This article by
Carlos Alvarado Ph.D. was originally published in the
Journal of
Parapsychology, Vol. 67, Fall 2003 (pp. 211-248).
It is presented here with the kind permission of the author,
Prof. Alvarado, and
John Palmer, Ph.D., editor of
Journal of Parapsychology.
A 12-part version of this
article is also available.
ABSTRACT
There are many aspects of being
a parapsychologist. The most satisfying are our contributions
to knowledge, which stand even in the face of controversy.
Other issues include types of individuals in parapsychology,
education and training, conceptual approaches, how we experience
working in parapsychology, reasons for being in the field
and legitimation strategies used by parapsychologists. While
some are in parapsychology because of the potential support
of non-materialistic aspects of personality, others believe
they may find conventional explanations still not recognized
by science. Parapsychologists harm their cause when they
make excessive claims about their research results, when
they do no publish in refereed journals and when they fail
to follow up specific lines of research. All of these issues
are a part of the identity and work of parapsychologists.
1. Introduction
Although there is an international community devoted to
the study of psi phenomena, there are few discussions about
aspects of parapsychology as a profession and about our
experiences as parapsychologists.[1] In what follows I would
like to offer some thoughts about some of these issues.
The address is not meant to be a systematic or exhaustive
discussion of the topic. Instead I present it as thoughts
designed to raise issues, many of which may not have a clear
cut answer. My comments will focus on such topics as the
accomplishments of our profession, the variety of parapsychologists,
education and training, how it feels to be in the field,
why we are in the field, approaches and strategies of parapsychologists,
and problematic behaviors of parapsychologists.
[1] For some exceptions see
McClenon (1982), McConnell and Clark (1980), Milton (1995),
J. B. Rhine (1944), Schmeidler (1971), and Smith (1999).
Go to References.
2. The Parapsychological
Community and their Accomplishments
I would like to start with a
positive message. Our efforts as parapsychologists have
contributed to knowledge in significant ways. I argue that
we can be proud of the following:
First: The findings
of parapsychology serve as a reminder that there is much
more to learn about human functioning than the behavioral
sciences suggest. Over a hundred years ago
Frederic W. H. Myers
(1900) stated that the duty of psychical researchers was "the
expansion of science herself" (p. 123). Much of our
work suggests that the communication with the environment
we refer to as ESP and PK requires at least an extension
of current physics and psychology. In other words, there
is more to human capabilities than official science teaches.
Parapsychological research serves as a reminder of other
possibilities, of challenges we only hope science at large
will take on. Certainly official science has not accepted
that we have established the reality of phenomena that require
an expansion of physical and psychological principles. Nonetheless,
I agree with
Emily Kelly (2001)
when she states: "If psychical research does nothing
more than continually shake complacent assumptions about
fundamental questions concerning mind, consciousness, volition,
that alone is a significant contribution to science"
(p. 86).
Second: In addition to extending the reach
of human abilities, parapsychology has documented the frequency
and complexity of the features of the phenomena it studies
and has thus contributed to the overall knowledge of experiences
studied by psychology and psychiatry. Our studies show that
claims of psychic experiences are more common than previously
realized. In addition these studies document the variety
of human experience and thus expand the views of their range
derived from the behavioral sciences. This includes such "new"
experiences as waking and dream ESP, apparitions of the
dead, deathbed visions, poltergeists, out-of-body experiences
(OBEs), and near-death experiences (NDEs). When one gets
into the study of the features of the experiences, the forms
ESP takes, the complex patterns of features found in apparitions
and in OBEs and NDEs, one realizes our field has contributed
much to the cataloging and mapping of a variety of experiences
and states of consciousness (Alvarado,
1996a; Irwin, 1994). Some of this work, including Sybo
Schouten's (1979) analyses of ESP experiences and my own
work with OBEs (Alvarado &
Zingrone,
1998-99), shows the further complexity of the experiences
by documenting the interaction of its features with other
features and with external variables.
This view of
complexity is further enhanced when we pay attention to
our past history and study the investigations conducted
around mental mediums. The detailed studies that
Théodore Flournoy
(1900) conducted with medium
Hélène Smith and
Eleanor
Sidgwick's (1915) analyses of work conducted with medium
Leonora Piper have
taught us much about psychological personation, stages and
features of trances, and the imagery involved in the mentation.
Third: Parapsychology has contributed to the development
of ideas in psychology. Some historians of psychology, such
as Régine Plas (2000), have argued that interest and research
in psychic phenomena were an important element in the development
of psychology. In fact, Plas argues that interest in the
subconscious mind in France was intimately related to interest
in telepathy and the like, as seen in the work of Pierre
Janet and Charles
Richet, among others. The early work of members of the
Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in England contributed
much to the development of ideas of the subconscious mind
as well as to the study of dissociation. This was particularly
true of the work of
Edmund Gurney
and Frederic W. H.
Myers (Alvarado,
2002a).
Furthermore, parapsychology has contributed
much to the development of ideas about the mind, particularly
those which treat the mind-body problem and ideas of the
non-physical. Examples of this are the ideas Myers (1903)
stated in his hundred-year-old classic Human Personality
and Its Survival of Bodily Death as well as the later
speculations made by such figures as
William McDougall
(1911) J. B. Rhine
(1947), Robert
Thouless and B. P. Wiesner (1947),
Charles Tart (1979),
and John Beloff
(1990).
There is also a beginning of studies of the
transformative effects of parapsychological experiences,
a topic parapsychologists have been reticent to study. But
we have made contributions to the study of personal transformations
related to psychic experience, as seen in the work of
Palmer (1979), Kennedy and Kanthamani (1995),
and in my own work with OBEs (Alvarado & Zingrone,
2003), all of which have been published in parapsychological
journals.
In recent times most of the studies on
the relationship of out-of-body experiences to psychological
processes or experiences such as dissociation (Irwin,
2000) and dreams (Alvarado & Zingrone, 1999), as
well as studies of the features of the experience (Alvarado &
Zingrone,
1998-99, 1999), have been published in parapsychology
journals. There is no doubt that, as I have argued elsewhere,
most of the contributions to our understanding of the psychology
of OBEs have come from parapsychologists (Alvarado, 1992).
In fact OBE work represents one of our most recent contributions
to psychology and to the more specific area of altered states
of consciousness. This is evident in Imants Baruss's (2003)
recently published book Alterations of Consciousness.
In fact, in this book, published by the American Psychological
Association, the contributions of parapsychologists to the
study of consciousness are presented in more detail than
I have ever seen before in psychological publications.
Fourth: The results of parapsychological research have
helped to combat superstition and to evaluate popular claims.
There are many ideas and traditions about psychic phenomena
that have been regarded as superstitions. One of them is
the relationship between death and psychic phenomena, a
relationship supported in the case of apparitions in such
early studies as the Census of Hallucinations (e.g., Sidgwick
et al., 1894). In addition, these associations have been
reinforced, although by work that admittedly suffered from
sampling problems. This includes case collections studies
of death-related phenomena by
Ernesto Bozzano
(1923)
and Camille Flammarion
(1920-1921/1922-1923), and more recent work by Graziela
Piccinini and Gian Marco Rinaldi (1990) and Sylvia Hart
Wright (2001).
The claim that mediums can communicate
with the dead has not been substantiated, but a variety
of studies from the nineteenth century to our own time have
produced evidence for the acquisition of veridical statements
by mediums (for an overview see Gauld, 1982). In other instances,
such as the investigations of the levitation claims of practitioners
of Transcendental Meditation, there has been no supportive
evidence to back the claims in question (Mishlove, 1983).
The evaluation of Transcendental Meditation claims brings
us to the testing of psychic development claims. Two studies
done in the 1970s did not support the claims of followers
of Silva Mind Control (Brier, Schmeidler, & Savits,
1975; Vaughan, 1974). This is an important line of research
in which parapsychologists may contribute useful information
to consumers of development programs.
