Philip is the fictional ghost at the center of the Philip experiment, a parapsychology study begun in Toronto in 1972. Members of the Toronto Society for Psychical Research invented a seventeenth-century Englishman named Philip Aylesford and tried to contact him through seance methods. They reported table movements and raps that seemed to answer questions, and the case is still debated as psychology or psychokinesis.
Philip (the Philip Experiment) at a glance
| Began | 1972 |
|---|---|
| Place | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Organized by | Toronto Society for Psychical Research, led by A. R. George Owen |
| Invented character | Philip Aylesford, a fictional 17th-century English aristocrat |
| Key publication | Iris M. Owen with Margaret Sparrow, Conjuring Up Philip (1976) |
| Reported phenomena | Table tilting and movement, raps, other sounds |
Background and aims
By the 1970s, researchers interested in seances faced an old question: when sitters report raps, moving tables or messages, do these come from spirits of the dead, from the unconscious minds of the sitters, or from ordinary physical causes? The Toronto Society for Psychical Research, whose leading figure was the mathematician and geneticist Dr. A. R. George Owen, designed an experiment to test the first possibility in an unusual way.
The idea was simple: if a group could produce seance phenomena while communicating with a character they knew to be entirely fictional, then such phenomena need not involve the dead at all. The psychologist Dr. Joel Whitton was involved in observing the work.
Creating Philip
The group, eight people from various backgrounds including Iris Owen and Margaret Sparrow, wrote a detailed biography for an imaginary man. Philip Aylesford was said to be an English aristocrat of the seventeenth century whose tragic love affair ended in disaster and his own death. The story was deliberately given historical errors and gaps so that it could not correspond to a real person, and the members studied it and even commissioned a sketch of Philip.
For about a year, meetings consisted of meditation and attempts to "see" Philip, with no results. The group then changed approach, adopting the relaxed, cheerful atmosphere of Victorian table-sitting, with songs and jokes, sitting around a table with their hands resting on it.
Reported results
According to the group, raps began to come from the table, and the sitters set up a code of one rap for yes and two for no. "Philip" answered questions consistently with his invented biography and also gave answers about the period that the sitters said they had not consciously known. The group reported that the table moved, tilted and slid across the floor, sometimes, they said, with no one touching it, and that lights dimmed and other noises occurred. A session was filmed for television in the 1970s.
Iris Owen and Margaret Sparrow described the work in Conjuring Up Philip: An Adventure in Psychokinesis (1976). The participants did not conclude that Philip was a real spirit. They interpreted the effects as a form of collective psychokinesis produced by their own minds, focused on a shared idea.
Criticism and scientific assessment
The experiment has been criticized for lacking solid controls. Sessions took place in informal conditions, often in dim light, with participants' hands on the table, which leaves room for unconscious muscular action, the ideomotor effect long known to explain table-turning and Ouija board movements. Raps can be hard to locate, and the answers "Philip" gave could reflect the sitters' own knowledge and expectations. Later groups that tried similar experiments with other fictional characters reported comparable effects, but none produced results under conditions that ruled out ordinary explanations.
Mainstream science does not accept psychokinesis, because it has not been demonstrated under controlled, repeatable conditions. Skeptics see the Philip experiment as a vivid demonstration of how group belief, suggestion and unconscious movement can create convincing seance effects.
The Philip experiment in occult thought
Occult writers have often linked the Philip case with the idea of the thought-form, an entity believed to be created by concentrated imagination. Theosophical authors of the early twentieth century described such forms, and the notion of the "tulpa," borrowed and adapted from Tibetan Buddhist terms by Western writers, became popular in esoteric literature. Some commentators presented Philip as a modern laboratory example of a group-created spirit.
Historians of the paranormal note that this reading goes beyond what the Toronto group itself claimed. The experimenters described their work in psychological and parapsychological terms, not as the creation of a being. For readers interested in mediumship and spirit contact, the case is mainly a reminder that the content of seance messages can come from the sitters themselves, a point made by psychical researchers since the nineteenth century.
Legacy
Whatever its interpretation, the Philip experiment remains one of the most discussed cases in parapsychology. For believers, it suggests that some reported hauntings and poltergeist events may be produced by the living rather than the dead. For skeptics, it shows that seance phenomena can arise without any spirit at all. The case has inspired documentaries, discussion of thought-forms or "tulpas" in occult literature, and the 2014 horror film The Quiet Ones, which drew loosely on its premise. It is also often cited alongside other disputed physical phenomena such as apports.
Related entries
Frequently asked questions
Was Philip a real ghost?
No. Philip Aylesford was a character invented by the Toronto group, with a made-up biography that deliberately contained historical errors. The participants themselves did not claim to have contacted a real spirit. They believed the effects came from their own minds, while skeptics attribute them to unconscious movement, suggestion and uncontrolled conditions.
What did the Philip experiment claim to prove?
The group aimed to show that seance phenomena such as table rapping could occur without any spirit of the dead. They argued that their results pointed to collective psychokinesis, a mental force produced by the group. Because the experiment lacked strict controls, scientists do not regard it as evidence for psychokinesis or any paranormal effect.
How do skeptics explain the table movements?
Skeptics point to the ideomotor effect, in which people make small, unconscious muscular movements guided by expectation. With several people's hands on a light table, these movements can add up to tilting and sliding that feels independent. Dim light, informal settings and shared belief make it hard to rule out such ordinary causes.
Sources and further reading
- Philip experiment · Wikipedia
- Iris M. Owen and Margaret Sparrow, Conjuring Up Philip: An Adventure in Psychokinesis (1976) · Harper & Row
This entry replaces an article from the original Mystica encyclopedia (online since 2001). It was rewritten from the sources above by The Mystica Editorial Team under our editorial standards. Last reviewed: September 30, 2026.