Psychic Exploration: A Challenge for Science, Understanding the Nature and Power of Consciousness

public.

Introduction: From Outer Space to Inner Space …

EDGAR D. MITCHELL

IN FEBRUARY 1971 I had the privilege of walking on the moon as a member of the Apollo 14 lunar expedition. During the voyage I made a test in extrasensory perception (ESP), attempting to send information telepathically to four receivers on earth.

Since then, people have asked me why an astronaut would take such an intense interest in a subject as ridiculed and unacceptable in respectable scientific circles as psychic research.

It is a fair question, which I will answer in this chapter. The answer is partly implied by the title of this book: psychic research presents a challenge that science can no longer avoid. But the title is also somewhat misleading. My real interest is—and has been for many years—to understand the nature of consciousness and the relationship of body to mind. Psychic research is one facet of this larger whole. Therefore, it might be said that I have simply gone from outer space to inner space.

The study of mind and consciousness is called noetics. The term comes from the Greek root word nous, meaning mind. As popularly used, noetic refers to purely intellectual apprehension. But Plato spoke of noetic knowledge as the highest form of knowing—a direct cognition or apprehension of the eternal truths that surpasses the normal discursive processes of logical, intellectual reasoning. The word science, of course, originally meant knowing but has come to mean a type of knowing derived from use of the objective, rational faculties of mind. But psychic abilities such as telepathy are another type of knowing—a subjective knowing, a nonrational, cognitive process largely overlooked by the scientific world. Consciousness appears to be the central, unifying concept behind these different aspects of mind. Thus, in the spirit of its Grecian origin, I propose to use the omega (Ω) as a symbol for consciousness and noetics.

Psychic research is one aspect of noetics but by no means all of it. Paraphysics, for example, is a new field within noetics that is extending the laws and methods of physics in an attempt to explain some paranormal phenomena (see Chapter 18). Some of the factors that paraphysics has found necessary to consider are the effects of geomagnetism, phases of the moon, and solar radiation on living systems. These and other terrestrial and celestial factors rhythmically induce changes—sometimes subtle, sometimes striking—in our physical and mental condition. Another example is exobiology, the study of the possibility of extraterrestrial life. The evidence of exobiology leads some scientists to wonder: If life has existed elsewhere in the universe for periods significantly longer than has Homo sapiens, how much more evolved in consciousness might such life forms be? Psychic researchers would add: If mankind does contact intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations, might psychic channels prove best for communicating?

The topic of consciousness, then, is as vast as the cosmos and as close to us as sleep. Noetics is the discipline that is arising from this confluence of outer- and inner-space research. It is the ultimate frontier in man’s attempt to understand himself and the nature of the universe.

If we review the history of mankind’s attempt to perceive, cognize, and interpret his environment, we find that in the last four centuries, as a result of the growth of scientific methodology, a formalized dichotomy has arisen between proponents of the two modes of knowing: objective observation (followed by deductive reasoning) and direct cognitive processes. These opposing modes of perception are crudely epitomized as science versus religion, reason versus intuition, rationality versus nonrationality, objective knowledge versus subjective experience, and so forth. Only in relatively recent years have scholars of each persuasion actively and vehemently denied the validity of the other process. In prescientific times, scholars—whether they agreed upon their conclusions or not—at least recognized the validity of both external and internal observation. (We must quickly add that the truly great teachers of modern times have always acknowledged this dual process.)

Thus, although I am identifying consciousness as the ultimate frontier in man’s attempt to gain knowledge, it is by no means a new frontier because throughout history people have sought to resolve the differences between their objective methods and their subjective experience—between outer and inner. The study of mind and consciousness is the common ground for this effort. The living system that we call man is a holistic phenomenon which exhibits both modes of knowing.

Perhaps after 350 years of divisiveness between science and religion we are on the threshold of a new era of knowledge and cooperation. It should be obvious that objective observation and reason do not by themselves produce a satisfactory ethic for living—neither for the individual nor for social systems. Facts become divorced from values, and action from need.

On the other hand, intuition and inspiration do not by themselves produce the agreement society needs to bring about order, structure, and survival in the material world. In this case, observation frequently becomes subject to individual interpretation according to the covert biases of the individual.

The antagonism between the objective and subjective modes of knowledge can be clearly illustrated. In 1600 Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake by theologians for asserting that the earth was not the center of the solar system and that there were other solar systems with living beings in them. In 1972 the American Academy of Science asserted that science and religion are mutually exclusive realms of thought and therefore the Genesis theory of creation should be kept out of science textbooks. The roles of science and religion are reversed in the modern example, but the same closed-minded dogmatism is operating to limit inquiry through sanctimonious denial of other viewpoints.

Research over the last fifty years by little-known, but forward-looking, thinkers has shown there is a vast creative potential in the human mind that is as yet almost totally unrecognized by science. Nonrational cognitive processes have so far eluded scientific description. However, this potential has been previously known and described by a few ancient sages and enlightened religious teachers, using veiled prescientific language to express what they discovered through subjective, intuitive, experiential means. We are, in my opinion, on the threshold of rediscovering and redefining those concepts and insights through the objective, rational, experimental efforts of science—if dogmatism and outmoded belief structures do not prevent it. The proper direction of sophisticated instrumentation and laboratory techniques can be the means whereby the physical and metaphysical realms are shown to be different aspects of the same reality. If this is demonstrated, it would be ironic, but appropriate, that so-called godless technology and materialistic science should lead to the rediscovery of the essential unity of science and religion.

Noetics recognizes all this. Noetics is the research frontier where the convergence of objectivity and subjectivity, of reason and intuition, is occurring most rapidly. In the study of consciousness, the techniques and technology of science are being combined with the higher insights of mind from both East and West to provide a new methodology for scholarly inquiry. For it is quite clear that reason alone is not sufficient for total understanding of ourselves. As Michael Polanyi, the eminent philosopher of science, points out, scientific discoveries do not always follow in a sequence of perfectly logical deductions (11). Instead, many discoveries involve intuitions and hunches on the part of the scientist in a manner that cannot be completely explained.