In addition,
many of the early discussions in which automatic writing
was seen as the production of the subconscious mind were
published in psychical research journals by
Frederic W. H. Myers
(1884) and William
James (1889). This contributed to the idea that not
everything that appears to come from discarnate spirits
is necessarily so. Our contributions to demystify all kind
of claims are particularly important in terms of public
education.
Fifth: Our researchers have used and pioneered
statistical techniques to study phenomena. Philosopher and
skeptic Ian Hacking (1988) has argued that early use of
randomization and probability calculations took place in
the context of nineteenth-century studies of telepathy.
A particularly influential paper was that published by
Charles Richet
(1884) in the Revue Philosophique which inaugurated
the use of probability theory in psychical research at a
time when psychologists were using statistical methods only
infrequently. Following this, British researchers continued
the use of statistical calculations in such classic works
dealing with spontaneous experiences as Phantasms of
the Living (Gurney, Myers, & Podmore, 1886) and
the Census of Hallucinations (Sidgwick, et al., 1894), not
to mention experimental work. Later parapsychologists, from
H. F. Saltmarsh and
S. G. Soal (1930), J. Gaither Pratt (1936), and Charles
Stuart (1942), and later contributions (summarized by Burdick
and Kelly, 1977), developed methods by which to evaluate
experimental free-response material quantitatively. It may
be argued that the best of our current techniques may be
adapted to aspects of the study of subliminal perception,
unconscious learning, and dream and waking imagery.
Sixth: Parapsychology has also contributed to the study
of fraud and self-deception. Instructive cases have been
reported since the nineteenth century. This includes a mediumship
case with no apparent motivation of fraud reported by
Henry Sidgwick
(1894) and the efforts taken by several members of a community
to convince one individual of poltergeist manifestations
discussed by
Hereward Carrington (n.d., pp. 2-19). More recently
we could mention the writings of Ejvegaard and Johnson (1981)
on an apparition case, Delanoy (1987) on metal bending,
and Stevenson and colleagues (Stevenson, Pasricha &
Samararatne, 1988) on cases of the reincarnation-type.
It is important to recognize that the above-mentioned
contributions have been made under extremely difficult conditions.
Individuals coming from other disciplines such as medicine,
physics, psychology, or biology are often unaware of how
easy they have it in their fields, enjoying all kinds of
resources supportive of their work. Regardless of the usual
problems with resources everywhere, I do not think anyone
tan dispute that, in a large measure, they enjoy much higher
levels of funding than we do. Furthermore, except in small
or developing research specialties, mainstream scientists
have never faced the serious personnel problems we face
in parapsychology. We have never had enough people working
in the field, especially full-time workers.
3. Personnel in Parapsychology
In his Presidential Address
to the Society for Psychical Research in 1900,
Frederic W. H. Myers
noted that the early work of the Society had only a "small
company of labourers" that was not enough to accomplish
the necessary work (Myers, 1900, p. 123). In 1955 J. Fraser
Nicol said that there were less than ten full-time parapsychologists
(Nicol, 1955). In the mid 1970s Lawrence LeShan (1976) estimated
that there were less than 30 full-time workers in the field.
More recently, Matthew Smith (1999)
argued that the number of full-time parapsychologists in
the field was less than the number of people employed in
a medium-sized McDonald's fast food restaurant.
Historically
speaking, the field of parapsychology has always depended
on small groups of individuals. During the early years of
the SPR most of the research work was conducted by
Edmund Gurney
and Frederic W. H.
Myers, as well as by
Eleanor
Sidgwick and
William Barrett. The magnitude and range of this early
work was remarkable, as was its depth and quality. One only
has to examine the two major nineteenth century works of
the Society (Gurney, Myers & Podmore, 1886; Sidgwick
et al., 1894) to realize how much attention was given by
a small group of psychical researchers to studies that helped
to shape the course of parapsychology.
The dependence
of parapsychology on the work of a few individuals can be
documented in other countries and organizations. In the
United States there was a period when
James H. Hyslop
ran the American Society for Psychical Research. An analysis
I conducted of authors of the journal of the society for
the 1907-1920 period when Hyslop was active showed that
out of 331 articles, 220 (67%) were authored by Hyslop.
Similarly, in 1926 French researcher
Eugène Osty mentioned
that he was the only researcher at the Institut Métapsychique
International at Paris, and he was only joined occasionally
by other collaborators (Osty, 1926, p. 23).
Similarly,
another small group at Duke University constructed a new
parapsychology by carrying on an experimental research program
of unprecedented magnitude. Like the SPR, the work conducted
at J. B. Rhine's
Parapsychology Laboratory centered around a small group:
Betty Humphrey, J. G. Pratt, J. B. Rhine,
L. E. Rhine
(on occasion), and Charles Stuart (Mauskopf & McVaugh,
1980). Their work focused on methodological and psychological
issues and paved the way for the development of modern experimental
parapsychology.
Current research units and organizations
around the world work with very small staffs. Examples include
the Rhine Research Center, the Division of Personality Studies,
and the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory
in the United States, the Koestler Parapsychology Unit in
Scotland, Inter Psi and the Centro Integrado de Parapsicologia
Experimental in Brazil, and the Instituto de Psicología
Paranormal in Argentina. Many modern examples of the relatively
important influence of a few individuals on the course of
our field may also be cited. There is no question, for example,
that the systematic work of Gertrude Schmeidler on beliefs
in ESP and ESP scoring (Schmeidler & McConnell, 1958),
of
Ian Stevenson (1974a) with reincarnation cases, of
William Roll (1972) with poltergeist cases, and of
Charles Honorton with experimental explorations (e.g.,
Honorton,
1997) and with discipline-building literature reviews
of ESP and altered states of consciousness (e.g., Honorton,
1977), did much to develop the field and to build research
specialties in modern times. This reliance on a few individuals
encourages creativity from a few gifted researchers, but
it also brings us problems. Whole lines of work may surfer
greatly or even disappear with the death or retirement of
a single individual. Such reliance on a few workers deprives
us of the work force and community that more established
disciplines have. This community is essential to produce
basic research, to replicate research, to refine our techniques
and instruments, and to provide the general correctives
that other disciplines have but that are underdeveloped
in ours.
Most of the parapsychologists who are PA
members and who present papers at PA conventions are not
full-time workers in the field. In a paper Tart presented
in 1967 in which he surveyed PA members he found they spent
only 10% of their time in parapsychology (Parapsychology
in 1967, 1969, p. 7). More recently,
Blackmore (1989) reported an average percent working
time in parapsychology of 49%, out of a small sample of
18 parapsychologists. It seems that most of us only devote
a fraction of our working time to parapsychology. This is
not surprising considering the following well known facts.
First, we have almost no institutions that can afford to
employ someone full-time. Second, there are very few opportunities
for financial support in parapsychological research. Third,
those employed in academia are usually expected to do more
than parapsychology, such as teaching other subject matters.
Fourth, in many circles association with parapsychology
is a social and an intellectual stigma. As we all know,
the consequences of such a small work force are serious,
and only a handful of research projects are conducted every
year, something that hinders our progress. I believe that,
under such conditions, we deserve to feel especially proud
of what we have accomplished.
4. The Variety of Members
in the Parapsychological Community
There are other interesting
aspects of the profession besides its low numbers of members.
In what follows I focus on
PA
parapsychologists, but we should keep in mind that there
are many individuals that are involved in parapsychological
research that do not belong to our Association.
We
may refer to some individuals in our community as public
workers; that is, they dare to publicly defend the field
or identify themselves with research. In comparison, there
are those individuals who, while helpful privately on occasion,
are not willing to take a stand in public due to such consequences
as losing prestige, jobs, and funding. One wonders what
would be the effect of having those silent allies speak
up and more actively defend the field. Support from formerly
silent groups has traditionally been valuable in fights
for social causes and it should not be an exception here.
If at least they were willing to argue for the importance
of further research I believe they would make a difference
and would provide a significant help to those of us who
have dared (sometimes paying the price) to identify ourselves
with parapsychology. While we can understand the reasons
for a lack of public involvement, there is certainly little
to admire in such individuals, considering the courage and
sacrifices continuously shown by many more public parapsychologists.[2]
[2] In my experience this lack
of involvement sometimes is accompanied by a tendency to
offer liberal advice and criticism in private.
