The Philip Experiment Explained: The 1972 Toronto Ghost Experiment and the Mystery of Philip Aylesford

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What Was the Philip Experiment?

The Philip Experiment was an attempt to investigate one of the oldest questions in psychical research:

Can people produce apparently paranormal phenomena simply through belief, expectation and concentration?

Traditional séances usually involve a supposed deceased person.

The Toronto researchers deliberately removed that element.

They decided to invent a person who had never existed.

If a group could somehow communicate with this fictional character and produce physical phenomena associated with him, they reasoned, it might provide an interesting challenge to conventional theories about séances and hauntings.

The experiment was associated particularly with A. R. George Owen and his wife Iris Owen, members of the Toronto Society for Psychical Research.

The group's work was later described in their book Conjuring Up Philip: An Adventure in Psychokinesis, published in 1976.

The Question Behind the Experiment

The researchers were interested in reports of:

• table turning
• rapping sounds
• alleged communication with spirits
• poltergeist-like activity
• psychokinesis
• séance phenomena

A traditional explanation was that a genuine spirit or other discarnate entity was responsible.

But another possibility existed.

Perhaps the people attending séances themselves were somehow producing the phenomena.

The Toronto group wanted to explore this possibility.

Their experiment therefore asked a fascinating question:

If a "ghost" does not actually exist, can people nevertheless create the experience of communicating with one?

That question is what makes the Philip Experiment different from an ordinary ghost story.

Who Organized the Experiment?

The project was associated with A. R. George Owen, a mathematician and psychical researcher, and Iris Owen.

Iris was deeply involved in the Toronto Society for Psychical Research and became one of the central participants in the experiment.

The wider group consisted of people from different professional and personal backgrounds.

Sources identify participants including:

• George Owen
• Iris Owen
• Margaret Sparrow
• Lorne Henwood
• Andienne "Andy" Henwood
• Al Peacock
• Bernice
• Dorothy O'Donnell
• Sidney
• and others involved in observing or documenting the experiment

Some participants were identified only by first name or abbreviated name in published accounts.

A psychologist, Dr. Joel Whitton, was also associated with the project as an observer.

The experiment therefore was not simply a group of professional mediums.

That distinction was intentional.

The participants were not selected because they were known to possess extraordinary psychic abilities.

Why They Invented Philip

The group needed a character.

They decided that Philip should have a detailed personality and history.

The theory was that a richly imagined character would give the participants something specific on which to focus.

Instead of simply saying:

"We want a ghost to appear,"

they created an entire fictional person.

The group collectively memorized his story.

This was important because they wanted everyone to have the same mental image of Philip.

The Fictional Life of Philip Aylesford

Philip Aylesford was supposedly a seventeenth-century English aristocrat.

According to the biography created by the researchers, Philip was born into an aristocratic family.

He was married to a woman named Dorothea.

The fictional story also included an unhappy relationship and an alleged romantic attachment to another woman, Margo.

Philip was supposedly involved in political and religious difficulties.

Eventually, he was accused of witchcraft.

The fictional story ended tragically with Philip taking his own life.

None of this was historical fact.

Philip Aylesford was deliberately invented by the Toronto group.

There was no genuine seventeenth-century Philip whose spirit they were attempting to contact.

That point is fundamental to understanding the entire experiment.

Philip Was Not a Real Historical Person

This is one of the most frequently misunderstood aspects of the case.

Online retellings sometimes describe Philip as though researchers discovered the ghost of a seventeenth-century aristocrat.

They did not.

The group deliberately constructed his biography.

The supposed portrait of Philip was also an imaginative representation.

There is no historical evidence that Philip Aylesford lived the life described in the experiment.

The character was created specifically for the experiment.

The researchers knew this.

Therefore, the experiment cannot honestly be described as evidence that the ghost of a real historical person was contacted.

The First Stage: Meditation and Visualization

The group initially tried to make Philip appear through meditation and visualization.

They met regularly.

The participants sat together and concentrated on Philip.

They attempted to imagine him so vividly that he might somehow manifest.

They reportedly discussed his personality and history and attempted to build a strong collective mental image.

The experiment continued in this manner for approximately a year.

