Can People Detect Human Energy Fields?
Dr. Krieger reported that she and others could detect human energy fields. Several independent investigators have attempted to test this ability among Therapeutic Touch practitioners. One famous study, known as the Rosa study, tested the ability of single blinded Therapeutic Touch practitioners to detect the presence of a hand over one of their hands. In two series of tests, practitioners were able to identify the correct hand in 123 (44%) of 280 trials, which was no better than chance alone11. The design and conclusions of this study were subsequently criticized for 1) being underpowered to detect significant differences with ten trials per practitioner and two phases, 2) retaining low-scoring practitioners in the second phase, 3) reporting that the results were statistically no different from chance alone when they were actually worse than chance alone, 4) concluding that no differences existed between right and left hands when, in fact, differences did exist as indicated by a chi sq
