Parapsychology

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The term parapsychology refers to the scientific study of certain paranormal phenomena. Coined in German by psychologist Max Dessoir in 1889, the term was adopted into English by researcher J. B. Rhine, and has largely superseded the older expresion "psychical research". In contemporary research, the term 'parapsychology' refers to the study of psi, a blanket term used by parapsychologists to denote paranormal processes or causation.

The scientific reality of parapsychological phenomena and the validity of scientific parapsychological research is a matter of frequent dispute and criticism. The field is regarded by some critics as a pseudoscience. Parapsychologists, in turn, say that parapsychological research is scientifically rigorous. Despite such controversy, a number of organizations and academic programs have been created to conduct parapsychological research.

Scope

The types of anomalies studied by parapsychology fall into three main catagories:

• Mental Phenomena: Often described as extrasensory perception, this catagory includes unusual mental states or abilities such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychometry, mediumship, clairaudience, and clairsentience, among others. These types of phenomena involve some type of information transfer occurring outside the confines of the traditional five senses.

• Physical Phenomena: This catagory includes unusual physical occurrences, such as psychokinesis (often referred to as telekinesis), poltergeists, materializations, and bio-PK (direct mental interactions with living systems). These types of phenomena often involve the mind influencing its physical surroundings.

• Survival Phenomena: Survival phenomena deal with the survival of consciousness after physical death. Included in this catagory are ghosts, out-of-body experiences (OBEs) (also known as astral projections), reincarnation and near-death experiences (NDEs).

While these three catagories are common, individual orginizations may have their own standards for determining the scope of parapsychology. Additionally, subjects may fall into different catagories for different researchers. For example, some parapsychologists believe that ghosts are evidence of the survival of consciousness, but others believe them to be psychic impressions left by living people. There are also a number of paranormal topics that are considered by most to be out of the scope of parapsychology, such as Bigfoot.

History

Early Psychical Research

Parapsychology has a rich history dating back to at least the 1800s in both the United Kingdom and the United States. While psi phenomena were certainly observed throughout most of human history, it wasn't until during the Spiritualist Movement of the mid-nineteenth century that researchers first began to take an significant interest in psychic phenomena.

Before the Spiritualist Movement, there had been some investigation into psi phenomena by the followers of Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815 C.E.), who believed that forces he termed "animal magnetism" could be manipulated to heal illness. In the 1780's, the Marquis de Puységur, a follower of Franz Anton Mesmer, discovered a state he termed "experimental somnambulism" (later termed "hypnosis") in peasants that he had attempted to "magnetize." While in this state, patients demonstrated telepathic abilities, vision with the fingertips, and clairvoyance. It should be noted that the early magnetists believed that the telepathy and clairvoyance demonstrated by the entranced subjects had a physiological cause, and were not paranormal in nature.

With the Spiritualist Movement came an influx of purported psychic phenomena. Mediumship was nearly ubiquitous throughout England and the United States, and prominent members of the scientific community began to investigate the validity of such phenomena. During this time, the Society for Psychical Research was founded in Britain (1882) and the American Society for Psychical Research was founded in the United States (1885). The early psychical researchers concerned themselves with studying mediums and other spiritualist claims. In the early 1900s, a dissatisfaction with the results of the research and political disagreements within psychic research organizations led to a new approach and a new term for the study of psychic phenomena: parapsychology.

The need for a learned, scientific society to study psychic phenomena started to become evident, and in 1882, the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was founded in London. Similar societies were soon set up in most other countries in Europe as well as the American SPR in the United States. While most of the early SPR research had an anecdotal flavor, where experiments involved testing the abilities of specific mediums and other "gifted individuals" with claimed psychic abilities, there were some probabilistic experiments involving card guessing and dice throwing. But it was not until the efforts of J. B. Rhine and his colleagues in the 1930's that the term 'parapsychology' began to replace the term 'psychical research'.

Parapsychology as Scientific Inquiry

Although parapsychology has its roots in earlier field research, the experiments by J. B. Rhine at Duke University are often thought of as the beginning of parapsychology as a science. Rhine is perhaps best known for his methodology of using card-guessing and dice-rolling experiments in the laboratory in an attempt to find a statistical validation of extra-sensory perception. This type of experimental approach has characterized much of contemporary parapsychology. Rhine also popularized the term "extra-sensory perception" (ESP).