An example of noetic research dealing with just this problem comes from the biofeedback laboratory of Dr. Elmer Green at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. Green has given the name reverie to that state of mind in which creative insight sometimes leaps fully conceived into awareness, and he is making a psychophysiological study of it (3).

The project began, as most experiments do, when a literature search by his colleague (and wife) Alyce Green revealed that many of the great ideas in science and other disciplines came to people while they were in a dreamlike state of strong visual imagery. The state appeared similar to what is known as the hypnogogic state, that brief period between waking and sleeping in which memories and images seem to pass before the eyes and that is sometimes characterized by the production of theta brainwaves, a rhythm of four to eight cycles per second. In the reverie-imagery project, as it is now being called at Menninger, subjects learn to increase their production of theta waves so that they can explore the relationship between the theta state—reverie—and creativity. If there is a significant correlation, it may eventually prove possible to enhance creativity by teaching people to voluntarily enter the theta state. Green speculates that an individual trained in theta reverie may be able to direct both his conscious and unconscious ‘minds’ to work on a problem and come up with a totally unexpected creative solution. Thus, a subjective phenomenon is being examined objectively. If the resulting expansion of awareness and self-control gained by subjects in theta reverie results in a release of creative potential, it will demonstrate a very practical benefit from theoretical and basic research.

A second example of practical gains from basic research in subjective phenomena comes from that area of noetics called meditation research. Studies of yogis, Zen masters, transcendental meditators, and people from other traditions (17, 19–21) are demonstrating that meditation produces qualitative and beneficial shifts in psychophysiological condition. Alpha and theta brain waves are two physiological correlates being found for psychological stages of meditation, along with changes in breathing, heartbeat rate, blood pressure, muscle tension, and various other metabolic correlates. The results in the meditator include release of stress and tension, increased intellectual capacity, greater self-control and self-direction, a feeling of deep rest and relaxation, improved social relations, a decrease in use of prescribed and nonprescribed drugs, and other significant changes.

Psychic research—the subject of this book—is still another area of noetics that offers an avenue to the resolution of the dilemma of outer versus inner, matter versus spirit, body versus mind, reason versus intuition, science versus religion. From the viewpoint of noetics, and especially psychic research, what appear to be opposites are really composite parts of a larger whole: consciousness. I speak from personal experience.

When I went to the moon, I was as pragmatic a test pilot, engineer, and scientist as any of my colleagues. More than a quarter of a century had been spent in learning the empirical approach to dealing with the universe. Many times my life has depended upon the validity of scientific principles and the reliability of the technology built upon those principles. I knew well that analytic and logical thought, using objective data, could produce a technology that would reveal new secrets of the universe by probing the reaches of space and, at the microscopic level, the structure of atoms. Prior to the lunar exploration, I became as familiar with the spacecraft and its vast support system of people and equipment as a man could be, with confidence in it all. Despite that familiarity and confidence, though, there were moments during the flight when I felt an amazed and profound respect for the rational abilities of the human intellect—that it could find ways to guide a tiny capsule of metal through a half million miles of space with such precision and accuracy. Yes, I was pragmatic because my experience had shown beyond all question that science works.

But there was another aspect to my experience during Apollo 14, and it contradicted the pragmatic engineer attitude. It began with the breathtaking experience of seeing planet Earth floating in the vastness of space.

The first thing that came to mind as I looked at Earth was its incredible beauty. Even the spectacular photographs do not do it justice. It was a majestic sight—a splendid blue and white jewel suspended against a velvet black sky. How peacefully, how harmoniously, how marvelously it seemed to fit into the evolutionary pattern by which the universe is maintained. In a peak experience, the presence of divinity became almost palpable and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes. This knowledge came to me directly—noetically. It was not a matter of discursive reasoning or logical abstraction. It was an experiential cognition. It was knowledge gained through private subjective awareness, but it was—and still is—every bit as real as the objective data upon which, say, the navigational program or the communications system were based. Clearly, the universe had meaning and direction. It was not perceptible by the sensory organs, but it was there nevertheless—an unseen dimension behind the visible creation that gives it an intelligent design and that gives life purpose.

Next I thought of our planet’s life-supporting character. That little globe of water, clouds, and land no bigger than my thumb was home, the haven our spacecraft would seek at the end of our voyage. Buckminster Fuller’s description of the planet as Spaceship Earth seemed eminently fitting.

Then my thoughts turned to daily life on the planet. With that, my sense of wonderment gradually turned into something close to anguish. Because I realized that at the very moment when I was so privileged to view the planet from 240,000 miles in space, people of Earth were fighting wars; committing murder and other crimes; lying, cheating, and struggling for power and status; abusing the environment by polluting the water and air, wasting natural resources, and ravaging the land, acting out of lust and greed; and hurting others through intolerance, bigotry, prejudice, and all the things that add up to man’s inhumanity to man. It seemed as though man were totally unconscious of his individual role in—and individual responsibility for—the future of life on the planet.

It was also painfully apparent that the millions of people suffering in conditions of poverty, ill health, misery, fear, and near-slavery were in that condition from economic exploitation, political domination, religious and ethnic persecution, and a hundred other demons that spring from the human ego. Science, for all its technological feats, had not—more likely, could not—deal with these problems stemming from man’s self-centeredness.

The magnitude of the overall problem seemed staggering. Our condition seemed to be one of deepening crises on an unprecedented scale, crises that were mounting faster than we could solve them. There appeared to be the immediate possibility that warfare might destroy vast segments of civilization with one searing burst of atomic fury. Only a little further off appeared the possibility of intolerable levels of polluted air and of un-drinkable water. A more remote, but no less real, likelihood was the death of large portions of the population from starvation, abetted by improper resources management by an exploding population.

