Psychology and Extrasensory Perception [1 ed.]

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A MENTOR BOOK A fascinating probing of the inmost secrets of the mind

MJ1184 $1.95

Psychology and

Gardner Murphy Helene Deutsch William James J.B.Rhine and others Edited and with an introduction by

Raymond Van Over

NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY PUBLISHES SIGNET, SIGNETTE. MENTOR, CLASSIC. PLUME & NAL BOOKS

MENTOR BOOK

A VAST TRACT OF MENTAL WILDERNESS Today the science of parapsychology—the study of extrasensory perception and other paranormal psychical phenomena—is gaining wide official recognition after decades of disrepute within the established scientific

community. What is still little recognized, however, is that the sciences of psychology and parapsychology were once intimately connected. Such great pioneers as Freud, Jung, and James did valuable work on extrasensory perception—work most often ignored by their latter-day disciples. This volume presents the impressive investiga­ tions of these seminal thinkers as well as the more recent breakthroughs in establishing the legitimacy and value of parapsychological study. It goes far to redress the long neglect of this fascinating area of knowledge and to open up important new vistas of knowledge of the as-yet unplumbed depths of human psychic potential.

Mysterious Phenomena of The Mind Centuries ago the first tentative steps were taken toward recognizing the human subconscious. Then, with the work of such figures as Freud and Jung, the subconscious was given formal recognition. Yet its true nature, and the powers it may contain, have remained largely unexplored. This book contains accounts by Freud, Jung, and other major psychologists of their encounters with paranormal powers in their patients. It goes on to include the greatest modem authorities in para­ psychology. It is truly essential reading for all who wish to lift the curtain of ignorance and glimpse the vast new area of knowledge and un­ derstanding that is waiting to be discovered within ourselves and others. ABOUT THE EDITOR: Raymond Van Over is currently a member of the faculties of the School for Continuing Education, New York University, and Hofstra University, Liberal Arts in Extension, where he teaches courses in parapsychology. He is a former editor of the International Journal of Parapsychology, has lectured widely, and has written and edited a number of distinguished books on the subject Mr. Van Over is considered one of today’s lead­ ing world authorities in parapsychology.

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"We must ... at least touch on the question whether real roots of superstition should be altogether denied, whether there are really no omens, prophetic dreams, telepathic experiences, manifestations of supernatural forces, and the like. I am now far from willing to repudiate without further ado all these phenomena, concerning which we possess so many minute ob­ servations even from men of intellectual prominence, and which should certainly form a basis for further investigation. We may even hope that some of these observations will be explained by our nascent knowl­ edge of the unconscious psychic processes, without necessitating radical changes in our present outlook. If still other phenomena, as, for example, those main­ tained by the spiritualists, should be proven, we should then consider the modification of our ‘laws’ as demanded by the new experience. . . .” —Sigmund Freud

Psychology and Extrasensory Perception Edited and with an Introduction by

RAYMOND VAN OVER

A MENTOR BOOK from

NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY TIMES MIRROR

New York and Scarborough, Ontario The New English Library Limited, London

Copyright © 1972 by Raymond N. Van Over

All rights reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 72-88856

Acknowledgments Beloff, John: “The Place of Theory in Parapsychology.” Used by permission of the author. Burt, Cyril: “The Implications of Parapsychology for General Psychology.” Reprinted from The Journal of Parapsychology by permission of the Journal and J. B. Rhine. Deutsch, Helene: “Occult Processes Occurring During Psycho­ analysis.” Reprinted from Psychoanalysis and the Occult, by permission of International Universities Press, Inc. Copyright 1953 by International Universities Press, Inc. Ehrenwald, Jan: “The Telepathy Hypothesis and Doctrinal Compli­ ance in Psychotherapy.” Reprinted from The American Journal of Psychotherapy by permission of the Journal and the author. Eysenck, H. J.: “Personality and Extra-Sensory Perception.” Reprinted from the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research by permission of the Society for Psychical Research and the author. Freud, Sigmund: “Psychoanalysis and Telepathy.” Reprinted from Psychoanalysis and the Occult, translated by George Devereux. Copyright 1953 by International Universities Press. Reprinted by permission of International Universities Press and the Hogarth Press Ltd., London, publishers of The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, revised and edited by James Strachey (see Vol. XVIII). Jung, Carl G.: “The Psychological Foundations of Belief in Spirits.” Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research by permission of the Society for Psychical Research. McDougall, William: “Presidential Address to the Society for Psychical Research.” Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research by permission of the Society for Psychical Research and Angus McDougall. McDougall, William: “Psychical Research as a University Study.” Reprinted by permission of Angus McDougall. Meerloo, Joost A. M.: “Sympathy and Telepathy: A Model for Psychodynamic Research in Parapsychology.” Reprinted from the International Journal of Parapsychology by permission of Parapsychology Foundation, Inc. and the author. Murphy, Gardner: “The Problem of Repeatability in Psychical Research.” Reprinted from the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research by permission of the American Society for Psychical Research and the author. (The following page constitutes an extension of this copyright page.)

Murphy, Gardner: “Psychology and Psychical Research.” Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research by permission of the Society for Psychical Research and the author. Progoff, Ira: “The Role of Parapsychology in Modern Thinking.” Reprinted from the International Journal of Parapsychology by permission of Parapsychology Foundation, Inc. and the author. Rhine, J. B.: “Glossary of Parapsychological Terms.” Reprinted from the Journal of Parapsychology by permission of the Journal and the author. Rhine, J. B.: “Psi and Psychology: Conflict and Solution.” Reprinted from the Journal of Parapsychology by permission of the Journal and the author. Rhine, L. E.: “The Establishment of Basic Concepts and Terminol­ ogy in Parapsychology.” Reprinted from the Journal of Para­ psychology by permission of the Journal and the author. Schiller, F. C. S.: “Psychology and Psychical Research.” Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research by permission of the Society for Psychical Research. Schmeidler, Gertrude: “ESP Breakthroughs: Paranormal Effects in Real Life.” Reprinted from the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research by permission of the American Society for Psychical Research and the author.

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Contents viii

Introduction

PART 1 1. William James

2. F. C. S. Schiller

3. William James

4. Carl G. Jung

5. Sigmund Freud

6. William McDougall 7. Helene Deutsch

EARLY ROOTS

WhatPsychicalResearch Has Accomplished (1896) Psychology and Psychi­ cal Research (1898) Frederic Myers's Service to Psychology (1901) The Psychological Foun­ dations of Belief in Spirits (1920) Psychoanalysis and Telep­ athy (1921) Presidential Address to the SPR (1921) Occult Processes Occur­ ring During Psychoan­ alysis (1926)

35 55

80

92

109 127

141

PART H A BEGINNING SCIENCE: Observations and Overviews

8. J. B. Rhine 9. Gardner Murphy

Psi and Psychology: Conflict and Solution Psychology and Psychi­ cal Research

161

188

10. Gertrude Schmeidler

11. L. E. Rhine

12. H. J. Eysenck 13. Gardner Murphy

PART in

14. IraProgoff

15. Jan Ehrenwald

16. Cyril Burt

17. Joost A. M. Meerlo

18. John Beloff

ESP Breakthroughs: Paranormal Effects in Real Life The Establishment of Basic Concepts and Terminology in Para­ psychology Personality and ExtraSensory Perception The Problem of Repeat­ ability in Psychical Re­ search

215

239

261

280

IMPLICATIONS

The Role of Parapsy­ chology in Modem Thinking 299 The Telepathy Hypoth­ esis and Doctrinal Com­ pliance in Psychother­ 312 apy The Implications of Parapsychology for Gen­ eral Psychology 334 Sympathy and Telepa­ thy: A Model for Psy­ chodynamic Research in Parapsychology 351 The Place of Theory in Parapsychology 379

Appendix: Psychical Research as a University Study, by William McDougall Glossary of Parapsychological Terms Selected Bibliography

396 410 414

Introduction Human attributes—the capacity to reason, to form so­ cial organization and create new gestalts, to be aware of our self-consciousness—seem common to man yet fail to define his character or nature. Early Western philos­ ophy and psychology placed man in a basically alien world from which he needed to find salvation outside himself. In recent times a number of philosophers and thinkers have placed greater emphasis on man’s ability to find his own place, to create his own reality. Many began to be­ lieve that he might indeed be the author of his own his­ tory. The existentialists tell us we lack an essence, that we are only that which we make of ourselves during our existence. Karl Marx sees man in a constant process of creating himself—both as individual and as collective so­ cial animal. More recently, Erich Fromm sees human nature as a struggle between certain inherent contradic­ tions of his animal and human aspects. Man is a “freak of nature,” being at once a part of nature yet continually at war with it by virtue of his capacity to transcend it. This is the source of our “dis-equilibrium” within our­ selves, and our task is to resolve the conflict even while new contradictions emerge. In such a fashion we move toward an ever refined equilibrium, becoming in the pro­ cess more subtle in our awareness and understanding, and closer to the “essence” of our human nature.1 Albert Camus understood this dilemma. “If I were ... a cat among animals, this life would have a meaning, or rather this problem would not arise, for I should belong to this world. I would be this world to which I am now opposed by my whole consciousness.”2 Our flesh demands animal things yet our minds and spirits begin a querulous comTsrich Fromm and Ramon Xirau, The Nature of Man (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1968), p. 8ff. 2Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (New York: Vintage Press, 1955), p. 38.

Viii

Introduction

ix

plaint; they seek to expand understanding and their role in the nature of things. Such interests formed the passionate intellectual natures of the founders of psychical research as they struggled to understand human nature in a scientific environment that was almost completely physicalist. Evolutionary biol­ ogy was sweeping England and the continent. The scientific world of nineteenth-century England was a mechanically dominated one. The personality of man seemed devoid of meaning or purpose, his character and origin characterized as a “hastily made over ape.”

The Common Birth of Psychology and Psychical Research What is “new” in psychology is often hard to divine. In general terms it can be said that the new movements in psychology have developed from the experimental and physiological psychology of the last half of the nineteenth century, to psychoanalysis in the first part of the twen­ tieth century, then to a more holistic approach and Ge­ stalt. Today it appears there is a splintering into many small movements. The experimental and physiological is now represented by a neo-behaviorism enhanced both by advanced techniques in the laboratory and a state of mind conditioned by a technological culture. This is opposed by a neo-humanism that incorporates the third-world psy­ chology of Abraham Maslow, R. D. Laing, and the exis­ tential and humanistic psychology of Binswanger and Rollo May—a group generally more sympathetic to the Gestalt or holistic view of man’s nature and psyche. Para­ psychology best fits the more humanistic school, yet suffers ultimate rejection from all schools of psychology—even the most radical! But if parapsychology lacks a present home it has a clear origin and, indeed, warrants an im­ portant place in the context of Western intellectual his­ tory. But this can be understood only if the history and development of parapsychology is examined as part of an evolutionary concept of man, not as an argument over scientific method or philosophy. Parapsychology must, in short, be seen as an active participant in the scientific examination of the conscious-unconscious mind. How do psychologists define the “unconscious”? The an­ swer would obviously depend ultimately on which group one is talking to. Is the unconscious to be defined merely

X Introduction as a negative state, as a description of something that is simply not conscious? Too much activity is known to take place within the unconscious world to accept this definition. But in general, most would probably agree that the term conveys the axiomatic proposition that the contents of the unconscious differ from that of normal consciousness. Some psychologists, such as Dr. Morton Prince, feel that it is actually a form of “co-consciousness” with normal consciousness; Ernest Jones, a wellknown Freudian, defines the term to encompass thoughts which have been repressed. “According to psychoanalysis,” Jones writes, “the unconscious is a region of the mind, the content of which is characterised by the attribute of being repressed, conative, instinctive, infantile, unreason­ ing, and predominantly sexual.”1 In early psychical re­ search—the original term for parapsychology—the word is used pretty much according to individual preference. G. N. M. Tyrrell for example, after discussing the unconscious and its many definitions and nuances of meaning, decides against even using it in his book The Personality of Man and opts for F. W. H. Myers’s term “subliminal self” to indicate “that portion of the human being which is neither material body nor conscious mind.”* 2 The concept of the conscious-unconscious mind has had a history no less fascinating than the evolution of man himself. Lancelot Law Whyte, in an excellent book on The Unconscious Before Freud, considers the idea of the un­ conscious the “supreme revolutionary conception of the modern age.”3 It underlies the traditions of the philosophic and scientific Western world—yet it probably cannot be defined to everyone’s satisfaction regardless of its wide use. In this book Whyte traces thoroughly the develop­ ment of the unconscious in European civilization, primar­ ily during the two centuries from 1680 to 1880. Indeed, Whyte feels that Freud would not have achieved his re­ markable revolution in thinking between 1895 and 1920 without the long prior preparation laid down by many other writers. The unconscious mind has been interpreted differently by a wide variety of temperaments and interests. The Ernest Jones, Psycho-Analysis, p. 126. 2G. N. M. Tyrrell, The Personality of Man (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1947), p. 29ff. Tyrrell feels that the term “unconscious’* rightfully belongs in its multifaceted use in psychopathology. 3L. L. Whyte, The Unconscious Before Freud (New York: Dou­ bleday Anchor, 1962), p. 6.

