Auriol, Lagrange, Morer, Rabat, Valentin, Leconte, Perrin, Campardon
AGAPÈ : GROUP TELEPATHY
A LONG -TERM EXPERIMENTAL SERIES
Bernard M. Auriol1, Sylvie Lagrange2, Myriam Campardon2, Corinne Morer2,
Olivier Rabat2, Sophie Valentin2, Eve Leconte2 and Olivier Perrin2
1
Institut Métapsychique International, Paris, France
2
Université Toulouse I and Université Toulouse III, France
ABSTRACT
Although past reports don’t favour this hypothesis, we supposed that the repetition of the trials
and the use of an individual and group feed-back could improve the telepathy between two
groups of individuals, and obtain results higher than chance expectation, thanks to the
redundancy linked to the process of majority vote.
The participants were recruited without any special method (friends, acquaintances, medias).
There were 418 persons, (2/3 of women, 1/3 of men). The size of the transmitter group varied
from 0 to 15 persons and the size of the receiver group from 1 to 16.
A transmitter group and a receiver group were placed in acoustically isolated rooms (240
sessions, made of 27.845 collective trials, that is more than 250.000 individual trials).
We varied a number of parameters, especially the kind of target (pictures, words), and the
number of possible targets (2, 3 or 5). Both the number of individual successes and the number
of collective successes (result of majority vote) proved to be compatible with the null
hypothesis. The variance presented interesting anomalies but their interpretation is awkward.
INTRODUCTION
As Dr Osty (1932) [who summarised Murphy, Forthuny, Woolley, Soal, Huxley and Warcollier],
Barker et al. (1975) noticed that the tests involving groups generally tend to produce “psi-missing”, or
even purely random results. Milton’s meta-analysis (1994) of eight studies (ESP in forced choice),
gathering more than one and a half million of individual trials, comes to the same conclusion.
However some other protocols got results significantly above chance expectation [Barker and al.
(1975), Musso and Granero (1981), Carpenter (1995), Dalkvist and Westerlund (1998)].
We made the hypothesis that the repetition of trials and the use of an individual and group feed-back
could improve the telepathy between two groups of individuals and get results higher than chance
expectation thanks to the redundancy linked to the process of majority vote.
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Agapè : Group Telepathy - A long-term experimental series
METHODS
The participants chose their role (agent or percipient)themselves at the beginning of the session. They
kept this role throughout the session. The number of agents varied from 0 to 15 persons, the number of
percipients varied from 1 to 16 persons. From one session to another, the participation of the subjects was
very irregular.
The “transmitter” group and the “receiver” group are located in two rooms which can’t be seen from
one another, and acoustically isolated. The transmitter group is placed in front of a screen which displays a
word or a picture (the target) pseudo-randomly extracted from a more or less important source-set.
A sub-set (2, 3 or 5 items) taken from the source-set is displayed to the receiver group. Each member
of this group attempts to guess which is the target ant gives his answer on an individual keyboard. If the
relative majority choose the right answer, it’s a collective success. We make this trial 75 times during a
session.
All data for transmission and reception are saved by the computer system (transmitters' names,
receivers' names, rank assigned to the trial, source-set, decoy subset, target, date, display time and
duration, time taken to answer for each receiver).
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Proceedings of Presented Papers
Auriol, Lagrange, Morer, Rabat, Valentin, Leconte, Perrin, Campardon
Three main protocols were implemented :
Two pictures (fig. 1) : For each trial, the target is randomly drawn by a computer among from a file of
1500 pictures. It’s displayed to the agents. The percipients have to choose between two pictures displayed
(one is the target, the other is randomly picked from the file). Everyone gives his/her answer on an
individual keyboard.
Senders
Fig. 1
Receivers (the target is displayed at random
on the left or on the right )
Experimental design (« two pictures » protocol ): two acoustically insulated rooms
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Agapè : Group Telepathy - A long-term experimental series
