Editing Rupert Sheldrake (section)

===''The Sense of Being Stared At'' (2003)===
Sheldrake's ''The Sense of Being Stared At'' explores telepathy, precognition, and the "[[psychic staring effect]]." It reported on an experiment Sheldrake conducted where blindfolded subjects guessed whether persons were staring at them or at another target. He reported subjects exhibiting a weak sense of being stared at, but no sense of not being stared at,<ref name="sheldrake">Sheldrake, Rupert (2005). The Sense of Being Stared At Part 1: Is it Real or Illusory? ''Journal of Consciousness Studies'', '''12'''(6):10–31. [https://web.archive.org/web/20071027063028/http://www.sheldrake.org/Articles%26Papers/papers/staring/pdf/JCSpaper1.pdf Reprint]. See ''Tests under ‘real life’ conditions'', pp. 21–22.</ref><ref>Sheldrake, Rupert (2003). ''The Sense of Being Stared At, And Other Aspects of the Extended Mind'', London: Hutchinson. {{ISBN|0-09-179463-3}}.</ref> and attributed the results to morphic resonance.<ref name=stared/> He reported a hit rate of 53.1%, describing two subjects as "nearly always right, scoring way above chance levels."<ref name=JCS>Rupert Sheldrake (2005). The Sense of Being Stared At, and open peer commentary. ''Journal of Consciousness Studies'', '''12''':6, 4–126.  [http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/2005/00000012/00000006 Ref.]. Accessed 28 May 2008.</ref>

Several independent experimenters were unable to find evidence beyond statistical randomness that people could tell they were being stared at, with some saying that there were design flaws in Sheldrake's experiments,<ref name=MarksColwell/><ref name=sciam/><ref name=baker/> such as using test sequences with "relatively few long runs and many alternations" instead of truly [[Randomized controlled trial|randomised patterns]].<ref name=MC>David F. Marks and John Colwell (2000). The Psychic Staring Effect: An Artifact of Pseudo Randomization, ''Skeptical Inquirer'', September/October 2000. [http://www.csicop.org/si/show/psychic_staring_effect_an_artifact_of_pseudo_randomization/ Reprint]. Accessed 28 May 2008.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.csicop.org/si/show/research_on_the_feeling_of_being_stared_at/|title=Sheldrake, Rupert. "Skeptical Inquirer (2000)," March/April, 58–61|date=March 2001 }}</ref> In 2005, [[Michael Shermer]] expressed concern over [[confirmation bias]] and [[experimenter bias]] in the tests, and concluded that Sheldrake's claim was [[unfalsifiable]].<ref>Michael Shermer (October 2005). Rupert's Resonance: The theory of "morphic resonance" posits that people have a sense of when they are being stared at. What does the research show? ''Scientific American'', October 2005. [http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=ruperts-resonance Reprint]. Accessed 27 May 2008.</ref>

[[David Jay Brown]], who conducted some of the experiments for Sheldrake, states that one of the subjects who was reported as having the highest hit rates was under the influence of the drug [[MDMA]] (Ecstasy) during the trials.<ref name="Hancock2015">{{cite book|editor=Graham Hancock|last=Brown|first=David Jay|author-link=David Jay Brown|title=The Divine Spark: Psychedelics, Consciousness and the Birth of Civilization|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=39KlBwAAQBAJ&pg=PT114|access-date=28 June 2015|date=6 April 2015|publisher=Hay House, Inc|isbn=9781781805749|pages=114–}}</ref>