Introduction

xi

mystics classically viewed the unconscious mind as a link with God; the Christian Platonists as a divine, universal principle; the Yoga believes the unconscious to be only one of several functional aspects of the mind, which ul­ timately resides in an exalted supraconsciousness; and the early romantics saw the unconscious as a bridge between universal powers and the striving individual. Carl Jung theorized an unconscious that contained the collective his­ tory of men and their origins, yet warned against over­ estimating the “wisdom” one might find there, fearing that a kind of “psychopomp,” or theory of infallible and su­ perior knowledge in the unconscious—similar to Greek mythology—might develop. The most unimaginative use of the unconscious was made by the early rationalists, who saw it only as a box containing the memory, perceptions and ideas of the individual. Physicalists viewed the un­ conscious as the result of still undiscovered physiological facts about the brain. The idea that human personality contained mental char­ acteristics beyond normal waking consciousness had been heatedly argued prior to the theories relating to the un­ conscious developed in the nineteenth century. It was not only the paranormal artifacts such as prophecies, hal­ lucinations, mediumistic trances, and apparitions that in­ terested the psychical researchers, but the discovery, al­ most a century before, of hypnosis, with all its attendant peculiarities such as trance states; the lack of sensations of pain while conscious; the response to suggestion while not conscious; and even reports of spontaneous healings while in trance. These intrigued both psychologist and psy­ chical researcher and gave rise to theories that there may exist another “unconscious” aspect to the mind. Other, more universal, phenomena that indicated the existence of alternative types of “mindedness” included dreams. This universal experience suggested to many that another ele­ ment of oneself—not really a part of one’s conscious, waking self—existed. On the mechanistic end of the spectrum there were those who argued for the theory of “unconscious cere­ bration,” as W. B. Carpenter called it in 1853. This theory possessed a strong attraction for the physicalists of the period, for it emphasized brain activity as opposed to any vitalist principle. Although Carpenter himself didn’t care how his useful phrase was interpreted—whether in terms of a physical “brain” or the more metaphysical

xii Introduction “mind”—many grasped at his term as an explanation for the quasi-mental aspect of the mind and developed the theory that such mental characteristics were, in fact the result of “well-worn nervous paths” in the brain. Carpen­ ter had developed his idea more along lines of an “un­ conscious reflex action of the brain.” It was the word “reflex” that seemed so attractive to the physicalists of the period—it was a term they could immediately iden­ tify with. In 1868 Eduard von Hartman published his monumental Philosophy of the Unconscious, in which he also utilizes the word “unconscious.” The German philosopher did not, however, specifically deal with psychic functions beneath the threshold of day-by-day awareness—as did most of the others—but rather meant the inexplicable universal forces of Nature. But the history and development of the concept of an unconscious aspect of the psyche,1 while fascinating, does not concern us here beyond the fact that its development played a simultaneous role in both psychology and para­ psychology. The story of psychical research begins coincidentally with the development of the idea of the unconscious in Western science—with the growth of Freud’s theories about the structure of the unconscious and a practical method of dealing with its disruptive elements. And it should be remembered that an early area of agreement between psychology and psychical research was to be found in Freud’s overall purpose—to make the uncon­ scious susceptible to examination, to “enlarge the scope of awareness.” The same impulse motivated psychical researchers and still motivates parapsychologists. To fully appreciate the little known contribution of parapsychology to the historical context of knowledge one must be aware of the confusions and ambiguities that* ^Briefly, and in general, others who saw the brain-mind complex in terms of conscious-unconscious properties prior to Freud included C. G. Cams (1789-1869), J. F. Herbart (1776-1841), I. H. Fichte (1797-1879), G. T. Fechner (1801-1887), W. M. Wundt (18321920), and F. W. H. Myers (1843-1901). Any complete list of men who independently conceived of the brain-mind as “double-aspected” would be considerably longer and would have to include names like G. H. Lindner, K. Fortlage, T. Laycock and H. Maudsley—without even mentioning such literary and philosophical figures as Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, who discovered the unconscious through more personal, subjective investigations.

Introduction

xiii

abounded in the primitive psychological atmosphere of the nineteenth century. By contemporary standards the science of that time seems blindly optimistic, and its faith in reason, its belief that all illness and superstition would be conquered by its power and that the use of rational thought would culminate in a race of supermen, can only be considered magical-thinking in the extreme. Out of this deification of reason in what has been called the Age of Analysis came such judgments as that of a Har­ vard investigating committee that warned the public against mystery religions and occultism, for they “cor­ rupt the morals and degrade the intellect.” Furthermore, the elite scholarly committee observed, these subjects are a “contaminating influence, which surely tends to lessen the truth of man and the purity of women.” Reports of “paranormal” phenomena are as ancient as man’s recorded history and are common to every culture and age. But following the industrial revolution an age of rationalism developed. Advances in science and tech­ nology brought with them a skeptical materialism, and the numerous stories and anecdotes about hypnosis, ap­ paritions, and the like were rejected out of hand. One group of men at Cambridge University, however, felt that there should be an investigation of such phenomena, and this small group—among them, Sir William Barrett, a renowned physicist of his day, Professor Henry Sidgwick, a well-known moral philosopher, and Frederic W. H. Myers, a classical scholar—formed the first Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in Great Britain in 1882. Sev­ eral years later William James, who devoted more than twenty-five years to the study of psychical phenomena, helped found the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR). These two societies dominated much of the re­ search into ghosts, apparitions, hallucinations and general extrasensory perception1 until 1934, when J. B. Rhine initiated a new phase. Under the sponsorship of William McDougall, Rhine established the Parapsychology Labora­ tory at Duke University to evaluate experimentally the arguments regarding ESP. Thiring the early phases of psychical research, attention was directed mostly toward hypnosis, hallucinations, and phenomena surrounding mediumship. Telepathy was then thought to be the basic, if not singular, form of ESP. The various papers in this anthology will show that the types and characteristics of extra­ sensory perception have changed considerably.

xiv Introduction It took considerable courage and mental equilibrium to sustain an objective examination of the bizarre and mys­ terious phenomena of the mind that interested the early psychical researchers. It was not enough, they believed, to turn away from—or categorize as delusional—those who claimed to see an apparition, who claimed to have had a dream that later turned out to be veridical (or at least coincidentally significant), who experienced over­ powering subjective experiences that could only be paral­ leled with medieval obsessions or primitive magic-oriented neurosis. But it must be remembered that there was little “science” of psychology during this period, not even the rudimentary one to be founded upon Freud’s initial gropings for a theory that would make hysteria comprehensi­ ble. Hypnosis was still considered by most to be either fraud or magic. There was no understanding of trance states other than that to be found in the scant reports in anthropological texts and religious tradition. Madness was not to be understood, but something to be hidden be­ hind the walls of an institution, to be pressed away in a dark cell of the social brain. The synthesizing and obser­ vational genius of Freud, Adler, and the other giants of early psychology was still to come. Early psychical re­ searchers were faced with giant mysteries, and no facts, theories, or even directional hints to guide them existed. It is a testament to their individual emotional and in­ tellectual courage that they sustained their efforts to understand these historically ubiquitous “paranormal” phe­ nomena without blanching, without turning away in irri­ tation, disdain, or disgust, and that they did so with an objectivity that led William James to comment that were he asked “to point to a scientific journal where hard­ headedness and never-sleeping suspicion of sources of er­ ror might be seen in their full bloom, I think I should have to fall back on the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research.” I share James’s admiration, as I share his observation that great credit will always be due to the SPR, and in particular to the theorizing of one of its founders, F. W. H. Myers, as “being the first attempt in any language to consider the phenomena of hallucination, hyp­ notism, automatism, double personality, and mediumship as connected parts of one whole subject.” It was from this dubious vantage point in our intellec­ tual history that both Sigmund Freud and F. W. H. Myers developed concepts of the unconscious mind that have validity and meaning today. But it is Myers who interests

Introduction

xv us most here. For as William James wrote: “Frederic Myers will always be remembered in psychology as the pioneer who staked out a vast tract of mental wilderness and planted the flag of genuine science upon it.” Not only has Myers not been remembered by psychology despite James’s prediction, but he is even omitted from thorough studies like Whyte’s The Unconscious Before Freud.1 His contribution to parapsychology, however, cannot be ig­ nored.

Frederic Myers and Subliminal Consciousness One of the most distinctive aspects of ESP has always been its elusive, sporadic nature. The problem early re­ searchers faced was unlike that encountered in any other science. The elusiveness of ESP was recognized eventually as the result of subtle psychological elements which be­ gan to appear in experiments. Questions relating to person­ ality types, the interaction between subject and experi­ menter, motivation, the effect of the atmosphere and experimental “setting,” and numerous other influences be­ gan to draw the attention of a growing number of pro­ fessional people, many of whom were psychologists. The close relationship between ESP phenomena and psycho­ logical factors in a subject’s personality became clearer as research progressed. In fact, it became rapidly evi­ dent—as Myers said quite early—that the source and medium of the psi*2 process was the unconscious. As Louisa Rhine points out in her article in this an­ thology and in several places in her writings,3 “A big step forward in understanding was made when it came to be fully realized that the psi process is one that goes on un­ consciously. It seems now that about ninety-nine per cent of the difficulties of parapsychological experimentation are the result of the fact that the process is not consciously controlled. Unconscious mental processes are still largely uncharted ones, and those involved here have never been studied in depth sufficiently for the needs of parapsychol­ ogy.” Dr. Rhine rightly emphasizes that this leaves para­ psychology with much the same problem as psychology. Whyte does mention Myers’s name twice, in lists with other writers who developed ideas on the unconscious. 2See Glossary for definitions of such parapsychological terms. ’Louisa Rhine, “Parapsychology: Then and Now,” Parapsychol­ ogy Today (New York: Citadel Press, 1968), p. 261.

xvi

Introduction

Namely—to discover a reliable method of transferring unconsciously generated material meaningfully into con­ sciousness. F. W. H. Myers was a pioneer in psychology and made major contributions to both parapsychology and psychology—a fact which is unfortunately rarely men­ tioned. Myers was a fascinating personality. He possessed a prodigious memory and an impressive ability to grasp the essence of scientific issues even though his primary abilities and interests were in the fields of literature and classicism. In his later years he began to read widely in science. Sir Oliver Lodge, one of those nineteenth-century scientists deeply involved in psychical research, testified that Myers had, among other things, anticipated the “solar system” model of atomic structure. Lodge related that Myers had also had an interest in wireless telegraphy, which had in turn moved Lodge on to some of his own considerable scientific discoveries.1 Alan Gauld, in his fine book on the history of psy­ chical research writes that Myers was well-versed in the psychological literature of the age and was, Gauld also believes, the first in Great Britain to bring attention to the work of the leading continental psychologists, Janet, Breuer, and Freud.2 But Myers’s primary contribution was his concept of “subliminal consciousness,” which at that period in our nascent science of psychology, according to William James, “overturns the classic notion of what the human mind consists in.” His theory of the Subliminal Self, of one’s Self beneath the threshold of consciousness, which he was developing from 1880 to 1900, predated Freud by several years. The word “subliminal” (sub = beneath; limen = threshold), which Myers created along with other now standard terms such as “telepathy,” was first used in its complete theoretical sense in a series of papers published in the SPR Proceedings beginning in 1891-2 (and incorporated more fully in his classical volume Human Personality, [1903]). This was only ten years after Freud received his medical degree and two years before he published his first paper on hysteria in 1893. Some have speculated that perhaps Freud was 1J. A. Hill, ed., Letters from Sir Oliver Lodge (London: 1932), p. 220. See also Alan Gauld, The Founders of Psychical Research (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), for a more complete analysis of Myers’s work and character as well as for discussion of other leading figures in early psychical research. *Ibid, p. 276.

