Zener cards are often used to test psychic ability. There are five different cards: a star, a square, a circle, a plus sign and three wavy lines. A deck of 25 Zener cards consists of five of each symbol. You might find a deck of Zener cards at a New Age store, from the American Society for Psychical Research or you can make your own. Go here to print out a set of cards on your printer. Once you have the cards, you can begin testing psychic ability.

Difficulty Level: Easy      Time Required: 5 - 15 minutes

Conduct the experiment:

1. Select a "subject" and a "sender." The subject will be the person whose psychic ability is being tested. The sender is the person who is looking at the cards to be guessed.
2. Select an "experimenter." A third person can act as the experimenter to oversee the test and make sure it is conducted fairly and properly.
3. Decide on the number of trials you will conduct. With your deck of 25 Zener cards, the subject and sender should decide how many trials they will conduct in the test; that is, how many times they will go through the complete deck. The more times you go through it, the more significant will be the results.
4. Situate the sender and subject. The sender and subject can be in the same room although it's preferable that they cannot see one another. Putting the subject in another room is better. This will prevent the subject from accidentally seeing the card the sender is concentrating on, either directly or through any kind of reflection (such as the sender's glasses). It also prevents the sender from signaling the type of card through any kind of unconscious or subliminal movements.
5. Eliminate distractions. The rooms should be as silent as possible. No TV noise or music should be heard.
6. Shuffle. The experimenter should  shuffle the deck thoroughly before giving it to the sender.
7. Begin the trial. Beginning with the deck face down, the sender takes the top card and looks at it, again being careful that the subject can in no way see it.
8. Concentrate. The sender concentrates on the symbol on the card. The sender must be completely silent throughout this test to avoid any unconscious signaling.
9. Guess. The subject attempts to "guess" or psychically receive the symbol.
10. Record the answers. For each card, the experimenter records whether or not the guess was a hit or a miss.
11. Complete the trial. The sender continues through the complete deck of cards, one card at a time, for as many trials as agreed upon. The experimenter should shuffle the cards between each trial.

Tips:

1. Remember that significance works both ways. In other words, if your m score was higher than chance or much lower than chance, the results are significant.
2. Again, remember that the more trials you conduct in a session, the better the test of abilities becomes.
3. Try performing the test at different times of the day to see if this seems to make a difference.
4. Try other variables, such as just after eating, just after awaking from sleep, for example, to see if there is a significant difference in results.
   

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