenters even got there. In one fascinating

experiment, photographer Hella Hammid not only remotely saw the features of the location that

an experimenter was about to visit, but also apparently heard them as well, as illustrated in her

description:

I got a quick flash of a black, pointed area…like a head of an arrow. He walks into…it’s like a triangle

that he walks into…it’s a rhythmic kind of squeak, like a rusty pump…a not well oiled piston…just a

very rhythmic squeaking…

Half an hour later, the SRI experimenter walked into a public park, where a children’s playground

with a swing set was located. As he swung back and forth in the swing, the experimenter noticed

5




that the metal rings holding the swing to the overhead bar (which was supported by a triangle‐

shaped frame) produced a dull‐sounding squeak.

Around the same time that the SRI experiments were going on, a very similar kind of

remote viewing program was also being conducted by the Princeton Engineering Anomalies

Research (PEAR) group at Princeton University. Unlike the one at SRI, the PEAR program was

focused primarily

on

precognitive

remote

viewing,

in

which

the

viewers

attempted

to

perceive

and

describe the location that the experimenters would be going to, even before their destination

location was randomly selected. Using various analytical scoring methods, the 653 experiments

conducted by PEAR were found to have a combined odds ratio of about 33 million to one against

chance.13

Along with the SRI and PEAR work, researcher Stephan Schwartz pioneered another form

of remote viewing that was eventually found to be useful in forecasting the outcomes of future

events.14

In associative remote viewing ( ARV ), as it came to be called, a viewer is asked to try and

describe one of four hidden objects. Each of these objects is randomly associated with a different

event outcome that could potentially occur sometime in the near future, and the viewer’s goal is

to successfully describe the object which represents the outcome that will actually happen.

Following the event, the viewer is given feedback by being shown the object that reflects the

actual outcome.

Using this method, it would be possible in principle to anticipate a future event and take

responsive action before its outcome unfolds. For instance, one might use ARV to decide on whom

to place a bet in an upcoming horse race. Each horse running in the race would be paired with a

different object or location, and a viewer would be asked to try to describe the object/location

associated with the winning horse. An informal test in which ARV was effectively applied in this

manner was once conducted by Schwartz, which reportedly led to a correct bet and a big payout.

Exploratory tests like these naturally ask the question: If it is possible to predict the

outcome of a future event using ARV, then could it be useful in making profitable investments in

the financial

world?

Some

futurists

have

suggested

this

possibility.15

ESP on Wall Street?

Following the successful experiments at SRI, Puthoff and Targ each made an effort to

explore the practical effectiveness of remote viewing by using it to predict the direction of silver

futures on the COMEX commodity exchange. In principle, it was feasible to use the numbers and

symbols for commodity prices being displayed on the big board at the New York Commodity

Exchange as targets for remote viewing. However, viewing strategies developed during the SRI

research suggested that such detailed, analytical targets were often difficult to hit with much

accuracy,

which

led

Puthoff

and

Targ

to

choose

ARV

in

making

their

financial

forecasts.

To help raise funds for a school charity, Puthoff carried out a series of 30 ARV sessions in

the early 1980s, in which seven novice remote viewers attempted to predict the daily change in

silver prices. Two different objects were used for each viewing session, with one object

representing a rise in price, and the other representing a drop. The viewers attempted to describe

the object that would be shown to them at the end of the following day, and their descriptions

were combined together by consensus judging to formulate a general prediction of the price of

silver (either a rise or a drop) for the following day. This prediction information was passed on to a

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commodity trader, who then made an actual investment in the silver market on the basis of the

prediction. After the market closed at the end of the next day, the viewers were shown the object

that reflected the actual change in price as feedback. As a group, the viewers were able to

correctly predict the price change in 21 (70%) of the 30 sessions, a result that has odds of about

450 to 1 against chance. In terms of money, the successful investments that were made in the

market based

on

the

viewers’

predictions

had

netted

about

$25,000

for

the

charity.

16

At around the same time, Targ began undertaking his own exploration into “psychic

trading” by forming a corporate partnership called Delphi Associates with businessman Anthony

White and psychologist Keith Harary. In December of 1982, the three Delphi partners made a

series of nine silver market forecasts based on the results of nine informal ARV sessions.17

Here,

three different geographic locations were used to predict the change in silver prices after three

days, with the first location representing a large increase in price (more than .25¢), the second a

moderate increase (under .25¢), and the third a drop in price.

