The test group consisted of Owen's wife Iris Owen, former chairperson of MENSA in Canada Margaret Sparrow, industrial designer Andy H., his wife Lorne, heating engineer Al Peacock, accountant Bernice M., bookkeeper Dorothy O’Donnel, and sociology student Sidney K. Their goals were to create a fictional character through a purposeful methodology and then "attempt" to communicate with it through séance.
His fictional history partially coincided with actual events and places, but with multiple contradictions and errors.
Philip was unhappily married to a woman named Dorothea and later fell in love with a Romani girl who was accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake.
Participants began feeling a presence, table vibrations, breezes, unexplained echoes, and rapping sounds which matched responses to questions about Philip's life.
[4][5] The experiment has been criticized for lacking solid controls and providing ambiguous results due to the unreliability of séances.