Zener Cards: Above the 20%.

By Viviana Gomez - April 10, 2012

I’ve been practicing with the Zener cards for a while, looking to find out any extrasensory perception (ESP) giftedness in myself, without getting more than the average 20% of guessing. I have also tried them with everybody who wanted to volunteer for the test. Nothing yet, but I am not giving up.  I am sure there is some gifted candidate out there. I am determinate to reproduce the success that Dr. Rhine got in 1931 in his laboratory.

The Zener cards were created by Dr. Karl Edward Zener, a psychologist from Harvard University who in 1930, along with colleague J.B. Rhine, devised the card symbols that were used by Rhine in early ESP tests. Rhine called cards bearing these symbols "Zener cards" in honour of his colleague.

The Zener Cards consist in a standard pack of cards containing 25 cards, each portraying one of five symbols, viz., circle, cross, square, star, and waves. The cards would be shuffled and a receiver would then try to guess the cards that a sender would try to telepathically communicate. Or a subject might try to guess which card from the deck would be turned up next. A correct "guess" is called a "hit". Anything significantly higher than an average 20% hit in the long run would indicate some possible ESP condition.