Harary had had some previous experience with remote viewing through his participation in

the SRI experiments, and he again assumed the role of the viewer to make each of Delphi’s nine

forecasts. Each Thursday, Harary gave his impressions of the distant location he would be taken to

after the market closed on Monday afternoon. Following the viewing session, a pair of judges

compared Harary’s impressions against the three locations to see which one they most closely

resembled. On the basis of the price change associated with that location, the Delphi partners

asked a stockbroker to either buy or sell silver contracts on the market accordingly, and then

liquidate their holdings after the market closed. All of the nine forecasts they made were accurate,

and the broker had made successful investments for seven of these, reportedly earning Delphi

over $100,000 in profit. This impressive result eventually caught the eye of The Wall Street Journal ,

and a story on Delphi and its unconventional form of market trading subsequently appeared on

the front page of the October 22, 1984 edition of the newspaper.18

Despite its initial success and momentary publicity, Delphi’s effort in psychic trading did

not last

for

long.

In

March

of

1983,

the

encouraged

Delphi

partners

began

making

a second

series

of ARV‐based forecasts to try and repeat their successful results from the previous year. However,

the investments they made in the market following their first two ARV sessions were met with

back‐to‐back losses, forcing the Delphi partners to reexamine their approach in the hopes of

finding out what had gone wrong. Although the opinions among the Delphi partners about what

happened are mixed, there are indications that the two failures may have had more to do with

abrupt changes in the Delphi ARV procedure than any kind of “breakdown” in the psychic process

per se. For instance, Harary noticed that a possible miscommunication between him and the

judges during the evaluation of his impressions in the first ARV session may have led the judges to

match his impressions with the wrong location, which in turn led to an incorrect market forecast.

Thus,

the

problem

may

have

arisen

in

the

interpretation

of

his

psychic

impressions,

rather

than

in

the generation of them. Claims also arose that, after the successful December 1982 series, the

Delphi partners were feeling pressured from an outside investor to increase their number of ARV

sessions, which may have rushed several phases of their procedure that typically required careful

handling and evaluation. Apparently these hasty changes and differing goals soon became hard

issues among those involved, and Delphi Associates was subsequently disbanded.19

Just over a decade later, Targ made an attempt to repeat Delphi’s successful December

1982 results in a series of 18 ARV sessions in which he and psychologist Jane Katra served as the

7




viewers.20 As in Puthoff’s study, two different objects were used to represent a rise or a drop in

silver prices. Each week on Sunday evening, Targ and Katra made separate forecasts of the price

change (either a rise or a fall) at the close of the market on Monday afternoon by remote viewing

the object that they would shown on Tuesday evening, the selection of which would be

determined by Monday’s market outcome. Aside from six sessions that did not count because the

quality of

their

viewing

was

poor,

Targ

and

Katra

provided

accurate

descriptions

of

the

objects

in

11 out of the 12 sessions they participated in, a result that has odds of about 330 to 1 against

chance. When their impressions were combined by consensus judging to create market forecasts,

six out of the seven forecasts made were found to accurately predict the change in silver prices.

But unlike in the Delphi series, they did not go a step further and make an actual market

investment, as they did not intend to use this successful series for profit. Rather, it was simply

meant to serve as yet another demonstration of the practical use of ARV in the real world.

In the most recent practical effort, Greg Kolodziejzyk conducted an extensive series of ARV

sessions over the course of a 13‐year period (from May 1998 to September 2011) to make stock

market forecasts and predictions about the outcomes of sporting events, online gambling, and

lotteries.21

Using an automated system in which a computer randomly selected two hidden digital

images to represent the two potential outcomes of a future event (e.g., a rise or a fall in stock

market prices), Kolodziejzyk made his forecasts and predictions by trying (via ARV) to gather

impressions about the image associated with the outcome that would actually be realized at some

later time. In order to increase his confidence regarding a certain forecast or prediction,

Kolodziejzyk would conduct multiple ARV sessions focused around the same future event and then

pooling their results together through consensus judging to form one overall forecast/prediction

about that event. Out of the 5,677 ARV sessions he conducted over the 13‐year period, 52.6% had

correctly described the image associated with the actual event outcome (whereas only 50% would

be expected by chance alone). Although a 2.6% increase over chance doesn’t seem like much, the

odds associated with such a result are about 31,000 to one. In terms of money, 60% of the

financial investments

made

by

Kolodziejzyk

on

the

basis

of

his

overall

forecasts/predictions

were

profitable, amounting to around $146,500 overall.

Weighing in on Psychic Futures

Given the recent period of economic uncertainty in America, it seems that some people

may turn to psychic readers in order to receive assurance and perhaps get the heads‐up on what

they could possibly do to avert financial crisis. In some respects, psychic readers may act as an

alternative psychotherapist in offering a positive light on things to come, whether good or bad, for

their clients in the future. But do the predictions that psychics give their clients really reflect

what’s

going

to

happen?