But nothing spectacular happened.

There was no visible apparition.

There was no convincing physical manifestation.

There was no clear communication.

The first phase was essentially unsuccessful.

The failure became important because it eventually forced the researchers to change their experimental approach.

The Group Changes Its Method

The turning point came when the participants became familiar with previous work involving table-turning and psychokinetic experiments.

Research associated with William G. Roll? No—the important influence described in the Philip literature was the work of Kenneth Batcheldor and later researchers who experimented with table movements and séance conditions.

The Toronto group decided to try a more traditional séance-style approach.

Instead of simply meditating silently, they began using:

• a table
• conversation
• questions
• relaxed interaction
• humor
• singing
• table-turning techniques

The atmosphere became less formal.

According to later accounts, this change proved significant.

Phenomena began appearing after the group had spent roughly a year without success.

The First Reported Raps

During one of the sessions, the participants heard a rap or knock associated with the table.

This was the beginning of the phenomenon that would make the Philip Experiment famous.

The group began asking questions.

They established a simple communication system.

One rap meant yes.

Two raps meant no.

The researchers therefore believed they had found a method of communicating with Philip.

The important point is that the communication system was not discovered in a controlled laboratory instrument.

It was based on the participants' interpretation of the sounds produced during the sessions.

Nevertheless, they reported that the responses became increasingly consistent.

Philip Begins Answering Questions

Once the group believed that Philip was responding, they began asking him questions about his fictional life.

According to the published accounts, the responses generally followed the biography the group had created.

The supposed Philip therefore appeared to know:

• his fictional name
• his fictional history
• his supposed relationships
• his fictional political problems
• details concerning the story the participants had collectively created

This was not surprising in one sense.

The participants themselves already knew the story.

But the researchers considered it significant that the table seemed to respond independently of any conscious person giving the answers.

The Communication Became More Elaborate

According to the experimenters, Philip's communications became increasingly complex.

The raps could supposedly occur in response to questions.

Sometimes the group would ask Philip to confirm information.

The answers were interpreted as being consistent with his fictional personality.

Later reports claimed that Philip appeared capable of expanding upon his biography.

According to the researchers, when the group altered an established detail of Philip's fictional history, subsequent communications also changed accordingly.

This was interpreted as evidence that the phenomenon was connected to the collective mental image created by the group.

A skeptical interpretation would not require a supernatural entity at all.

The participants already knew the information they were receiving.

The Table Begins Moving

The most famous physical phenomenon was not the rapping.

It was the table.

According to the published reports, the table began moving in unusual ways.

It reportedly:

• tilted
• rocked
• moved across the room
• produced raps
• changed direction
• responded during questioning

The participants considered some of these movements difficult to explain through ordinary muscular pressure.

The Society for Psychical Research's later summary reports that the sessions were conducted in full light and that video recordings were made.

That is an important detail because many classic séance phenomena occurred in darkness.

Was the Table Actually Levitation?

This point requires careful wording.

Popular accounts often say that the table completely levitated into the air.

The surviving psychical-research account is more nuanced.

The table reportedly tilted and moved dramatically.

Some experiments involved measurements of force using strain gauges.

However, the SPR account specifically notes that full levitation of the table without physical contact was not achieved.

Therefore, saying:

"The Philip Experiment proved a table could fly through the air"

would be inaccurate.

A more accurate statement is:

Researchers reported unusual table movements, tilting and rapping, and interpreted some measurements as evidence of unexplained forces.

The Strain-Gauge Measurements

One of the more interesting claims concerns mechanical measurements.

According to the Society for Psychical Research's account, strain gauges were used during some experiments.

The researchers reported upward pressure from the table at moments when they believed no participant's fingers were underneath it.

They considered this evidence that the movement could not simply be explained by ordinary finger pressure.

The table reportedly also tilted at considerable angles.

These claims are among the reasons the Philip Experiment remains interesting to students of psychical research.

However, measurements reported by the experimenters should not automatically be treated as independently replicated scientific evidence.

The Experiment Was Conducted in Light

Another important detail is the lighting.

Many famous séances were performed in darkness or very low light.

The Philip sessions were reportedly conducted in good lighting conditions.

