In recent weeks I managed to decrypt a difficult cipher that, despite expert codebreakers’ best efforts, had remained unsolved for 70 years.
The code was created by the late Cambridge professor and scientist Robert Henry Thouless, who passed away in 1984. He created it as a “test of survival” to see if he could communicate with the living after his death. Thouless thought if he successfully transmitted cipher keywords to the living through spiritual mediums and the message was received, this would prove he had survived his death.
In 2019, I was more interested in seeing whether computer speed, storage and networking capabilities had advanced enough to break a code that had outlived its maker. After about five days I had my answer.
The cipher text read:
INXPH CJKGM JIRPR FBCVY WYWES NOECN SCVHE GYRJQ TEBJM TGXAT TWPNH CNYBC FNXPF LFXRV QWQL
The solution:
A number of successful experiments of this kind would give strong evidence for survival.
In the Name of Psi-ence
In 1882, the Society for Psychical Research was founded in the UK. Its purpose was to study spiritualism, the paranormal, psychic powers and the possibility of life after death. During World War II Thouless became one of its many famous presidents – a list that also included Britain’s future prime minister Arthur Balfour and radio pioneer Sir Oliver Lodge.
In the course of his academic work at Cambridge, Thouless devised experiments to test claimants for evidence of “psi” - a term he introduced in his 1942 paper “Experiments on Paranormal Guessing”. The word wa ..
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