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readers who are especially interested in cryptography. For those who are less interested in these details, please skip ahead a few paragraphs.
As previously noted, Ryzl had an assistant draw up five groups of three decimal numbers, and then change each number into binary digits of ones and zeros. Each binary number was then translated into a series of green and white cards that were put into sealed envelopes. For example, using green for "one" and white for "zero," the digit 7 would read 111 in its binary form (1 for 20, plus 1 for 21, plus 1 for 22, [remembering that 1 plus 2 plus 4 = 7], and green green green in the color form). Ryzl had Stepanek, the subject, repeat his calls for each envelope many times. Then he used an elaborate majority-vote protocol to decide if a given envelope was to be called green or white in the final tally. He was able, after 19,350 trials, to have the confidence that there was enough consistency in the calls for each of the binary digits.
Stepanek averaged nine seconds per call, over many weeks of work. The astounding result was that he had, in fact, correctly identified each of the numbers. Calling his cards one by one, Stepanek's hit rate for the series was 61.9 percent, where 50 percent was to be expected (since the only choice was either green or white on each call). The probability of identifying all fifteen decimal digits correctly is one in 1015, or one in a million billion.
Stepanek was an indefatigable card guesser, and he continued with this remarkably boring task for more than a decade after Ryzl's first highly significant experiments. Stepanek went on to produce highly significant ESP results with researchers from all over the world, including Pratt, who went to Prague to work with him. Pratt discovered that Stepanek demonstrated an inexplicable "focusing effect," in that he had a significantly higher scoring rate over and over with particular cards. In Ryzl's work the cards had been in opaque envelopes. Pratt put the cards and envelopes into ice cream jiffy bags to further isolate them, but the rate of Stepanek's success was not at all affected. 6
A similarly successful experiment in message-sending was carried out by Dr. James Carpenter, working with college students at the University of North Carolina in 1975.7 Carpenter felt that hypnosis was not necessary

 
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