Introduction

xvii

familiar with Myers’s theories of “subliminal conscious­ ness” before he published, in 1895, his book Studien Uber Hysterie, which marked the bare beginnings of psycho­ analysis and Freud’s formalization of his own conception of the unconscious. Myers also called this subliminal aspect of our minds the “Ultra-Marginal Consciousness,” and employed these terms to describe the existence of obsessive thoughts, de­ lusions, voices, visions, and both rational and irrational impulses. And, unlike most other precursors of Freud who considered the possibility of an “unconscious,” Myers felt that such problems originating in the subliminal conscious­ ness could be treated psychologically. He tried to show that one aspect of our personality signals to another by the use of symbols. “Myers, as a psychologist” writes G. N. M. Tyrrell bluntly, “anticipated to a considerable degree the subsequent discoveries of the psycho-ana­ lysts.”1 But what was most important about Myers, and what William James expressed such admiration for, was that his theories opened the door to understanding that the ordi­ nary waking, conscious self was only a limited and for­ malized aspect of the total person. Myers felt that the subliminal self incorporated a “gold mine as well as a rub­ bish heap.” (It should be mentioned that Alan Gauld, a most thorough and knowledgeable researcher, believes Myers’s view of the subliminal world lay closer to Wil­ liam James’s concept of a “stream of consciousness” than to either Freud or Jung’s view of the unconscious.) In describing the subliminal, Myers wrote: “I do not, indeed, by using this term assume that there are two correlated and parallel selves existing always within each of us. Rather I mean by the Subliminal Self that part of the self which is commonly subliminal; and I conceive that there may be—not only co-operations between these quasi-independent trains of thought—but also up­ heavals and alternations of personality of many kinds, so that what was once below the surface may for a time, or permanently, rise above it. And I conceive also that no self of which we can here have cognisance is in reality more than a fragment of a larger Self—revealed in a fashion at once shifting and limited through an organism not so trained as to afford it full manifestation.” xThe Personality of Man, op, cit., p. 47.

xviii Introduction No doubt Myers’s theories presented difficulties, for he dealt with abstract and philosophically complex problems that have confused and intrigued mankind since ancient times: central to his theory of subliminal consciousness were concepts such as mind, personality, soul, spirit, and the psychical realm of hallucinations, trance, automatism, and so forth. It would be inappropriate, as well as im­ possible because of its extreme length, to include Myers’s paper on subliminal consciousness in this anthology.1 In­ deed, its complexity and ramifications are such that con­ siderable space would be needed simply to review it. Wil­ liam James comments in more detail on the early history of psychical research in his paper “What Psychical Re­ search Has Accomplished,” and on Myers’s theories in his other paper in this anthology “Frederic Myers’s Service to Psychology.” Let it suffice to say that when Myers’s book Human Personality appeared posthumuously in 1903, its fame had preceded it. It received a great deal of no­ tice and highly favorable, lengthy reviews from William James, F. C. S. Schiller, Sir Oliver Lodge, Theodore Flournoy, Walter Leaf and Andrew Lang, to mention only some. Myers’s theories and his epic book remain im­ portant reading in contemporary parapsychology. Their origin in nineteenth-century thought remains hidden from contemporary psychology, but the history of ideas must give way to their contribution. As a distinguished con­ temporary psychologist, Gardner Murphy, states: “It was in the beautiful theory of the subliminal, so persuasively developed in Frederic Myers’s great book, Human Per­ sonality and its Survival of Bodily Death that the first great source for a psychology of subconscious or sub­ liminal activity became available in the English-speaking world. The book was, on the one hand, an introduction to human subliminal activity and, on the other hand, a manual of the new psychical research.”2 Tt may be asked, if F. W. H. Myers’s paper on subliminal consciousness is so important in the history of psychology and parapsychology, why was it not included in this anthology? The answer falls into two parts. Myers’s earlier papers were unde­ veloped, and when his theory was finally published in full in 1903 it was much too long and intricate to be anthologized effectively, for it does not lend itself easily to excerption. I highly recommend, however, that readers turn to the full paper in his book Human Personality. 2Gardner Murphy and Robert Ballou, William James on Psychical Research (New York: The Viking Press, 1969), p. 212.

Introduction Psi and

xix

Psychoanalysis

The first major psychoanalyst to write on parapsycho­ logical material was one of the most illustrious members (from 1911 on) of the British Society for Psychical Re­ search—Sigmund Freud himself. He broached the prob­ lems of the “uncanny” six times between 1899 and 1933. The first two papers he published (1899, 1904) are slight and deal with clinical observations and problems. Freud’s initial attitude toward psychical phenomena was negative, even passionately resistant, leading him to call the whole subject an “occult tide of mud” that had to be stopped. Later his attitude changed to one of caution and scientific curiosity, and finally to one of cautious accep­ tance. In 1921 he wrote that “it no longer seems possi­ ble to brush aside the study of so-called occult facts.”1 The year 1921 figures prominently in Freud’s grow­ ing interest in psychical research, for on July 24th he wrote a letter to Hereward Carrington: “I do not belong with those who reject in advance the study of so-called occult phenomena as being unscientific, or unworthy, or harmful. If I were at the beginning of my scientific ca­ reer, instead of at the end of it as I am now, I might perhaps choose no other field of study—in spite of all its difficulties!”* 2 Freud’s first paper on the “occult” was written in 1899, his second in 1904, and his third, “The Uncanny,” ap­ peared in 1919.3 All of these papers are cautious, skeptical, ^‘Psychoanalysis and Telepathy.” This paper is included in this anthology. It was first published in Gesammelte Werke, 1941, but the manuscript is dated 1921. 2In a letter dated July 24, 1921, published in Letters to Hereward Carrington (Mokelumne Hill, California: 1957). See also Ernest Jones’s The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (New York: Basic Books, 1957), Vol. 3, p. 392ff, where he discusses the charge that this letter was not genuine and concludes after seeing a copy of it that Freud did indeed write it. aFreud’s first paper was “A Premonitory Dream Fulfilled,” written on November 10, 1899, and originally published in Gesammelte Werke, 17:19-23 (London: Imago, 1941). It was translated from the German by James Strachey and published in Collected Papers, 5:70-73 (London: Hogarth Press, 1950). His second paper, “Pre­ monitions and Chance,” is Chapter 12 of The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, 1904, translated by Dr. A. A. Brill. Both papers can be found in G. Devereux, Psychoanalysis and the Occult (New York: International Universities Press, 1953). “The Uncanny” appeared first in Imago, 5-.291-X2A, 1919, and was translated by Strachey.

XX

Introduction

and even hostile in tone. Yet in 1921 he wrote his “Psy­ choanalysis and Telepathy,” which dealt more positively with the telepathy concept for the first time. Some feel that Freud’s attitude was influenced by Wilhelm Stekel’s book Telepathic Dreams, which appeared in 1920 and to which Freud refers in a footnote in his paper. But this seems an excessive interpretation, for Freud’s discussion of telepathy, while more positive than before, is still cau­ tious and objective. He even points out that he himself had never had a telepathic dream nor had he ever come across such a dream in any of his patients. Nevertheless, his attitude was favorably enough inclined toward the telepathy hypothesis in this paper to convince Ernest Jones and others that it would be unwise to present it to the Inter­ national Psychoanalytical Congress of 1922. Under pressure from his colleagues, Freud put the article aside and wrote another—“Dreams and Telepathy” (1922)—which was more cautious in tone.1 “Psychoanalysis and Telepathy” was not published until after Freud’s death. It finally ap­ peared in print for the first time in 1941.1 2 In 1924 he wrote to Jones: “The strongest literary impression of this month came to me from a Report on Telepathy Experiments with Professor [Gilbert] Murray [Proceedings of the SPR, December, 1924]. I confess that the impression made by these reports was so strong that I am ready to give up my opposition to the existence of thought-transference. ... I should even be prepared to lend the support of psychoanalysis to the matter of telepathy.” Convinced that such a move would threaten the credibility of the psychoanalysis movement itself, Jones prevented him from doing this by writing a circular letter on the dangers of such a move and mailing it out. From the early 1920’s, however Freud seemed to be­ come more intrigued with the idea that the telepathy hy­ pothesis might be a valuable analytical tool. In both his initial papers on telepathy he arrived at the conclusion that, while he did not fully accept the telepathy hypothe­ 1“Dreams and Telepathy” originally appeared in Imago, 8:1-22, 1922. Translated by C. J. M. Hubback, it appears in the Collected Papers, 4:408-435 (London: Hogarth Press, 1925), and in Dever­ eux’s Psychoanalysis and the Occult. 2For a more detailed account see The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud by Ernest Jones (New York: Basic Books, 1957), Vol. 3, Chapter 14, “Occultism.” “Psychoanalysis and Telepathy” also was printed in Devereux’s book, Psychoanalysis and the Occult, and it appears in this anthology.

Introduction

xxi

sis, a telepathic event might be uncovered by psychoana­ lytical technique. In 1925 “The Occult Significance of Dreams” appeared, and while Freud does not present new material he seems to be far more positive in his attitude toward telepathy. In this paper he analyzes a prophecy of a fortune-teller who had prophesied some years before that a woman would have two children. This prophecy, Freud suggested, had less to do with read­ ing the future than with telepathically perceiving the pa­ tient’s unconscious wishes which were then fed back to the woman as an emotionally satisfying prophecy. While expressing disbelief in prophetic dreams generally, Freud emphasized that telepathic messages dealing with strong, emotionally significant material may show up in a dream. He wrote: “I have often had an impression, in the course of experiments in my private circle, that strongly emo­ tionally colored recollections can be successfully trans­ ferred without much difficulty.” Eight years later Freud’s final paper in this area, “Dreams and the Occult,” was published in his New Zntroductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1933). He re­ viewed his previous attitudes on telepathy and related a few more prophecies that further upheld his basic idea that analysis revealed the prophet to be merely giving expression to hidden thoughts and repressed wishes. I recall being struck by the accuracy of these observa­ tions by Freud during a “reading” by a well-known clair­ voyant in New York City. I had just returned from sev­ eral years in Europe. My plan was to stay in the United States for two years, save money, and return to Europe permanently. I had only been back a few weeks and the idea was still strong in my mind. With no information from me—we exchanged only a few words of greeting —she began to “read” my future. She said that I would turn my back on the United States in two years and move to Europe to live. It was an uncannily accurate estimate of my own secret plans for my own future. I have not moved back to Europe, however, these last twelve years, and have only traveled there for vacations and business. So what seemed a highly accurate prophecy from a total stranger was in fact an excellent example of telepathy, the perception of my own emotionally charged desires at that time. It was just such “secret wishes” that Freud felt would be communicated to the “prophet” by the client. In his excellent paper, “Psychiatric Contributions to

xxii

Introduction

Parapsychology,”1 Jules Eisenbud, an American psychia­ trist, makes the observation that there have been two major developments during the 1930’s and 40 *s in psy­ chical research. One was the careful experimental and statistical refinements of J. B. Rhine and his associates, and the other was “the application of a technique en­ abling psi phenomena to be viewed as part of man’s total, needful, behavioral context.” Eisenbud is no doubt correct when he credits the im­ petus for this to Freud. Freud was obviously the most dominant figure in medical psychology to interest him­ self seriously in ESP, though he did not make any radical adjustments in psychoanalytical theory, as Gardner Mur­ phy has pointed out, to accommodate the telepathy hy­ pothesis.*2 But Freud was enough of a true scientist that he was willing to investigate regardless of his own biases. It was left to Freud’s followers, however, to make a place for such evidence within the structure of psychoanalysis —if it could be accomplished. But very few have fol­ lowed Freud’s lead. A list of the few outstanding excep­ tions to this would include Emilio Servadio, Nandor Fodor, Jules Eisenbud, and Jan Ehrenwald. Ehrenwald’s original interest in following Freud’s lead came from the “increasing weight of evidence of telepathic occurrences which can be observed in everyday life, in dreams, in the psychoanalytic situation, in neuroses and psychoses.” His book Telepathy and Medical Psychology (1947), in which he develops his psychological hypothesis about the nature of telepathy, was only the first of numer­ ous articles and books researching the relationship be­ tween psychology and ESP. As Gardner Murphy so aptly noted in his Introduction to Ehrenwald’s book: “There is consequently a deep ignorance on the part of psycho­ analysts and other medical psychologists regarding con­ temporary studies in psychical research, while among the psychical researchers there is very limited technical un­ derstanding of the positive contributions of depth psy­ chology to the progress of their investigations. Between the two flickering lights there is a great darkness.” While this comment of Murphy’s is twenty-five years old, it can still apply today. Although considerable efforts ^Journal oj Parapsychology, 13:247-262, 1949; and also reprinted in George Devereux, Psychoanalysis and the Occult, pp. 3—15. 2Introduction to Jan Ehrenwald, Telepathy and Medical Psy­ chology (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1947).