The so called "Rhine revolution" attempted to accomplish several things. Not only did Rhine attempt to provide parapsychology with a systematic, progressive program of sound experimentation which tried to characterize the conditions and extent of psi phenomena rather than merely trying to prove their existence, but also to give the field of parapsychology academic and scientific legitamacy. Rhine helped form the first long-term university laboratory devoted to parapsychology in the Duke University Laboratory, and later founded the independent Rhine Research Center. As a result of Rhine's work, much of experimental parapsychology today is geared toward "ordinary people" as subjects rather than a few select mediums or "gifted psychics." Rhine also helped found the Journal of Parapsychology in 1937, which remains one of the most respected journals in the field today, and the Parapsychological Association in 1957, an association that was accepted into the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1969.

During the 1970's, a number of other notable parapsychological organizations were formed, including the Academy of Parapsychology and Medicine (1970), the Institute of Parascience (1971), the Academy of Religion and Psychical Research, the Institute for Noetic Sciences (1973), and the International Kirlian Research Association (1975). Each of these groups performed experiments on paranormal subjects to varying degrees. Parapsychological work was also conducted at the Stanford Research Institute during this time.

With the increase in parapsychological investigation, there came an increase in organized opposition to both the findings of parapsychologists and to granting of any formal recognition of the field. Criticisms of the field were focused in the founding of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (1976), now called the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), and its periodical, Skeptical Inquirer. CSI continues to review parapsychological work and raise objections where it is felt necessary.

Government Investigations into Parapsychology

Around 1970, the CIA began to get concerned about the amount of research the Soviet Union was doing in paranormal subject areas. Since the 1950's, the Soviets had set up a number of research centers to study the applications of what was referred to as "psychotronic" research, with the intent to perform mental spying, as well as long distance mind control and telepathic assasination. By 1970, the Soviets were spending approximately 60 million rubles on psychotronic research. Concerns about the potential success of Soviet research prompted the United States to launch a series of programs themselves. The initial program, named "SCANATE" (scan by coordinate) was first funded in 1970 to research remote viewing (the ability to clairvoyantly observe a remote location). Testing was limited to just a few promising individuals, who were taught to use their talents for "psychic warfare." Proponents claim that, particularly in the later stages of the training, the accuracy of remote viewing exceeded 65 percent.

The remote viewing program, later known as "STAR GATE," carried out hundreds of experiments. Three main techniques for acquiring information were used: Coordinate Remote Viewing, where subjects were asked what they "saw" at designated locations, Extended Remote Viewing, which used a combination of relaxation and meditation, and Written Remote Viewing, which combined channeling and automatic writing. This last method was the most controversial and often regarded as the least reliable. Remote viewers allegedly located lost aircraft, reported information on enemy submarine specs, and located SCUD missiles.

In 1995, the CIA commissioned a report from two experts to evaluate the past performance of the STARGATE program. Various techniques used by the program were evaluated, such as the ganzfeld method and the "beacon and viewer" method, where the subject (viewer) consciously tried to retrieve images sent by an operative (beacon) who would travel to a location or look at a picture in National Geographic Magazine. One of the commissioned experts, Jessica Utts, a statistician, found that such tests proved remote viewing to be a real and measurable phenomenon. The other expert, Raymond Hyman, a psychologist, asserted that STAR GATE had proved nothing, and that deviations from a chance baseline do not constitute proof. However, Hyman agreed that testing methods were sound, and that findings were promising enough to merit continued research.

Critisicm

Many professional scientists study parapsychology. It is an interdisciplinary field, attracting psychologists, physicists, engineers, and biologists, as well as those from other sciences. Despite this, parapsychology is often accused of being pseudoscience. Skeptical scholars like Ray Hyman and James E. Alcock have pointed out several problems with viewing parapsychology as a true science. One of the most glaring problems facing parapsychologists is the fact that few psi experiments are replicable. Parapsychologists argue that psi phenomena are indeed real, but do not lend themselves to experimental replication. Hyman also points out that, unlike every other branch of science, parapsychology has a shifting, rather than cumulative, database. Historical experiments and results are often discarded and found not to be valid. Some, like the case of the telepathic Creery sisters, are proven to be fraud, others are considered to have had flawed methodology. Unlike other sciences, parapsychology relies heavily on "statistical inference" to prove its case. In other sciences, slight deviations from chance that follow no set pattern or rules and cannot be reliably replicated are usually abandoned.

Proponents of parapsychology such as Jessica Utts and Dean Radin counter these arguments. In a response to Hyman, Proffessor Utts claims that several branches of science are based on the observation of unexplainable anomalies, including quantum mechanics. She argues that parapsychology does, in fact, build upon previous experiments, learning from them and using that knowledge to design better experiments. Additionally, the statistical nature of psi experiments is more similar to the connection of cigarette smoking to lung cancer; a result that would also be impossible to "replicate" in an individual experiment.

