After a long experiment, the invented spirit began to persecute the group's hay. What really happened during Philip's experiment and what tells us what length people will believe in ghosts?
Sitting in a customary Seance with darkened lights around the table, a group of people tried to make contact with the dead. They began to feel the presence, the table vibrated, and the refrigerated one entered the room. The spirit was present and answered from knocking and unemployed echoes.
The spirit was Philip Aylesfor. He was born in 1624 in England and was once a nobleman with military connections with Oliver Cromwell, a knight, when he was 16 years venerable and worked as a spy for Charles II during the English civil war. He gave a lot of details of his life, such as that he was married to a frigid woman named Dorothea and had a tragic romance with a handsome Romanesque woman named Margo, whom he met while driving on his property. His wife discovered an affair, accused Margo of a witch and burned her at the stake. Defeated by a sense of guilt and regret, Philip committed suicide in 1654
Seance, who lasted about a year, was a success, everyone felt and heard the spirit. At one point, the table tilted one leg and moved through the room, not touching it, not getting everything on audio and tape. There was only one problem. Each part of this story has been fabricated. Philip Aylesford never existed. His life was only a creation of a group trying to conjure her. And yet everyone believed it.
In the world of Paranormal, most of the haunting are associated with the spirits of the dead remaining in our kingdom. But what if the ghost was not the rest of the living person? What if it was something completely different – something that was born not from the tragedy, but from pure human imagination? Enter Philip's experiment, a breakthrough study of parapsychology from the 70s, which was aimed at proving that ghosts may not be ghosts but products of human thought.
The birth of Filip: a ghost without a past
Philip's experiment conducted from September 1972 through Toronto Society for Psychical Research (TSPR), led by Dr. Arg Owen, mathematician and psychologist. The group was aimed at examining the idea that paranormal phenomena, especially for spectacular action, may not be caused by the ghosts of the dead, but rather the ability of the human mind to create and be entities in reality-converting known as a manifestation of a thought form or tulpas in Tibetan mysticism.
To test this theory, they created a completely fictitious spirit named Philip Aylesford. From Filip's “history” the team – at participants, including the wife of Dr. Owen – conducting screenings without much result at the beginning. This began as informal meetings in which they discussed his history and life, but the group of few paranormal phenomena was reported by a group called the Owen group.
They drew his picture and even went to England, where he “lived” and took pictures. Other people in the group were nameless, but in this time Mensa Woman, accountant, sociology student, housewife, accountant and industrial designer presided over mens. They had everything in common that they were all members of TSPR.
Then they changed the tactics and created the atmosphere in a poorly lit room, just like when trying to contact the real spirit. All experiments and their experiences began to change. They focused on Filip's history, visualized him and called him to him, asking for signs of his presence.
One night, when they continued, the table suddenly shook. The knocking of sounds echoed in the room. Initially, the group thought it was a case or a movement of the subconscious. But the phenomena intensified.
Through the knocking system (one for “yes”, two for “no”), Philip began to answer questions. When asked about his past, he answered in a way that adapted to the fictitious story they wrote. However, whenever the group asked something beyond his “history”, Filip could not answer, strengthening the idea that its existence is completely dependent on their faith.
Paranormal activity escalators
As Philip's experiment progressed, manifestations became more uncertain after they lasted several months. Filip not only communicated by knocking – he moved the table, made fibrillation lights, and even created frigid places in the room. Witnesses reported that the table would tilt, move and even levitate. Some claimed that they had heard whispers and penniless laughter, although the voice was never recorded.
At one point they had to take a break from meetings, when some group members claimed that they were experiencing strange things in their homes. They even had a live in front of the audience, 50 people in whom a lot of presence and experience were felt, but television documentation was not able to give further evidence of the visitation.
Watch the television screening they did here.
Despite this, Filip never appeared as a ghostly character, nor did he provide any information except what the participants imagined. He was a real creation of their minds, responding only to what they have already established about him.
What did Philip experiment prove?
Philip's experiment left scientists of disturbing conclusions. If a group of people could “create” a ghost through faith and focus on the same, what does this say about the nature of haunting? Were all ghostly meetings only phenomena of the subconscious mind? Can poltergeists and ghosts actually be projections of human thought?
The experiment also attracted connections with psychocinesis (mind over matter) – an idea that focused on man's intention can physically affect the world. If the group could make a levitating table, believing in Filip, is it possible that visits result from emotional energy rather than real ghosts? Do we want to believe in ghosts so bad that the mind will create it for us?
Heritage of Philip's experiment
The experiment remains one of the most famed research of parapsychology, inspiring further research on tulp and the power of collective consciousness. While skeptics say that table movements were the result of ideomotor effects (unconscious muscle movements), believers indicate that the level of activity was far beyond the typical fraud and that Filip's spirit was perhaps the beginning, but the real spirit really appeared.
Although it caused many debates, it also caused a lot of criticism, because experience would be hard to play to show more consistent results.
Philip's experiment was later repeated with different groups, creating up-to-date fictitious ghosts, such as Lilith, French Canadian spy, Sebastian, medieval Alchemist and Axel, which was said to be from the future. In each case, similar phenomena took place, which suggests that the power of conviction plays a significant role in paranormal experiences.
Filip's experiment forces us to ask a terrifying question: what if the ghosts do not persecute us? What if we are persecuted? If human minds can conjure up ghosts of slim air, it means that the border between reality and imagination is disturbingly slim. This also raises the possibility that some visits may be created symptoms of guilt, trauma or fear.
So the next time you hear a whisper in the gloomy, feel touched on your shoulder or watch the object yourself – sip: something? Or maybe you do this true?
References:
https://www.liveabout.com/how-to-create-a-ghost-2594058
Philip's experiment – amazing legends
Image Source: Pixabay.com