How had the world come to such a critical situation—and why? Even more important, what could be done to correct it? How could we human beings restore the necessary harmonious relationship between ourselves and the environment? How could a nuclear Armageddon be avoided? How could life be made livable? How could man’s potential for a peaceful, creative, fulfilling society be realized? How could the highest development of our objective rationality, epitomized by science, be wedded to the highest development of our subjective intuition, epitomized by religion?

These thoughts and questions stayed with me through the mission, splashdown, and parades. They stayed long afterward to the point of haunting me with an overwhelming awareness of how limited a view man has of his own life and the planet’s. Sometimes at night I would lie awake for hours struggling with this enigma, trying to understand it and see it in a sensible perspective. How could man, the most intelligent creature on earth, be so utterly stupid and shortsighted as to put himself in a position of possible global extinction? How had insight become divorced from instinct? Was it possible to find a workable solution?

As I pondered the matter and discussed it with concerned thinkers around the world, it became obvious that there are three major alternatives for the future—alternatives within man’s control:

1. To do nothing, in which case the prevailing dominant paradigm* and resulting socioeconomic behavior will eventually result in a massive collapse of the world system. The survivors can then start to rebuild civilization.

2. To relinquish personal freedom of choice to a central world government with the expectation that a controlled and unified society, however tyrannical its leadership, is better than nonsurvival.

3. To promote the process of metanoia, † or a new awakening in which mankind can realize its self-produced dilemma and, through a change of awareness and an expansion of individual responsibility, reestablish the unity of man with man and with the environment.

I believe the last alternative to be the only satisfactory and inherently stable solution to the deepening crises facing the citizens of Spaceship Earth. It is the solution closest to the perspective of the instant global consciousness that I and many of my colleagues attained after our view from space.**

The process of metanoia for an entire civilization or even for a substantial segment of a’ large nation is not an easy task. Certainly science and technology alone cannot produce such an effect. In fact, they are partly to blame for the crises. No, it is the consciousness of people, especially those who perform scientific research, those who create new technology, and those who put it to use, that must expand. They must expand their awareness to produce a transformation of consciousness. Those who lead nations and the other institutions of civilization have a special responsibility. Only when man sees his fundamental unity with the processes of nature and the functioning of the universe—as I so vividly saw it from the Apollo spacecraft—will the old ways of thinking and behaving disappear. Only when man moves from his ego-centered self-image to a new image of universal man will the perennial problems that plague us be susceptible of resolution. Humanity must rise from man to mankind, from the personal to the transpersonal, from self-consciousness to cosmic consciousness. I see no other way to avoid the alternatives that to me are unacceptable.

This view of man’s possible futures is not original with me. Others have spoken similar words and have done so at greater length with more detailed analyses and evidence. I am only offering my voice in support of their position. But if we are correct in this, humanity’s multiple problems resolve themselves into one fundamental problem: how to change consciousness, how to achieve metanoia. How can we raise our awareness to a higher level—a level that will restore the unity of man, the planet, and the universe?

It was at this point in my thinking that the third aspect of my experience during the lunar voyage became important. I am referring to my experiment with extrasensory perception.

My interest in psychic research began in 1967. At the time I was feeling a deep dissatisfaction with the ability of philosophy and theology—at least as far as I was acquainted with them—to give answers to my questions about the meaning of life and man’s place in the universe. I have always been interested in the nature of things and have read widely in the humanities and other subjects that purport to examine or explain man’s purpose.

However, I found many of the concepts arising from theology and philosophy to be inadequate. Empirical knowledge from the physical sciences seemed to me to be overturning our traditional notions about man. Unfortunately, it also seemed to be doing very little about replacing those notions with stronger, more valid ones. The old answers did not apply. Where would new ones come from?

In that emotional and intellectual cul-de-sac, a friend for whom I have great respect as a thoughtful but pragmatic person suggested that perhaps psychic phenomena—psi, as they are collectively called—ought to be considered. It was a challenge I could not resist. As a student of science, I believe there is nothing in the universe that is unworthy of investigation. If it offers the further incentive of having possible benefit for humanity, I think it is little less than foolish to refuse to examine it. The true scientist is one who is committed to knowing, to scientia, which is the attempt to understand the ultimate nature of reality, without bias, prejudice, or commitment to an ideology or belief system. Otherwise, he is unworthy of the name.

I am interested in knowing. That is how I came to parapsychology and related fields. I was quite skeptical at first. I imagine anyone would be if he were unacquainted with the subject, especially in view of scientific disclaimers about the paranormal. It would seem like taking fairy tales and myths seriously.

However, those apparently fanciful stories from childhood and early history are now recognized as having important content and serious significance for man’s attempt to know himself more fully. Likewise, psychic research has proved its importance. As I got deeper into the study of paranormal phenomena, I found my skepticism dissolving. In its place was a feeling of awe and excitement compounded from two elements. One was respect for the truly fine scientific experimentation done by parapsychologists and psychic researchers. The other was an inability to explain away the unusual results arising from many of those experiments. Telepathy, for example—the psychic faculty I would attempt to employ during the lunar expedition—had been extensively studied and documented for a century. The work of J. B. Rhine (12, 13), René Warcollier (18), S. G. Soal (16), and many others, including the astounding experiment between Harold Sherman and Sir Hubert Wilkins in the Arctic (15), could leave no doubt about its existence.

In view of that, my whole training in scientific endeavors compelled me to make an honest admission to myself: Psychic research was looking at phenomena that were indeed real, even if the corpus of present scientific knowledge was unable to explain them. To have concluded otherwise would have been intellectual dishonesty—something that has arisen from time to time in the history of science, always to its detriment, and that is still another manifestation of the egocentric mentality.

By 1971, when the Apollo 14 mission was scheduled, I had become an avid psychic researcher in my spare time. The opportunity that the lunar expedition offered me to experiment with telepathy in space was too good to disregard, and I think any scientist whose interests and inclinations paralleled mine would have taken it. I never intended to make the experiment public in the manner that it was—as a sensational story in newspapers and other media around the world. I had decided on the experiment only a few weeks before lift-off, and it was to have been a purely personal investigation. I did not request permission from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) because it seemed better to do it without sanction rather than risk having permission denied. Furthermore, because of experience with news leaks I did not even seek the counsel of established professionals. These precautions were to no avail, however.

