double blind

This is an experimental technique aimed at preventing (or at least minimising) the chance that experimenters can bias the results.

As an example, if a new medical drug is to be tested, the people who give the drug to the volunteers, monitor them and report the results will not know what is in the pills they’re administering: just persons M, N, O and Y received Pill A and turned green, while persons B, D and E received Pill A and nothing happened, and persons F, G and I received Pill B and turned purple with orange stripes. Only the people handling the pills will know that, say, Pills A, B and D are the same, and Pills C and E are “placebos” (which means they do not have any of the drug to be tested in them at all).

You can get a much clearer and more precise explanation, I’m sure, off the Internet – just try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_blind#Double-blind_trials, for instance J

In terms of psychic development, I consider that more use of double blind work should be made. For instance, when I am teaching people to use pendulums, I will have someone arrange a few glasses in a row, only one of the glasses containing water, cover them with a cloth and then leave the room (or at the very least look away) so they cannot telepathically or otherwise influence the results, and then have each student come in – one at a time – and try dowsing the covered and therefore unseen glasses to try and determine which one has water in it.

In general, the results are poor initially, but this also gives very good feedback which enables people to improve their skills fairly quickly.

As of the time this definition was written, I’ve touched on this idea in the following posts:

     Post No. 329.  Double blind techniques and learning the pendulum