Three words (fig. 2): For each trial, a target-word is randomly picked from a file of very common
words. Three words are displayed to the receivers. Everyone gives his/her answer on an individual
keyboard.
Senders
Fig. 2
4
Receivers (the target is displayed at random
on one of the three rows )
Experimental design(« three words » protocol ): two acoustically insulated rooms
Proceedings of Presented Papers
Auriol, Lagrange, Morer, Rabat, Valentin, Leconte, Perrin, Campardon
Five words : at the beginning of the session, the participants brainstorm a list of five words which will
be repeatedly used during the whole session. For each trial of the session, one of these word is randomly
drawn. It is shown to the transmitters. The receivers give their answer on their individual keyboard.
Senders
Fig. 3
Receivers (the target is displayed at random
on one of the five rows )
Experimental design(« five words » protocol ): two acoustically insulated rooms
After the judging is closed a feedback is given.
- Individual feedback: when the trial is over, each receiver is informed of his/her personal hit or miss,
by displaying on the screen either his/her name or the target.
- Feedback for the group: if the collective trial is a hit, the lights are switched on (traffic lights’ style:
see on the right of the displays, fig 1, 2 and 3) in the transmitters’ room and the receivers’. The number of
lights on depends on the strength of the majority.
- Instructions may be given to the receivers, or they may be free to send the message their own way.
When there were instructions, they were: For some sessions, to focus on the target to transmit, for others,
to focus especially on one (or several) receiver.
We also have at our disposal complementary information from the participants: age and sex, degree of
their adhesion to psi phenomena, their practice of a kind of altered state of consciousness, the results of
Max Lüscher color–test (1969).
As the answers were not compulsory, a lot of missing values were generated.
From December 1993 to January 2001, we carried out 240 sessions of group telepathy, made of 27.845
collective trials (that is more than 250.000 individual trials). The population of participants, who all
volunteered, were recruited with no special method (friends, acquaintance, media). There were 274 female
individuals and 145 male individuals, amounting to 418 persons. That is 2/3 of women, and 1/3 of men.
The size of the transmitter group varied from zero to 15 persons, the size of the receiver group from 1 to
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Agapè : Group Telepathy - A long-term experimental series
16. [once, there was no transmitter: This was requested by one of the participants believing that telepathy
is the same process as clairvoyance].
RESULTS
Percentage of individual hits
If the choice of a percipient matches the target, it’s an individual hit.
For the protocol with two pictures (respectively three words and five words), we checked if
the percentage « p̂ » of right answers was equal to po = 1/2 (respectively 1/3, and 1/5), that is
compatible with the null hypothesis.
The hypotheses in this test are: H0 : p = po versus H1 : p  po
The statistic used is : z 
pˆ  p0
where n is the number of trials associated to each
p0 (1  p0 )
n
protocol. It follows asymptotically a normal standardised distribution (table 1).
2 pictures
3 words
5 words
Number of individual trials
27 081
102 634
120 347
Percentage of hits
49,94 %
33,34 %
20,13 %
P-value
0.8316
0.9472
0.2683
Table 1
Influence of individual characteristics on individual hits
A hit mark can be given to each percipient for each session he took part in. This mark is based upon the
percentage of hits he got for each session. In order to include in the analysis the individual percentages got
during the sessions with two pictures, three or five words, we apply the following transformation:
h  2(arcsin pˆ  arcsin p )
We get h for each person. We try to evaluate whether h takes significantly different values according to
recorded individual characteristics: year of birth, sex, Lüscher’s test, degree of adhesion to psi phenomena
(telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition or psychokinesis) and the practice of relaxation, prayer or
meditation.
Then we compare the means of the random variable h distribution between different groups of
individuals, discriminated according to the following criteria:

