Ghosts of the Imagination: The Philip Experiment | 385

Hysteria 51

Imagine a group of ordinary people coming together with one extraordinary goal: to create a ghost from scratch. That’s exactly what happened in the early 1970s with the Philip Experiment, a fascinating parapsychological study led by Dr. A.R.G. Owen and the Toronto Society for Psychical Research. The team invented a fictional character, Philip Aylesford, a 17th-century English nobleman with a tragic backstory, and then set out to bring him to life through sheer willpower and collective imagination.

What started as a curious experiment in human consciousness quickly escalated into something far more mysterious. The group reported witnessing strange phenomena—tables moving on their own, eerie knocks answering their questions, and even glimpses of a ghostly presence. But was this really the work of a spirit, or just the power of the human mind? Join us this week as we dive deep into the eerie world of the Philip Experiment, where belief and reality collide in the most unexpected ways… on Hysteria 51.

Special thanks to this week’s research sources:

Videos

The Philip Experiment - https://youtu.be/uhT0-n9OH8M?si=kGPGRv6pcmheHSF9

The Quiet Ones - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2235779/

Websites

Philip Experiment Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_experiment

Ranker - https://www.ranker.com/list/philip-experiment-paranormal-study/jodi-smith

Dread Central - https://www.dreadcentral.com/editorials/358897/the-philip-experiment-we-want-ghosts-to-be-real/

Live About - https://www.liveabout.com/how-to-create-a-ghost-2594058

C. Wesley Clough - https://cwesleyclough.wordpress.com/2024/03/04/the-philip-experiment-a-benchmark-in-paranormal-research/

3X Strange - https://strangestrangestrange.com/debunk/the-philip-experiment-the-quiet-ones/

The Quiet Ones Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quiet_Ones_(2014_film)

History vs Hollywood - https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/quiet-ones/

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