Psychic (or psi) abilities, like telepathy or remote viewing, have intrigued researchers for decades, but studying them comes with two big challenges: the effects are often subtle, and results can be hard to replicate. One major issue is that these abilities appear to be rare, so testing large, random groups of people often leads to inconclusive findings.
In the 1930s, researcher J.B. Rhine tackled this by focusing on “star” subjects—people who consistently performed well on psychic tasks. Similarly, during the U.S. government’s psychic research program (1972-1995), they concentrated on identifying and working with individuals who demonstrated strong abilities. This approach suggests that instead of testing large, random groups, it might be more effective to focus on finding and studying these rare, talented individuals.
In the past, this type of psychic research required in-person testing, but fortunately, we now have the internet. Researchers can recruit participants globally, conduct automated tests, and gather data more quickly and efficiently. Over the years, online platforms, like the “GotPsi” project, have collected millions of trials from hundreds of thousands of participants, revealing promising findings in some cases. However, these studies often lacked ways to track down high performers – or “star” subjects – for follow-up tests.
To tackle this, we built an online platform designed to identify individuals with exceptional psychic abilities and test them on a variety of psi tasks. The goal of the study was to see if these individuals could consistently perform better than chance on follow-up tests (retests) – in simpler terms, to find out if their abilities were consistent over time. We also wanted to explore whether personality traits, such as or other predictors could predict psi talent.
How we studied psychic abilities
We launched the platform and collected data from 8,112 participants, with 1,014 completing all required tasks during the first phase. From there, 50 of the top 200 performers were retested in the second phase. Participants also filled out surveys to provide demographic details like age and to share information about their meditation habits, feelings of self-transcendence, and paranormal beliefs and experiences.
The study tested psychic abilities using eight different tasks. These included predicting which of five photos a computer would select, guessing the position of a facedown card, trying to “influence” an image to appear on a card, finding hidden targets on a grid, guessing lottery numbers, and mentally organizing bubbles on a screen into a circle.
Our research questions were:
Question 1: Do participants (both pre-test and retest) perform above chance expectations in at least one of the eight psi tasks? This hypothesis examined whether participants, in both their test and re-test, performed better than random chance on at least one of the eight tasks. In simpler terms, the study wanted to find out if people show any measurable ability beyond pure luck in any of the tasks when tested more than once.
Question 2: Do any of the top performers have scores above chance expectations at their retest? This hypothesis examined whether some of the top-performing participants would continue to perform above chance during their retest.
Question 3. Did personality traits or factors like gender, meditation habits, and self-transcendence influence psi performance?
What did we find?
The top performers did slightly better than random chance on two tasks – remote viewing and psychokinesis – during the retests, but the results were not strong enough to be considered statistically significant. When we looked at personality traits, we found that people who were less conscientious and more agreeable tended to do better on certain tasks.
What does this all mean?
This study marks an exciting leap forward in the exploration of psychic (or psi) abilities by introducing unique and innovative methods that could shape future studies. Using an online platform, we overcame the usual challenges: the rarity of these phenomena and the difficulty of consistently capturing them. Through the use of our online platform, we were able to cast a wide net, gathering data from thousands of participants around the globe – an achievement that was once impossible with traditional, in-person research methods. By honing in on top performers – those who stood out during the initial testing phase – we were able to study whether their abilities could withstand retesting. This combination of digital accessibility and targeted testing is an important contribution, paving the way for more reliable and widely accepted findings in the field.
While some of the results did not achieve statistical significance, they revealed intriguing patterns in task-specific performance and suggested links between psi abilities and certain personality traits. This study serves as a testament to the power of modern technology to illuminate one of science’s most mysterious frontiers. By refining our approaches and continuing to ask bold questions, we move closer to understanding psychic abilities, exploring whether extraordinary human potential truly lies within reach and under what conditions it might reveal itself.
Read more about this study and the results in the paper “Testing the robustness of accurate intuitive abilities and assessment of reproducibility with a group of potentially talented individuals” published in Scientific Reports.