Introduction

xxiii

have been made to brighten these “two flickering lights” into a single bright light by a few men, there has been no major effort to explore this fertile area begun by Freud. Servadio is an eminent Italian psychoanalyst who pub­ lished the first of many papers covering a number of subjects in parapsychology in 1932. Nandor Fodor began to publish the results of his research into dreams and, subsequently, on the problem of physical manifestations, such as poltergeists, as interpreted by Freudian psycholog­ ical principles. Both Eisenbud and Ehrenwald have con­ tributed greatly to narrowing the distance between psi and psychoanalysis. Since 1946 Eisenbud has published long and detailed investigations into the appearance of psi in the therapeutic environment. Practically any of Eisenbud’s considerable writings will be valuable for the student or lay reader who wishes to go more deeply into the associations between psi and psychoanalysis. Jan Eh­ renwald has concerned himself primarily with the theo­ retical aspects of psi—and especially with the telepathy hypothesis. One of his major theoretic contributions is included in this anthology. The relevance of parapsychology to psychology gen­ erally has been reviewed quite a few times over the years. In 1939, T. W. Mitchell, a past president of the British SPR, published “The Contribution of Psychical Research to Psychotherapy.” J. B. Rhine has also reviewed the re­ lationship between parapsychology and other sciences several times. In 1950 he published an excellent reView, “Psi Phenomena and Psychiatry.” One of his more recent articles reviewing the areas of similarity and conflicts be­ tween parapsychology and psychology, and a suggestion on how to resolve those conflicts, is presented in this anthology. Frederick W. Knowles published “Parapsychol­ ogy and Psychiatry” in 1966; J. B. Rhine and J. G. Pratt produced a very helpful chapter of “The Psychology of Psi” in their valuable textbook for students, Parapsy­ chology, Frontier Science of the Mind (Springfield, Il­ linois: Charles C. Thomas, 1957).

C. G. Jung

and

Parapsychology

Besides Freud, other pioneer psychologists who pro­ foundly contributed to psychical research were Carl G. Jung, William James, and William McDougall. Jung’s in­ volvement with parapsychological phenomena was long and personal. His early interest in the subject is shown by

xxiv

Introduction

his choice of material for his doctoral dissertation for his medical degree: “On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena.” This paper was based upon Jung’s participation in a series of spiritualistic seances with one of his cousins acting as the medium (1899 and 1900). One can speculate that his numerous personal experi­ ences whetted and maintained his interest, yet reading through his work it becomes clear that his curiosity was not on the experiential level but rather acutely philosophi­ cal. This can clearly be seen in his numerous theoretical writings on the subject. While the phenomena he discusses are bizarre, his tone and analysis is always objective and analytical. His ideas are so numerous and complex that it is difficult to choose and discuss any one as most perti­ nent or important. His doctoral dissertation, for example, contains within it the germ of his concept of “autono­ mous complexes” in the unconscious. This idea that per­ sonality fragments manifest themselves as a “compensa­ tory relationship” between the conscious and unconscious led to his later theoretic constructions dealing with the dynamics of unconscious processes. It also led to one of Jung’s most important theoretical contributions to both psychology and psychical research—the idea of word asso­ ciation processes. Tests for word associations have become a standard psychological tool, and have even been used in parapsychology to establish personality differences or sim­ ilarities between a medium’s normal, alert personality and her entranced, “control” personality. Jung did not write anything in parapsychology again until 1919 when he delivered a lecture to the British So­ ciety for Psychical Research on “The Psychological Foun­ dations of Belief in Spirits.” In this paper he pursued his ideas on trance personalities from his doctoral disserta­ tion and attempted to explain “spirits” and other occult phenomena as “unconscious autonomous complexes” and as the “exteriorized effects of unconscious complexes.”1 In one of Jung’s books, The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, he cited J. B. Rhine’s precognition experi­ ments and commented: “How could an event remote in Tor the best survey of Jung’s work in parapsychology and of his general theories, see the excellent articles and books by Aniela Jaffe —in particular: “C. G. Jung and Parapsychology,” International Journal of Parapsychology, Vol. X, No. 1 (Spring 1968), and From the Life and Work of C. G. Jung (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1971).

xxv Introduction space and time produce a corresponding psychic image when the transmission of energy necessary for this is not even thinkable? However incomprehensible it may ap­ pear, we are finally compelled to assume that there is in the unconscious something like an a priori knowledge of the immediate existence of events which lacks any causal basis.”1 Precognition is one of the most difficult phenomena to understand in parapsychology, and in an attempt to make sense of precognitive events Jung offered his complex and subtle theory of synchronicity. “Synchronicity,” he wrote, “means the simultaneous occurrence of a certain psychic state with one or more external events which appear as meaningful parallels to the momentary subjective state.” The transcendence of time and space as a characteristic in the unconscious, which has been found pertinent to parapsychological research, fascinated Jung and is further developed in his theory of the “collective unconscious.” It would not be adequate, or perhaps even possible, to sum­ marize Jung’s theories and his full contribution to para­ psychology in so short a space. Yet he must be ac­ knowledged as one of the most original psychological thinkers of our time—and, like Freud, he was not afraid to follow wherever fact or experience led him, regardless of how difficult or mysterious the terrain.

American Psychology William James and William McDougall American psychology was, during the colonial period and up to the middle of the nineteenth century, largely nonexistent. Where it did exist, it was primarily a reflec­ tion of British, French, and German theories. The new British psychology that arose from the evolutionary think­ ing of Herbert Spencer—and was apotheosized by Darwin in 1859—gave impetus to a psychology of individual dif­ ferences, to a detailed study of how individual personality differences could be studied and measured. Francis Galton’s experimental methods came across the Atlantic and combined with the associational and experimental psy­ chology of the continental giants like Wundt, and gave birth to an American psychology. But the greatest link rThe Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle,” (New York: Pantheon Books, Vol. 51, Bollingen Foundation Inc., 1955), pp. 43-44.

xxvi

Introduction

between the old and new psychology was William James.1 James’s birth (1842) and education was almost coinci­ dental with the birth of spiritualism (1849) in America. His active research into the puzzling and popular phe­ nomena of nineteenth-century spiritualism came after his wife returned from a series of sittings with the famous medium, Mrs. Leonora Piper, and reported that she had related things that nobody else could know. James set about investigating and studying Mrs. Piper and even ended up taking her to the family’s summer place in Chocorua, New Hampshire. He had, of course, heard much about mediums and their alleged abilities before his meetings with Mrs. Piper, and by the time he was ready to discuss his attitude on the subject he had covered most of the contemporary information on psychical research. He summarizes these early impressions in his essay in this book, “What Psychical Research Has Accomplished.” It is a positive statement that accepts the premise that there are forms of knowing beyond the use of our normal sense organs. This paper not only summarizes his own thinking about psychical research but covers the field generally up to the time of writing. In James’s other essay included in this anthology, he examines the character and contribu­ tions of F. W. H. Myers (James’s friend), and the science of psychology in relation to psychical research. It is not only a valuable contribution historically, but clarifies many problems that still exist between the two disciplines today. William McDougall was another leading psychologist involved in psychical research. He presents a more varied intellectual picture than most psychologists of his period —especially from the point of view of his academic credentials. He was a pioneer in physiological and social psychology and was also known for biological analysis of psychological problems. He was deeply interested in eu­ genics and heredity, and he conducted experiments for seventeen years on the inheritance of acquired charac­ teristics. McDougall’s interest in psychical research was long-standing, and he brought considerable psychological expertise to its study. William James’s work with Mrs. Piper first aroused his active support, and he maintained a keen interest in finding scientific evidence for the survi­ val of the human mind after death—although he was less Tor an interesting and readable account of both American psy­ chology and William James’s involvement in early psychical re­ search see Gardner Murphy’s book Psychological Thought From Pythagoras to Freud (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968).

Introduction

xxvii

convinced of the physical phenomena than he was of the “mental” aspects such as telepathy. McDougall wrote a great deal, covering a wide range of subjects, in psychical research. His contributions in hyp­ nosis, on the mind-body problem, automatisms, and me­ diumship were always insightful and intelligent.1 Indeed, if he had been freer to spend more time, one can assume a great deal more would have appeared under his name. He wrote: “If I Lad not found it necessary to earn some income, I should perhaps have chosen to give all my time and energy to work in this field.” Throughout his academic and public life McDougall re­ sisted mechanistic interpretations of man, and his taking William James’s chair at Harvard in 1920 led to a series of scorching critical encounters with the Watsonian be­ haviorists, who were dominant in American psychology at that time. Convinced of an evolutionary or “goal-seeking” quality in human life, and of the “purposive” or hormic nature of consciousness, McDougall had little sympathy or patience for what he called the “unscientific prejudice” of many of his colleagues toward psychical phenomena. His contribution to psychical research was immense. Along with those other “giants” of early psychology who strengthened the foundations of psychical research during those first years in an unsympathetic intellectual and aca­ demic atmosphere, McDougall stands as one of the princi­ pal architects of present-day parapsychology. A word of justification may be in order regarding Mc­ Dougall’s paper, “Psychical Research as a University Study.” First, since this anthology deals with psychology and extrasensory perception, it would be hard to justify using McDougall’s university paper at all—for it does not touch heavily upon psychology and psi. His Presidential Address to the SPR does, of course, deal with psychical research from his preeminence as a psychologist. But a great value resides in his paper on psychical research as a university study. Along with specific assumptions about the psyche of man and the world generally, psychical re­ search challenges our philosophy of science. A nation’s university system represents prevalent attitudes—the exist­ ing “philosophy of science”—and thereby reflects the thinking and attitudes of the orthodox scientific commuTor the complete collection of McDougall’s writings on psychical research and parallel subjects, see Raymond Van Over and Laura Oteri, eds., William McDougall: Explorer of the Mind (New York: Garrett/Helix Press, 1967).

xxviii

Introduction

nity. From his clear view atop the Harvard academic hierarchy McDougall saw this problem clearly in relation to psychical research. The situation is slightly different to­ day, but the basic problems as McDougall saw them in 1926 remain. His review of psychical research in relation to university programs, and as the basis of a philosophy of science, is still pertinent and valuable. Because the psychology departments of so many universities today re­ flect the limitations of what McDougall was examining, and because psychology as a science reflects these limita­ tions, it seemed valuable to include his reflections on the problem.1 I could not justify placing it in the body of the text, but I feel it adds considerably to the overall picture of psychical research and psychology in that it reflects a continuing problem. The Appendix seemed a suitable compromise. Psi and

Psychology: Rapprochement?

An obvious question now comes to mind. If the ground between early psychology and psychical research was so common, why did not a rapprochement ever take place? As Alan Gauld points out, in the first decade or two after 1900 such a rapprochement did not seem impossible. “Three of the most distinguished English-speaking psy­ chologists—G. F. Stout, William McDougall and William James—were members of the S.P.R.” On the continent influential voices favorable to psychical research in­ cluded Binet, Janet, Freud, Jung, Flournoy, and Bernheim. Practically all these men have been represented in the SPR’s Proceedings, Gauld believes that as orthodox psy­ chology “became more experimental, more biological, more eager to be straightforwardly accepted as a science among sciences,” it would not take a chance on compro­ mising its growing acceptance by giving credence to so bizarre and eccentric an associate as psychical research.2 There seems considerable truth in this view (as witness Ernest Jones’s advice to Freud to suppress his favorable xIt would not be proper to go into the implications of such broad criticism of present-day psychology here, but I would suggest turning to an excellent article by Sigmund Koch, ‘‘Psychology Cannot Be a Coherent Science,” in Psychology Today, September, 1969, p. 14ff. See also B. G. Rosenberg, “Psychology Through the Glass,” Psy­ chology Today, June, 1971, and Chapter 1 of Unfinished Man, by Raymond Van Over (New York: World Publishing, 1972). 2Alan Gauld, The Founders of Psychical Research, op, cit., pp. 338-39.