This allowed the participants and observers to see the table.

The group also made attempts to document the phenomena using cameras and video equipment.

This is often presented as a major strength of the experiment.

However, filming a phenomenon does not automatically prove its cause.

A recording can show that something happened without establishing whether it was paranormal.

The Raps Became Philip's "Voice"

The group eventually treated the table sounds almost like a language.

Questions were asked.

Raps followed.

The participants interpreted them as answers.

This transformed the experiment from simple table movement into something resembling a conversation.

The supposed Philip therefore acquired a personality.

He appeared to have opinions.

He could answer questions.

He seemed to remember his biography.

The participants increasingly treated him as an interactive presence.

Philip's Personality

The researchers reported that Philip behaved according to the fictional personality they had created.

He was sometimes described as humorous.

He could apparently respond playfully.

The group believed that the personality was not merely random.

Instead, the communications appeared to follow the biography.

This was important to the researchers because they were interested in whether a fictional character could become a kind of independent psychological or paranormal construct.

The Strange Result of Changing Philip's Story

One particularly interesting aspect of the experiment concerned changes to the fictional biography.

According to later descriptions, when the participants deliberately changed a detail about Philip's invented history, subsequent communications changed accordingly.

This suggested to the researchers that the phenomenon was somehow dependent upon the group's shared conception of Philip.

That observation led to an important conclusion:

Maybe there was no independent spirit at all.

Perhaps the group itself was generating the information and physical effects.

This idea became central to the Toronto group's interpretation.

The Collective Psychokinesis Theory

The researchers eventually favored a theory involving psychokinesis, or PK.

Psychokinesis is the claimed ability of the mind to influence physical objects without ordinary physical contact.

The Philip researchers proposed something more unusual than the traditional idea of a single psychic person.

They wondered whether a group could collectively generate the effect.

In this interpretation:

Philip was fictional.

The participants were real.

The physical effects were real but originated from the participants' unconscious mental activity.

In other words, they were not necessarily claiming that Philip was a dead person.

They were proposing that the group's combined mental activity might be responsible.

The Survival Research Institute of Canada describes the Owens' interpretation as combined psychokinetic energy from the group.

The "Artificial Ghost" Idea

The experiment therefore produced an unusual concept sometimes described as an artificial ghost or thought-form.

The basic idea was:

A group creates a fictional personality.

The group concentrates intensely on that personality.

The personality becomes psychologically vivid.

The group then appears to receive responses from it.

The resulting phenomenon behaves like a ghost.

But there is no historical ghost.

This idea became one of the most fascinating aspects of the experiment.

Was Philip a Tulpa?

The word tulpa is sometimes used in modern accounts of the Philip Experiment.

The term has a complicated history and is frequently used inaccurately in popular paranormal literature.

The Toronto researchers were interested in whether collective mental concentration could produce an autonomous-seeming presence.

But Philip should not simply be presented as a traditional Tibetan tulpa.

The experiment was a modern Western parapsychology project with its own theoretical framework.

Calling Philip an "artificial ghost" or "thought-form" is safer and more historically accurate.

The Experiment Continued for Years

The Philip experiment did not end with the first successful table movement.

The group continued experimenting.

The reported communication became more elaborate.

The experiment was eventually associated with work lasting several years.

The Survival Research Institute of Canada has preserved records relating to the Toronto experiments from the 1970s, including material from the New Horizons journal.

This archival material is especially valuable because it provides researchers with documentation beyond modern internet retellings.

The Philip Experiment Reached the Media

The unusual experiment attracted media attention.

According to later accounts, television crews visited the group.

The phenomena reportedly continued even when cameras and observers were present.

One account describes Canadian television coverage in which the table reportedly moved and responded to questions.

The story therefore became part of the wider public discussion about paranormal phenomena in the 1970s.

This media attention helped turn Philip into one of the best-known examples of an "artificial ghost."

Why the Media Coverage Matters

Media coverage can strengthen historical documentation because independent observers and cameras may be present.

But it can also introduce problems.

Television programs are designed for audiences.

They may select unusual events.

Editing can remove context.

Viewers may not know what happened before or after a particular recording.