Parapsychological research suggests that some psychic predictions can and do provide

some degree of accuracy about future events, and that psychic abilities may be put to practical use

in making financial decisions and investments on the commodities market. But given the varying

nature of psychic performance and the multiple factors involved in determining the direction of

the stock market, financial predictions based solely on ESP may be somewhat difficult, so caution

is warranted for those bold enough to try and make a fortune using ESP on Wall Street.

8




References & Notes

1Koppel, L. (2008, September 23). Would you ask a psychic for stock tips? More often, clients do. The New York Times,

p. B‐5. 2Galanti, G.‐A. (1986). The astral couch: Psychic readers and psychic readings in Los Angeles. Theta, 13/14, 73 – 78. 3Palmer, J. (1979). A community mail survey of psychic experiences. Journal of the American Society for Psychical

Research, 73,

221

–

251.

4Haraldsson, E. (1985). Representative national surveys of psychic phenomena: Iceland, Great Britain, Sweden, USA,

and Gallup’s multinational survey. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 53, 145 – 158. 5Roe, C. A. (1998). Belief in the paranormal and attendance at psychic readings. Journal of the American Society for

Psychical Research, 92, 25 – 51. 6Honorton, C., & Ferrari, D. C. (1989). “Future telling”: A meta‐analysis of forced‐choice precognition experiments,

1935 – 1987. Journal of Parapsychology , 53, 281 – 308. 7This conservative odds ratio is based on the result obtained by Honorton and Ferrari using a sub‐collection of 248

precognition experiments, which had been trimmed down to exclude extreme scores. See Note 6, pp. 287 –

288, for details. 8Steinkamp, F., Milton, J., & Morris, R. L. (1998). A meta‐analysis of forced‐choice experiments comparing clairvoyance

and precognition. Journal of Parapsychology , 62, 193 – 218. 9

Incidentally, the

clairvoyance

aspect

was

also

statistically

significant

at

odds

of

about

500

to

one.

10For readable accounts of this government‐based experimental program on remote viewing, see e.g., Puthoff, H. E.

(1996). CIA‐initiated remote viewing program at Stanford Research Institute. Journal of Scientific Exploration,

10, 63 – 76 (also published in The Intelligencer: Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies, 12, 60 – 67); Targ, R.

(1996). Remote viewing at Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s: A memoir. Journal of Scientific

Exploration, 10, 77 – 88; and Targ, R., & Puthoff, H. E. (1977/2005). Mind ‐Reach: Scientists Look at Psychic

Ability. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Company. 11Puthoff, H. E., & Targ, R. (1976). A perceptual channel for information transfer over kilometer distances: Historical

perspective and recent research. Proceedings of the IEEE , 64, 329 – 354. 12May, E. C., Utts, J. M., Trask, V. V., Luke, W. W., Frivold, T. J., & Humphrey, B. S. (1989). Review of the

psychoenergetic research conducted at SRI International (1973 – 1988). Final Report – SRI Project 1291.

Menlo Park, CA: SRI International. See also Utts, J. M. (1996). An assessment of the evidence for psychic

functioning. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 10, 3 – 30. 13Dunne,

B.

J.,

&

Jahn,

R.

G.

(2003).

Information

and

uncertainty

in

remote

perception

research.

Journal

of

Scientific

Exploration, 17 , 207 – 241. 14Schwartz, S. A. (2007). Opening to the Infinite: The Art and Science of Nonlocal Awareness. Buda, TX: Nemoseen

Media. Ch. 12. 15Lee, J. H. (2008). Remote viewing as applied to futures studies. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 75, 142

– 153.16Puthoff, H. E. (1985). ARV (associational remote viewing) applications. In R. A. White & J. Solfvin (Eds.) Research in

Parapsychology 1984 (pp. 121 – 122). Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. 17Harary, K., & Targ, R. (1985). A new approach to forecasting commodity futures. Psi Research, 4, 79 – 88.

18Larson, E. (1984, October 22). Did psychic powers give firm a killing in the silver market? And did greed ruin it all? The

Wall Street Journal , p. 1. 19Harary, K. (1992). The goose that laid the silver eggs: A criticism of psi and silver futures forecasting. Journal of the

American

Society

for

Psychical

Research,

86,

375

–

409.

20Targ, R., Katra J., Brown, D., & Wiegand, W. (1995). Viewing the future: A pilot study with an error‐detecting protocol.

Journal of Scientific Exploration, 9, 367 – 380. 21Kolodziejzyk, G. (2012). Greg Kolodziejzyk’s 13‐year associative remote viewing experiment results. Journal of

Parapsychology , 76, 327 – 368.

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