My colleagues in the experiment were four people on earth who tried to receive by telepathic communication the targets I attempted to send them on several days of the voyage. Three of them prefer to remain anonymous. The fourth—Olaf Jonsson of Chicago—was suggested by one of my friends at the last minute and his participation was arranged by telephone. We never met before the launch, although I have met him since. Through a news leak—the source of which is still unknown to me—and through excellent detective work by the press, Jonsson was found and revealed the story to the press, with results that brought widespread attention to us and to the whole field of psychic research.

Briefly, my experiment involved four transmission sessions during rest periods programmed into the flight. Two of the sessions were completed on the way to the moon and two were completed on the return trip. I used random numbers from 1 to 5 set up in eight columns of twenty-five numbers each. Just before transmitting, in order to minimize the possibility of precognition, I assigned each number to one of the symbols of the standard Zener cards used for some ESP tests—a cross, a square, a circle, a star, and parallel wavy lines. Circumstances during the flight made subsequent evaluation of the data difficult. We were forty minutes late during lift-off, which caused the first few rest periods to start forty minutes late as well. Thus, the arrangement I had made with the receivers meant that some of the sessions appeared to yield precognitive results, not telepathic ones.

Upon return to earth, the data was analyzed independently by Dr. J. B. Rhine of the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man, by Dr. Karlis Osis of the American Society for Psychical Research, and by me (4, 8). The results were statistically significant, not because any of the receivers got a large number of direct hits but because the number of hits was amazingly low. The statistical probability of scoring so few hits was about 3000:1. This negative ESP effect, called psi-missing, is something that has frequently arisen in other psychic research work, and theorists are attempting to explain its significance. In any case, it offers good evidence for psi, because the laws of chance are bypassed to a significant degree.

But what has all this to do with the problem of changing consciousness?

For me, seeing our planet from space was an event with some of the qualities traditionally ascribed to religious experience. It triggered a deep insight into the nature of existence—the sort of insight that radically changes the inner person. My thinking—indeed, my consciousness—was altered profoundly. I came to feel a moral responsibility to pass on the transformative experience of seeing earth from the larger perspective. But further, the rational man in me had to recognize the validity of the nonrational cognitive process.

That is one reason for this book. In my opinion, the act of leaving the planet is one of the pivotal moments in human history because it represents a radical change in the course of progress and offers a new perspective of civilization. If we continue without change and without growth in our basic thinking and behavior, we will, despite spectacular technological feats, eventually end the evolutionary experiment known as man. Our planetary situation becomes more desperate daily. But basically I am optimistic because the possibility of resolving those ever-growing global crises was also made clear to me during the view from space.

Obviously we cannot send everyone to the moon in the near future. But we can provide information and experiences of another sort that will serve the same purpose and provide the same perspective. Moreover, we can do it in a way that brings objective reason closer to subjective intuition and thereby help to lessen the unfortunate gulf between these two modes of knowing. We can do this because, as I indicated earlier, inner- and outer-space research are converging. The result will be an expansion of awareness and a step toward developing higher consciousness in the race.

Throughout history prophets, sages, saints, enlightened teachers, and other illuminated men and women have pointed to the same goal as the one I seek: the further evolution of human consciousness. These people have been expert travelers of inner space. Their reports over the centuries contain reliable directions for contemporary psychenauts. Their maps of inner space provide useful guides to unfamiliar territory. They have been unanimous in declaring that selflessness and freedom from egoism are an aspect of higher consciousness and the key to direct knowledge.

There is a surprising variety of ways by which people grow into selflessness. Some are formal spiritual disciplines such as the study of yoga or Zen, the taking of holy orders, or the practice of various forms of meditation. Other paths are less systematized and more spontaneous. In fact, it may be nothing more than carrying on daily work as always—but with the intention of living a better life through prayer, study, kindness, humility, and good works.

The result of all sincerely followed paths, however, is a change of consciousness in the one who walks the path. Sometimes gradually, sometimes suddenly, the traveler perceives a previously unseen order and meaning in the universe—a recognition that gives significance to life by merging the boundaries of the self with the cosmos. He recognizes that, paradoxically, the deepest aspect of himself is one with all creation. That radical expansion of the meaning of I has best been termed cosmic consciousness. It is a state in which there is constant awareness of unity with the universe pervading all aspects of one’s life. Every activity, every relationship, every thought is guided by the knowledge of oneness between the self and the world. Inner and outer space are unified, and the inhumanities that people perpetrate on one another and the stupidities that people mount against nature become impossible to commit. This internal self-regulation is the surest safeguard against the destruction of our world.

Two examples can illustrate this convergence of subjective intuition and objective reason. In the course of pursuing careers in science, Albert Einstein and Sir John Eccles both concluded that there is a transpersonal dimension to creation that is outside the space-time continuum of the three-dimensional universe and sustains it. Einstein (1, p. 413) stated it succinctly when he wrote, I believe in [the] God who reveals Himself in the orderly harmony of what exists.

In a similar vein, Eccles (2, pp. 43–44) declared his belief that there is a fundamental mystery in my existence, transcending any biological account of the development of my body (including my brain) with its genetic inheritance and its evolutionary origin. He concluded with this profound statement:

I see science as a supremely religious activity but clearly incomplete in itself. I see also the absolute necessity for belief in a spiritual world which is interpenetrating with and yet transcending what we see as the material world.… Similarly I believe that anyone who denies the validity of the scientific approach within its sphere is denying the great revelation of God to this day and age. To my mind, then, any rational system of belief involves the conviction that the creative and sustaining spirit of God may be everywhere present and active; indeed I believe that all aspects of the universe, all kinds of experience, may be sacramental in the true meaning of the term.

