The inner life
Psychokinesis
Direct answer
Psychokinesis is the claimed power of the mind to move or change physical things without touching them. The word was coined in 1914; the older word telekinesis dates from 1890.
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At a glance
- Also called
- telekinesis, moving objects with the mind, spoon bending
- Found in
- Consciousness & Spiritual Psychology
- Related
- Parapsychology, File-Drawer Problem, Extrasensory Perception
Psychokinesis is the claimed power of the mind to move or change physical things without touching them. The word was coined in 1914; the older word telekinesis dates from 1890.
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What is the difference between psychokinesis and telekinesis?
Psychokinesis joins the Greek words for mind and movement. It covers two very different claims. The first is the large effect that can be seen: a table that rises, a key that bends. Every such effect examined closely has turned out to be conjuring, or has failed to appear when people who know conjuring set the conditions.
The second is the small effect, a slight bias in the fall of dice or in the output of an electronic random number generator while a person wishes for one result. This can only be argued from statistics over very many trials. A review of some 380 such studies in 2006 found an effect so small, and so dependent on study size, that unpublished failures could account for it.
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What sets Psychokinesis apart
Psychokinesis is the only claim in this family that is about doing and not about knowing, which is why Rhine kept it apart from extrasensory perception. It is also the one a physicist could measure directly: a force that tips a die would move a balance. No instrument has ever registered such a force, so the case rests on counts of random events, where the claimed bias is a fraction of one per cent.
- Coined: Henry Holt, 1914; telekinesis by Alexander Aksakov, 1890
- Short form: PK, the usual form in research papers
- Dice tests: J. B. Rhine, begun 1934, published 1943
- Machine tests: Helmut Schmidt, random number generators, from 1969
- Largest review: Bösch, Steinkamp and Boller, 2006: about 380 studies
Often mistaken for something else: Telekinesis is the older word and the one used on stage for visible feats; psychokinesis is the research term and covers the small statistical effects as well.
The story behind Psychokinesis
Alexander Aksakov coined telekinesis in 1890 for the movements reported in sitting rooms, and the American writer Henry Holt coined psychokinesis in 1914. J. B. Rhine began dice experiments at Duke University in 1934 and published them in 1943. Helmut Schmidt introduced random number generators in 1969. A laboratory at Princeton University ran such tests from 1979 until it closed in 2007.
Why Psychokinesis matters
Psychokinesis is the one claim of the field that physics could check directly, and the one with the weakest record.
How to read Psychokinesis
Researchers write PK for it and part macro effects, seen by eye, from micro effects, found only in totals; stage performers prefer the word telekinesis.
Psychokinesis in practice: an example
A die is thrown ten thousand times while someone wills a six. A surplus of a few dozen sixes is the whole of the claimed effect.
Where readings of Psychokinesis go wrong
No one has moved or bent anything by thought under controlled conditions. Spoon bending is a conjuring effect with published methods.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Consciousness & Spiritual Psychology
- Aliases
- telekinesis, moving objects with the mind, PK psychokinesis, spoon bending
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What is the difference between psychokinesis and telekinesis?
They name the same claim. Telekinesis, from 1890, is the older word and is used of sitting rooms and the stage. Psychokinesis, from 1914, is the term researchers adopted, usually shortened to PK.
Has psychokinesis ever been demonstrated?
Not under controls. Large effects have turned out to be conjuring. Small statistical effects have been reported with dice and random number generators, but an attempt by three laboratories in 2000 to repeat the best known result failed.
How is a spoon bent by a performer?
By hand, at a moment when attention is elsewhere. The slow bending the audience then watches is the gradual showing of a bend already made. Magicians have explained the method in print many times.
