E.S.P. Extra Sensory Perception. J. B. Rhine PhD

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СКАЧАТЬ report agrees with most others in the effects of mental comfort, calm and abstraction in promoting success. But here much experimentation was done, expressly to measure the effects of various disturbances. So far as subjects were ill, their scores fell. But why should anyone not guess (that is, with all sensory data for judgment excluded) as well when ill as when well? Success declined when the percipient against his own desire was kept at the task until it was highly distasteful. But why should pure guessing be thus put at a disadvantage? At first, when conditions were suddenly changed as by the interception of a screen, scoring would fall, later to rise, and so also when a visitor was brought in while a series was in operation. A certain drug markedly and consistently lowered the ratio of 'hits', another drug tended to restore the ratio. There is no conceivable way by which pure guessing could thus be affected. There appears to be no explanation, save that the various disturbances, including the administering of a certain drug, un-favorably affected that mental state most productive of extra-sensory perception, and that another drug mysteriously affected that state favorably.

      The results of a single experiment may have great evidential force. Such an experiment has been lately reported by Mr. Theodore Besterman, a very careful and conservative researcher. (Proc, S.P.R. Part 132, 1933). The subject was Ossowiecki, with whom Dr E. J. Dingwall, an experienced investigator whose bent is toward skepticism, several years ago had a result almost equally amazing. Mr. Besterman employed precautions the avoidance of which baffles the mind to imagine. The odds against chance in his case cannot be mathematically evaluated, but it is safe to say, after considering all the factors involved, that they could not be less than a million to one.

      Nevertheless, probably many a scientific man, in spite of the critical character of the reporter, the precautions described, etc., will think there was some hocus-pocus in this case. But how can he suppose that a group of intelligent men, some of them belonging to a university staff, could, through a period of three years, all the while intent on sure conditions, where such conditions were so easy to devise and apply and where the described precautions were so multiplied and diversified, be all the time fooled by each other? Learned men have been obfuscated by tricks played in dark séances with various crippling conditions prescribed by the medium. But the Duke University work was done in the light with all conditions under command of the experimenters. If the reader will peruse carefully, he will find that any explanatory suggestion which his imagination can furnish regarding a particular series of tests is effectually demolished by the conditions of many another series.

      It is indeed extraordinary that so many good subjects were discovered. I am inclined to attribute this to three main factors: (1) the general harmony amid which the work was done from the first, the perhaps unprecedented fact that the President of the University, the entire teaching staff of the psychological department from Dr McDougall down, and other experimenters were open-minded and sympathetic to the unusual experimentation; (2) the tactful methods of approaching and dealing with subjects, maintained by Prof. Rhine and shared by others; (3) the gradual selection and segregation of hopeful subjects, and supreme patience in the continuance of tests with these. Perhaps, in addition to Rhine's control experiments on the mathematics of probability, a specimen exhibit, of what mere guessing can do, will be worth-while. I started out with the idea of discovering clairvoyant ability in my own office. After a number of non-significant experiments with another person, I set out to test Pure Clairvoyance on myself alone with one set of E.S.P. cards, shuffled after every five trials, and unseen. After one thousand, I had made 209 hits, an excess of only 9 above mean expectation, quite insignificant in so large a number of trials. My second thousand, done in the same way, yielded 201 hits, but i in excess of mean expectation. The first 500 of a third thousand was done in the same way, but, since nothing but chance seemed to be in operation, I then employed a device which guaranteed chance only, and the third thousand showed 199 hits, or i below mean expectation. The fourth thousand, with guaranteed chance results, resulted in 193 hits, or 7 below. It might now seem as though there had been a very slight clairvoyance in the first two sets, so I went through a fifth thousand, again by the method allowing clairvoyance to enter, through some hundreds working slowly, through others more swiftly, neither method showing an advantage. But my hits for this thousand were fewest of all, being 188, or 12 below. And the total for five thousand trials was 990, a deviation from mean chance expectation (below) of but 10, which for so large a number is quite insignificant of anything but chance.

      There were, of course, groups in the course of the experiments where scores shot up, and other groups where they rapidly dropped, but in the course of a thousand, these vagaries, so to speak, nearly ironed out. Taking the hundreds consecutively, twice I made as many 'hits' as 35 in a hundred and once as few as 9. In the first thousand, five sets (that is, of the 5 cards) were guessed with entire accuracy, in the second none were, though both were done by the P.C. method. In each of the third and fourth thousands, I got one 5-card set entirely right, and in the fifth, two sets. Were there gleams of clairvoyance in the first thousand particularly? Possibly, but probably we have only high points of chance, which must be expected. At any rate, we have in five thousand a deviation of 10 from mean expectation, indicative of chance only.

      Contrast these results with those of Dr Rhine's selected percipients! Even though there should come criticism of any results obtained by a higher order of mathematics announcing successively the mounting values of X, it would amount in the end merely to the exchange of one astronomical figure for another. The mere statistics in many tables giving the average number of successes per 25 through various long runs of trials, and not less the statistics of effects produced by various species of purposed disturbances and of recovery there from, given in the same terms of number of successes per 25, would seem to make the notion of chance entirely out of question.

      While the chapters of this treatise are in proper logical sequence, I am tempted to suggest that some lay readers might, before reading the book as a whole, acquire a taste for its contents by first reading certain selected portions. Let them place a bookmark for reference at page xi in order that they may at any point consult the table for the meaning of abbreviations. Also, as one will find frequent evaluations of a series, or of total results to a date, in terms of ‘X’ (an arbitrary sign equivalent to 'D/p.e.') which signifies the odds against chance, I advise him (unless he is a mathematician) to keep a bookmark at the formula, so that when he finds the statement that X is 13 or 20 or 30 or a higher figure he can turn to that page and seeing that in the progress of X from i to only 9, it has already reached an anti-chance valuation of more than 100,000,000 to 1, he can better understand what the statement implies. Mathematicians think it rather silly to demand to know exactly the valuation of X 15, etc., for if one is not satisfied with odds of a hundred million by what would he be satisfied? Then let Chapter VII be read, describing the nature and analyzing the results of Pearce's great number of 15,000 witnessed experiments. By this time, if not before, the reader should have acquired zest to carry him through the whole book, from the first to the last word.

      Comments, questions and criticism from any readers, and especially such as are of scientific standing, are welcome, and may be addressed either to the author at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, or to the Boston Society for Psychic Research.

      PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

      The reception given this volume since it was issued about twelve months ago in Boston has been most gratifying. Especially so has been the interest shown by many psychologists, most of them younger ones. The encouragement thus given to our efforts and the generous appreciation shown by many of the principal parapsychologists has induced new enthusiasm in our little group of workers here at Duke University.

      During the year and a half since the book was written we have not been idle. The number of trials reported here has now been doubled, tripled and probably nearly quadrupled. And we have gone on in more than adding mere numbers. Several new lines of research have been opened up, and these will be presented in the reports to follow. Only one minor investigation has been reported at the time of this writing. I refer to a study of telepathic and clairvoyant capacity in the two-personality states of the British medium, Mrs. Garrett. СКАЧАТЬ