Among the peer-reviewed journals dealing with parapsychology are the The Journal of Parapsychology, the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, the European Journal of Parapsychology, the International Journal of Parapsychology, and the Journal of Scientific Exploration.

Parapsychology research centers include the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit based at Goldsmiths College, University of London; Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research at Princeton University; the Rhine Research Center, successor to the Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory; Institute of Noetic Sciences; Institute for Transpersonal Psychology; the Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center; Boundary Institute; Three Circles Research; Perrott-Warrick Research Unit; Pacific Neuropsychiatric Institute; the Koestler Parapsychology Unit; International Society of Life Information Science; International Consciousness Research Laboratories; Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene; Division of Perceptual Studies; Consciousness and Transpersonal Psychology Unit; Cognitive Sciences Laboratory; Centre for Study of Anomalous Psychological Processes; Center for Functional Research; Center for Frontier Sciences; Center for Consciousness Studies; and the ASC Consortium.

According to parapsychologist Carlos S. Alvarado, parapsychology has made significant contributions to other fields, in such areas as the mind-body problem, the transformative effects of parapsychological experiences, and the psychology of OBEs. Parapsychological research has helped to combat superstition and to evaluate popular claims of the paranormal. For instance, investigation of Silva Mind Control and Transcendental Meditation found no evidence to support their claims. Parapsychological researchers have pioneered statistical techniques to study phenomena. Ian Hacking argued that parapsychologists made early use of probability and randomization in their nineteenth-century studies of telepathy in the nineteenth-century. Parapsychology has contributed to the study of fraud and self-deception, such as cases of fraudulent mediumism.

Parapsychology is a frequently deprecated subject in science and the academy. Individuals who show an interest in studying psychic phenomena often say they have difficulty finding or keeping sustained employment, and that they are denied funding or the chance to publish.

For example, Cambridge physicist Brian Josephson who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1973 told The Observer, "'Yes, I think telepathy exists,' [...] 'and I think quantum physics will help us understand its basic properties.' [...] 'I think journals like Nature and Science are censoring such research,' he said. 'There is a lot of evidence to support the existence of telepathy, for example, but papers on the subject are being rejected - quite unfairly.'"

As a general rule, while trained scientists may not be as likely to believe in parapsychological phenomena as the general public, they are far from monolithic in their disbelief. Surveys of this group are rare, but in their 1994 paper in the Psychological Bulletin entitled Does psi exist? Replicable evidence for an anomalous process of information transfer Daryl J. Bem and Charles Honorton quote a 1979 survey:

A survey of more than 1,100 college professors in the United States found that 55% of natural scientists, 66% of social scientists (excluding psychologists), and 77% of academics in the arts, humanities, and education believed that ESP is either an established fact or a likely possibility. The comparable figure for psychologists was only 34%. Moreover, an equal number of psychologists declared ESP to be an impossibility, a view expressed by only 2% of all other respondents (Wagner; Monnet, 1979).

Methodology

Experimental research

A number of experiments have been conducted by parapsychologists since the 1930s, utilizing a wide range of methodologies that have changed over the years. As recently as 2006, computer scientists at the University of Manchester tested the possibility of telepathy by simulating a virtual computer world in the hopes that it would eliminate other forms of communication. This constant refinement of methodologies is in response to skeptical analysis of earlier experiments that call for a higher standard of practice in parapsychology because positive results challenge well-established scientific models of the universe.

A substantial portion of parapsychologists feel that over time they have gathered at least a small amount of data from properly controlled experiments, data that they feel can be trusted for a small number of psi phenomena. A smaller group believes that a great deal of evidence has been collected, which, if it addressed more conventional phenomena, would be sufficient to provide proof. Not all parapsychologists agree, however. Some parapsychologists hold that this evidence is not definitive, but suggestive enough to warrant further research.

Contemporary parapsychology often looks at the statistical data of experiments for validation of psychic phenomena. Some experiments have tested the possibility of ESP by having subjects guess targets such as cards, pictures, or videos. There have also been many psychokinesis experiments testing the possibility that the mind can influence random number generators. Other experiments, such as the ganzfeld procedure, test for the possibility of telepathy. In these experiments, a statistical deviation from chance is seen to be evidence of psi, which parapsychologist feel indicates psychic phenomena.