We may also talk about those few whose main intellectual
identity is in parapsychology and those whose identity lies
in other fields.[3] The former includes such figures as
past PA presidents
John Palmer and
Richard Broughton and the latter such individuals as
Daryl
Bem and Etzel Cardena. As I see it, both types of workers
are important to keep the field going. Research is not necessarily
better because it comes from one group or the other. Important
contributions may come from either group. Still, we need
to recognize the strength of each group. To maintain a professional
field we need the first group. These are the individuals
who present research yearly at PA conventions, a smaller
number of whom make the administration of the PA possible
and who edit the journals of the field. The second group
I refer to is usually in a good position to help us reach
the wider scientific world because of their political connections
and prestige. This was evident in the publication of the
initial Bem and Honorton (1994)
ganzfeld paper in the Psychological Bulletin and
in the recent book Varieties of Anomalous Experience
published by the American Psychological Association and
edited by Cardena and others (Cardena, Lynn & Krippner,
2000).
[3] There is, of course, another
group of individuals that have mixed identities. Half of
their time they are psychologists, psychiatrists, physicists,
or other professions, and the other half they are parapsychologists.
Another interesting and sometimes discussed distinction
is made between professionally trained and amateur workers.
J. B. Rhine (1953a)
drew that distinction and argued for the importance of amateurs.
Certainly we have to be careful to avoid the arrogant position
that claims only those persons with specific formal university
training can contribute to parapsychology. I would prefer
the sagacity, talent and experience of some field investigators
who research hauntings and mediumship claims (e.g., Cornell,
2001) over the opinion of many other workers who hold
graduate degrees from universities but have no experience
in the field. Having specific training and degrees are no
guarantee of common sense or creativity, particularly in
such a difficult discipline as our own. At the same time,
we also need to use the best techniques and approaches of
science in order to understand better our phenomena. In
today's modern world it is difficult to make sense of something
like ESP or PK without drawing on the accumulated knowledge
of the sciences and their research techniques, efforts which
require formal training. Sometimes this creates problems
when some individuals argue that research is too technical,
full of methods, techniques, and terms that are not understood
by the uninitiated. Part of the problem here may be that,
as Emilio Servadio (1966) once said, parapsychology attracts
people who do not have scientific training and who may not
care about the requirements of science. Servadio complained
about amateurs performing "experiments" that in
reality "have as much in common with science as a child's
scrawl with an architect's carefully studied blueprint"
(p. 68). Sometimes these issues arise in the context of
understanding the importance of conducting research that
teaches us something about a phenomenon as opposed to research
done only to document dramatic performances or the mere
existence of a phenomenon (Alvarado,
1996d). In any case, amateurs may still exist in our
field more than they do in other such fields such as psychology
and physics because these other fields have had the acceptance
of society and, consequently, the possibility and the means
of becoming a professional discipline. The lack of professsionalization
in parapsychology sets us apart from those other disciplines.
This leads us to the topic of the next section, the problem
of education and training.
5. Education and Training
in Parapsychology
As we all know the profession
of parapsychology is not regulated. There are no certification
programs or organizations, nor any way to control the use
of the term parapsychologist. In many phone books,
and on the Internet, the term parapsychologist is
used as a synonym for psychic. In some places, such
as Brazil, there have been attempts to define the profession
legally, but without success (Hiraoka, 2002).
Most
parapsychologists come to the field from other areas of
science or of academia. As is well known, most people in
the field do not have an educational background in parapsychology
in the same way that members of other disciplines have in
their own fields.
McConnell and Clark (1980) reported in their survey
of PA members that only five out of 203 respondents claimed
doctoral training in parapsychology as their main area of
training. The situation is better now due to
Robert Morris's efforts at the University of Edinburgh,
as well as to the efforts of
Deborah Delanoy and others at universities in the UK
(Smith,
1999). But most researchers in the field today have
not been trained in parapsychology and basically conduct
research based on their training in psychology, psychiatry,
physics, and other disciplines, as well as on their own
private study of the parapsychological literature. This
is all good in terms of techniques and general scientific
philosophy. Formal training in research from another field
can certainly be applied to parapsychology, as many of us
know from personal experience. In fact, this is essential
for progress. In addition, it is not uncommon for some scientists
to shift research areas, for which they self-train themselves
by gaining knowledge of the relevant literature and methodology
through personal study.
While I do not doubt training
from other disciplines applies well to parapsychology, I
worry about the lack of a parapsychological education in
some of the workers in the field. I am using the word education
here as a wider construct than training to include an overarching
perspective that is formed out of a sense of identity, and
of general knowledge of the field. It is unfortunate to
note that some individuals active in our field are so highly
specialized that they barely know anything outside of their
own narrow specialty area. This produces serious problems.
For example, there are some experimental ESP researchers
and researchers in areas related to the concept of survival
of bodily death that have little or no idea what goes on
in the rest of parapsychological research. However, both
sides could learn from each other about the complexity of
psychic phenomena. Views about the nature of ESP that come
from experimental studies and nothing else provide only
part of the picture (Alvarado,
1996c). As seen in such studies as
Steve Braude's
(2003)
recently published analysis of survival evidence, psi functioning
in survival contexts is certainly different in the way it
manifests in the laboratory and shows different levels of
complexity, at least in terms of the forms of the manifestations.
While this work may expand the views of experimentalists,
experimental work is also important to the evaluation of
survival evidence. This work tells us something about the
capabilities of the living that will help us evaluate survival
evidence. Unfortunately, some people interested in survival
are not aware of this work.
Do we have a general
view of the variety and origins of theoretical concepts?
What relevant work was conducted on our subject by the previous
generation? As I documented 21 years ago in a paper published
in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research
(Alvarado,
1982), there are many examples of publications in our
field that show lack of familiarity with the history of
our methods, and with previous findings and concepts. This
is why I have devoted part of my career in parapsychology
to reminding others of the richness of the literature of
the past, be this in terms of specific phenomena or issues
(e.g., Alvarado,
1989a), of more general considerations of social aspects
(e.g., Alvarado,
1989c), or of the importance of particular concepts
or agents of change (e.g., Alvarado,
2003). It has been disappointing to me that younger
workers in the field still have to be reminded of the existence
and careers of recently deceased parapsychologists, or that
these younger workers still have to be told that some of
their interests have been discussed before in great detail
by those that preceded them. Unfortunately, this lack of
perspective is not limited to the youngest workers of the
field. Some experienced researchers also show this tendency
to myopia, nor is this a historical situation uncommon in
other scientific fields. Still, one would expect that anyone
who considered themselves a practicing parapsychologist
would want to have a general knowledge, if not a detailed
one, of the history of one's own specialty and of areas
of the field outside of it. The lack of familiarity with
our shared past has practical implications in that much
of what has gone before would help current researchers to
generate hypotheses, and to refine theoretical models and
evaluate the work of others (see Alvarado,
1982).
This criticism should not be taken to
imply that everyone should be a scholar in the past literature
of parapsychology, nor that this will solve out current
problems. As I argued in the twenty-one-year-old paper cited
above, I do not consider the study of our past literature
to be a substitute for contemporary research. The issue
instead is one of context; current work should be carried
out by those who are well-informed about the relevant past
developments of the field.
But more than this is
included in the meaning of the word education. Being educated
not only means knowing how best to collect and analyze data,
nor having simple knowledge of antecedents in the literature.
Instead, being educated means being aware of continuities
and discontinuities in the development of parapsychological
ideas and having a familiarity with philosophical, psychological,
and general existential issues of the field. In other words,
being educated means having a commitment or at least an
understanding to the collective identity of parapsychology
as a field, even to the point of acknowledging the well-known
difficulties to the achievement of consensus on many substantive
issues.