Therefore, television appearances should be treated as historical evidence of the case's publicity and reported phenomena—not automatically as scientific proof.

Did Everyone Believe Philip Was Real?

No.

This is another important correction to popular retellings.

The participants themselves knew Philip was fictional.

The real disagreement concerned what caused the phenomena.

There were essentially several possibilities.

Perhaps the effects were caused by unconscious physical movements.

Perhaps expectation and group dynamics produced them.

Perhaps the participants were unintentionally influencing the table.

Perhaps some form of psychokinesis existed.

The researchers favored the last possibility.

Skeptics generally favored ordinary psychological and physical explanations.

The Ideomotor Explanation

One of the strongest conventional explanations is the ideomotor effect.

The ideomotor effect refers to unconscious physical movements produced by expectations, beliefs or mental activity.

A person does not necessarily realize they are moving.

This phenomenon has been studied extensively in connection with:

• Ouija boards
• dowsing rods
• pendulums
• table turning
• automatic writing

A group sitting around a table could potentially produce small movements without consciously deciding to do so.

If several people apply force simultaneously, the combined effect can become much larger.

How Ideomotor Movement Could Fit the Philip Experiment

Imagine eight people placing their hands on a lightweight table.

Everyone expects the table to move.

Nobody consciously decides:

"I am going to push the table."

Instead, tiny unconscious movements occur.

One participant moves slightly.

Another responds.

The table shifts.

Everyone becomes excited.

That excitement increases expectation.

The movements become stronger.

The group interprets the result as Philip responding.

No one necessarily has to be deliberately lying.

This is one reason the ideomotor explanation is important.

The Group Psychology Explanation

Another possibility involves group dynamics.

The participants had spent a great deal of time together.

They shared the same fictional story.

They wanted the experiment to succeed.

They knew what Philip was supposed to be like.

They became familiar with one another's reactions.

Under these conditions, people can unintentionally influence one another.

A sound that one person interprets as significant may change how everyone else behaves.

This can create a feedback loop.

Expectation → movement → interpretation → increased expectation → stronger movement.

Such a process could potentially create a convincing shared experience without requiring a supernatural entity.

The Suggestion Theory

Suggestion provides another possible explanation.

The participants had deliberately created a fictional character and repeatedly discussed him.

Philip became the central focus of their attention.

Over time, they may have developed strong expectations concerning how he should behave.

Those expectations could have influenced:

• perception
• memory
• movement
• interpretation of ambiguous sounds
• reactions to table motion

Again, this does not require deliberate deception.

The Confirmation-Bias Theory

Another possibility is confirmation bias.

Once the participants believed Philip was communicating, ambiguous events could be interpreted as evidence.

A random knock could become a response.

A normal table movement could become an intentional message.

A vibration could become a deliberate action.

The more successful interpretations occurred, the more convincing the experiment became to the participants.

This is a common issue in investigations of ambiguous phenomena.

Could Someone Have Deliberately Moved the Table?

Deliberate physical manipulation is another possibility.

However, accusing individual participants of fraud would go beyond the available evidence.

The participants believed they were conducting a genuine experiment.

Some may have sincerely believed that they were not responsible for the movements.

Without complete original recordings and controlled replication, it is difficult to determine exactly how every reported movement occurred.

Therefore, it is better to discuss possible mechanisms rather than accuse particular participants of deception.

The Psychokinesis Interpretation

The researchers' preferred interpretation was more extraordinary.

They believed the participants might collectively produce psychokinetic effects.

Under this model, nobody would necessarily need to consciously push the table.

Instead, unconscious mental activity would somehow produce physical force.

This would explain why the fictional Philip appeared to behave as though he were an independent entity.

The "ghost" would actually be an expression of the group.

This was a significant departure from traditional spiritualism.

Why the Psychokinesis Theory Was Important

If the theory were correct, it would mean that paranormal effects do not necessarily require deceased spirits.

Human consciousness itself could supposedly produce physical effects.

That would radically change how some reported hauntings might be understood.

A supposed ghost could potentially be:

A product of the living rather than the dead.

This was one of the philosophical implications that made the Philip Experiment so interesting to parapsychologists.

The Problem With the Psychokinesis Theory

There is a major scientific problem.

