Telepathic Telephone Calls: Two Surveys
📄 Original study📌 Appears in:
Plain English Summary
Ever had that eerie feeling you knew who was calling before you picked up? Sheldrake ran two random telephone surveys to find out how common this is among ordinary people -- not just folks interested in the paranormal. The London survey found 51% of 387 people had felt who was about to call, with women outpacing men (56% vs 41%). The really fascinating part: more people reported anticipating calls than reported psychic experiences in general, suggesting this might be an everyday "gateway" phenomenon for people who'd never call themselves psychic. A second survey in Bury found even higher numbers -- 65% had called someone who said "I was just thinking of calling you!" With solid 70-75% response rates, these weren't fringe samples. Sheldrake argued telephone anticipation may be one of the most widespread forms of apparent psychic experience, launching his later controlled experiments on the phenomenon.
Actual Paper Abstract
Many people claim to have thought about a particular person who then calls them on the telephone. Through informal surveys I have found that seemingly telepathic telephone calls are common. Two telephone surveys were carried out in London and Bury to investigate the frequency of these experiences in a random sample of the population. In both surveys, half the respondents said they had felt that someone was about to telephone them just before they did. In Bury, 45 per cent of the respondents said they had thought about a person they had not seen for a while who then telephoned the same day, and two thirds of the Bury respondents said they had telephoned people who said they were just thinking about telephoning them. In Bury, 37 per cent of respondents who said they had known in advance who was calling without any possible clue said this happened often. In both surveys significantly more women than men gave positive responses, and in both surveys more pet owners than people without pets gave positive responses. In London significantly more people claimed to have anticipated telephone calls than to have had psychic experiences. Telepathic telephone calls may represent one of the commonest kinds of psychic experience in the modern world, and I suggest ways in which they can be investigated empirically.
Research Notes
Foundational random-population survey establishing that telepathic telephone experiences are widespread in the general population, not limited to parapsychology-interested samples. Key finding: telephone call anticipation exceeds reported psychic experiences, suggesting this may be an entry-point phenomenon for people who don't otherwise identify as psi-experiencers. Lower rates than informal lecture surveys (80-95%) likely reflect both sampling differences and reluctance to admit experiences to strangers. Launched Sheldrake's experimental telephone telepathy program (Sheldrake & Smart 2003 onward). Published in JSPR Vol. 64.4, No. 861, pp. 224-232.
Two random telephone surveys investigated the frequency of seemingly telepathic telephone experiences in the general population. London survey (N=387, Nov 1996-Sept 1997) found 51% felt someone was going to telephone before they did, with women significantly more likely than men (56% vs 41%, p < 0.0002). Notably, significantly more people anticipated calls than reported psychic experiences (51% vs 38%, p < 0.0004). Bury survey (N=200, June-July 1997) found 65% had telephoned someone who said they were just thinking about telephoning them (71% women vs 53% men, p < 0.02); 49% knew who was calling without cues; 45% thought about someone not seen for a while who then called same day. Pet owners showed non-significantly higher positive responses in both surveys. Response rates were 70-75%. Telephone anticipation may represent one of the commonest forms of psi experience.
Related Papers
Cited By
- Do You Know Who Is Calling? Experiments on Anomalous Cognition in Phone Call Receivers — Schmidt, Stefan (2009)
- Apparent Telepathy Between Babies and Nursing Mothers: A Survey — Sheldrake, Rupert (2002)
- Videotaped Experiments on Telephone Telepathy — Sheldrake, Rupert (2003)
- Experimental Tests for Telephone Telepathy — Sheldrake, Rupert (2003)
Extended By
- Experimental Tests for Telephone Telepathy — Sheldrake, Rupert (2003)
- Testing for Telepathy in Connection with E-mails — Sheldrake, Rupert (2005)
- Telepathy in Connection with Telephone Calls, Text Messages and Emails — Sheldrake, Rupert (2014)
- The Anticipation of Telephone Calls: A Survey in California — Brown, David Jay (2001)
Companion
Also by these authors
More in Telepathy
Telecommunication Telepathy: A Meta-Analysis
Rethinking Communication and Consciousness: Lessons from The Telepathy Tapes Podcast
Taking the Mindfield Literally: Discovering Minds by Assuming Competence Among Nonspeakers
Who's Calling? Evaluating the Accuracy of Guessing Who Is on the Phone
A Comparison of Four New Automated Telephone Telepathy Tests
📋 Cite this paper
Sheldrake, Rupert (2000). Telepathic Telephone Calls: Two Surveys. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research.
@article{sheldrake_2000_telephone_surveys,
title = {Telepathic Telephone Calls: Two Surveys},
author = {Sheldrake, Rupert},
year = {2000},
journal = {Journal of the Society for Psychical Research},
}