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History Goes Bump: Ghost Tours For The Mind

Ep. 642 - Zener Cards, the CIA and Psychic Phenomenon

History Goes Bump: Ghost Tours For The Mind

Diane Student

Society & Culture, History, Places & Travel

4.61.5K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2026

⏱️ 62 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Anyone who has followed and listened to History Goes Bump for any amount of time knows that we consider ourselves open-minded skeptics when it comes to paranormal activity. Particularly the kind of activity connected to psychics. When science gets involved in the paranormal, it lends it some credibility. Parapsychology became a part of college curriculum and at that same time, scientists and government agencies also started paying attention to psychic phenomenon. Intelligence organizations even tried to use it to spy on other countries. On this episode, we are going to look at one of the main tools used to test psi abilities - Zener Cards - and wind our way through the history of parapsychology and some of the famous names connected to this and operations like Project Stargate. The Moment in Oddity features a 1986 Concept Car.

Check out the website: http://historygoesbump.com

Show notes can be found here: https://historygoesbump.blogspot.com/2026/06/hgb-ep-642-zener-cards-cia-and-psychic.html

Become an Executive Producer: http://patreon.com/historygoesbump

Music used in this episode:

Main Theme: Creepy Carnival Theme 
Created and produced by History Goes Bump
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

(Moment in Oddity) "Vanishing" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Title: "Nostalgia"
Artist: Tim Kulig (timkulig.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0997280/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello, you sputacular people.

0:02.0

Welcome to this 642nd episode of the History Ghostbump Podcast.

0:06.4

Ghost tours for The Theater of the Mind.

0:08.0

I am your host, Diane.

0:09.1

And this is Kelly.

0:10.1

Kelly, on this episode, we're kind of straying away from the ghost tour thing, where

0:15.0

it's like a particular haunted location or person or event or something like that.

0:19.8

We're going to be talking about ESP, psychic phenomenon,

0:25.0

Zenric cards,

0:26.2

and how the CIA got involved in using some of that stuff

0:30.6

to spy on the Soviets.

0:33.2

Oh, very good.

0:34.9

I think it's very interesting.

0:36.3

Hopefully the listeners, enjoy it.

0:39.6

History tells the story of the world and of our lives.

0:44.8

Sometimes that history goes bump in the night.

0:49.3

Broadcasting from the center of oddity and the supernatural in central Florida.

0:55.2

It's the History Goes Bump podcast.

1:01.0

Before we get into talking about the history of ZenerCards, the CIA, and psychic phenomenon,

1:06.4

we want to welcome into the Sputacular Crew, Justin.

1:09.6

Thank you so much for joining our Facebook group.

1:11.6

And now this moment in Oddity.

...

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