There is a parapsychological culture and
identity that you find in some workers in the field but
not in others. It is a quality that allows us to go beyond
our research specialty, beyond the technical aspects of
our research to the wider picture of our professional identity,
and, of course, to the implications of our work. Having
this sense of the field is an identity that stands in stark
contrast to the identity of those who see the field just
as a technical specialty for data crunching, or a mere intellectual
curiosity.
The lack of this deeper sense of what
the profession is comes, to some extent, from the contemporary
tendency of specialization or overspecialization in our
professions. But also it comes from the lack of organized
educational programs that provide systematic exposure to
different aspects of the field. In terms of professionalization
parapsychologists are hybrids; we are a community formed
from a combination of self-teaching and extrapolation from
the training programs of other disciplines. In spite of
recent educational developments and past discussions of
education in the field (Shapin & Coly, 1976; Smith,
1999), the fact is that there are not many educational programs
where a student can be exposed to a wide range of parapsychological
literature. By this I mean systematic exposure to the range
of phenomena of the field, to their classifications and
terminology, to the classic and the contemporary literature,
to the various methods and techniques used in the field
now and in the past, to the historical development of the
discipline, and to the wide range of theoretical models
presented so far. It is unfortunate that at the moment no
single educational and training program in existence can
achieve this goal.[4]
[4] Of course, the lack of educational
programs depends to a great extent on the lack of a numerous
and well organized parapsychological profession.
We must also be aware that training and education in
parapsychology are particularly problematic in those geographical
regions or countries where parapsychology is even more underdeveloped
than it is in the States and parts of Europe. In previous
writings I have discussed several problems Latin American
parapsychologists face (e.g., Alvarado,
1996b, 2002b). One of these is the lack of general training
in scientific research. Some of those engaged in research
do not have training in data collection and analysis, a
situation that is rapidly changing in such countries as
Argentina and Brazil. Consequently, compared to the United
States and parts of Europe little scientific research gets
done in Latin America. Instead, most parapsychological work
is limited to discussions from the old literature, to literature
reviews, and to conceptual and theoretical discussions.
To further complicate matters many of these parapsychologists
have difficulties reading English. Because most current
research in parapsychology is published in English, this
creates additional serious difficulties in training and
educating Latin American parapsychologists.[5]
[5] On the wider issue of the
language barrier in parapsychology see Alvarado (1989b).
6. How Does it Feel to be
a Parapsychologist?
If you can identify with the
language barrier faced by Latin American parapsychologists
you will have an idea of the frustrations some members of
that community feel as they attempt to stay current with
the literature of the field. But there are many other aspects
to our experiences as parapsychologists.
Many of
us, myself included, feel that we are working in an area
full of great potential. In fact, some may even feel that
they are pioneers because they are exploring areas that
have great implications for humankind. While S. David Kahn
(1976, p. 213) has suggested that with better replication
rates parapsychologists will lose the romance of being lonely
workers in an unrecognized field, I believe that most of
us will not miss his so-called romance. One of the worst
aspects of being a parapsychologist is, in fact, working
in a field where one gets little respect from science and
society at large. Let me illustrate with some personal experiences.
Soon after I returned to Puerto Rico in 1997 after having
acquired a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Edinburgh
for work on a parapsychological topic, a member of my family
handed me a newspaper clipping about local "parapsychologists"
who had recently been convicted and sent to jail. The clipping
in question described how some charlatans had obtained money
from some people under the promise of helping them to use
some occult procedures (Cordero, 1997). How would you feel
when you find the profession described in such a way in
the press? I felt that I had come home to be identified
with charlatans.
In Great Britain, obtaining a Ph.D.
in psychology with Robert Morris nets you a conventional
academic job in psychology with the prospects of a conventional
career unfolding before you. In Puerto Rico my degree branded
me as a parapsychologist with little to offer to psychology.
I sent my CV to a university well-known for their federally
funded science programs through a family friend who had
contacts at the university only to have the CV returned
almost immediately. From the comments of the family friend,
it was obvious that the university wanted nothing to do
with a parapsychologist. In another institution I was able
to teach a graduate level parapsychology course a few times
but it was eventually canceled for lack of students because
someone in the registrar's office who found parapsychology
distasteful had told the students that the course had been
closed when it was still open. While others in the field
have had much worse experiences than mine (see Hess,
1992), the ones I had made my life difficult, especially
financially. Even more, such rejections made me feel marginal
in society, and I found myself needing to bolster my spirits
by reminding myself of my belief in the importance of parapsychology.
Another problem we sometimes encounter as parapsychologists
is that some individuals we have contact with want to tell
us about our subject matter. As
Charles Richet
(n.d./ca 1928) said in the 1920s, when dealing with psychical
research "everybody regards himself as qualified to
utter negative or affirmative opinions which have no more
value than if, without being a chemist, one were to speak
to a chemist of the derivations of pyridine, or to a physicist,
of the waves of radium, or to an astronomer, of the heat
of the stars" (p. 28).
You may encounter issues
of this sort especially if, as a parapsychologist, you have
contact with the public, many of whom do not like the way
in which we study psychic phenomena. Common objections to
us are the overuse of statistical analyses and the lack
of studies with special subjects. Some of those who come
from spiritism, to give a particular example in my experience,
are adamant that we need to go back to the phenomena of
mediumship as well as to the ideas of
Allan Kardec,
Gustave Geley,
and others. When we take a look at the other pole, that
is, at the critics, we find all kind of skeptical attitudes
equally critical of out work, but in different ways, with
emphases on methodological flaws and logical inconsistencies.
The end result is that we feel that we are stuck in the
middle of a battlefield, being attacked on all sides, from
New Agers and spiritists, from well-meaning members of the
general public, from an increasingly hostile mainstream
scientific community, and from organized skepticism. We
are in a situation that is far from being pleasant or comfortable,
particularly when it is realized that, with very few exceptions,
we are the only group that takes an empirical approach to
the problem by conducting research.[6]
[6] I am aware that the members
of the other communities also claim similar problems and
disadvantages (Hess, 1993).
Perhaps the worst parts of being a parapsychologist
are the accusations of fraud. The classic case in modern
times is that of George R. Price (1955), who accused parapsychologists
of fraud in the pages of Science. We still find accusations
of fraud directed at researchers who have particularly good
results in the laboratory but more recently such accusations
are not published where they can be refuted. They are merely
disseminated through gossip, through correspondence, or
in on-line chat rooms. These accusations are particularly
distressing because they often question someone's integrity
without any evidence. Such accusations are irresponsible
and libelous. But the problem is that once the rumor is
out reputations are damaged beyond repair, particularly
outside the field. Price (1972) publicly recanted over 20
years later. But who remembers that? The damage had been
done.
Parapsychologists have cited frequently
Henry Sidgwick's
(1882) statement: "We have done all we can when the
critic has nothing left to allege except that the investigator
is in the trick" (p. 12). But wearing this as a badge
of honor does not nullify the negative effects such views
can have on our profession. In fact, incidents of this sort
are demoralizing because they remind us how vulnerable we
are to the tactics of irresponsible and unethical critics.
7. Why are we in Parapsychology?
In the face of all these unpleasant
experiences one may ask why some of us stay in parapsychology.
Obviously many of us must obtain something from the field
or have specific motivations if we stay in it though faced
with so many difficulties. In a recent paper James Carpenter
(2002)
listed three reasons: to explain unexplained phenomena,
to eventually make practical use of the phenomena, and to
learn more about human nature. In an international survey
published in Spain by Francisco Gavilan Fontanet (1978),
the proportion of the most frequently endorsed reasons given
for interest in parapsychology were: 31% to explain phenomena
through the use of the scientific method, 24% to answer
questions about the nature of man, and the meaning of life,
death and the beyond, and 23% personal experiences or the
experiences of others.
For some, involvement in the
field is certainly a scholarly pursuit of the first magnitude
due to its great intellectual challenge. Perhaps this is
why such philosophers as
C. D. Broad (1962)
have been concerned with the field. Several writers have
stated that the intellectual and methodological difficulties
of parapsychology make the field particularly challenging,
especially as regards critical thinking.