The experiment did not conclusively distinguish psychokinesis from ordinary physical and psychological effects.

If a table moves, there must be some force.

The important question is:

Where did that force come from?

The researchers believed it came from unconscious mental activity.

A skeptic could instead argue that it came from ordinary muscular movement, posture, friction, table mechanics, expectation or unnoticed physical contact.

Without experimental controls capable of eliminating those possibilities, the psychokinetic conclusion cannot be established.

What About the Video Recordings?

The experiment is frequently described as having been filmed.

The Society for Psychical Research's account states that sessions were conducted in full light and recorded by video.

However, modern internet videos labeled "the original Philip Experiment" are not automatically genuine archival footage.

Some widely circulated videos are recreations or edited presentations.

One historical source specifically warns that footage circulating online has sometimes been mistaken for original footage.

For your website, therefore, it is better to link readers to archival sources rather than claiming that an arbitrary online video is the original experiment.

What Did the Researchers Believe They Had Discovered?

The Toronto group did not simply conclude:

"We contacted a dead man."

Their interpretation was more complicated.

They believed the experiment suggested that a group could produce apparently paranormal physical effects through collective mental activity.

The fictional nature of Philip was actually essential.

If Philip had been a real historical person, critics could argue that the group had contacted a deceased spirit.

Because Philip never existed, the researchers believed they had removed that possibility.

The result therefore seemed to point toward the participants themselves.

The Replication Idea

The Philip Experiment inspired attempts to reproduce similar effects.

A particularly interesting claim in the psychical-research literature is that other groups later attempted comparable experiments using fictional personalities.

The Society for Psychical Research describes a later second group producing similar effects with another fictional character.

Supporters considered this important.

If different groups could produce similar results, perhaps the phenomenon was not dependent on a particular participant.

Skeptics would answer that similar psychological conditions can produce similar psychological and physical effects.

Therefore, replication by itself would not establish psychokinesis.

The Experiment's Most Interesting Paradox

The Philip Experiment contains a strange paradox.

The participants knew:

Philip was fictional.

Yet they reported:

Philip was communicating.

This means the central mystery is not:

"Was Philip really a dead aristocrat?"

We already know he wasn't.

The real question is:

Why did a group of people appear to experience a fictional personality as an independent presence?

And an even more difficult question:

What caused the physical table movements?

What Spiritualists Thought

Traditional Spiritualists could interpret the experiment in several ways.

Some might argue that Philip was not a conventional deceased spirit but a thought-form.

Others might argue that the experiment demonstrated that consciousness can operate independently of the body.

Another interpretation was that the participants somehow created a collective psychic structure.

These ideas differ considerably from the claim that Philip was simply the ghost of a dead person.

What Parapsychologists Thought

Parapsychologists were particularly interested in the possibility of collective psychokinesis.

The experiment seemed to offer a way to study supposed paranormal physical effects without relying on a professional medium.

The fictional nature of Philip also provided an unusual experimental condition.

The Society for Psychical Research continues to describe the case as an important example in the history of table-turning and psychokinetic research.

However, this should not be confused with scientific consensus that psychokinesis has been demonstrated.

What Skeptics Thought

Skeptics generally focus on ordinary explanations.

The major possibilities include:

Ideomotor movement

Unconscious muscle movements could move the table.

Expectation

Participants expected something to happen and therefore became more sensitive to ambiguous events.

Group dynamics

Participants could unintentionally influence each other.

Suggestion

Repeated discussion of Philip could reinforce a shared interpretation.

Confirmation bias

Events supporting the Philip narrative could receive more attention than events that did not.

Mechanical factors

The table itself, floor surface, friction and body positioning could contribute to movement.

Unconscious or deliberate physical manipulation

Movements could potentially occur without all participants recognizing their source.

None of these explanations requires Philip to exist.

Does the Case Prove Psychokinesis?

No.

This is perhaps the most important conclusion for a responsible article.

The Philip Experiment is evidence that researchers reported unusual phenomena during an unusual group experiment.

It is not established scientific proof that human minds can move objects without physical force.

The Society for Psychical Research describes the experiment in terms of the phenomena reported and the researchers' interpretation, but that should not be confused with acceptance by mainstream science.

