Vol. I · No. 25 Price: One Tinfoil Hat

“All the News That’s Unfit to Believe”

FROM THE BOARDS

Anonymous Seeker Sets Mind Against Matchstick; Board Divided on Whether Feat Is Possible

A poster on 4chan's /x/ proposes lighting a match by thought alone as a sturdier test of telekinesis than psi-wheels, drawing 32 replies of counsel, scorn and anecdote.

Strangeness 2 of 5

An anonymous poster on 4chan's /x/ board has announced a private experiment: lighting a match by the power of the mind alone. According to the post, the feat seems "doable enough" and would constitute stronger evidence of paranormal phenomena than psi-wheels or gesturing at empty soda cans. The author closed by asking whether anyone else had ever managed true telekinetic phenomena.

The thread, which had gathered 32 replies at last count, quickly split into factions. One respondent argued that striking a match requires only a few millijoules of energy, and that failure to produce so small a quantity suggests little capacity for anything else. Another agreed, calling the test an objective measurement that cuts through unfalsifiable claims.

Other contributors offered technical suggestions. One proposed static electricity. Another noted that a magnifying glass can ignite nearly anything, and wondered what the human equivalent of a focusing tool might be. A further poster pointed to the pineal gland as a possible "third eye." One pedant observed that igniting a match is properly pyrokinesis, not telekinesis, unless the subject means to lift and strike it.

Personal testimony was present but modest. One poster recalled moving a plastic ball between upturned buckets in early childhood by tapping and concentrating. Another said simply that they had done it once and wished to know how to repeat it. A third reported holding a brain-computer interface and being unable to do anything without it.

Not all replies were gentle. Several early responses mocked the original poster, prompting heated exchanges about negativity and self-improvement. One reader raised the question of what might happen should the government deem such abilities a threat. No poster reported a lit match.

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