According to parapsychologists such as Dean Radin, who was formerly President of the Parapsychological Association, many of these experiments have had positive results, with subjects scoring significantly above chance. He says that when analyzed using statistics, this significance has often been very high.(Radin 1997:84) The odds against chance of many of these statistical outcomes often range from one in thousands to one in trillions, which leads Radin and other parapsychologists to believe that these statistically significant results are in favor of the existence of psi, or some other unknown factor causing the deviation.

Not everyone agrees with this interpretation of parapsychological work. Although generally accepted within the parapsychology community, the statistical evidence for psychic phenomena has received strong opposition from outside sources, notably from the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI). Skeptical scholars such as Ray Hyman, who was a founding member of CSI, has said that parapsychology needs to do more theoretical work and produce results which are more easily replicable. He has also said that parapsychology lacks a cumulative database, and that its claims are based on the rejection of the null hypothesis. In other words, these experiments do not detect psi directly. Other scientists, such as noted skeptic James E. Alcock, have questioned the methodology of these experiments and said there is a logical fallacy in assuming that significant departures from the laws of chance are automatically evidence that something paranormal has occurred.

Despite controversy over parapsychological work, new experiments and a refinement of older methodologies continue in the field.

State of the controversies

Proponents of parapsychology claim that their subject is not controversial because it lacks valid scientific results, but rather because parapsychology touches on areas of profound human ignorance such as in physics and in the nature of consciousness, and also areas of deep meaning such as religion, superstition, and traditional beliefs.

Skeptics have responded to criticism by saying, in the words of Carl Sagan, that "…extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Parapsychologists riposte that they have attained levels of proof which are more than sufficient to prove their results in any other field of science.

Another factor which makes parapsychology highly controversial is that there is no theory which can account for parapsychological results. Psi seems to be able to establish informational links both to the past and the future. Its effects do not seem to drop off according to the inverse square law, as with other physical forces. And information gathered using psi does not seem to require energy to facilitate its transfer. Also, there may not be any limit on the complexity of information gained by psi.

Parapsychology is also disturbing to those who believe that to admit that psi exists would encourage, superstition, and psychic frauds, as these are based either on manifestations of psi, or on reports which are hard to distinguish from it. Skeptics wonder if this would undermine the foundations of science and reason. ^{[citation needed]}

Many of these experiments have been done with the aid of skeptics of parapsychology, and also with the aid of professional conjurors, in order to eliminate as much as possible all controversies concerning the analysis of the data gathered, and to prevent fraud on the part of the subjects.

Another major reason that psi has remained controversial is that parapsychologists have sometimes been fooled by hoaxes. Some parapsychological studies have been badly designed, in such a way as to permit fraud. In the case of Project Alpha, magician James Randi planted magicians as subjects of a parapsychological experiment, and they were able to fool the researchers over a prolonged period. Such methodological failures have been cited by skeptics as evidence of the probability that most if not all parapsychological results derive from error or fraud.

