ESP Test: Zener Trials

A university parapsychology laboratory, after hours. A desk lamp, a typewriter, a pack of cards with five symbols. Are you psychic? Here is how the old laboratories tried to find out.

THE CARD TRIAL
• A standard Zener pack: five circles, five crosses, five waves, five squares, five stars.
• The deck is shuffled and sealed before you start: its SHA-256 fingerprint is shown on the envelope, and at the end the deck is revealed and checked against it. Nothing you do can change the order once it is sealed.
• Open trial: each card turns over after your call. Sealed trial ("down through"): nothing is shown until all twenty-five are called.
• Chance expects five hits. Your report sheet gives the exact binomial p-value, the z-score and a verdict, with every card and every call.

REMOTE VIEWING
• A photograph from the archive is sealed in an envelope, its fingerprint typed on the flap.
• Sketch what comes to you with your finger and mark your impressions: water, tall, round, dark, movement...
• Then judge: four photographs, one of them is yours. Pick it. Chance is one in four.
• The envelope opens: the photograph, your sketch beside it, the match and the seal checked.

THE SUBJECT FILE
• Your ability index: 100 is pure chance, 15 points per standard deviation.
• The cumulative deviation chart, the way the old labs plotted their best subjects, with the 5% significance bounds.
• Every run and every envelope, kept with its seal.

ALSO
• Typewritten report sheets, old card stock, a desk lamp in the dark, the wall clock ticking and the rain on the window.
• No account, no server. Everything stays on your phone. No camera, no microphone, no location.
• Nine languages. Three envelopes a day; the archivist brings one more for an optional video. Ads only in the laboratory, the record and a result, and when you start a new trial.

Honest statistics: most people score within chance, and the app will tell you so. For entertainment; the results are not a scientific or medical assessment of any ability.