F. C. S. Schiller
(1927) argued that for anyone "who wished to apprehend
the real method of science and to appreciate its real difficulties,
there is no better training ground than Psychical Research"
(p. 218). J. B. Rhine
(n.d., p. 3) commented on the value of parapsychology as
a discipline in which to learn to evaluate new claims and
criticisms, a context that provides an excellent opportunity
to develop a scientific mind. Similarly, years later
John Beloff referred
to the educational value of parapsychology in this way:
It teaches us ... how difficult
it is to arrive at any definitive conclusions about
it. It raises for us, in its most acute form, the eternal
question: 'What can I believe?' ... At one instant it
will open up for us exciting vistas of new worlds to
be conquered; at the next, it will cause them to vanish
again in a haze of doubts. It forces us to reckon with
the almost bottomless duplicity of our fellow creatures,
and yet it forbids us to take refuge in any easy cynicism
no matter how fantastic the case under consideration.
In a word, it plays tug-of-war with us so that we can
enjoy neither the peace of mind of the committed believer
nor the complacency of the skeptic (Beloff, 1990, p.
55).
However, there are other reasons.
For me it is a question of reminding myself, and others,
of the potential of humankind. It is greatly satisfying
to participate in research as well as to teach students
about what may be the most exciting possibilities of the
human mind. It does not matter if we are talking about ESP
scores in the lab or reports of spontaneous cases. Regardless
of the final explanation we will be learning something about
the abilities of the mind to process information in what
now seem to us to be unconventional ways. This will certainly
extend our current knowledge. Furthermore, I see parapsychology
as part of the emerging field of positive psychology, a
psychology devoted to growth and strengths, to positive
abilities. Unfortunately, however, like other related areas
of psychology, those who identify with positive psychology
do not acknowledge the contributions of parapsychology (e.g.,
Aspinwall & Staudinger, 2003).
Probably one of
the most frequent motivations to be in parapsychology is
the search for different forms of transcendence of physical
limitations. The question here, and one for which such critics
as James Alcock (1987) take us to task, is the use of parapsychology
to demonstrate or to suggest that human beings have a component
beyond our material constitution. There is no question that
this has been a driving force in parapsychology. In his
seventeenth-century work Saducismus Triumphatus Joseph
Glanvil (1682) saw poltergeists, apparitions, and other
phenomena as evidence of a spiritual world. In his Human
Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death,
Myers (1903, Vol. 2, p. 257) concluded that psychic
phenomena "prove that between the spiritual and the
material worlds an avenue of communication does in fact
exist." Others such as
William McDougall
(1911), J. B. Rhine
(1947), Joseph Gaither Pratt (1964),
Charles T. Tart (1979),
John Beloff (1990),
and
Ian Stevenson (1981) have emphasized how ESP and other
phenomena are indicative of the existence of the mind independent
of the body. In J. B. Rhine's words: "The psi researches
show the natural human mind can escape physical boundaries
under certain conditions ... Accordingly a distinct difference
between mind and matter, a relative dualism, has been demonstrated
by the psi experiments ..." (J. B. Rhine, 1947, p.
205). More recently, Charles Tart (2002) argued for the
importance of the spiritual implications of parapsychology.
However, not everyone is in parapsychology to provide
support for dualism or spirituality. Some have had a physicalistic
outlook that does not emphasize the mind, the spirit, or
any form of transcendence. Italian Ferdinando Cazzamalli
(1954) was highly critical of Rhine's emphasis on nonphysicality,
preferring to follow the old psychic force model prevalent
in the spiritualistic and some of the psychical research
literatures. Such Soviet scientists as Dubrov and Pushkin
(1982)
also upheld physicalistic assumptions. Others, like Dick
Bierman (1996),
have been critical of dualism, assuming that physics will
eventually explain psi. For Irvin Child (1976), the fact
that parapsychology shows the independence of the mind from
the body was not proved. In his words: "We may eventually
arrive at an understanding of paranormal phenomena that
is just as dependent on physics and chemistry as our understanding
of color perception" (p. 117).
8. Approaches to Parapsychology
Our reasons for being in parapsychology
may also inform our approaches to the field. Those interested
in showing the existence of aspects which transcend the
physical existence of human beings may conduct a type of
parapsychological research designed to support those ideas.
The studies of Alan Gauld (1968) and Silvio Ravaldini (1983)
on the life and work of
Frederic Myers
and Ernesto Bozzano,
respectively, offer us insights on the methods they followed
to explore their passion for the survival issue. Both researchers
conducted extensive bibliographical studies that attempted
to combine different types and gradations of cases in away
that would favor the survival perspective. In addition,
Bozzano's (n.d.) desire to prove survival led him to develop
his concept of psychic rapport which separated telepathy
from spirit communication through mediums. In his view,
telepathy worked only when there was some type of link between
persons, such as an emotional link or an object in common.
In mediumistic communications it was not unusual to find
veridical cases with no links between the medium and living
persons. In these cases, Bozzano argued, telepathy would
not work and the case indicated discarnate agency. More
recently, others have proposed other demarcation criteria
between ESP from the living and survival-related influences
(Schwartz, Russek, Nelson, & Barenstsen,
2001; Stevenson, 1974b). Regardless of the validity
of these ideas, the point here is how different conceptual
approaches in survival have guided work in the field.
J. B. Rhine's
work is a reminder of the use of parapsychology for particular
purposes. Anyone who has read J. B. Rhine's New World
of the Mind (1953b) will remember that Rhine did not
limit his work to a defense of a nonphysical conception
of the human mind from the results of experimental psi research.
He also attempted to extend the implications of his card
and dice tests to religion, philosophy, and more practical
issues such as an ethic of behavior and a rejection of communism.
Another more extreme example is the Catholicism-based
parapsychology developed by Oscar González Quevedo, a Spanish
parapsychologist and Jesuit priest living in Brazil. He
argues that parapsychology allows us to arrive at particular
demarcation criteria between the supernatural and the parapsychological
(González Quevedo, 1996; see also Omez, 1956/1958). I believe
most of us would agree that the concept of the supernatural
(or the direct influence of God on the world) is a problematic
one, especially in terms of the constant expansion of science.
Furthermore, González Quevedo has argued that phenomena
such as ESP are properties of the soul. Granted this, the
powers cannot be manifested consistently through the human
body because the body had lost the property (or state of
grace) for channeling them ([González] Quevedo, 1969/1971,
Chapter 36; see also Wiesinger,
1948/1957). Religious reasoning explains in part why
this author postulates we should not induce nor develop
psychic phenomena. Followers of this system do not conduct
empirical studies, depending instead on analyses of published
material. I have also been informed by one of our Brazilian
PA members (Wellington Zangari) that members of González
Quevedo's parapsychology group are not allowed to question
his theoretical explanations and that only members of his
inner sanctum are allowed to use his library, which is reputed
to be rich in historical materials. So the religious influence
(or mentality) extends beyond the conceptual into the structure
of his organization and the social roles allowed to his
followers. Fortunately for the future of parapsychology
in Brazil, this archaic form of the field is rapidly declining.
The last ten years have seen the rise of a new breed of
scientific parapsychologists in Brazil, all PA members,
who are changing the field (Zangari & Machado,
2001). The most prominent members of this group include
Fatima Regina Machado, Fabio da Silva, and Wellington Zangari.
Another important conceptual issue which divides some
parapsychologists from others is the current dichotomy between
those who conduct work following unconventional or conventional
explanatory models (see
Palmer, 1986). For some the only real parapsychological
work is that which is conducted using procedures that emphasize
the interpretation of results as due to such new principles
as novel forms of communication. This explains why parapsychology
is defined in the glossary of the Journal of Parapsychology
as the study of "certain paranormal phenomena,"
and in turn paranormal is defined as a phenomenon
that "exceeds the limits of what is deemed physically
possible according to current scientific assumptions"
(Glossary,
2002, p. 427). Does this mean that to do parapsychology
or to be a parapsychologist one has to focus only on research
based on models or assumptions assumed to represent new
forms of communication or new principles of nature?
