PARTICIPANT 038 GUIDE TO SCORING 0 = Nothing in your perception of the object was generally or specifically accurate. +1 = One or two general things from your perception correlated with the object or owner's life. +2 = Several specific things from your perception correlated with the object or owner's life. +3 = Your reading generally was on target, with at least a few specific details, about the object and/or owner's life. +4 = Your reading specifically was on target about the object and/or owner's life. +5 = An incredibly accurate perception of the object and/or owner's life from beginning to end of reading. OBJECT E - "PIPE" WHAT PARTICIPANT SAID/WROTE 1 Old man 1b with a moustache 2 Lives in a big house 3 A quiet person 3b who thinks a lot 4 He likes old stuff 5 He doesn’t have much family 6 He’s a good friend 7 The house has a porch 8 when you get inside the house, the first thing you see is the stairs OBJECT E - ACTUAL BACKGROUND OF OWNER/OBJECT OWNER: This object was lent by a Caucasian male school teacher born in 1976, raised, and still living in the greater Toronto area. He was educated at Trent University, and then attended teacher’s college in Thunder Bay, Ontario. He lives with his girlfriend in a suburban house. He loves baseball, history and is a musician. He has not travelled much beyond Ontario. He has not had any paranormal experiences, although he has recently been active in volunteering to investigate them. STORY OF THE OBJECT: The object is a pipe that the man purchased at a novelty shop across from the Toronto Reference Library in 1996 or 1997. It was kept on top of a bookshelf, either beside or in a wooden case. The object is significant in its novelty. He and his friend, both smokers, each purchased the pipe as something different, thinking it would make them look sophisticated at bars and concerts. He used to relax and smoke the pipe while he was a student at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. His mother also enjoyed it when he smoked the pipe. He used Captain Black Tobacco when he smoked it. He even used the pipe as part of an attempt to stop smoking cigarettes. RESULT = +2 Lines 3, 3b, 7 and 8 are accurate. Line 6 can also be interpreted as true. However, he is not an old man, nor does he have a moustache or live in a big house. OBJECT A - "CLEVELAND INDIANS PIN" WHAT PARTICIPANT SAID/WROTE 1 Somebody who likes sports 2 He drinks beer 3 He’s not skinny; a medium-sized guy 4 He drives a truck 5 He’s in his 30s or 40s 6 He has kids 7 He probably has a dog OBJECT A - ACTUAL BACKGROUND OF OWNER/OBJECT OWNER: The owner of this object is a Caucasian female born in Prince Edward Island in 1973 who resided in Ottawa, Ontario at the time of the experiment. She lived with her boyfriend in an apartment, and had one cat. She was finishing a university degree and working a retail job. She has travelled extensively across Europe, North America, and Japan. She reported having many psychical experiences in her life, namely having a strong sense of things that are about to happen. STORY OF THE OBJECT: The object she submitted was a pin of the baseball team the Cleveland Indians. She obtained the object in 1991 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island and keeps it in a tin case (given to her by her deceased grandmother) on her bedroom dresser. It was given to her by her high school boyfriend who was popular at school. She was dating him and his parents did not approve of the relationship, forbidding him from seeing her again. Around this time, they had an argument and decided to take a few days break from each other. The day that happened, she felt ill – and had a horrible feeling that something bad was going to happen, but she didn’t know what. She went for a drive, and drove by a fatal automobile crash, witnessing the police covering the body. Soon after, the police notified her it was her boyfriend in the crash. He was killed and they gave her the pin he was wearing. Her boyfriend’s parents wouldn’t even speak with her at the funeral. To this day, she still feels his love. RESULT = 0 Although the original young male owner of the pin liked sports (perhaps obvious from the fact it is a sports pin), the owner of object and experimenter found no correlation between what was perceived from the object and the object itself or the owner's life. OBJECT D - "PLAQUE OF VIRGIN MARY" WHAT PARTICIPANT SAID/WROTE 1 A woman 2 She’s old 3 She has grandsons 4 She’s not tall 5 She’s religious 6 She wasn’t born here 7 She is South American 8 She has many more objects like this one 9 She’s really careful with things 10 She pays attention to details 11a She has a good heart 11b but most of the time, she is troubled; things make her worry OBJECT D - ACTUAL BACKGROUND OF OWNER/OBJECT OWNER: The owner is Chris Laursen, a Caucasian university student born in Alberta in 1974 who was living in downtown Toronto at the time of the experiment in an apartment by the harbour with an art student. He studies history, and is making this his second career after having worked in the media as a journalist and then administrator. He was working at a broadcasting association at the time, and was about to return to university to prepare for graduate school. He has travelled in North America, South America and Europe. STORY OF THE OBJECT: This object was purchased a few months prior to the Psychometry Experiment by Chris Laursen from eBay. The previous owner (who lived on Long Island, New York, and claimed to be a paranormal investigator, although this could not be verified) of the plaque contended that it was from a haunted house in Belmez, Spain, where in the 1970s faces inexplicably appeared on the floor (as if they were painted or drawn with charcoal). Laursen was sceptical that this object actually originated from this house, and thought it would be interesting to test it in the experiment to see what people would get from it. RESULT = 0 It is hard to correlate the accuracy of any reading on this object given the circumstances. However, no aspects of the experimenter's life, how the object was obtained, or its alleged history were perceived in the reading. OBJECT H - "BOY AND GIRL STATUETTES" WHAT PARTICIPANT SAID/WROTE 1 This belongs to a woman but I can’t tell more than this OBJECT H - ACTUAL BACKGROUND OF OWNER/OBJECT OWNER: This object was lent by a Roman Catholic housewife born in 1935. Originally from northern Italy, she has lived with her husband in Hamilton, Ontario since the late 1950s. She and her husband are retired, and own many rental properties for income. They are active in their cultural community, have three daughters and four grandchildren – three male and one female. They raise rabbits for food in their backyard, and have a garden. She is well-known in her family for her cooking, and serves very traditional rural, northern Italian dishes. She and her family have gone to resorts throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, but otherwise her travels have been limited to Canada and Italy. STORY OF THE OBJECT: She lent two small porcelain busts, one of a boy, the other of a girl. Made in Venice, they were given as a gift when her husband’s brother and his wife visited Canada in 1972. They are displayed on shelves in their living room with family photos and a few other mementos. The bust of the girl was broken when one of her grandchildren accidentally knocked it off a table where it was displayed in 1999. The woman interpreted this as a portent that her youngest daughter was dead – which never came true – and she was only relieved when her grandson confessed to breaking it. This story is a favourite in the family. RESULT = 0 While it is true the owner of the object is a woman, nothing further was provided in this reading.