I find it extraordinarily significant that Einstein, the physicist, looked at the telescopic world of outer space and Eccles, the neurophysiologist, looked at the microscopic world of inner space only to discover the same thing—the existence of God. This noetic discovery is at the heart of science and religion. It is the only thing that will counteract contemporary crises and bring meaning, direction, and fulfillment to people.

Psychic research can play an important role in helping people make that discovery. It can be a key to unlock the missing experiential component with which to expand awareness beyond the limits of objective data and logical reasoning. It can be a means of supporting the further evolution of the human race and of developing the universal man of cosmic consciousness. Quite simply, psychic experiences—like religious and mystical experiences—can, when properly developed, help a person become more aware. They can be an input to the mind that awakens curiosity, shakes the sleep from our worldly eyes, and begins to motivate us to seek paths to a different consciousness.

The primary purpose of this book is to provide a credible stimulus to the mind of the reader, but there are several others. My associates and I will demonstrate that psi are indeed real events and that psychic research is a credible, authentic, well-disciplined effort entirely compatible with the methods of science. We hope the following pages will once and for all settle the issue of whether psi exists. We hope this book will enlarge the perspective of modern science by convincing even the most skeptical critics, who have thus far rejected the evidence of psychic research. Our wish is to enlist their aid in the all-important task of studying the nature of man. Thus, science might become unified with religion, the arts, and the humanities in the common task of helping transform human life by bringing mankind to know itself and its relation to the cosmos.

I must offer a word of caution, however. As you will discern from the following chapters, the evidence indicates that psychic energy is neutral, yielding no value system. It must be used with care because psychic development alone does not produce ethical or spiritual growth. The history of psychic research has demonstrated this time and again, where it has exposed various sensitives with genuine gifts who nevertheless have resorted to fraud and trickery. Both scientific investigators and ordinary people seeking guidance have sometimes been deceived for a while by those psychic men and women whose main concern was not to act ethically or advance knowledge or help those in need but rather to impress others, play ego games, and increase their own status, wealth, and power over others.

Psychic energy—like atomic energy—can be applied in both creative and destructive ways. If that is so, a prayerful and cautious attitude seems proper for all concerned. It is up to each individual to find an ethical system or ethical framework within which to use psychic energy. In that regard, the injunctions in the Bible and other traditions should not be lightly dismissed. And certainly the frivolous, partylike attitude that some have with regard to séances, Ouija boards, and the like is to be discouraged.

It should be clear, then, that the psychic event must be seen in a larger perspective than usual. Both those with psychic ability and those who study them must ground themselves in a transcendent view of man and his relationship to the universe. Parapsychology must become linked with transpersonal psychology—the study of man’s potential for development—as part of noetics, the general study of consciousness. Unless psychic research leads to wisdom, compassion, humility, and beneficial knowledge, it should be avoided altogether. Man is quite capable of destroying himself now. He does not need another weapon in his arsenal for perverting planetary potential.

With that perspective in mind, let us now look at what is—and is not—the subject matter of psychic research.

PSYCHIC PHENOMENA AND RESEARCH

Psychic faculties have been present in man for a long time, as anthropologists and historians are now documenting (see Chapter 11), although the emphasis on objective, rational knowing seems to have blocked it in most people. Psychic is defined in dictionaries as lying outside the realm of physical processes and physical science; extrasensorimotor, nonphysical or spiritual in origin. As we shall see in the following chapters, this definition is now being questioned, especially by paraphysics, as our understanding of the physical increases.

Psychic research officially began nearly a century ago, in 1882, when the Society for Psychical Research was founded in London. Three years later, the American Society for Psychical Research was organized in the United States. The subject of the societies’ concern can be broadly classified as extrasensory perception (ESP), psychokinesis (PK), and survival phenomena (θ). Collectively, they are referred to as psi, (pronounced sigh), the twenty-third letter of the Greek alphabet and the first letter in the Greek word ψυχη (psyche), meaning mind or soul.

These phenomena were obviously related to the study of the human mind and therefore came within the domain of psychologists. At least the early researchers felt that way. But professional psychologists and other scientists for the most part rejected the possibility that psi were real events. They generally dismissed them on the grounds of fraud, illusion, and delusion. Therefore, this field came to be called parapsychology, meaning the study of phenomena that were considered outside or beyond the main body of psychology.

However, the term parapsychology, although generally used by the public as synonymous with psychic research, is used by researchers in this field to designate a somewhat narrower area of investigation than what has traditionally been the domain of psychic research. It is best understood as referring to the approach developed in the 1930s by J. B. Rhine and his co-workers. This approach emphasizes controlled laboratory experiments and rigorous statistical analysis of results in ESP and PK. Although it does not explicitly forbid examination of θ, it generally avoids the subject for reasons I will state later on. Soviet researchers use the term psychoenergetics instead of parapsychology.

ESP is a psychic event in which information is transmitted through channels outside the known sensory channels, either in waking consciousness, trance, or dreams. It is mostly mental in character, showing few physical signs of having occurred, and even those are usually of a very subtle character. Soviet researchers prefer the term bioinformation. ESP includes these specific forms of psi: telepathy (which Soviets call biocommunication), clairvoyance, clairaudience, precognition (which is more or less synonymous with premonition, prophecy, and visions), retrocognition, psychometry, radiesthesia, and psychic diagnosis.

Rhine popularized the term extrasensory perception, using it as the title of his 1934 book. In recent years, however, some researchers have come to feel there is little or nothing about ESP that is extra. They see it as a normal, but generally latent, faculty that is trainable, to some degree, in most of the population. Therefore, the term has been recast by some as extended sensory perception or expanding sensory potential.

PK is a psychic event in which objects or organisms are physically moved or affected without direct contact or use of any known force that would allow a conventional explanation. Physical signs are usually apparent during and immediately after its occurrence. The Soviets prefer the term bioenergetics to describe psychokinetic events in general. PK includes teleportation (also called apportation), materialization and de-materialization, lévitation, psychic surgery and psychic healing, thoughtography, and out-of-the-body projection (popularly termed astral projection).