Introduction

xxix

paper on telepathy), but another, perhaps more tolerant and less self-aggrandizing reason, would be the very nat­ ural bias the unconscious generates in our noncontemplative, activitist-oriented society. Psychology was strug­ gling to have its own vision of the unconscious accepted. Its methods seemed to work therapeutically and its results and theories were slowly being examined by the orthodox scientific community. Psychical research offered psychol­ ogy no workable theories, no solid experimental basis to work from—in fact, it offered little beyond intriguing speculations and fascinating anecdotal material. Experi­ mental controls in psychology brought forth the fruit of data relating to learning, perception, and behavioral char­ acteristics. Laboratory controls in parapsychology seemed at first glance to bring forth only statistical indications that something “extra” existed in the mind. The stomachchurning apprehension which accompanies potent ma­ terial from the unconscious had been alleviated in the case of psychology by the palliative offer of a cure. Psycho­ analysis offered its methodology as appeasement to the very fears it had increased by delving so indelicately into the origins of hysteria and sexual impulses. Further, gen­ eral psychology was continually developing an experimental foundation around its theories, which parapsychology did not even undertake until the 1930’s. Investigation of psy­ chological factors relating to ESP came relatively late upon the parapsychological scene. It apparently had to wait upon the initiation of laboratory experimentation by Rhine and his associates. Just as experimentation with perception, learning, and other factors that lend themselves to lab­ oratory conditions preceded work on the more subtle problems of motivation in psychology, so did the simple, straightforward laboratory experimentation on guessing targets and card sequences, and the assessment of its sta­ tistical significance, dominate early parapsychology. It was the only methodology available. Following Rhine’s lead, “second generation” parapsy­ chologists like Betty Humphrey, Gertrude Schmeidler, Douglas Dean, Thelma Moss, directed their attention to­ ward personality variables that might be involved in suc­ cessful ESP. Whole new questions dealing with positive and negative beliefs, with the well-adjusted and mal­ adjusted personality, with the set or atmosphere of the test situation, with the mood and general attitude of the subject that day, began to play an important role in parapsychological research. A variety of effects showed

xxx Introduction themselves, and those characteristics of ESP that the Rhines and other early scientific researchers had dis­ cussed were examined in a variety of new ways. As Rhine and his “second generation” associates progressed in their experiments, words and categories such as decline effects, spontaneity, variance changes, preferential or dif­ ferential scoring, all became integrated into the expanding parapsychological vocabulary. Parapsychology is only now coming of age. Psychology apparently had simply matured first. Another factor both psychology and psychical research struggled against was the spirit of our age. Now the spirit of an age obviously cannot be quantified. It cannot be uncovered by the processes of reason, for it is a mass in­ clination, a motivation effecting blocks of people, expand­ ing its influence by suggestion until its dominant themes become clear to easy observation. Those who do not join this trend, and reject its premises, begin to find them­ selves ostracized. As Carl Jung acutely observed in his article “The Basic Postulates of Analytical Psychology,” to grant substantiality to the idea that the mind is any­ thing but an epiphenomenon of brain/matter is against the spirit of our age, a particle of the current scientific canon of heretical opinion. It is the very heart of this canon that ESP, and the results of observation and re­ search in parapsychology, strikes at. Pitirim Sorokin has presented convincing evidence in his important books, Social and Cultural Dynamics and Social Philosophies of an Age of Crisis, that for the last five centuries our society has been dominated by what he calls a “sensate culture,” a tradition founded in physicalist and mechanistic theories of man, and that in our present age we are witness to its disintegration. Sorokin argues that we are in a transition from the sensate culture to an idealistic one, and quotes the descriptions of Berdyaev’s “New Medieval,” of Spengler’s “Second Religiousity,” and of Toynbee’s “New Universal Church” to indicate the broad agreement between a variety of cultural commen­ tators. The respected Harvard sociologist then argues that these basic sociocultural changes are paralleled by a “corresponding change in the psychological conception of man’s energies and personality structure.” In this context Sorokin feels that the expansion of psychology to deal with “supraconscious” problems that have been the ex­ clusive concern of parapsychology is inevitable. “Psychi­ cal research and parapsychology are not something unique,

Introduction

xxxi

an odd manifestation, emerging suddenly from nowhere on the surface of the contemporary psychology and cul­ tural life, but rather they constitute one of the important currents of a much wider tide arising from the depths of the human soul, society and culture.”1 Sorokin’s con­ viction may not be shared by all, but appearing on the horizon is an ever greater number of thinkers, scholars, and scientists who divine an expansive, constructive value in parapsychology—and the greatest number of these seem to concur that while the disciplines of present-day psychology and parapsychology are still far apart, their source in the depth of man’s psyche and their ultimate purpose of enhancing our knowledge of man are indeed the same. But this is not the place to discuss in detail the motiva­ tion and methods used to discourage investigation of the unusual, or our culture’s animosity to subjectivism. It is generally agreed that men are biased—toward both sides of the coin. At best one can hope that passions will not hold sway over intelligence and curiosity to the degree that they do with confirmed occultists who see ultimate meaning in the shadow that forms a face in a cloud—or give rise to intractable men like M. Eugene Nus, who dedi­ cated his Choses de !autre monde: To the memory of all savants Breveted, patented, decorated and buried, Who have been opposed: To the rotation of the earth, To meteorites, To galvanism, To the circulation of the blood, To waves of light, To magnetism

* * *

And to all those now living or who shall be bom Who do the same thing in this present day, Or shall do the same hereafter. iAlson J. Smith, ed., The Psychic Source Book (New York: Creative Age Press, 1951), Introduction by Pitirim Sorokin, pp. vii-viii.

xxxii

Introduction

Belief in the importance of parapsychological research varies considerably. Some psychologists maintain that there is nothing of value in it, that it is pointless research and a waste of time and money. Others, like Pitirim Soro­ kin, place parapsychology in an important position in the cultural context of our age and the future of man. Soro­ kin feels that its importance is such that “it is necessary for the intelligent layman, as well as the scientist and scholar, to attempt to gain an understanding of parapsy­ chology.” J. B. Rhine feels that “the altered conception of the nature of man which parapsychology requires has im­ plications of far-reaching significance wherever man is involved.” Rhine believes, as do many of his colleagues, that there are viable corollaries with philosophy, religion, and the philosophy of science, but also that it is “the im­ portance of psi to psychology that underlies its bearing upon areas of human affairs.” Much more must obviously be learned about man’s personality and character than his behavior in response to stimuli—this is only one aspect of a complex creature. More must be learned of the unconscious and the pro­ cesses by which it filters and transmits information, its mechanisms of repression, and its facilities for creativ­ ity. Psychology, psychiatry, and the other sciences of man’s mind are seeking answers to these questions. If parapsychology can offer aid in this quest, if it can help clarify the mystery of a minded-animal, a creature of flesh and bone subject to time and space yet with the capacity to imagine his way to the stars, its place and purpose will be made clear.

The editor is greatly indebted to many people for their help and advice on this book, but special mention should be made of the patient counsel and correspondence by John Beloff, Jan Ehrenwald, Gardner Murphy, Gertrude Schmeidler, and Laura Dale and the ASPR, Two individuals gave most unstintingly of their time and knowledge, however, and a special debt must be acknowledged to J, B. Rhine and his considerate, wise counsel, and to Renee Haynes of the British SPR, Ward Mohrfeld, of NAL, was also instrumental in bringing this book into reality; his humor and patience made everything seem easier than it in fact was, C. C. Chambers was, as always, a fine editorial aid and, of course, S.D.G., without whose help nothing at all could have been accomplished.

PART I

Early Roots

1 What Psychical Research Has Accomplished * WILLIAM JAMES

“The great field for new discoveries,” said a scientific friend to me the other day, “is always the unclassified residuum.” Round about the accredited and orderly facts of every science there ever floats a sort of dust-cloud of exceptional observations, of occurrences minute and ir­ regular and seldom met with, which it always proves more easy to ignore than to attend to. The ideal of every science is that of a closed and completed system of truth. The charm of most sciences to their more passive disciples consists in their appearing, in fact, to wear just this ideal form. Each one of our various ologies seems to offer a definite head of classification for every possible phenome­ non of the sort which it professes to cover; and so far from free is most men’s fancy, that, when a consistent and orga­ nized scheme of this sort has once been comprehended and assimilated, a different scheme is unimaginable. No alternative, whether to whole or parts, can any longer be conceived as possible. Phenomena unclassifiable within the system are therefore paradoxical absurdities, and must be held untrue. When, moreover, as so often happens, the reports of them are vague and indirect; when they come *This article was formed from portions of an article that ap­ peared in Scribner's Magazine, March, 1890, of an article in Forum, July, 1892, and of the President’s Address William James gave be­ fore the Society of Psychical Research. It was published in the Proceedings of the Society, Vol. XII, 1896, and in Science. It also served as the final paper in a book of essays by James, The Will to Believe (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1897).

35

36

Psychology and Extrasensory Perception

as mere marvels and oddities rather than as things of serious moment,—one neglects or denies them with the best of scientific consciences. Only the born geniuses let themselves be worried and fascinated by these oustanding exceptions, and get no peace till they are brought within the fold. Your Galileos, Galvanis, Fresnels, Purkinjes, and Darwins are always getting confounded and troubled by insignificant things. Any one will renovate his science who will steadily look after the irregular phenomena. And when the science is renewed, its new formulas often have more of the voice of the exceptions in them than of what were supposed to be the rules. No part of the unclassified residuum has usually been treated with a more contemptuous scientific disregard than the mass of phenomena generally called Mystical. Phys­ iology will have nothing to do with them. Orthodox psychology turns its back upon them. Medicine sweeps them out; or, at most, when in an anecdotal vein, records a few of them as ‘effects of the imagination,’—a phrase of mere dismissal, whose meaning, in this connection, it is impossible to make precise. All the while, however, the phenomena are there, lying broadcast over the surface of history. No matter where you open its pages, you find things recorded under the name of divinations, inspira­ tions, demoniacal possessions, apparitions, trances, ecsta­ sies, miraculous healings and productions of disease, and occult powers possessed by peculiar individuals over per­ sons and things in their neighborhood. We suppose that ‘mediumship’ originated in Rochester, N. Y., and animal magnetism with Mesmer; but once look behind the pages of official history, in personal memoirs, legal documents, and popular narratives and books of anecdote, and you will find that there never was a time when these things were not reported just as abundantly as now. We collegebred gentry, who follow the stream of cosmopolitan cul­ ture exclusively, not infrequently stumble upon some oldestablished journal, or some voluminous native author, whose names are never heard of in our circle, but who number their readers by the quarter-million. It always gives us a little shock to find this mass of human beings not only living and ignoring us and all our gods, but ac­ tually reading and writing and cogitating without ever a thought of our canons and authorities. Well, a public no less large keeps and transmits from generation to genera­ tion the traditions and practices of the occult; but aca­ demic science cares as little for its beliefs and opinions as