6
Age : the participants were classified in four quartiles, according to their date of birth: the persons
born before 1935, those born between 1935 and 1943, those born between 1943 and 1960, and
those born after 1960.
Proceedings of Presented Papers
Auriol, Lagrange, Morer, Rabat, Valentin, Leconte, Perrin, Campardon

Colour : groups were determined by the presence or not of each of the eight colours of the test
(blue, green, red, yellow, purple, brown, grey and black) among the four favourite colours of the
subject.

Sheep/Goat : groups defined by their degree of adhesion to psi phenomena (telepathy,
clairvoyance, precognition or psychokinesis): strong adhesion /moderate adhesion / no adhesion
of the participant.

ASC : group of individuals practising relaxation, prayers or meditation, versus the group of
individuals using none of these.
The variance analysis (and the Fischer test associated to it) allows us to compare the means of these
different groups :
Age
Date of birth
Fischer's test statistics
P-value
2.1025
0.2256
Lüscher’s test
Fischer's test statistics
P-value
Blue
Green
Red
Yellow
Black
Grey
Brown
Violet
-0.69
0.86
-1.42
-0.33
1.16
-0.35
0.26
0.59
0.4914
0.3876
0.1549
0.7431
0.2459
0.7265
0.7920
0.5541
Sheep/goat questionnaire
Fischer's test statistics
P-value
telepathy
Clairvoyance
Precognition
Psychokinesis
0.0676
0.0729
1.0201
0.0784
0.7740
0.7650
0.3651
0.7528
Altered States of Consciousness
Fischer's Test Statistics
P-value
ASC practice
0.24
0.8125
Table 2
We don’t find any significant difference between the average results of the different groups: we cannot
associate these characteristics to a wider success of the participants.
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Agapè : Group Telepathy - A long-term experimental series
If we repeat the analysis taking this time into account only the persons who got a percentage of good
answers significantly higher than chance expectation, we reach the same conclusion.
However, if we take into account only the persons who got a percentage of hits significantly lower
than chance expectation, some characteristics seem to have an influence on their mark:
Age
Date of birth
Fischer's Test Statistics
P-value
6.06
0.0017
Sheep / goat questionnaire
Fischer's Test Statistics
P-value
Clairvoyance
Psychokinesis
5.42
6.60
0.02
0.003
Table 3
Concerning these individuals whose marks are lower than expected under the hypothesis of answers
made at random, we can notice that believing strongly in psychokinesis or clairvoyance tends to increase
the psi-missing compared to moderately believing in these phenomena; the youngest participants got the
highest psi-missing.
Percentage of collective hits
If the majority of percipients choose the target, it’s a collective hit.
Number of Potential Targets →
Two
Three
Five
Expected mean
0.500
0.333
0.200
Observed mean
0.498
0.329
0.202
Table 4

Two picturesn :b c i
F
bl e
=
2
nbci bl e
800
r
600
e
q
u
400
u
e
200
c
0
0
0. 0
0. 3
Po u r c e n t a g e
8
1000
n
c
Fig. 4
2000
q
e
n
3
F
r
e
=
0. 6
de
0. 9
succès
Frequencies of percentages of correct guesses for the “two-images protocol”
Proceedings of Presented Papers
0. 0
0.
Po u r c e n
Auriol, Lagrange, Morer, Rabat, Valentin, Leconte, Perrin, Campardon

Three wordsn :b c i
bl e
=
3
nbci bl e
=
5
3000
F
F
r
e
r
2000
e
q
u
e
u
1000
e
n
c
0
cent age
0. 6
de
0. 0
succès