If we agree to this view we will be defending the idea
that it is proper to define a scientific field by a particular
model or at least by a specific overarching concept. But
this is unnecessarily narrow and limiting. Psychology, for
example, has always been formed by a variety of concepts
that have coexisted with other ideas and, on occasion, some
have simply been more dominant than others (Robinson,
1986). While some practitioners define psychology by
their preferred theoretical orientation it is clear that
the field is more than particular models favored by some
of us. For example, traditionally, hypnosis researchers
have been divided between those who claim that hypnosis
is an altered state or a form of dissociation and those
who define the phenomena as social roles (Lynn & Rhue,
1991). No one will say that one perspective is "real"
or "proper" hypnosis research over the other;
what we have here are different ways of explaining phenomena.
Psychology encompasses different views of the nature of
the mind, or of human behavior, and the important overarching
goal is to understand the subject matter through any conceptual
framework that is helpful as opposed to defining and limiting
the research enterprise to a single explanatory model.
In terms of parapsychology it would be more productive
if we defined the field as the study of some phenomena that
we do not understand but that may have a variety of explanations.
One can be a parapsychologist and conduct research without
assuming paranormality as previously defined. Parapsychologists
study a group of phenomena science still does not understand
by trying to learn more about the characteristics of the
phenomena and their relationships to other variables. This
work need not be limited to particular assumptions. The
task of parapsychology is to understand the phenomena whether
or not their final explanation is conventional or unconventional.
This wider perspective was evident in the initial goals
set by the SPR.
In the now classic Objects of
the Society (1882) it was stated that to be in psychical
research "does not imply the acceptance of any particular
explanation of the phenomena investigated, nor any belief
as to the operation in the physical world, of forces other
than those recognised by Physical Science" (p. 4).
There are different approaches one may take to try to explain
psi phenomena. All are valid and necessary as long as they
bring an understanding of the subject matter. This is why
defining a whole field of study only on the basis of the
paranormality of experiences (as previously defined) is
short-sighted and may prevent progress along different fronts.
While it is valid to prefer and to focus on testing specific
theoretical models or processes, the tasks of parapsychology
as a whole should be centered on understanding the phenomena
whatever their nature may be and not in solely validating
a single explanatory model. Our task as scientists is to
follow the data wherever it takes us. Science in general
has sometimes failed to do this when confronted with claims
such as those of ESP. Parapsychologists should not make
the same mistake in failing to follow alternative explanatory
processes just because they are not paranormal.
Having
said this, we also need to remember the importance of those
theoretical views and approaches that challenge our worldviews
and that seem unlikely to be explained by the usual sensory-motor
mechanisms; in other words, the paranormal as defined before.
It is precisely those ideas that may bring change and important
discoveries by challenging the established paradigms. I
am not arguing for the abandonment of such views, as long
as they are kept empirical. Neither am I proposing a parapsychology
based only on conventional explanations. What I propose
is avoiding a definition of the field solely as a paranormal
science, as above defined.
9. Legitimation Strategies
of Parapsychologists
It may be argued that the emphasis
on conventional hypotheses is a strategy some parapsychologists
have used to legitimize our field. Whether or not this is
true, it is important to be aware of the strategies parapsychologists
have used to establish their field, in addition to our understanding
of their research efforts, as McClenon (1982) has said.
In fact, legitimizing strategies are the internal means
that researchers use to render the field more acceptable
in the face of so much criticism. One of these devices relates
to the way our current research or concerns are depicted
in light of our past. Sometimes our current work is validated
by comparing it to previous work, even to the extent of
distorting the record. An example here is the way in which
J. B. Rhine and
Louisa E. Rhine
discussed the work they conducted while they were at Duke
University. In one of her papers L. E. Rhine (1967) argued
that it was only during the modern period that ESP was established
enough so as to be used as an alternative explanation for
mediumistic communications, something that could not be
done in the 1920s. But as I have argued in more detail elsewhere
(Alvarado,
2003), ESP explanations were certainly taken seriously
in the old days. Such a point of view was clearly not a
development coming only from the experimental work conducted
by the Rhines and their associates. Another example: both
J. B. and Louisa Rhine argued that the unconscious nature
of ESP only became evident because of experimental work
conducted during the 1940s (J. B. Rhine, 1977; L. E. Rhine,
1971). While it is true that this work may have supported
the idea, the concept that psi is an unconscious function
had been clearly articulated before the Duke work, as can
be seen in Myers's (1903) work. But the Rhines discussed
the idea as if it had been an original invention coming
out of their work, possibly to enhance the importance of
the developments related to the Duke work. The reinvention
of concepts and the rewriting of history have been important
in the construction of a modern identity for parapsychologists.
Another way psychical researchers have traditionally
tried to deal with their phenomena has been to draw analogies
to other processes of the physical world. The purpose here
has been to show that psychic functioning is part of the
natural world (on the use of metaphors see Williams &
Dutton,
1998). The concept of physical and biological radiations
has been applied throughout the history of mesmerism, Spiritualism,
and psychical research to explain ESP, PK, healing, materializations,
and other phenomena. In his recent history of telepathy
Luckhurst (2002, pp. 75-92) chronicled some of the early
attempts to present this phenomenon as a force of nature
similar to light, electricity and magnetism. Early exponents
of this movement included
William Barrett,
who speculated of telepathy's similarity to electrical induction
(1876), and William
Crookes, who drew an analogy with such radiations as
X rays (1897). Invocation of the analogies to radio (Warcollier,
1938) also served this function.
The use of value-free
terminology has been another method by which we have attempted
to legitimize our field (on terminology in general see Zingrone
and Alvarado,
1987). Call it anomalous cognition, delta-afferentation,
extrasensory perception, paranormal cognition,
or ultra perceptive faculty, the attempt here has
been to present a scientific sounding and sometimes theory-free
term. But terms have been used on purpose to emphasize particular
views as well. To refer to processes which transcend the
physical world while at the same time interact with it Myers
(1903) gave us such terms as metheterial, psychical
invasion, and psychorrhagy. Richet's (1922)
crypthesthesia, Sudre's (1926) prosopopesis
and Roll and Pratt's recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis
(Pratt & Roll, 1958) were designed to separate the conceptualization
of our phenomena from spiritual connotations. In the past
other terms have been proposed to separate the field from
the occult and from Spiritualism. This seems to have been
Charles Richet's
(1905) intention (at least in part) when he introduced the
term metapsychics to refer to psychical research.
Later on William
McDougall (1937) adopted and redefined the term parapsychology
from the German literature to differentiate the field from
psychical research with its traditional study of mediums
and spontaneous cases. He used parapsychology to refer to "the
more strictly experimental part of the whole field implied
by psychical research" (p. 7).
On other occasions
it seems that the use of new terms is believed to be of
help in the acceptance of our work because they separate
the writer, albeit temporarily and superficially, from the
parapsychological tradition. Possible examples of this are
such terms as remote viewing and anomalous cognition.
This attempt to disconnect the work from parapsychology
is sometimes seen in the use of neutral names for our organizations.
Some past and present examples of this strategy are:
Division of Personality Studies,
Laboratories for Fundamental
Research,
Mind Science
Foundation, Science Research Unlimited, and Psychophysical
Research Laboratories. On occasion, both in private and
in print (Honnegger,
1982, p. 22; Honorton, 1976, p. 218), there have been
suggestions to drop the "Parapsychological" out
of the name of the PA. There is no question that there may
be advantages to this strategy, an important one being facilitating
the acquisition of grant money. While the latter may work
for a while, I believe once the outside world knows that
we are dealing with the same old ESP and PK and with other
traditionally parapsychological phenomena, we will be in
the same position because we may be perceived as trying
to deceive mainstream science by camouflaging parapsychology
in the protective coloring of a neutral name. While there
may be associations with traditional parapsychological terminology
that range from the controversial to the sensational and
unacceptable, the main issue is the implications others
perceive in our claims.