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you, gentle reader, care for those of the readers of the Waverley and the Fireside Companion. To no one type of mind is it given to discern the totality of truth. Something escapes the best of us,—not accidentally, but systemati­ cally, and because we have a twist. The scientific-aca­ demic mind and the feminine-mystical mind shy from each other’s facts, just as they fly from each other’s tem­ per and spirit. Facts are there only for those who have a mental affinity with them. When once they are indisputably ascertained and admitted, the academic and critical minds are by far the best fitted ones to interpret and discuss them,—for surely to pass from mystical to scientific specu­ lations is like passing from lunacy to sanity; but on the other hand if there is anything which human history dem­ onstrates, it is the extreme slowness with which the ordi­ nary academic and critical mind acknowledges facts to exist which present themselves as wild facts, with no stall or pigeon-hole, or as facts which threaten to break up the accepted system. In psychology, physiology, and medicine, wherever a debate between the mystics and the scientifics has been once for all decided, it is the mystics who have usually proved to be right about the facts, while the scientifics had the better of it in respect to the theories. The most recent and flagrant example of this is ‘animal magnetism,’ whose facts were stoutly dismissed as a pack of lies by academic medical science the world over, until the non-mystical theory of ‘hypnotic suggestion’ was found for them,—when they were admitted to be so excessively and dangerously common that special penal laws, forsooth, must be passed to keep all persons un­ equipped with medical diplomas from taking part in their production. Just so stigmatizations, invulnerabilities, in­ stantaneous cures, inspired discourses, and demoniacal possessions, the records of which were shelved in our libraries but yesterday in the alcove headed ‘supersti­ tions,’ now, under the brand-new title of ‘cases of hysteroepilepsy,’ are republished, reobserved, and reported with an even too credulous avidity. Repugnant as the mystical style of philosophizing may be (especially when self-complacent), there is no sort of doubt that it goes with a gift for meeting with certain kinds of phenomenal experience. The writer of these pages has been forced in the past few years to this admission; and he now believes that he who will pay attention to facts of the sort dear to mystics, while reflecting upon them in academic-scientific ways, will be in the best pos-

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sible position to help philosophy. It is a circumstance of good augury that certain scientifically trained minds in all countries seem drifting to the same conclusion. The So­ ciety for Psychical Research has been one means of bring­ ing science and the occult together in England and Ameri­ ca; and believing that this Society fulfils a function which, though limited, is destined to be not unimportant in the organization of human knowledge, I am glad to give a brief account of it to the uninstructed reader. According to the newspaper and drawing-room myth, soft-headedness and idiotic credulity are the bond of sym­ pathy in this Society, and general wonder-sickness its dynamic principle. A glance at the membership fails, how­ ever, to corroborate this view. The president is Prof. Hen­ ry Sidgwick,1 known by his other deeds as the most incorrigibly and exasperatingly critical and sceptical mind in England. The hard-headed Arthur Balfour is one vicepresident, and the hard-headed Prof. J. P. Langley secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, is another. Such men as Professor Lodge, the eminent English physicist, and Professor Richet, the eminent French physiologist, are among the most active contributors to the Society’s Proceedings; and through the catalogue of membership are sprinkled names honored throughout the world for their scientific capacity. In fact, were I asked to point to a scientific journal where hard-headedness and never-sleep­ ing suspicion of sources of error might be seen in their full bloom, I think I should have to fall back on the Pro­ ceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. The com­ mon run of papers, say on physiological subjects, which one finds in other professional organs, are apt to show a far lower level of critical consciousness. Indeed, the rigor­ ous canons of evidence applied a few years ago to testi­ mony in the case of certain ‘mediums’ led to the secession from the Society of a number of spiritualists. Messrs. Stainton Moses and A. R. Wallace, among others, thought that no experiences based on mere eyesight could ever have a chance to be admitted as true, if such an im­ possibly exacting standard of proof were insisted on in every case. The S. P. R., as I shall call it for convenience, was founded in 1882 by a number of gentlemen, foremost among whom seem to have been Professors Sidgwick, Written in 1891. Since then, Mr. Balfour, the present writer, and Professor William Crookes have held the presidential office.

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W. F. Barrett, and Balfour Stewart, and Messrs. R. H. Hutton, Hensleigh Wedgwood, Edmund Gurney, and F. W. H. Myers. Their purpose was twofold,—first, to carry on systematic experimentation with hypnotic sub­ jects, mediums, clairvoyants, and others; and, secondly, to collect evidence concerning apparitions, haunted houses and similar phenomena which are incidentally reported, but which, from their fugitive character, admit of no deliberate control. Professor Sidgwick, in his introduc­ tory address, insisted that the divided state of public opinion on all these matters was a scandal to science,— absolute disdain on d priori grounds characterizing what may be called professional opinion, while indiscriminate credulity was too often found among those who pretended to have a first-hand acquaintance with the facts. As a sort of weather-bureau for accumulating reports of such meteoric phenomena as apparitions, the S. P. R. has done an immense amount of work. As an experiment­ ing body, it cannot be said to have completely fulfilled the hopes of its founders. The reasons for this lie in two circumstances: first, the clairvoyant and other subjects who will allow themselves to be experimented upon are few and far between; and, secondly, work with them takes an immense amount of time, and has had to be carried on at odd intervals by members engaged in other pursuits. The Society has not yet been rich enough to control the undivided services of skilled experimenters in this difficult field. The loss of the lamented Edmund Gurney, who more than any one else had leisure to devote, has been so far irreparable. But were there no experimental work at all, and were the S. P. R. nothing but a weather-bureau for catching sporadic apparitions, etc., in their freshness, I am disposed to think its function indispensable in the scientific organism. If any one of my readers, spurred by the thought that so much smoke must needs betoken fire, has ever looked into the existing literature of the super­ natural for proof, he will know what I mean. This litera­ ture is enormous, but it is practically worthless for evi­ dential purposes. Facts enough are cited, indeed; but the records of them are so fallible and imperfect that at most they lead to the opinion that it may be well to keep a win­ dow open upon that quarter in one’s mind. In the S. P. R.’s Proceedings, on the contrary, a dif­ ferent law prevails. Quality, and not mere quantity, is what has been mainly kept in mind. The witnesses, where possible, have in every reported case been cross-examined

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personally, the collateral facts have been looked up, and the story appears with its precise coefficient of evidential worth stamped on it, so that all may know just what its weight as proof may be. Outside of these Proceedings, I know of no systematic attempt to weigh the evidence for the supernatural. This makes the value of the volumes already published unique; and I firmly believe that as the years go on and the ground covered grows still wider, the Proceedings will more and more tend to supersede all other sources of information concerning phenomena tra­ ditionally deemed occult. Collections of this sort are usu­ ally best appreciated by the rising generation. The young anthropologists and psychologists who will soon have full occupancy of the stage will feel how great a scientific scandal it has been to leave a great mass of human ex­ perience to take its chances between vague tradition and credulity on the one hand and dogmatic denial at long range on the other, with no body of persons extant who are willing and competent to study the matter with both patience and rigor. If the Society lives long enough for the public to become familiar with its presence, so that any apparition, or house or person infested with unac­ countable noises or disturbances of material objects, will as a matter of course be reported to its officers, we shall doubtless end by having a mass of facts concrete enough to theorize upon. Its sustainers, therefore, should accus­ tom themselves to the idea that its first duty is simply to exist from year to year and perform this recording func­ tion well, though no conclusive results of any sort emerge at first. All our learned societies have begun in some such modest way. But one cannot by mere outward organization make much progress in matters scientific. Societies can back men of genius, but can never take their place. The contrast be­ tween the parent Society and the American Branch il­ lustrates this. In England, a little group of men with en­ thusiasm and genius for the work supplied the nucleus; in this country, Mr. Hodgson had to be imported from Europe before any tangible progress was made. What perhaps more than anything else has held the Society to­ gether in England is Professor Sidgwick’s extraordinary gift of inspiring confidence in diverse sorts of people. Such tenacity of interest in the result and such absolute impartiality in discussing the evidence are not once in a century found in an individual. His obstinate belief that there is something yet to be brought to light communi-

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cates patience to the discouraged; his constitutional in­ ability to draw any precipitate conclusion reassures those who are afraid of being dupes. Mrs. Sidgwick—a sister, by the way, of the great Arthur Balfour—is a worthy ally of her husband in this matter, showing a similarly rare power of holding her judgment in suspense, and a keen­ ness of observation and capacity for experimenting with human subjects which are rare in either sex. The worker of the Society, as originally constituted, was Edmund Gurney. Gurney was a man of the rarest sympathies and gifts. Although, like Carlyle, he used to groan under the burden of his labors, he yet exhibited a colossal power of dispatching business and getting through drudgery of the most repulsive kind. His two thick vol­ umes on ‘Phantasms of the Living,’ collected and pub­ lished in three years, are a proof of this. Besides this, he had exquisite artistic instincts, and his massive volume on ‘The Power of Sound * was, when it appeared, the most important work on aesthetics in the English language. He had also the tenderest heart and a mind of rare metaphys­ ical power, as his volumes of essays, ‘Tertium Quid,’ will prove to any reader. Mr. Frederic Myers, already well known as one of the most brilliant of English es­ sayists, is the ingenium prcefervidum of the S. P. R. Of the value of Mr. Myers’s theoretic writings I will say a word later. Dr. Hodgson, the American secretary, is dis­ tinguished by a balance of mind almost as rare in its way as Sidgwick’s. He is persuaded of the reality of many of the phenomena called spiritualistic, but he also has un­ common keenness in detecting error; and it is impossible to say in advance whether it will give him more satisfac­ tion to confirm or to smash a given case offered to his examination. It is now time to cast a brief look upon the actual con­ tents of these Proceedings. The first two years were largely taken up with experiments in thought-transference. The earliest lot of these were made with the daughters of a clergyman named Creery, and convinced Messrs. Balfour Stewart, Barrett, Myers, and Gurney that the girls had an inexplicable power of guessing names and objects thought of by other persons. Two years later, Mrs. Sidg­ wick and Mr. Gurney, recommencing experiments with the same girls, detected them signalling to each other. It is true that for the most part the conditions of the earlier series had excluded signalling, and it is also possible that

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the cheating may have grafted itself on what was origi­ nally a genuine phenomenon. Yet Gurney was wise in abandoning the entire series to the scepticism of the reader. Many critics of the S. P. R. seem out of all its labors to have heard only of this case. But there are exper­ iments recorded with upwards of thirty other subjects. Three were experimented upon at great length during the first two years: one was Mr. G. A. Smith; the other two were young ladies in Liverpool in the employment of Mr. Malcolm Guthrie. It is the opinion of all who took part in these later experiments that sources of conscious and unconscious deception were sufficiently excluded, and that the large percentage of correct reproductions by the subjects of words, diagrams, and sensations occupying other persons’ consciousness were entirely inexplicable as results of chance. The witnesses of these performances were in fact all so satisfied of the genuineness of the phenomena, that ‘telepathy’ has figured freely in the papers of the Proceed­ ings and in Gurney’s book on Phantasms as a vera causa on which additional hypotheses might be built. No mere reader can be blamed, however, if he demand, for so revolutionary a belief, a more overwhelming bulk of tes­ timony than has yet been supplied. Any day, of course, may bring in fresh experiments in successful picture-guess­ ing. But meanwhile, and lacking that, we can only point out that the present data are strengthened in the flank, so to speak, by all observations that tend to corroborate the possibility of other kindred phenomena, such as telepathic impression, clairvoyance, or what is called ‘test-mediumship.’ The wider genus will naturally cover the narrower species with its credit. Gurney’s papers on hypnotism must be mentioned next. Some of them are less concerned with establishing new facts than with analyzing old ones. But omitting these, we find that in the line of pure observation Gurney claims to have ascertained in more than one subject the following phenomenon: The subject’s hands are thrust through a blanket, which screens the operator from his eyes, and his mind is absorbed in conversation with a third person. The operator meanwhile points with his finger to one of the fingers of the subject, which finger alone responds to this silent selection by becoming stiff or anaesthetic, as the case may be. The interpretation is difficult, but the phe­ nomenon, which I have myself witnessed, seems authentic. Another observation made by Gurney seems to prove