There is no accepted scientific demonstration showing that Philip Aylesford was a supernatural entity.

Does It Prove Ghosts Exist?

No.

In fact, the experiment was designed specifically around a fictional character.

Philip was never a real person.

Therefore, the experiment cannot establish the existence of conventional ghosts.

Its importance is almost the opposite.

It demonstrated that a séance-like experience could be constructed around a personality everyone knew was fictional.

Does It Prove People Can Create Thought-Forms?

Again, no scientific proof exists.

The idea is fascinating, but the experiment does not establish that human imagination can independently create an entity.

At most, the experiment provides an intriguing historical case in which a group created a shared fictional personality and subsequently reported apparently autonomous communication and physical phenomena.

The interpretation remains disputed.

What Was Actually Observed?

It is useful to separate three different levels.

What the Participants Reported

They reported:

• rapping sounds
• table movements
• table tilting
• apparent answers to questions
• increasingly elaborate communication
• behavior apparently consistent with Philip's fictional personality
• phenomena occurring in light
• physical effects that they believed could not be explained by ordinary contact

What the Researchers Concluded

They favored:

collective psychokinesis

or some form of group-generated paranormal effect.

What Has Been Scientifically Established

There is no accepted evidence demonstrating that a fictional consciousness called Philip physically existed.

There is also no established scientific proof that the reported table effects were produced by psychokinesis.

This distinction is essential.

Why the Philip Experiment Remains Famous

The case remains famous because it challenges a basic assumption behind traditional ghost stories.

Normally, a paranormal investigation starts with a supposed entity.

The Philip Experiment started with no entity at all.

The researchers created the entity themselves.

And yet they reported experiences that appeared to behave as though the entity existed.

Whether the cause was psychological, physical, social or genuinely paranormal remains the interesting question.

The Role of Human Belief

The experiment is particularly valuable from a psychological perspective even if one completely rejects paranormal explanations.

It demonstrates how powerful a shared narrative can become.

Eight or more people can spend months discussing the same fictional person.

They can memorize the same biography.

They can imagine the same appearance.

They can establish the same expectations.

Eventually, the fictional character can become extremely vivid within the group's shared mental world.

That alone is an interesting subject for psychology.

The Difference Between Experience and Explanation

This is perhaps the fairest way to understand the entire case.

The participants may genuinely have experienced table movement.

They may genuinely have heard raps.

They may genuinely have believed Philip was responding.

None of those statements automatically proves a paranormal explanation.

People can have genuine experiences that are later explained incorrectly.

For example, an unexplained sound is real as an experience.

The claim that a ghost caused it is a separate conclusion.

The Philip Experiment is essentially a historical example of that distinction.

The Final Years of the Experiment

The Philip work continued beyond the first successful sessions.

The Toronto group continued experimenting with communication and physical effects.

Archival material from the Toronto experiments has survived through organizations including the Survival Research Institute of Canada.

The institute states that documentation from the Toronto experiments is available for research and educational purposes.

The experiment consequently became part of the broader history of Canadian psychical research.

The Philip Experiment's Legacy

The experiment influenced discussions about:

• artificial ghosts
• thought-forms
• collective consciousness
• psychokinesis
• table-turning
• séance psychology
• ideomotor effects
• group suggestion
• paranormal research methodology

It also became an important example in later books and documentaries about unexplained phenomena.

Its influence is not dependent on whether psychokinesis is real.

The experiment remains historically significant because it deliberately separated the idea of a ghost from the existence of an actual deceased person.

What We Can Say With Confidence

The following points are among the safest conclusions:

Philip Aylesford was fictional.

The Toronto group intentionally created his biography.

The group initially attempted meditation and visualization.

The first year did not produce the desired apparition.

The group later adopted table-turning techniques.

Participants subsequently reported raps and table movements.

They interpreted some of those effects as communication from Philip.

The sessions were reportedly conducted in light and were documented.

The researchers considered collective psychokinesis a possible explanation.

Skeptical explanations remain available.

The experiment has not established the existence of ghosts or psychokinesis as a scientific fact.

What Remains Unexplained

Even after more than fifty years, several questions remain difficult.

