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.
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
Who's Calling? Evaluating the Accuracy of Guessing Who Is on the Phone
A Comparison of Four New Automated Telephone Telepathy Tests
Detecting Telepathy: A Meta-Analysis for Extrasensory Perception Experiments in Last 20 Years
📋 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},
}