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the possibility of the subject’s mind being directly in­ fluenced by the operator’s. The hypnotized subject re­ sponds, or fails to respond, to questions asked by a third party according to the operator’s silent permission or re­ fusal. Of course, in these experiments all obvious sources of deception were excluded. But Gurney’s most important contribution to our knowledge of hypnotism was his se­ ries of experiments on the automatic writing of subjects who had received post-hypnotic suggestions. For exam­ ple, a subject during trance is told that he will poke the fire in six minutes after waking. On being waked he has no memory of the order, but while he is engaged in con­ versation his hand is placed on a planchette, which im­ mediately writes the sentence, “P., you will poke the fire in six minutes.” Experiments like this, which were re­ peated in great variety, seem to prove that below the upper consciousness the hypnotic consciousness persists, engrossed with the suggestion and able to express itself through the involuntarily moving hand. Gurney shares, therefore, with Janet and Binet, the credit of demonstrating the simultaneous existence of two different strata of consciousness, ignorant of each other, in the same person. The ‘extra-consciousness,’ as one may call it, can be kept on tap, as it were, by the method of automatic writing. This discovery marks a new era in ex­ perimental psychology, and it is impossible to overrate its importance. But Gurney’s greatest piece of work is his laborious ‘Phantasms of the Living.’ As an example of the drudgery stowed away in the volumes, it may suffice to say that in looking up the proofs for the alleged physical phenomena of witchcraft, Gurney reports a careful search through two hundred and sixty books on the subject, with the result of finding no first-hand evidence recorded in the trials except the confessions of the victims themselves; and these, of course, are presumptively due to either torture or hallucination. This statement, made in an unobtrusive note, is only one instance of the care displayed throughout the volumes. In the course of these, Gurney discusses about seven hundred cases of apparitions which he col­ lected. A large number of these were ‘veridical,’ in the sense of coinciding with some calamity happening to the person who appeared. Gurney’s explanation is that the mind of the person undergoing the calamity was at that moment able to impress the mind of the percipient with an hallucination. Apparitions, on this ‘telepathic’ theory, may be called

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‘objective’ facts, although they are not ‘material’ facts. In order to test the likelihood of such veridical hallucina­ tions being due to mere chance, Gurney instituted the ‘census of hallucinations,’ which has been continued with the result of obtaining answers from over twenty-five thousand persons, asked at random in different countries whether, when in good health and awake, they had ever heard a voice, seen a form, or felt a touch which no ma­ terial presence could account for. The result seems to be roughly speaking, that in England about one adult in ten has had such an experience at least once in his life, and that of the experiences themselves a large number co­ incide with some distant event. The question is, Is the fre­ quency of these latter cases too great to be deemed fortui­ tous, and must we suppose an occult connection between the two events? Mr. and Mrs. Sidgwick have worked out this problem on the basis of the English returns, seventeen thousand in number, with a care and thoroughness that leave nothing to be desired. Their conclusion is that the cases where the apparition of a person is seen on the day of his death are four hundred and forty times too numerous to be ascribed to chance. The reasoning em­ ployed to calculate this number is simple enough. If there be only a fortuitous connection between the death of an individual and the occurrence of his apparition to some one at a distance, the death is no more likely to fall on the same day as the apparition than it is to occur on the same day with any other event in nature. But the chance-probability that any individual’s death will fall on any given day marked in advance by some other event is just equal to the chance-probability that the individual will die at all on any specified day; and the national death-rate gives that probability as one in nineteen thou­ sand. If, then, when the death of a person coincides with an apparition of the same person, the coincidence be merely fortuitous, it ought not to occur oftener than once in nineteen thousand cases. As a matter of fact, however, it does occur (according to the census) once in fortythree cases, a number (as aforesaid) four hundred and forty times too great. The American census, of some seven thousand answers, gives a remarkably similar result. Against this conclusion the only rational answer that I can see is that the data are still too few; that the net was not cast wide enough; and that we need, to get fair averages, far more than twenty-four thousand answers to the census question. This may, of course, be true, though it

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seems exceedingly unlikely; and in our own twenty-four thousand answers veridical cases may possibly have heaped themselves unduly. The next topic worth mentioning in the Proceedings is the discussion of the physical phenomena of mediumship (siate-writing, furniture-moving, and so forth) by Mrs. Sidgwick, Mr. Hodgson, and ‘Mr. Davey.’ This, so far as it goes, is destructive of the claims of all the mediums examined. ‘Mr. Davey’ himself produced fraudulent slate­ writing of the highest order, while Mr. Hodgson, a ‘sitter’ in his confidence, reviewed the written reports of the series of his other sitters,—all of them intelligent per­ sons,—and showed that in every case they failed to see the essential features of what was done before their eyes. This Davey-Hodgson contribution is probably the most damaging document concerning eye-witnesses’ evidence that has ever been produced. Another substantial bit of work based on personal observation is Mr. Hodgson’s report on Madame Blavatsky’s claims to physical medium­ ship. This is adverse to the lady’s pretensions; and although some of Madame Blavatsky’s friends make light of it, it is a stroke from which her reputation will not recover. Physical mediumship in all its phases has fared hard in the Proceedings. The latest case reported on is that of the famous Eusapia Paladino, who being detected in fraud at Cambridge, after a brilliant career of success on the continent, has, according to the draconian rules of method which govern the Society, been ruled out from a further hearing. The case of Stainton Moses, on the other hand, concerning which Mr. Myers has brought out a mass of unpublished testimony, seems to escape from the univer­ sal condemnation, and appears to force upon us what Mr. Andrew Lang calls the choice between a moral and a physical miracle. In the case of Mrs. Piper, not a physical but a trance medium, we seem to have no choice offered at all. Mr. Hodgson and others have made prolonged study of this lady’s trances, and are all convinced that supernormal powers of cognition are displayed therein. These are prima facie due to ‘spirit-control.’ But the conditions are so complex that a dogmatic decision either for or against the spirit-hypothesis must as yet be postponed. One of the most important experimental contributions to the Proceedings is the article of Miss X. on ‘Crystal Vision.’ Many persons who look fixedly into a crystal or other vaguely luminous surface fall into a kind of daze,

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and see visions. Miss X. has this susceptibility in a remark­ able degree, and is, moreover, an unusually intelligent critic. She reports many visions which can only be de­ scribed as apparently clairvoyant, and others which beau­ tifully fill a vacant niche in our knowledge of subcon­ scious mental operations. For example, looking into the crystal before breakfast one morning she reads in printed characters of the death of a lady of her acquaintance, the date and other circumstances all duly appearing in type. Startled by this, she looks at the Times of the previous day for verification, and there among the deaths are the iden­ tical words which she has seen. On the same page of the Times are other items which she remembers reading the day before; and the only explanation seems to be that her eyes then inattentively observed, so to speak, the death­ item, which forthwith fell into a special corner of her memory, and came out as a visual hallucination when the peculiar modification of consciousness induced by the crys­ tal-gazing set in. Passing from papers based on observation to papers based on narrative, we have a number of ghost stories, etc., sifted by Mrs. Sidgwick and discussed by Messrs. Myers and Podmore. They form the best ghost literature I know of from the point of view of emotional interest. As to the conclusions drawn, Mrs. Sidgwick is rigorously non-committal, while Mr. Myers and Mr. Podmore show themselves respectively hospitable and inhospitable to the notion that such stories have a basis of objectivity de­ pendent on the continued existence of the dead. I must close my gossip about the Proceedings by nam­ ing what, after all, seems to me the most important part of its contents. This is the long series of articles by Mr. Myers on what he now calls the ‘subliminal self,’ or what one might designate as ultramarginal consciousness. The result of Myers’s learned and ingenious studies in hypno­ tism, hallucinations, automatic writing, mediumship, and the whole series of allied phenomena is a conviction which he expresses in the following terms:

Each of us is in reality an abiding psychical en­ tity far more extensive than he knows,—an individ­ uality which can never express itself completely through any corporeal manifestation. The self mani­ fests itself through the organism; but there is always some part of the self unmanifested, and always, as

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it seems, some power of organic expression in abey­ ance or reserve.

The ordinary consciousness Mr. Myers likens to the visible part of the solar spectrum; the total conscious­ ness is like that spectrum prolonged by the inclusion of the ultra-red and ultra-violet rays. In the psychic spectrum the ‘ultra’ parts may embrace a far wider range, both of physiological and of psychical activity, than is open to our ordinary consciousness and memory. At the lower end we have the physiological extension, mind-cures, ‘stigmatization’ of ecstatics, etc.; in the upper, the hypernormal cognitions of the medium-trance. Whatever the judgment of the future may be on Mr. Myers’s speculations, the credit will always remain to them of being the first attempt in any language to consider the phenomena of hallucination, hypnotism, automatism, double personal­ ity, and mediumship as connected parts of one whole subject. All constructions in this field must be provisional, and it is as something provisional that Mr. Myers offers us his formulations. But, thanks to him, we begin to see for the first time what a vast interlocked and graded sys­ tem these phenomena, from the rudest motor-automa­ tisms to the most startling sensory-apparition, form. Quite apart from Mr. Myers’s conclusions, his methodical treatment of them by classes and series is the first great step toward overcoming the distaste of orthodox science to look at them at all. One’s reaction on hearsay testimony is always deter­ mined by one’s own experience. Most men who have once convinced themselves, by what seems to them a care­ ful examination, that any one species of the supernatural exists, begin to relax their vigilance as to evidence, and throw the doors of their minds more or less wide open to the supernatural along its whole extent. To a mind that has thus made its salto mortale, the minute work over insignificant cases and quiddling discussion of ‘evidential values,’ of which the Society’s reports are full, seems in­ sufferably tedious. And it is so; few species of literature are more truly dull than reports of phantasms. Taken simply by themselves, as separate facts to stare at, they appear so devoid of meaning and sweep, that, even were they certainly true, one would be tempted to leave them out of one’s universe for being so idiotic. Every other sort of fact has some context and continuity with the rest of nature. These alone are contextless and discontinuous.

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Hence I think that the sort of loathing—no milder word will do—which the very words ‘psychical research’ and ‘psychical researcher’ awaken in so many honest scientific breasts is not only natural, but in a sense praiseworthy. A man who is unable himself to conceive of any orbit for these mental meteors can only suppose that Messrs. Gur­ ney, Myers, & Co.’s mood in dealing with them must be that of silly marvelling at so many detached prodigies. And such prodigies! So science simply falls back on her general non-possumus; and most of the would-be critics of the Proceedings have been contented to oppose to the phenomena recorded the simple presumption that in some way or other the reports must be fallacious,—for so far as the order of nature has been subjected to really scien­ tific scrutiny, it always has been proved to run the other way. But the oftener one is forced to reject an alleged sort of fact by the use of this mere presumption, the weaker does the presumption itself get to be; and one might in course of time use up one’s presumptive privi­ leges in this way, even though one started (as our anti­ telepathists do) with as good a case as the great induction of psychology that all our knowledge comes by the use of our eyes and ears and other senses. And we must remem­ ber also that this undermining of the strength of a pre­ sumption by reiterated report of facts to the contrary does not logically require that the facts in question should all be well proved. A lot of rumors in the air against a business man’s credit, though they might all be vague, and no one of them amount to proof that he is unsound, would certainly weaken the presumption of his soundness. And all the more would they have this effect if they formed what Gurney called a fagot and not a chain, —that is, if they were independent of one another, and came from different quarters. Now, the evidence for telepathy, weak and strong, taken just as it comes, forms a fagot and not a chain. No one item cites the content of another item as part of its own proof. But taken together the items have a certain general consistency; there is a method in their madness, so to speak. So each of them adds presumptive value to the lot; and cumulatively, as no candid mind can fail to see, they subtract presumptive force from the orthodox belief that there can be nothing in any one’s intellect that has not come in through ordi­ nary experiences of sense. But it is a miserable thing for a question of truth to be confined to mere presumption and counter-presump­

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tion, with no decisive thunderbolt of fact to clear the bathing darkness. And, sooth to say, in talking so much of the merely presumption-weakening value of our records, I have myself been wilfully taking the point of view of the so-called ‘rigorously scientific’ disbeliever, and making an ad hotninem plea. My own point of view is different. For me the thunderbolt has fallen, and the orthodox belief has not merely had its presumption weakened, but the truth itself of the belief is decisively overthrown. If I may employ the language of the professional logic-shop, a uni­ versal proposition can be made untrue by a particular in­ stance. If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you must not seek to show that no crows are; it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white. My own white crow is Mrs. Piper. In the trances of this me­ dium, I cannot resist the conviction that knowledge ap­ pears which she has never gained by the ordinary waking use of her eyes and ears and wits. What the source of this knowledge may be I know not, and have not the glimmer of an explanatory suggestion to make; but from admitting the fact of such knowledge I can see no escape. So when I turn to the rest of the evidence, ghosts and all, I cannot carry with me the irreversibly negative bias of the ‘rigor­ ously scientific’ mind, with its presumption as to what the true order of nature ought to be. I feel as if, though the evidence be flimsy in spots, it may nevertheless collectively carry heavy weight. The rigorously scientific mind may, in truth, easily overshoot the mark. Science means, first of all, a certain dispassionate method. To suppose that it means a certain set of results that one should pin one’s faith upon and hug forever is sadly to mistake its genius, and degrades the scientific body to the status of a sect. We all, scientists and non-scientists, live on some in­ clined plane of credulity. The plane tips one way in one man, another way in another; and may he whose plane tips in no way be the first to cast a stone! As a matter of fact, the trances I speak of have broken down for my own mind the limits of the admitted order of nature. Science, so far as science denies such exceptional oc­ currences, lies prostrate in the dust for me; and the most urgent intellectual need which I feel at present is that science be built up again in a form in which such things may have a positive place. Science, like life, feeds on its own decay. New facts burst old rules; then newly divined conceptions bind old and new together into a reconciling law.