Notes

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Bibliography

• Parapsychology: Science or Magic? by James E. Alcock, Pergamon Press, 1981 ISBN 0-08-025773-9
• Parapsychology, by Rene Sudre, Citadel Press, NY, 1960, Library of Congress Catalog 60-13928.
• Parapsychology, by Khwaja Shamsuddin Azeemi, Al-Kitaab Publication, 1985.
• The Conscious Universe, by Dean Radin, Harper Collins, 1997, ISBN 0-06-251502-0.
• Entangled Minds by Dean Radin, Simon & Schuster, Paraview Pocket Books, 2006
• Parapsychology: A Concise History, by John Beloff, St. Martin's Press, 1993, ISBN 0-312-09611-9.
• Parapsychology: The Controversial Science, by Richard S. Broughton, Ballantine Books, 1991, ISBN 0-345-35638-1.
• Our Sixth Sense, by Charles Robert Richet, Rider & Co., 1937, First English Edition
• The Elusive Quarry: A Scientific Appraisal of Psychical Research, by Ray Hyman, Prometheus Books, 1989, ISBN 0-87975-504-0.
• Readings in the Philosophical Problems of Parapsychology, ed. Antony Flew, Prometheus Books, 1987, ISBN 0-87975-385-4
• The First Psychic: The Peculiar Mystery of a Victorian Wizard, by Peter Lamont, Little, Brown, UK, 2005 (Daniel Dunglas Home biography)
• Sixty Years of Psychical Research : Houdini and I Among the Spirits, by Joseph Rinn, Truth Seeker, 1950
• The Newer Spiritualism, by Frank Podmore, Arno Press, 1975, reprint of 1910 edition
• Revelations of a Spirit Medium by Harry Price and Eric J. Dingwall, Arno Press, 1975, reprint of 1891 edition by Charles F. Pigeon. This rare, overlooked, forgotten book gives the "insider's knowledge" of 19th century deceptions.
• Mediums of the 19th Century Volume Two, Book Four, Chapter One, Some Foreign Investigations by Frank Podmore, University Book, 1963, reprint of Modern Spiriritualism, 1902
• Occult and Supernatural Phenomena by D. H. Rawcliffe, Dover Publications, reprint of Psychology of the Occult, Derricke Ridgway Publishing co., 1952
• The Paranormal: The Evidence and its Implications for Concsciousness by Jessica Utts and Brian Josephson, 1996 [1]
• Milbourne Christopher, ESP, Seers & Psychics : What the Occult Really Is, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1970, ISBN 0-690-26815-7
• Milbourne Christopher, Mediums, Mystics & the Occult by Thomas Y. Crowell Co, 1975
• Milbourne Christopher, Search for the Soul, Thomas Y. Crowell Publishers, 1979
• Georges Charpak, Henri Broch, and Bart K. Holland (tr), Debunked! ESP, Telekinesis, and Other Pseudoscience, (Johns Hopkins University). 2004, ISBN 0-8018-7867-5
• Hoyt L. Edge, Robert L. Morris, Joseph H. Rush, John Palmer, Foundations of Parapsychology: Exploring the Boundaries of Human Capability, Routledge Kegan Paul, 1986, ISBN 0710202261
• Paul Kurtz, A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology, Prometheus Books, 1985, ISBN 0-87975-300-5
• Carl Edwin Lindgren. (1974, January). Exploring Secrets of the Mind. Mississippi Educational Advance, 15-16.
• Carl Edwin Lindgren. (1977, March). The ESP Commection. The Educational Review. Madras, India, pp. 46-48
• Carl Edwin Lindgren. (1990, December). The Future of Parapsychology. Fate, pp. 60-64.
• Jeffrey Mishlove, Roots of Consciousness: Psychic Liberation Through History Science and Experience. 1st edition, 1975, ISBN 0-394-73115-8, 2nd edition, Marlowe & Co., July 1997, ISBN 1-56924-747-1 There are two very different editions. online
• D. Scott Rogo, Miracles: A Parascientific Inquiry into Wondrous Phenomena, New York, Dial Press, 1982.
• John White, ed. Psychic Exploration: A Challenge for Science, published by Edgar D. Mitchell and G. P. Putman, 1974, ISBN 0399113428
• Richard Wiseman, Deception and self-deception: Investigating Psychics. Amherst, USA: Prometheus Press. 1997
• Benjamin B. Wolman, ed, Handbook of Parapsychology, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1977, ISBN 0-442-29576-6

External links

• Deborah Blum, Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life after Death, Penguin , 2006, ISBN 1-59420-090-4
• Mary Roach, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, Norton 2005, ISBN 0393059626

Independent research organizations

• Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) was founded in 1973 by astronaut Edgar Mitchell to explore the frontiers of consciousness through rigorous scientific research.
• Society for Psychical Research (SPR). The original scientific society founded in London in 1882.
• American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR), the oldest psychical research organization in the United States.
• Rhine Research Center and Institute for Parapsychology, originally part of Duke University, now an independent research center.
• Parapsychology Foundation, a not-for-profit foundation which provides a worldwide forum supporting the scientific investigation of psychic phenomena.
• Parapsychological Association This organisation has been a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for over 20 years.
• International Academy of Consciousness
• Australian Institute of Parapsychological Research, a non-profit community association. Based in Sydney but with an Australia-wide membership base, it was established in 1977 and publishes the Australian Journal of Parapsychology.

University research organizations

• Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the University of Edinburgh.
• Parapsychology Research Group at Liverpool Hope University.
• Global Consciousness Project at Princeton
• The VERITAS Research Program at the University of Arizona
• Consciousness and Transpersonal Psychology Research Unit of Liverpool John Moores University.
• Center for the Study of Anomalous Psychological Processes at the University of Northampton.
• Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) at Princeton University.
• Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS), a unit of the Department of Psychiatric Medicine at the University of Virginia.
• Bigelow Chair of Consciousness Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV).
• Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths University of London.
• Perrott-Warrick Research Unit in the Psychology Department of the University of Hertfordshire.

Other links

• Parapsychology FAQ
• Entry on parapsychology in the Skeptic's Dictionary
• The online Library of Exploratory Science contains the complete text of many of the major peer reviewed journals in parapsychology and psychical research.

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