θ are events due to the agency of supposed discarnate personalities. θ (spelled theta and pronounced thā-tuh, from the first letter of the Greek word thanatos, death) include the phenomena of mediumship (or spirit communication), ghosts and hauntings, apparitions and poltergeists (although it appears that some poltergeist activity is actually caused by unconscious psychokinetic influence by living persons), spirit photography, spirit possession, and reincarnation. Mediumship has many forms. Among them are clairvoyant mediumship, in which the medium claims to have direct visual perception of spirit entities; direct-voice mediumship, in which a discarnate is alleged to speak through the medium in the discar-nate’s original voice and mannerisms; physical mediumship, in which the medium demonstrates so-called ectoplasmic materializations of the discarnate and other objects; and waking and trance mediumship, both of which may be combined with direct voice and/or physical mediumship), automatic writing, and, lately, automatic tape recording.

This area of psychic research has been studied since spiritualism came to wide public notice in the 1850s. For example, the renowned English scientist Sir William Crookes began investigating spirit phenomena in the late 1860s. The inventor of the Crookes tube, a device which led to the discovery of X-rays and was the forerunner of the cathode-ray tube, was eagerly watched. But when he published his experiments and observations validating many of the claims of Spiritualists, the scientific community ignored or dismissed them. Crookes is said to have replied to this treatment, The quotation occurs to me, ‘I never said it was possible—I only said it was true.’

In America the great psychologists William James and William McDougall carried forward the efforts of the American Society for Psychical Research, which James had helped found. But it was the work of J. B. Rhine and his wife, Louisa, that defined the domain of parapsychology and made it a household word. Their work in the laboratory at Duke University, emphasizing rigorous controls, quantitative results, and statistical analysis, supported previous claims for the reality of ESP and PK. However, when the Rhines came to examine claims of spirit communication, they decided that the medium’s ability to perceive beyond the senses possibly rooted in telepathy, clairvoyance, and similar sources of information, none of which need have originated with discarnate spirits but rather with living persons whose minds were being tapped by the medium. In their opinion, the question of postmortem existence was beyond scientific investigation at that time and hence was thereafter largely disregarded in their research.

Thus, Rhine’s book Extra-Sensory Perception established limits for the subject that he, more than anyone else in this century, developed as a scientific discipline. But since then some others, including myself, have felt the need to expand the field of examination. My own research into the mechanism by which mediums operate has convinced me that spirit communication is a genuine possibility. Likewise, the phenomenon of primary perception in plants, rediscovered in modern times by Cleve Backster of the Backster Research Foundation in New York City, is now established beyond all doubt as genuine (see Chapter 12). Backster made his initial report in 1966, and since then some parapsychologists have rejected his conclusion that there is an undefined sensory capacity in vegetable and cellular life that is akin to, if not identical with, some forms of ESP. Another example of new phenomena is Kirlian photography (see Chapter 21) of the so-called auras of physical objects—another topic that some parapsychologists would exclude from the field.

My point in giving this account is to avoid the impression that all researchers in this area are agreed on the exact limits and subject matter of the field. There is diversity of opinion, just as there is throughout the remainder of the scientific community. And as elsewhere in the scientific community, many of the problems and controversies will not be resolved until there is more research and theorizing done and a new scientific paradigm established.

That is why I have chosen to use the term psychic research in this book rather than parapsychology. My wish is to avoid premature closure of any aspect of the field, especially as we enter a new period in which research is being aided enormously by advanced technology and sophisticated methodology. The reports published here will give numerous examples of this. In their totality, they provide a current and comprehensive survey of the field of psychic research as I am broadly defining it.

PSYCHIC RESEARCH AT A GLANCE

Psychic research is the branch of science that studies psychic (extrasensori-motor) phenomena, both in the laboratory and in the field. It dates from 1882 when the Society for Psychical Research was founded in England. Psychic phenomena are collectively designated ψ (spelled psi and pronounced sigh), the first letter in the Greek word ψυχη (psyche) meaning mind or soul. There are three categories of psi: extrasensory perception (ESP), psychokinesis (PK), and survival phenomena (θ, or theta, the first letter of the Greek word θαvατoς, thanatos, meaning death).

Parapsychology is generally taken to mean the approach to ESP and PK as developed by J. B. Rhine and his co-workers from the 1930s on, emphasizing quantitative, controlled laboratory experiments subjected to rigorous statistical analysis. The Russian term for parapsychology is psychoenergetics; the Czech term is psychotronics. (However, these terms are more broadly defined.) Today the emergency of paraphysics is paralleling and overlapping much of psychic research and parapsychology and will probably eventually embrace them both.

Extrasensory perception (ESP) is a psychic event in which information is transmitted through channels outside the known sensory channels, either in waking consciousness, trance, or dreams. The Russian term for ESP is bioinformation. ESP includes:

1. telepathy (Russian term, biocommunication)

2. clairvoyance (Russian term, biolocation or introscopy)

3. precognition (Russian term, proscopy)

4. retrocognition.

When ESP occurs in situations that could be either telepathy or clairvoyance or both, it is termed general extrasensory perception (GESP). ESP is applied in many specific ways, including psychometry (object reading), radiesthesia (dowsing), and psychic diagnosis. The term clair-sentience is sometimes used to include clairvoyance, clairaudience, and other expressions of ESP through sensory modalities.

Psychokinesis (PK) is a psychic event in which something is moved or physically affected without use of any known force that would allow a conventional explanation and usually without direct contact. The Russian term for PK is bioenergetics. PK includes:

1. teleportation

2. materialization

3. dematerialization

4. levitation (of oneself)

5. psychic surgery and psychic healing

6. thoughtography

7. out-of-the-body projection and apparitions of the living.

Survival phenomena (θ) are events possibly caused by discarnate personalities. θ include:

1. mediumship

2. hauntings

3. apparitions of the dead

4. poltergeists

5. spirit photography

6. spirit possession

7. reincarnations.

