PARTICIPANT 067 GUIDE TO SCORING 0 = There was nothing generally or specifically accurate in the participant's reading of the object. Correctly deducing or guessing one thing, such as the gender of the object's owner or how much/little the object was used, also did not count as that information could be obtained via 50/50 chance or by inspecting the object. +1 = At least one specific thing (physical description or action) or a few general things (abstract or emotional) were accurate in the participant's reading of the object. Specific things would include accurate descriptions of something physical or an action. General things include more abstract or emotional concepts. +2 = Several specific things were accurate in the participant's reading of the object. There may be some general things that accompany these specific things that are also accurate. Despite that, at least 50% of the reading was inaccurate, or the reading was too brief and lacked detail to determine it as being any more accurate. +3 = Generally, the reading was on target. Several specific things were accurate as well as general accuracy. Generally, 25% to 40% of the statements made in the reading could be inaccurate or ambiguous. +4 = The reading was overall on target. This would include general accuracy throughout the reading with less than 25% being clearly inaccurate statements, with an allowance for one or two ambiguities. Most importantly, several specific things were clearly accurate. +5 = This would be a reading that was completely on target with a majority of statements being specifically accurate with an allowance for general statements as well. There would be no inaccuracies in the reading. Nobody scored this high in the Psychometry Experiment. OBJECT D - "PLAQUE OF VIRGIN MARY" WHAT PARTICIPANT SAID/WROTE 1 The owner is female 2 with white skin, very pale 3 She has black hair 4 Blue eyes 5 Irish 6 Bungalow type house 7 50’s clothing 8 50’s time period 9 Spanish - Spanish background 10 Mexico 11 Child 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 = +2 It is hard to correlate the accuracy of any reading on this object given the circumstances, however there are several points in this reading of the object that seem accurate to the story of Belmez. Lines 1, 2 and 3 generally denote the central figure of the Belmez case, Doña Maria Gómez Pereira woman with pale skin and dark hair (at the time of the case in the 1970s). It is not certain what her eye colour was from photos, and there is no known Irish connection. Her clothing could be described as from the 1950s as she wore typical clothing of a Spanish housewife; they were by no means modern clothes. The Spanish background would be accurate as well. Lines 10 and 11 ("Mexico" and "child") is unclear, although the experimenter suspects the object actually originated in Mexico as opposed to Belmez. Despite the fact that it cannot be verified the origin of the object, about half of this reading does suggest the idea (whether or not it is true) that the plaque originated from Doña Pereira and the Spanish origin of the Belmez case, earning this reading +2. OBJECT G - "PERFUME BOTTLE" WHAT PARTICIPANT SAID/WROTE 1 Female owner 2 with light eyes 3 and light hair 4 She’s in her 20s 5 Late 20s (maybe) 6 City 7 busy 8 apartment 9 clear day (2003) 10 Park close by OBJECT G - ACTUAL BACKGROUND OF OWNER/OBJECT OWNER: This object was lent by a female of Chinese descent born in 1984 who lives on her own in a sixth floor condo in downtown Toronto. She graduated a few years ago with a university degree in the fine arts, actively shows her artwork, and works a retail job part-time. She has travelled through Europe, the U.S., China and Hong Kong. She has a boyfriend who does not live with her. She has not had any psychical experiences. STORY OF THE OBJECT: The object she submitted was a bottle of perfume with a dent in it. Her mother gave it to her one day, but she disregarded it because she does not wear perfume and she crammed it into her bathroom cupboard. One day, it fell out (thus the dent) and she found a note in the box that she hadn’t seen from her mother telling her she was so happy her daughter had grown into a woman. This was meaningful, because her mother is not the type of person who openly expresses such feelings. Also, the daughter had recently lost her virginity – and her grandmother had died around that time. Had the object not fallen out of the cupboard, it would never have had such meaning. RESULT = +4 Although the participant did not accurately describe the appearance of the owner (lines 2 and 3), she got the approximate age (but not in her late 20s) and residence. Particularly impressive was the concept of a city, busy, apartment and park close by - all of which are very specific to the owner of the object, who lives on a 6th floor condo apartment in a busy part of the city very close to a park. Despite inaccuracies about "light eyes" and "light hair," and no particular resonance with line 9 ("clear day (2003)"), the rest of the reading was generally accurate. OBJECT B - "GLASS BALL" WHAT PARTICIPANT SAID/WROTE 1 Male 2 Dark hair 3 Basement or attic? 4 Kept in a hidden place for a while 5 In storage in a dark place 6 Asian 7 Secret 8 Lost and found 9 Secret place 10 Discovered OBJECT B - ACTUAL BACKGROUND OF OWNER/OBJECT This was a “control object” in the experiment, purchased by the experimenter, Chris Laursen, new from a shop that has good from around the world on Queen Street West in Toronto, Ontario. Once purchased, it was kept in the original bag and hidden away behind books in one of his bookshelves. It was only removed once the Psychometry Experiment commenced, at which point, it was stored on a shelf in boxes with all of the other objects used in the experiment. The idea was to see if those reading could perceive this was a control object in some way. RESULT = +4 This is the only reading of an object to receive a rating higher than +3 in the Psychometry Experiment. In fact, what the participant wrote down astounded the experimenter when he first read it, and continues to astound him to this day. Aside from the ambiguous statements in lines 2 ("Basement or attic?") and 8 ("Lost and found"), this reading is extraordinarily accurate and breaks the red herring the experimenter placed to throw participants off. This participant accurately perceived a male with dark hair (the experimenter), that the glass ball was kept in a hidden place for a while, in storage, in a dark place. It's origin is Asian (from Toronto's Chinatown). It was secret as the control object for the experiment, kept in a secret place, and in essence (although this statement is ambiguous) the glass ball was "discovered" for the experiment. The reading, despite using few words, by and large unambiguous in clearly pointing to the object's origin and purpose. OBJECT A - "CLEVELAND INDIANS PIN" WHAT PARTICIPANT SAID/WROTE 1 1950’s time period 2 Young male 3 Dead - death 4 Crippling illness 5 Head area 6 Stomach area 7 Early years 8 Green grass 9 House 10 Lost, found? 11 Say hello to Jimmy 12 James 13 Does he still remember the early years? 14 Goodbye 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 the police covering a body by the roadside. Soon after, the police notified her it was her boyfriend who had died, struck while walking on the side of the road by a drunk driver. They gave her this pin which he had been wearing. Her boyfriend’s parents wouldn’t even speak with her at the funeral. To this day, she still feels his love. RESULT = +3 Although not as thoroughly accurate as the reading for Objects B and G, this reading is quite interesting, accurately pointing to a young male, death (but not due to a "crippling illness" as per line 4, rather being hit by a car driven by a drunk driver on while walking beside the road), death by head injury, green grass (where his body was laying upon death), and early years in the life of the deceased and the woman who lent this object. Stomach area resonated with the lender as she has had health issues connected to her stomach since she was young. The rest of the reading, however, did not resonate with the woman who lent the object, although lines 13 ("Does he still remember the early years?") and 14 ("Goodbye") did seem to resonate with the first half of the reading. As with the participant's reading of Object D, the 1950s do not resonate with this object.