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+---
+aliases:
+  - Gertrude Schmeidler
+  - Dr. Gertrude Schmeidler
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - Psychologist
+  - Parapsychologist
+---
+Gertrude Schmeidler was an experimental psychologist with a PhD from [[Harvard University]]. In 1942, she conducted an experiment on anomalous mental phenomena with psychology students at [[City University of New York]]. Her analysis of the data led her to coin the terms "sheep" and "goats" to categorize individuals based on their beliefs about [[Extrasensory Perception|ESP]] and [[Psychokinesis|PK]][^1].
+
+"Sheep" referred to individuals who were confident about the possible reality of ESP and PK, while "goats" referred to those who doubted the existence of any so-called anomalous mental phenomena. This explicit difference between believers and disbelievers has existed in the upper echelons of the U.S. military and intelligence communities since [[World War II]][^1].
+
+Schmeidler's work is referenced by skeptics like [[Martin Gardner]], who noted that psychic researchers often claimed that psychics were negatively impacted by the presence of "goats" (nonbelievers). [[J. B. Rhine]], for example, stated that "The subtlest influences seem to disturb the operation of these [psychic] abilities... If the scientist is a disbeliever it will upset the delicate operation of the subject’s [psychic] abilities"[^1].
+
+[[Ingo Swann]] also conducted [[Psychokinesis|psychokinesis]] experiments for Gertrude Schmeidler at the [[City College of New York]], which he referenced when communicating with [[Hal Puthoff]] about investigating the boundary between the physics of the animate and inanimate[^1].
+
+## Footnotes
+[^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.