Note: This overview of psychic research is tentative and not supported by all psychic researchers and parapsychologists. Some important questions and areas of disagreement prevent unanimous agreement. For instance, some feel that all survival phenomena will eventually be shown to involve no more than ESP and PK. Others feel that certain phenomena, including most of those in the PK section, are not genuine phenomena. Still others feel that this listing is not inclusive enough and that it should include phenomena such as firewalking, UFOs (on the grounds that they may be an unconscious PK phenomenon similar to some poltergeist cases), stigmata, and other occult or esoteric subjects. Therefore, this summary is offered as a guideline—a temporary organization of the many apparently different kinds of phenomena that psychic researchers have attempted to study.

But definitions change in time, especially as new data and new insights arise. Even though all chapters of this book were written in 1973 expressly for it, this attempt to provide an encyclopedic volume on the subject of psychic research will probably be inadequate a decade from now.

Since the beginnings of psychic research, various esoteric and arcane traditions have moved in and out of its mainstream. Prophecy offers a good example. Astrology is perhaps the oldest and most enduring means of divination that man has developed. Tarot cards are a relatively new way of attempting to forecast events. Crystal gazing, the I Ching, the Ouija board, bone casting, animal sacrifice, the prophetic utterances of witch doctors and shamans while in trance states—the list seems endless. I am not passing judgment on the validity and accuracy of these traditions. I am only saying it is understandable that they should at one time or another be considered by researchers studying precognition, the nature of time, and other topics in psychic research. Likewise, it is understandable that such diverse subjects as witchcraft, voodoo, and yoga have been examined because they have a history in which psychic events clearly play a part.

Do all these occult practices belong in the purview of psychic research? Where do the psychic sciences end and the occult arts begin? If psi play some part in the religious ceremonies and training practices of primitive peoples and pagan cults, should they be studied?

There appears to be a continuum along which we may place occult, psychic, paranormal, and mystic phenomena—a continuum of consciousness. But it is not easy to draw lines of demarcation between them. Recently, for example, meditation has come into the laboratory. Studies have shown that meditation is a means of producing an altered state of consciousness in which psi are frequently manifested (see Chapter 27). Hence, meditation is being looked at, and from there it seems likely that psychic researchers will have to examine the historical background, the belief system, and the philosophical world view of various meditative traditions. After that a movement into transpersonal psychology will take place. Beyond that, it will become apparent that psi cannot be fully understood until the nature of consciousness itself is considered. That is the rationale for the organization of chapters in this book, although some psychic researchers may feel we have overstepped the bounds of our discipline.

But diversity of opinion at the level of everyday research does not mean enemy camps have developed. It is generally agreed by people in psychic research around the world that their work must be performed in a spirit of service to humanity. The possibility of invasion of mental privacy or of thought control is odious. My colleagues in the psychic research community, no matter what their nationality, are unanimous in their commitment to the beneficent application of psychic faculties. All indications point to the conclusion that psi may be used for good or evil. One of their finest uses can be seen in psychic healing. One of their potentially worst uses would be for programming people through nonconscious telepathic suggestion. This latter possibility must not be allowed.

This brings up another reason for preferring the term psychic research. As I noted earlier, parapsychology is becoming part of a larger whole—transpersonal psychology. In turn, transpersonal psychology is an aspect of the general convergence of science and religion in noetics. Only as we study consciousness and the nature of man and other living systems will we really begin to understand psi and how they relate to human potential and fulfillment. Without that perspective, psi and psychic research will probably go the way of most other scientific work. Either by design or ignorance, they will be turned against humanity in physically and psychologically destructive ways because man’s morally imperfect desires are generally uncontrolled by his rational intelligence.

WHY PSYCHIC RESEARCH?

The question Why psychic research? has already been briefly answered by saying it can be an important element in the long-sought formula for enriching human awareness, reconstructing society, and generally aiding nature in the great work of evolution. But let us consider the question in greater detail and see specifically why psychic research is a challenge for science.

In the course of our psychosocial progress through the study of consciousness, some fundamental assumptions of the current scientific world view will be questioned. This is inevitable, as Thomas S. Kuhn points out in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (7). Psychic research is perhaps the primary area from which the revolution will come and from which a new paradigm of science will be constructed (see Chapter 29).

Fundamental to science is objectivism, a view of nature as a collection of discrete parts that scientists can observe and manipulate in a detached, impartial manner. Natural events occur as natural forces work through natural laws, while the scientist stands aside, neutral and emotionally uninvolved. He simply lets things happen as they may. There can be cause-and-effect relationships; there can be interactions. But they all happen outside the observer. The principle of separate identity remains in effect.

Another principle of science is materialism, the notion that reality is thoroughly explainable by the existence of matter alone. Operating on that basis, science has been eminently successful in exploring the physical world and learning to control it. Dramatic accomplishments over the past hundred years leave no room for doubt about that.

At the same time, however, science has been responsible for putting in man’s hands knowledge that he has sadly used for unprecedented killing, destruction, and harm of his own kind and his environment. Why? Why has our sophisticated knowledge of the physical universe not led to wisdom? Why can we not live in harmony with each other and with the planet?

Part of the answer, I believe, can be found in the two fundamental assumptions of contemporary science: objectivism and materialism. Although they are valid in a limited domain, they have been unwisely viewed as universally applicable. Studies in such diverse fields as logic, metalinguistics, and quantum mechanics have demonstrated that the concepts of subjective versus objective, matter versus energy, and perhaps even causality itself are arbitrary constructions that man imposes on nature. The universe is holistic—a universe. But most people, including scientists, seem unaware of this, and therefore, these assumptions combine to form a nonconscious philosophy of life—a paradigm. The scientific emphasis on matter has led to an overemphasis on the material things necessary for living. Likewise, the scientific emphasis on objectivity has led to a loss of unity and empathy among people. In its place are aloofness, impersonality, and apathy.