Another strategy to obtain
credibility is to show the outside world that we are aware
of alternative explanations of psychic phenomena. While
this is part of normal scientific discourse, it also projects
a good image of our critical abilities, something that is
particularly useful when one is identified with parapsychology
professionally. In fact, one can find this in some of the
classics of parapsychology. Much space was devoted to the
problems with human testimony and consideration of chance
coincidences in Phantasms of the Living (Gurney,
Myers &
Podmore, 1886, Vol. 1, Chapter 4, Vol. 2, Chapter 13).
Similarly, in his 1934 monograph Extra-Sensory Perception,
J. B. Rhine (1934, Chapter 9) devoted sections to alternative
explanations, if only to counter them. Later examples included
Robert Tocquet's (1970/1973, pp. 147-149, 219-227) discussion
of fraudulent miraculous healings and stigmata and
Ian Stevenson's (1975, pp. 18-44) analysis of sources
of error in the study of reincarnation-type cases.
I became aware of the rhetorical value of writing about
fraud and other normal explanations while I was crafting
a paper published 16 years ago on luminous phenomena around
mediums, mystics, saints and other individuals (Alvarado,
1987). I knew I was writing about a topic that was rare
and unconventional, even among parapsychologists, and I
was worried about the reception of the paper. While a section
on fraud and other normal explanations should always be
part of examinations of cases such as the ones I discussed,
including that section was also a strategy to establish
credibility.
More recently,
Robert Morris has devoted much time to what looks psychic
but is not. I believe that Morris's success in revitalizing
parapsychology in academic circles in Great Britain (Smith,
1999) comes to some extent from this strategy of showing
the world of psychology that he is aware of a wide range
of pitfalls in behavioral research, not to mention some
that are specific to parapsychology (Morris, 1986; see also
Wiseman & Morris,
1995).
Another way in which we try to enhance
our credibility as scientists is by confining most of our
efforts to such conservative phenomena as ESP. A quick look
at the research papers presented at the last four PA conventions
(2000-2003) shows that the preferred research topic of PA
members was ESP (see Table 1, below). Much less attention
was paid to PK or to OBEs, mediumship, hauntings, or poltergeists.
Certainly scientists have to focus their efforts in order
to make advances. In some ways this process started in modern
parapsychology with J. B. Rhine's (1934) monograph Extrasensory
Perception, in which, while discussing a classificatory
scheme of psychic phenomena, Rhine reduced parapsychology
to ESP. Regardless of the scientific reasons for this strategy,
the fact is that traditionally modern parapsychology has
focused most of its efforts on ESP and has neglected a wide
variety of other phenomena, even if they can be related
to ESP when one speculates on their mechanisms. While such
a strategy has focused our research, it has also limited
our knowledge of the variety of experiences people report.
We know much less than we should about other psychic experiences,
their impact on people, and their relation to mental health
concerns, among other issues. So we have paid for our strategy
of limiting the range of topics studied (Alvarado,
1996c).
TABLE 1
Topics of Research Papers at Recent Parapsychological
Association Conventions 2000-2003
(N=63)
|
Topic |
N |
% |
Experiments
|
ESP |
38 |
60.3 |
PK/DMILS[a] |
9 |
14.3 |
Spontaneous Cases
|
Variety of psychic
experiences[b] |
9 |
14.3 |
Hauntings |
2 |
3.2 |
NDEs |
1 |
1.6 |
Recollections of
previous lives |
1 |
1.6 |
Apparitions |
1 |
1.6 |
Poltergeists |
1 |
1.6 |
Mediumship |
1 |
1.6 |
[a] Some of these may be classified
as ESP. [b] These are questionnaire studies considering
a variety of experiences (e.g., waking and dream ESP, OBEs).
In addition to a strategic separation
from specific phenomena there is also a tendency among some
of us to want to drop survival research in general from
the agenda of parapsychology. There have always been attempts
to disconnect survival from parapsychology for a variety
of reasons. Réne Sudre (1951) argued that survival was not
demonstrated by the facts and that it was a topic outside
the scope of science, part of the "inaccessible refuge
of religious beliefs" (p. 389, my translation). George
Zorab (1983) had a similar view when he referred to survival
research as the "forlorn quest." Because survival
is so difficult to test for scientifically, several figures
in the field - such as J. B. Rhine (1974), Gerd Hövelmann
(1983) and Harvey J. Irwin (2002)
- have branded the subject as untestable and consequently
an unproductive area of research. While this may be debated
by arguing that there are ways to investigate difficult
topics if one follows approaches or analyses that are more
subtle than those providing a simple "yes" or "no"
decision on the testability issue (e.g., Braude,
2003), I am concerned here with views that see interest
in survival as a contaminant in the quest to be seen as
scientific. The most recent example is Irwin's (2002)
statement that interest in survival may "compromise
... the standing of parapsychological research as a legitimate
scientific endeavour" (p. 25). This position, however,
is problematic and should not satisfy most parapsychologists
because similar political concerns have affected and are
still affecting the whole field of parapsychology in terms
of its relationship to psychology.
We would do well
to consider that such conservative attitudes are in the
eye of the beholder and that, consequently, demarcation
strategies flow in different directions. While some parapsychologists
may feel that interest and research on survival contaminate
their more elegant and controlled work that follows from
physics or psychology, we need to be aware that others have
similarly dismissed parapsychology in general whether or
not they perceive survival research to be part of the enterprise.
Psychologists, as Deborah Coon (1992) has argued, have a
long history of trying to separate their field from the
general public's conception that psychic phenomena are studied
by psychologists. A good historical example of this was
American psychologist Joseph Jastrow's comments in his book
Fact and Fable in Psychology, published in 1900.
He wrote:
Pernicious is the distorted
conception, which the prominence of Psychical Research
has scattered broadcast, of the purposes and methods
of Psychology. The status of that science has suffered,
its representatives have been misunderstood, its advancement
has been hampered, its appreciation by the public at
large has been weakened and wrongly estimated, by reason
of the popularity of the unfortunate aspects of Psychical
Research, and of its confusion with them (Jastrow, 1900,
pp. 75-76).
Attempts to separate out work
from specific phenomena and topics present a multitude of
agendas and self-interests. So while some of our own shun
specific areas of the field because they want their own
areas to appear more scientific, others outside the field
do the same thing to the whole discipline. As Michael Winkelman
(1982) has said, "Academia's failure to include parapsychology
is mirrored in parapsychology's failure to respond in a
responsible manner to the general population's concern with
the areas popularly referred to as occult" (p. 15).
It is regrettable that we feel that we need to deny
parts of out subject matter for political purposes, especially
when the most conservative experimental ESP studies are
similarly disregarded by others outside the field. In our
efforts to be accepted, we have become worse than our critics,
we have dissociated ourselves from some part of the basic
claims of our field by employing the strategy of denial
used by outside critics. It is almost as if our traumatic
experiences with criticism and rejection have forced us
to excise parts of out nature in order to be acceptable
to outsiders, and to ourselves. As with other types of traumatic
experiences, such defense mechanisms are not necessarily
completely conscious nor are they adaptive. By abandoning
traditions, areas and problems we are merely turning our
backs on important issues, and we are condemning ourselves
and everyone else to ignorance on questions that may be
of great importance.
As I have argued before, and
here I am referring to issues and phenomena not necessarily
connected to survival,[7] we should research such problems
so as to increase our empirical knowledge of neglected issues
(Alvarado,
1996c; Alvarado & Zingrone, 1996). It is true that
some problems obtain more attention than others because
they are more easily testable and that some research programs
are more productive or progressive than others. But not
everything that is important is easily testable. After all,
parapsychology has traditionally been about the hard problems.
Let us form our identity as parapsychologists not through
artificial prescriptions of neglect or demarcation, but
by attempts to study systematically any relevant problem
the best way we can. The combined knowledge of the behavioral
and natural sciences has enough methodologies to study any
problem scientifically and critically. This is not to say
we are capable of testing or measuring anything we want,
but we can at the very least try to learn something about
the features and correlates of all the phenomena that fall
into our purview. Let us not be conservative at the expense
of knowledge.
