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

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СКАЧАТЬ be "manned for defense" for so many later years. Only in recent times have the older workers begun to call attention to the importance of the psychological atmosphere of testing, the prime importance of strong motivation in the subject, and to recall what has been lost over the years of shifting emphasis.

      But can we take these early tests of the 1930 seriously? If there has been this long period of debate over the adequacy of test procedures, may not these early experiments have been so loosely conducted from today's point of view as to be relatively worthless? No, and I say it with emphasis! There have, of course, been many advances made since. In fact, it was through these early explorations that the advances were made possible. They were necessary steps, and the step-by-step advances can be seen. It is true, as I think every reader will see when all the details are given, those advances were made slowly. As one looks back, he wonders continually, "Why did we not see such and such a weakness?" Perhaps others in the same situation would have seen it. No one will ever know.

      But here is just where the value of this early report comes in. It tells me, l:or one, what I want to know today—how in spite of the monotony of the procedure, how well the long we were able to keep those early subjects scoring well subjects responded to the new conditions introduced, and what sort of program we had that kept so many so productive for so long. What would we not give today for the like of that? I think any worker in the field today would say the same.

      The point is, then, we do not read this book to see how good the evidence for ESP may be today. We want to know what made it so good then—so good in terms of performance level, so good at this crucial beginning. At the same time, I do not apologize for its quality. This is a story of progress, of advancement toward better control, and the evidence, especially that from the clairvoyance tests conducted with new cards, screened cards, with different rooms and even different buildings (as it ends up with the experiments with Pearce) would stand up very well even today for any reasonable mind. The main point is that, in any experiment, the evidence strictly needs to be only good enough to lead to the next advance; then, as each experimenter introduces an improvement or a modification, the advancement goes steadily on. So that any reader who is making up his mind about the case for ESP today, might better continue on through the progressive advances following the period of this book. But by the time this book was sent off to the printer (at the end of 1933) no one acquainted with the experiments could see any reasonable alternative to the ESP hypothesis. All were confident that there was a case deserving publication and further research. That is enough for one step to have provided. That started the ball rolling in ESP research.

      But this book did another thing: It gave the field a frame-work of organization, showed how psychical research could be conveniently renamed and defined, suggested a system for its various problem areas and indicated where ESP belonged in it all. I do not see how I could do very much better today although if I were rewriting the first chapter I would trim it somewhat. For one thing our problems today are not primarily in terminology, due perhaps partly to this bit of organization introduced at that time.

      It is also worthwhile to compare this summary of experimental parapsychology made in the early thirties with the picture of the field today. Since I laid myself out rather broadly in the commentary chapters at the end of this book, there are a great many points for comparison. In a general way, the succeeding decades have rather confirmed the leading points of that commentary. What are some of these confirmations? The position taken that ESP was just not the sensory type of perception is one of these. Similarly, the nonphysical hypothesis of ESP has been considerably strengthened, and by the introduction of wholly new types of evidence as well. The unconscious level of operation has been more and more confirmed. The impression of the importance of motivation on the part of the subject is likewise strengthened. The lack of any association of ESP with ill health, mental or physical, has been firmed up strongly over the years. Also, the basic unity of ESP in its different phenomenal effects, telepathy and clairvoyance, has been further supported. It has been even extended, so that now it is in order to think of one basic parapsychical interaction between subject and object represented in ESP and PK (psychokinesis). We think of parapsychical phenomena as manifestations of this underlying reversible interaction between the person and his environment—extrasensory on the one hand and extramotor (PK) on the other.

      Some of the tentative suggestions I made in 1934 have been strengthened. One of these emphasized the primary role or initiative of the percipient or receiver in telepathy tests. I stressed this "going-out" or active participation by the receiver as more likely than the view of a passive part in the transfer. Similarly, my hints regarding the energetic character of ESP have become bolder over the years, to the point where I would now say it makes little sense to talk about parapsychical operations without the assumption of a distinctive energy.

      Where was I wrong in 1934? Had I known then what I now know about the evidence of ESP in animals, I would hot have made the suggestion I did, even though tentatively, on the evolutionary position of ESP. It is now much more likely that ESP is something the animal kingdom possessed long before man himself evolved; but we must leave to future research a firmer answer to this important question area.

      I thought too, perhaps naturally enough, that when a subject persisted in avoiding the target in ESP tests and giving significantly negative deviations from the expected average instead of the positive ones he was supposed to give, this meant he was unconsciously negative in his attitude. But, in the light of later studies, I have now abandoned this hypothesis of negative motivation for "psi missing," as it is now called. I am not, of course, saying that there is never negative motivation but that it is not the more general explanation of these significantly negative deviations.

      LATER DEVELOPMENTS

      What has happened since the publication of this book in the science of parapsychology? I will outline the main advances briefly under the heading of New Methods, New Phenomena, and New Events.

      New Methods: First, I will speak of mathematics. Al-though the binomial method used throughout this book is still the principal method of appraising results, there are slight changes. Instead of using the probable error, we now use the standard deviation as the "yardstick." Also, when we combine critical ratios, by the use of the root-mean-square method we use the chi square tables. But there are a number of other convenient and useful methods of evaluation of test results now available to the parapsychological worker. The most useful of these are assembled in Chapter 9 of the introductory test book by Dr. Pratt and myself, called Para-psychology, Frontier Science of the Mind. Para-psychologists in this country have had no serious trouble over mathematics because of the extraordinarily generous cooperation of mathematicians; to give only one example, The Journal of Parapsychology has had throughout most of its existence two highly qualified mathematicians as statistical editors.

      New test methods have naturally had to follow upon new problems. In the main, however, the methods have been built on or around the skeleton of test structure used throughout this book. The use of five targets, whether or not the standard ESP symbols, the run of twenty-five trials, and certain elemental test precautions in testing and recording have become fundamental. Again, these methods are summarized in Chapter 8 of the textbook just mentioned. Specific techniques had of course to be developed for the investigation of precognition, psychokinesis, and other distinct effects to be measured. There were also new telepathy tests to meet difficulties raised when precognition was introduced into the picture. For some of these more complicated methods the original articles in The Journal of Parapsychology should be consulted.

      One main advance has been the introduction of test design to make it impossible for one of two experimenters to make a mistake without its being caught by the other. The two-experimenter test procedure is, of course, only used when the more conclusive or crucial type of experiment is conducted. A large range of research needs to be carried out under relatively free exploratory test conditions, much as most of the research reported in this book was done. For a discussion of the two levels of methodology, see Chapter 2 of the book. Parapsychology, Frontier Science СКАЧАТЬ