How exactly did every reported table movement occur?

Were all of the movements recorded?

What did the original recordings show?

Were there sufficient controls to exclude unconscious physical influence?

How reliable were the measurements?

How much did expectation influence the participants?

Could every reported phenomenon be explained through ordinary physics and psychology?

These questions are why the Philip Experiment continues to attract both paranormal researchers and skeptics.

The Most Likely Explanations

There is no universally accepted explanation for every reported event.

From a conventional scientific perspective, however, the most straightforward possibilities are:

Unconscious physical movement combined with the ideomotor effect.

Group expectation and social reinforcement.

Suggestion and confirmation bias.

Mechanical characteristics of the table and environment.

A combination of these factors.

The extraordinary interpretation—collective psychokinesis—remains a paranormal hypothesis rather than an established scientific conclusion.

So, Did the Toronto Group Really Create a Ghost?

The answer depends entirely on what is meant by "create."

If "ghost" means a supernatural deceased person, the answer is:

No evidence establishes that.

Philip never existed as the historical person described in the story.

If "ghost" means a shared psychological character that became extremely vivid to a group, then the experiment arguably did create something unusual.

The participants built Philip from imagination, biography, expectation and repeated interaction.

He became the focus of a prolonged shared experience.

And that may actually be the most interesting part of the entire experiment.

Final Conclusion

The Philip Experiment began with a deceptively simple idea:

Could people create a ghost that never existed?

In 1972, members of the Toronto Society for Psychical Research invented Philip Aylesford, a completely fictional seventeenth-century aristocrat.

They gave him a personality, relationships, history and tragic ending.

For about a year, they attempted to make him appear through meditation and visualization.

Nothing happened.

Then the group changed its method.

They adopted table-turning and séance techniques.

Afterward, they reported raps, table movements and apparent answers to questions.

The phenomena became sufficiently convincing to the participants that they began treating Philip as an apparently independent presence.

But they knew something that makes the case extraordinary:

Philip had never existed.

The researchers therefore did not simply conclude that they had contacted a dead man.

Instead, they proposed that the group itself might somehow have generated the physical effects through collective psychokinesis.

Skeptics offered a very different interpretation.

Unconscious muscular movements, ideomotor effects, expectation, suggestion, group psychology and mechanical factors could potentially account for the phenomena without requiring any supernatural force.

The surviving evidence does not settle the argument.

The Philip Experiment therefore should not be presented as proof that humans can create ghosts, nor as definitive proof of psychokinesis.

Its strongest historical value is that it created an unusual experimental situation in which everyone knew the supposed ghost was fictional from the beginning.

That makes the case much more interesting than an ordinary haunting story.

The real mystery is not whether Philip was a dead aristocrat.

He wasn't.

The real mystery is how a group of people, united around an invented personality, came to experience apparently autonomous communication and physical phenomena—and what actually caused those effects.

That question remains open.

Important Real Sources and Websites

For your website, I recommend linking primarily to institutional archives, established research organizations and original historical material rather than paranormal blogs.

Society for Psychical Research — Philip Psychokinesis Experiments

Psi Encyclopedia — Philip Psychokinesis Experiments

This is one of the most useful sources for the experiment. It covers the participants, creation of Philip, experiment methodology, reported phenomena, communications, replication and hypotheses.

Society for Psychical Research — Table-Turning

Psi Encyclopedia — Table-Turning and the Philip Experiments

Particularly useful for the reported table movements, lighting conditions, video documentation and strain-gauge claims.

Survival Research Institute of Canada

Survival Research Institute of Canada — Toronto Psychical Research Archives

This is an important archival resource because it provides access to documentation relating to George and Iris Owen's Toronto experiments, including material from the New Horizons journal.

Original Research Book

The major published account is:

Iris M. Owen and Margaret Sparrow, Conjuring Up Philip: An Adventure in Psychokinesis (1976).

For your website, I recommend linking readers to legitimate library/catalogue copies rather than downloading or rehosting a copyrighted copy.

Internet Archive / Library Collections

For archival research, search legitimate library and archive catalogues for:

"Conjuring Up Philip" — Iris Owen and Margaret Sparrow

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