[7] This may include controversial
and dramatic phenomena such as auras, materializations and
religious miracles.
10. When Parapsychologists
Harm Their Cause
The conservatism some express
about particular areas of parapsychology can be, in my opinion,
harmful to the field. But parapsychologists exhibit many
other behaviors that also hinder the field in a variety
of ways. One such behavior encompasses statements about
the existence of the phenomena we study. Let me give some
examples from the old days. In 1913
Hyslop stated that survival was "proved and proved
by better evidence than supports the doctrine of evolution
..." (Hyslop, 1913, p. 88). In 1921
Gustave Geley
wrote: "Today we know well the genesis of materializations"
(Geley, 1921, p. 174). In 1923
Camille Flammarion
stated that "telepathy ... is as certain as the existence
of London, Sirus and oxygen ..." (Flammarion, 1923,
p. 22). These, and many more recent statements such as overenthusiastic
evaluations of the value and role of meta-analysis in parapsychology
(Broughton, 1991) and statements predicting the acceptance
of parapsychology by science in a relatively short time
period (e.g., Honegger,
1982, p. 21; Murphy & Kovach, 1972, p. 475; Stanford,
1974, p. 160) do not help our credibility.
Certainly
we have a right to express our opinions and to evaluate
our evidence as we see fit, and it is important to express
what we believe. But we need to strike a balance between
exaggerated claims and the need to present our claims in
a convincing way. After all, if we do not project a positive
feeling in our writings, how can we expect to convince others
to engage in meaningful discussions of our findings? What
worries me is that sometimes we present a too positive and
rosy picture of the field, forgetting to acknowledge the
difference between our personal hopes and the state of the
field as a whole. A view of the field that does not acknowledge
the social reality we surfer under does not help parapsychology
among other scientists because we appear to be ignoring
the obvious and exaggerating the replicability of our research.
But to promote our views, be they bold or conservative,
we need to do something even more basic. We need to increase
the frequency of formal publication of our research. Most
of our research work stays in PA proceedings and does not
get published in refereed journals, whether they are parapsychological
journals or the journals of other disciplines. This creates
serious problems in the diffusion of information. While
journals are abstracted in a variety of databases, the privately
printed PA proceedings are not. Consequently, if someone
does not attend a PA convention, or if one does not buy
a copy of the proceedings (sold almost exclusively to PA
members), he or she will not have access to current research
information. Do we really think it is in the best interests
of parapsychology to allow only a very small group of individuals
to have access to our research reports? We always complain
that out work is not cited nor widely read, but to some
extent this is out own fault.
The fact that some
of this research can be found now in personal websites,
or that it may appear in the future on the PA website is
helpful, but it is no substitute for formal journal publication.
Outsiders do not value websites as reliable publication
outlets. If we allow our research to remain only in such
private venues, no matter how many hits such a site would
get, we will project the image that parapsychologists do
not follow the standard publication practices of science,
and like the occultists, provide out materials only to those
few "in the know."
Another problem, and
one that may be explained by the low number of research
workers in our field, is the lack of replication and extension
on promising leads and on specific theoretical models. There
have been few attempts to follow Thouless and Wiesner's
(1947) model of psi psychophysical interaction, Hans Eysenck's
(1967) model of cortical arousal and ESP, Harvey Irwin's
(1979, 1985) ESP information-processing model and his absorption-synesthesia
OBE model, or Roll and colleagues' rotating beam model of
poltergeists (Roll, Burdick & Joines, 1973). There is
a general lack of follow-up in some of our most important
areas. One wonders if the same will happen to other lines
of research, such as attempts to replicate, extend, and
understand the correlations between ESP and geomagnetism
or local sidereal time. Of course, we have to acknowledge
once again that some of this may be explained by the lack
of human and financial resources in the field. But when
one sees parapsychologists abandoning their own promising
research areas and coming up with new projects when there
is so much basic research to be done on the questions they
previously asked, one wonders if our profession sometimes
has an undisciplined tendency towards the pursuit of the
novel.
In addition, as Rex Stanford (2003)
has suggested, there is a need for research that goes beyond
relationships between two variables. The great bulk of our
experimental psychological studies have tried to relate
ESP to belief in its occurrence, as well as to introversion-extroversion,
altered states of consciousness, creativity, experimenter
effects, and other variables. But there is much to do to
understand why, for example, an altered state may induce
ESP. It may be argued that an altered state affects ESP
by producing psychophysiological changes, nonlinear thinking,
or changes in a person's belief systems, or by reducing
ownership resistance (Alvarado, 2000). Furthermore, one
or more of the variables probably interacts with a variety
of other mediating and moderating variables (Stanford,
2003).
Another important research-related issue
is that of wasted opportunities. It is unfortunate to see
that most recent free-response ESP researchers have done
nothing with the rich imagery of participant's mentation
other than use it for defining hits and misses statistically.
While explorations of this sort have been conducted by
Deborah Delanoy (1989),
and more recently by James Carpenter (1995) and Adrian Parker
(Parker, Persson & Haller,
2000), they are exceptions.[8] Almost all of our recent
free-response ESP work has not been conducted with these
interests in mind. In other words, as parapsychologists
we limit what we can learn by the way we analyze our data.[9]
[8] See also Hastings's (2001)
and White's (1964)
analyses. [9] This is further complicated by the practice
of only using first-time participants. While it may be argued
that this comes from the belief that first-timers are more
spontaneous and that this may produce better results, such
practice does not allow us to study possible recurrent patterns
in our participant's mentations, such as symbols and distortions.
Similarly, other research areas are also affected by
what we chose to emphasize in our research. Most of the
questionnaire research of spontaneous experiences is generally
limited to the experience's prevalence or frequency as the
unit of analysis (e.g., Irwin, 1994). This may project a
simplistic view of the phenomena because we can easily forget
the different features of the experiences and ignore possible
interactions between those features (Alvarado,
1996a,
1997).
11. Concluding Remarks
While the topics in this address
may look somewhat disconnected, all of them touch on a central
issue. I am referring to aspects of our identity as parapsychologists:
who we are and what we do. Reflections on who we are and
what our common problems are go a long way towards revitalizing
and empowering us, especially in the light of the ever-present
hostility and indifference of mainstream science. Issues
such as what types of persons become involved in the field,
how effective our training and education is, our feelings,
our motivations, our conceptual approaches to phenomena,
and the strategies by which we seek to legitimize our field,
should always be kept in mind as we chart our future, especially
as we enter this new millennium. Awareness of these issues
allows us to consider the resources we have to go forward.
There is no doubt that, regardless of how few we are,
we can claim to have contributed to knowledge even if our
findings are not completely accepted by science at large.
I have argued that our efforts as parapsychologists have
contributed to: keep open the range of our potential as
human beings, our understanding of the prevalence and features
of a variety of experiences, the development of ideas in
psychology, the fight against superstition and the evaluation
of popular claims, the development of statistical techniques,
and the study of varied forms of deceptive behaviors.
While we may be poor in numbers and in resources, we
are not poor in talent, creativity or energy. It is possible
that we look foolish in the eyes of some and heroic in the
eyes of others. Regardless of how we are seen, we ourselves
need to keep in mind our own goals and our own sense of
the function we play in society. While our problems as a
profession may not be solved in our lifetime, we need to
go forward with our work. Our efforts are an important attempt
to expand human knowledge and to understand human potential
by considering phenomena and concepts that go unnoticed
by other sciences. In time, as we can draw from the expanding
knowledge of other fields, we will make further advances
that will lead to the improvement of our profession and
the expansion of our currently limited knowledge.
C.
S. Alvarado: This is an expanded version of the Presidential
Address delivered at the 46th Annual Convention of the
Parapsychological Association
held at Vancouver, August 2-4, 2003. I wish to thank
Nancy L. Zingrone for useful editorial suggestions that
improved this paper.
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