Jan 3, 2025 09:32 PM
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ho...-a-science
"In terms of visual design, the cards are simple: Five different shapes—a five-pointed star, a circle, a square, a cross, and three wavy lines—printed in black on a white background, with an abstract blue pattern on the back like you’d find on a regular deck of cards. But what the cards are designed to do is a bit more complicated. They’re intended to test something that half of Americans believe in and most of the scientific community says doesn’t exist at all: extrasensory perception, or ESP.
Since the 1930s, Zener cards, also known as ESP cards, have been used to quantify psychic ability, testing for telepathy and clairvoyance (you might remember them from that scene in 1984’s Ghostbusters, when Venkman tests the “effects of negative reinforcement on ESP”). The cards straddle the intersection of science and the paranormal, pseudoscience and legitimacy. In a lot of ways, that’s a space also occupied by the man who pioneered their use, Dr. Joseph B. Rhine, founder of the Duke Parapsychology Lab...."
"In terms of visual design, the cards are simple: Five different shapes—a five-pointed star, a circle, a square, a cross, and three wavy lines—printed in black on a white background, with an abstract blue pattern on the back like you’d find on a regular deck of cards. But what the cards are designed to do is a bit more complicated. They’re intended to test something that half of Americans believe in and most of the scientific community says doesn’t exist at all: extrasensory perception, or ESP.
Since the 1930s, Zener cards, also known as ESP cards, have been used to quantify psychic ability, testing for telepathy and clairvoyance (you might remember them from that scene in 1984’s Ghostbusters, when Venkman tests the “effects of negative reinforcement on ESP”). The cards straddle the intersection of science and the paranormal, pseudoscience and legitimacy. In a lot of ways, that’s a space also occupied by the man who pioneered their use, Dr. Joseph B. Rhine, founder of the Duke Parapsychology Lab...."