0. 3
Po u r c e n t a g e
0. 6
de
0. 9
0. 0
succès
Five words :
=
5
3000
F
r
e
2000
q
u
e
1000
n
c
0
0. 6
de
0. 9
0. 0
succès
0. 3
Po u r c e n t a g e
Fig. 6
0. 6
de
0. 9
succès
Frequencies of percentages of correct guesses for the “five-words protocol”
The distribution of percentage of hits is centered on 1/2 (for two pictures), on 1/3 (for three words), or
on 1/5 (for five words), that is on the percentage of right answers under the hypothesis of a choice made at
random.
Strength of the vote and success
Here we try to learn if a better agreement amongst the voters on the answer to give, leads to more
success. We call strength of the vote for a given trial, the ratio of individuals who agreed upon an answer
(majority vote), whether the result is good or not. The null hypothesis is: “the percentage of hits amounts
to chance expectation, whatever the strength of the vote”.
The Parapsychological Association Convention 2004
0. 3
Po u r c e n
Frequencies of percentages of correct guesses for the “three-words protocol”
nbci bl e
0. 3
cent age
0
0. 9
Fig. 5
1000
n
c
0. 3
2000
q
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Agapè : Group Telepathy - A long-term experimental series
Quartile
expectation
1
2
3
4
Number of trials
infinite
323
590
489
481
Table 5 : two pictures
Rate of success
0,50
0,50
0,49
0,49
0,51
Fig. 7
10
Quartile
Number of trials
Rate of success
expectation
1
2
3
4
infinite
1871
1840
1833
1894
Table 6 : three words
0,33
0,32
0,33
0,33
0,33
Proceedings of Presented Papers
Auriol, Lagrange, Morer, Rabat, Valentin, Leconte, Perrin, Campardon
Fig. 8
Quartile
Number of trials
expectation
1
2
3
4
Rate of success
infinite
2148
1308
1632
1857
Table 7 : five words
0,20
0,19
0,21
0,21
0,21
Fig. 9
Variance (second moment)
We could suppose that high percentages (those higher than expected by chance, or Psi-Hitting), and
low percentages (Psi-Missing) compensated one another. Under this hypothesis that there are fluctuations
between attitudes in Psi-Hitting and Psi-Missing, it can be interesting to test the variance of success. In
order to evaluate in the most precise way the variation of success in relation to time, we can note the
number of miss between two consecutive hits (interval), and check if the variance of these intervals is
random or not.
Our use of the vote makes the study of the individual success variance more difficult (Hyman, 1992).
We will therefore limit our study to the variance of collective hits (Thouless & Brier, R.M., 1970).
Nb of possible targets Nb of hits (N intervals +1)
1463
two
3512
three
777
five
Observed variance
1.93*
6.42*
20.05
Expected variance
2
6
20
Table 8 : variance of intervals between consecutive successes
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Agapè : Group Telepathy - A long-term experimental series
When the percipients have to choose between two possible targets, the results tend to gather around the
mean (variance of intervals significantly lower than chance expectation).
Conversely, for the protocol with three possible targets, they tend to depart from the mean (variance
significantly higher than chance expectation).
However, in the case where the receivers have to choose between five possible targets belonging to a
same reiterated set, the variance isn’t different from the expected variance.
DISCUSSION
Concerning the frequency of individual or collective successes, our results are compatible with the
chance assumption. We could not highlight any improvement of the signal to noise ratio thanks to the
redundancy due to the majority vote. The strong majorities did not give better results than the weak ones.
The variance evaluated with the method of the intervals between consecutive successes of the vote was
significantly different from chance for two of the three protocols; but the interpretation of this result is
awkward.
Prospective aiming: covariance analysis
The seemingly randomness of our data could belong to the second kind error. This is why, on a purely
heuristic basis, and under the assumption that ESP would be (within the framework of our protocol) a
scarce phenomenon with a weak impact and/or unspecified sign (sometimes towards Psi-Hitting,
sometimes towards Psi-Missing) we undertook a covariance analysis on the collective trials which
deviated significantly from expectation (p < .05).
This study (Auriol B, 2003) made it possible to highlight some interesting parameters; for example, the
sociometric bonds among receivers would reduce the distance to chance expectation whereas the
sociometric bond between transmitters and receivers would increase this distance. But because this result
could be partly linked to a "stacking effect" (Caroline Watt, 2003), we will make this covariance analysis
again; we’ll use a resampling method to control that "stacking effect".
Reasons for the weakness of our results
Our collective experiments have lower results than these reported by other researchers, in particular on
protocols with pairs. It could be because our participants were recruited without any selection, because our
too rigid protocol obstructed the manifestation of Psi, or because the group situation and some
microsociological phenomena inhibited the manifestation of ESP phenomena (for unspecified reasons).
Is Psi-Missing an anti-Psi defence?
As suggested by the study of the intervals variance, there could be individual or group psychological
fluctuations. These fluctuations, following an unspecified law, would alternate phases of psi-hitting and
psi-missing; the overall performance would then be random, since successes and failures would
compensate one another.
There would be an unconscious management of approval and refusal. This management would reduce
any telepathic manifestation. That would explain - as suggested by Kennedy (2003) - the phenomenon of
decline and the "actively evasive, unsustainable" character of Psi.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
English translation : Alexia Fournier
Grant : Fondation Odier de Psycho-Physique
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