Philip Experiment
A group of parapsychologists invented a ghost named Philip—complete with fake biography. Then they held séances to contact him. To everyone's shock, 'Philip' responded. Tables moved. Raps answered questions. The invented ghost became real.
In 1972, a group of researchers in Toronto embarked on one of the most audacious experiments in the history of parapsychology. They set out to create a ghost from scratch, inventing a fictional character complete with a tragic backstory, and then attempted to contact him through traditional seance methods. What happened next challenged assumptions about the nature of paranormal phenomena. The fictional ghost they had invented began to respond to their summons, producing physical effects that the group could not explain through known mechanisms. The Philip Experiment raised disturbing questions about the relationship between belief and reality, suggesting that the human mind might be capable of generating phenomena traditionally attributed to spirits.
The Experiment
According to documented accounts, the experiment was organized by the Toronto Society for Psychical Research, under the leadership of mathematical geneticist Dr. A.R.G. Owen and his wife Iris. The group consisted of eight participants, none of whom claimed any special psychic abilities. Their hypothesis was radical: that poltergeist phenomena and traditional haunting effects might not require an actual ghost but could be generated by the focused belief and expectation of living persons. To test this, they would create a fictional ghost, memorize his biography until it felt real to them, and then attempt to make contact.
The Invention
The group invented Philip Aylesford, an English aristocrat who supposedly lived during the 1600s. They crafted an elaborate biography for their fictional ghost. Philip was said to have been born in 1624 to a wealthy family, to have served in the English Civil War, and to have lived in Diddington Manor. Most importantly for the narrative, Philip fell in love with a Romani woman named Margo, conducting a secret affair that ended in tragedy. When Margo was accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake, Philip, guilty and despairing, took his own life. Every detail of this biography was deliberately invented by the group, and all members knew with absolute certainty that Philip had never existed.
The Results
For the first several months, the group conducted traditional seances in an attempt to contact their fictional creation, achieving no results. Then they changed their approach, adopting a lighter, more casual atmosphere similar to Victorian parlor seances. The results were immediate and startling. Rapping sounds began to occur, sounds that seemed to respond to questions about Philip’s fictional life. The table around which they sat began to vibrate, then to tilt, then to move across the floor without apparent physical cause. When the group asked questions that Philip could answer based on his invented biography, the raps responded correctly. When they asked questions that went beyond what they had created, Philip sometimes provided answers that the group had not anticipated.
The Phenomena
The physical phenomena produced during the Philip sessions were witnessed by numerous observers and documented on film. The table tilted on one leg, slid across the floor, and on at least one occasion reportedly levitated briefly. Rapping sounds occurred on demand, apparently emanating from the table itself. The group could have a conversation with Philip, receiving rap answers to questions, with one rap meaning yes and two meaning no. Lights in the seance room flickered at appropriate moments. The temperature dropped when Philip was allegedly present. All of this occurred in response to contact with an entity that every participant knew had been invented from whole cloth.
Implications
The implications of the Philip Experiment were profound and unsettling. If the phenomena were genuine and not the result of fraud, they suggested that paranormal effects attributed to ghosts might actually be generated by living human minds. The collective belief and expectation of the group might have created psychokinetic effects, moving the table and generating sounds through some mechanism of collective unconscious action. This would mean that poltergeist phenomena, traditional hauntings, and seance communications might not involve spirits at all but could be productions of human psychology. Alternatively, the experiment might have somehow created a genuine entity, a thought-form given existence through the power of sustained imagination.
Documentation
The Philip Experiment was extensively documented, including film footage that captured table movements and other phenomena. Iris Owen and Margaret Sparrow published “Conjuring Up Philip” in 1976, providing a detailed account of the experiment’s methods and results. Other groups attempted to replicate the results, with varying degrees of success. The experiment remains controversial, with some researchers accepting it as evidence that human minds can generate paranormal phenomena and others dismissing the results as the product of unconscious physical movements and group suggestion.