The unfortunate results are apparent everywhere. On the individual level, our awareness of personhood is lost to the view that personality is a commodity to be packaged and sold over cosmetic counters, in clothing stores, and through self-development courses. Objects are seen as having more value than persons themselves, and there is a widespread tendency to treat people as things to be manipulated like machines.

On the social level, we are only a step away from enshrining the objective, rational mode of thought as the source of all goodness and wisdom. Reinforcing this is the objectification—rather, the reification—of abstract ideas such as nation and state. From this viewpoint it is only logical to make war on other countries and on the countryside.

This denial of the nonmaterial aspect of life—its sacred participation in the miracle of existence—leaves people with no source of meaning and direction. The resulting view may be stated thus: I am simply a prisoner of my flesh, fighting for survival in a hostile and competitive world, and death is the end of me because life is only physical. I am just a skin-encapsulated ego, locked in a soulless body that will someday perish and decay.

Psychic research presents a direct challenge to this shortsighted view of reality by calling into question the assumed primacy of objectivism and materialism. Telepathy demonstrates that there is an informational linkage between people that goes beyond the laws of science as they are presently understood—a linkage we are normally unaware of—and the discovery of primary perception in cell life apparently extends that linkage downward in the ladder of molecular organization. Clairvoyance challenges our understanding of sensory perception. Precognition and retrocognition challenge our concept of time. PK challenges our concepts of energy and energy transfer. So too does psychic healing, which also brings into question our concepts of physiology and medicine.

Studies in all these areas seem to indicate that mind and consciousness can operate at a distance from the body, interacting with the outside world in ways that cannot be explained in terms of known laws. Beyond that, survival research is pointing to the possibility that mind and consciousness may operate independently on the body. In short, psychic research is leading to an extraordinarily challenging conclusion: Science’s basic image of man and the universe must be revised. Because of this new light on the nature of humanity and our position in the cosmos, science will have to divest itself not only of some deeply cherished facts but also of its philosophic foundations—the whole intellectual outlook upon which our present civilization is based. That outlook, says Arthur Koestler in The Roots of Coincidence (5), is the greatest superstition of our age—the materialistic clockwork universe of early nineteenth-century physics.

We are living, in William Irwin Thompson’s words, at the edge of history. A linear extrapolation of current conditions shows that mankind has, conservatively speaking, less than a century before it goes the way of the dinosaur. Many scientists and planetary planners think the remaining time could be only a few decades. Granted, some unforeseen circumstance such as the green revolution or a breakthrough in pollution control may favorably alter that prognosis and thereby lend support to the dictum that civilization totters but it totters steadily onward. Nevertheless, survival seems to depend more than anything on a transformation of consciousness, an evolution of the mind. That includes our philosophy of science—the physicalistic way in which we conceive and behave.

For some scientists, that will mean a tremendous shift in thinking. It will mean relinquishing some long-held views that are no longer correct and that threaten our very existence. This need for disillusioning has arisen before in the history of science. The theory of phlogiston and the concept of the role of the neutral observer in quantum mechanics are examples. But never before has the need for jettisoning false beliefs had such global importance. If science maintains its old attitude toward psychic research, it will merely prove that Max Planck was correct when he said, A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

The only possible basis for rejecting the evidence of psychic research is prejudice and diehard stubbornness born of insecurity. Psychologist Donald O. Hebb admitted this plainly as far back as 1951. Why do we not accept ESP as psychological fact? he asked. Rhine has offered enough evidence to convince us on almost any other issue where one could make some guess as to the mechanics of the disputed process. Personally, I do not accept ESP for a moment because it does not make any sense. I cannot see what other base my colleagues have for rejecting it, but my own rejection of Rhine’s views is, in the literal sense, prejudiced.

That is a candid admission. I do not know if Hebb has since discovered the sense of psychic research, but in any case, Aldous Huxley’s reply to his statement is worthy of consideration by those inclined to reject the findings and implications of this subject. Huxley said, That a man of science should allow a prejudice to outweigh evidence seems strange enough. It is even stranger to find a psychologist rejecting a psychological discovery simply because it cannot be explained. Psi … is intrinsically no more inexplicable than, say, perception or memory.

One of the major objections to the authenticity of psychic research is the credibility of its evidence. Some critics, such as Dr. C. E. M. Hansel in England and Dr. George R. Price in America, have raised the questions of incompetence, self-deception, and even outright fraud. The first two matters are adequately dealt with, I think, by the very contents of this book. The third can best be rebutted in the words of psychic researchers themselves who have been forced to answer such accusations.

S. G. Soal of London University writes: "It would be interesting to meet the psychiatrist or psychologist who has perused every page of the 49 volumes of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, and who remains a skeptic. It is no coincidence that those most skeptical of ESP research are almost invariably those who are least acquainted with the facts."

H. J. Eysenck, head of the Department of Psychology at Maudsley Hospital in London, answers the charge of fraud like this: Unless there is a gigantic conspiracy involving 30 university departments all over the world, and several hundred highly respected scientists in various fields, many of them originally hostile to the claims of the psychic researchers, the only conclusion the unbiased observer can come to must be that there are people who obtain knowledge existing either in other people’s minds, or in the outer world, by means yet unknown to science.

One of my associates, Dr. Montague Ullman of Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, levels this criticism at the detractors of psychic research: If the only answer to the vast amount of solid experimental evidence is incompetence or fraud on a global scale by men with credentials equal to those of their scientific peers, working in academic surroundings, and whose work extends historically in time over at least three generations, then the adherents of this position would seem to have adopted a stance that is even more difficult to defend than the psi hypothesis. In fact, it would seem to represent a last ditch stand—in short, the bankruptcy of the critical effort.

It is the epitome of intellectual honesty to admit that one has been wrong or made a mistake. Such honesty is what Dr. Price displayed in a letter to Science in January 1972: "During the past year I have had some correspondence with J. B. Rhine which has convinced me that I was highly unfair to him in what I said in an article entitled ‘Science and the Supernatural,’ published in Science in 1955. The article discussed possible fraud in extrasensory perception experiments. I suspect that I was similarly unfair