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And here is the real instructiveness of Messrs. Myers and Gurney’s work. They are trying with the utmost con­ scientiousness to find a reconciling conception which shall subject the old laws of nature to the smallest possible strain. Mr. Myers uses that method of gradual approach which has performed such wonders in Darwin’s hands. When Darwin met a fact which seemed a poser to his theory, his regular custom, as I have heard an able col­ league say, was to fill in all round it with smaller facts, as a wagoner might heap dirt round a big rock in the road, and thus get his team over without upsetting. So Mr. Myers, starting from the most ordinary facts of inat­ tentive consciousness, follows this clue through a long series which terminates in ghosts, and seeks to show that these are but extreme manifestations of a common truth, —the truth that the invisible segments of our minds are susceptible, under rarely realized conditions, of acting and being acted upon by the invisible segments of other conscious lives. This may not be ultimately true (for the theosophists, with their astral bodies and the like, may, for aught I now know, prove to be on the correcter trail), but no one can deny that it is in good scientific form,— for science always takes a known kind of phenomenon, and tries to extend its range. I have myself, as American agent for the census, col­ lected hundreds of cases of hallucination in healthy persons. The result is to make me feel that we all have po­ tentially a ‘subliminal’ self, which may make at any time irruption into our ordinary lives. At its lowest, it is only the depository of our forgotten memories; at its highest, we do not know what it is at all. Take, for instance, a series of cases. During sleep, many persons have something in them which measures the flight of time better than the waking self does. It wakes them at a preappointed hour; it acquaints them with the moment when they first awake. It may produce an hallucination,—as in a lady who in­ forms me that at the instant of waking she has a vision of her watch-face with the hands pointing (as she has often verified) to the exact time. It may be the feeling that some physiological period has elapsed; but, whatever it is, it is subconscious. A subconscious something may also preserve experi­ ences to which we do not openly attend. A lady taking her lunch in town finds herself without her purse. In­ stantly a sense comes over her of rising from the breakfast-table and hearing her purse drop upon the floor. On

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reaching home she finds nothing under the table, but sum­ mons the servant to say where she has put the purse. The servant produces it, saying: “How did you know where it was? You rose and left the room as if you didn’t know you’d dropped it.’: The same subconscious something may recollect what we have forgotten. A lady accustomed to taking salicylate of soda for muscular rheumatism wakes one early winter morning with an aching neck. In the twilight she takes what she supposes to be her customary powder from a drawer, dissolves it in a glass of water, and is about to drink it down, when she feels a sharp slap on her shoulder and hears a voice in her ear saying, “Taste it!” On examination, she finds she has got a mor­ phine powder by mistake. The natural interpretation is that a sleeping memory of the morphine powders awoke in this quasi-explosive way. A like explanation offers itself as most plausible for the following case: A lady, with little time to catch the train, and the expressman about to call, is excitedly looking for the lost key of a packed trunk. Hurrying upstairs with a bunch of keys, proved useless, in her hand, she hears an ‘objective’ voice dis­ tinctly say, “Try the key of the cake-box.” Being tried, it fits. This also may well have been the effect of forgotten experience. Now, the effect is doubtless due to the same hallu­ cinatory mechanism; but the source is less easily assigned as we ascend the scale of cases. A lady, for instance, goes after breakfast to see about one of her servants who has become ill over night. She is startled at distinctly read­ ing over the bedroom door in gilt letters the word ‘small-pox.’ The doctor is sent for, and ere long pro­ nounces small-pox to be the disease, although the lady says, “The thought of the girl’s having small-pox never entered my mind till I saw the apparent inscription.” Then come other cases of warning; for example, that of a youth sitting in a wagon under a shed, who suddenly hears his dead mother’s voice say, “Stephen, get away from here quick!” and jumps out just in time to see the shed-roof fall. After this come the experiences of persons appearing to distant friends at or near the hour of death. Then, too, we have the trance-visions and utterances, which may ap­ pear astonishingly profuse and continuous, and main­ tain a fairly high intellectual level. For all these higher phenomena, it seems to me that while the proximate mechanism is that of ‘hallucination,’ it is straining an

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hypothesis unduly to name any ordinary subconscious mental operation—such as expectation, recollection, or inference from inattentive perception—as the ultimate cause that starts it up. It is far better tactics, if you wish to get rid of mystery, to brand the narratives themselves as unworthy of trust. The trustworthiness of most of them is to my own mind far from proved. And yet in the light of the medium-trance, which is proved, it seems as if they might well all be members of a natural kind of fact of which we do not yet know the full extent. Thousands of sensitive organizations in the United States to-day live as steadily in the light of these expe­ riences, and are as indifferent to modern science, as if they lived in Bohemia in the twelfth century. They are indifferent to science, because science is so callously in­ different to their experiences. Although in its essence science only stands for a method and for no fixed belief, yet as habitually taken, both by its votaries and outsiders, it is identified with a certain fixed belief,—the belief that the hidden order of nature is mechanical exclusively, and that non-mechanical categories are irrational ways of con­ ceiving and explaining even such things as human life. Now, this mechanical rationalism, as one may call it, makes, if it becomes one’s only way of thinking, a violent breach with the ways of thinking that have played the greatest part in human history. Religious thinking, ethical thinking, poetical thinking, teleological, emotional, senti­ mental thinking, what one might call the personal view of life to distinguish it from the impersonal and mechanical, and the romantic view of life to distinguish it from the rationalistic view, have been, and even still are, outside of well-drilled scientific circles, the dominant forms of thought. But for mechanical rationalism, personality is an insubstantial illusion. The chronic belief of mankind, that events may happen for the sake of their personal significance, is an abomination; and the notions of our grandfathers about oracles and omens, divinations and ap­ paritions, miraculous changes of heart and wonders worked by inspired persons, answers to prayer and provi­ dential leadings, are a fabric absolutely baseless, a mass of sheer wntruth. Now of course, we must all admit that the excesses to which the romantic and personal view of nature may lead, if wholly unchecked by impersonal rationalism, are dire­ ful. Central African Mumbo-jumboism is one of un­ checked romanticism’s fruits. One ought accordingly to

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sympathize with that abhorrence of romanticism as a suf­ ficient world-theory; one ought to understand that lively intolerance of the least grain of romanticism in the views of life of other people, which are such characteristic marks of those who follow the scientific professions to­ day. Our debt to science is literally boundless, and our gratitude for what is positive in her teachings must be correspondingly immense. But the S. P. R.’s Proceedings have, it seems to me, conclusively proved one thing to the candid reader; and that is that the verdict of pure insanity, of gratuitous preference for error, of supersti­ tion without an excuse, which the scientists of our day are led by their intellectual training to pronounce upon the entire thought of the past, is a most shallow verdict. The personal and romantic view of life has other roots be­ sides wanton exuberance of imagination and perversity of heart. It is perennially fed by facts of experience, whatever the ulterior interpretation of those facts may prove to be; and at no time in human history would it have been less easy than now—at most times it would have been much more easy—for advocates with a little industry to collect in its favor an array of contemporary documents as good as those which our publications present. These documents all relate to real experiences of persons. These experiences have three characters in common: They are capricious, discontinuous, and not easily controlled; they require pe­ culiar persons for their production; their significance seems to be wholly for personal life. Those who preferentially attend to them, and still more those who are individually subject to them, not only easily may find, but are logically bound to find, in them valid arguments for their romantic and personal conception of the world’s course. Through my slight participation in the investigations of the S.P.R. I have become acquainted with numbers of persons of this sort, for whom the very word ‘science’ has become a name of reproach, for reasons that I now both understand and respect. It is the intolerance of science for such phenomena as we are studying, her peremptory denial either of their existence or of their significance (except as proofs of man’s absolute innate folly), that has set science so apart from the common sympathies of the race. I confess that it is on this, its humanizing mission, that the Society’s best claim to the gratitude of our generation seems to me to depend. It has restored con­ tinuity to history. It has shown some reasonable basis for the most superstitious aberrations of the foretime. It

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has bridged the chasm, healed the hideous rift that science, taken in a certain narrow way, has shot into the human world. I will even go one step farther. When from our present advanced standpoint we look back upon the past stages of human thought, whether it be scientific thought or theological thought, we are amazed that a universe which appears to us of so vast and mysterious a complication should ever have seemed to any one so little and plain a thing. Whether it be Descartes’s world or Newton’s, whether it be that of the materialists of the last century or that of the Bridgewater treatises of our own, it al­ ways looks the same to us,—incredibly perspectiveless and short. Even Lyell’s, Faraday’s, Mill’s, and Darwin’s con­ sciousness of their respective subjects are already begin­ ning to put on an infantile and innocent look. Is it then likely that the science of our own day will escape the common doom; that the minds of its votaries will never look old-fashioned to the grandchildren of the latter? It would be folly to suppose so. Yet if we are to judge by the analogy of the past, when our science once be­ comes old-fashioned, it will be more for its omissions of fact, for its ignorance of whole ranges and orders of com­ plexity in the phenomena to be explained, than for any fatal lack in its spirit and principles. The spirit and prin­ ciples of science are mere affairs of method; there is nothing in them that need hinder science from dealing successfully with a world in which personal forces are the starting-point of new effects. The only form of thing that we directly encounter, the only experience that we concretely have, is our own personal life. The only com­ plete category of our thinking, our professors of philos­ ophy tell us, is the category of personality, every other category being one of the abstract elements of that. And this systematic denial on science’s part of personality as a condition of events, this rigorous belief that in its own essential and innermost nature our world is a strictly im­ personal world, may, conceivably, as the whirligig of time goes round, prove to be the very defect that our descendants will be most surprised at in our own boasted science, the omission that to their eyes will most tend to make it look perspectiveless and short.

2 Psychology and Psychical Research * F. C. S. SCHILLER

Boss locutus est: Professor Hugo Miinsterberg, of Har­ vard University, the lord of I don’t know how many thousand dollars’ worth of psychological machinery, has planted the banner of the ‘only genuine’ psychology amid the pulverised fragments of ‘Mysticism,’ and sent back ‘the Cinderella of the sciences,’ Psychical Research, to su­ pervise what alone she is fit for, viz., the culinary opera­ tions of the witches’ caldron. And yet, perhaps, in a crit­ ical age, such ex cathedra pronouncements, even of the greatest scientific dignitaries, are not as safe nor as effec­ tive as the lofty and scornful silence affected by most of his confreres on the General Staff of the Army of Science. The Goliath of Authority cannot stalk forth into the field of debate without a risk that a little pellet of reason may pierce through the thickness of his skull and put an end to his pretensions. For too often the effect of authority is impaired by argument, and the impressiveness of a judgment is destroyed by divulging the reasons on which it was based. Professor Miinsterberg should have remem­ bered Lord Mansfield’s advice to the man who undertook the job of judging what he did not understand, or, as one must say in Professor Miinsterberg’s case, what he would not understand. For Professor Miinsterberg’s in*This article by Schiller, which first appeared in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. XIV, 1898-99, was a response to an article by Hugo Miinsterberg which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, January, 1899, on “Psychology and Mysticism.”

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ability to grasp the nature of the case for Psychical Re­ search is manifestly of an emotional rather than of an in­ tellectual character, and affords as fine an example of the effect on the mind of a passionate ‘will to disbelieve’ as I have had the pleasure of meeting. I am accordingly confident of expressing only the sentiment of every psy­ chical researcher, when I thank Professor Miinsterberg for the interesting light he has (however inadvertently) thrown on the psychology of psychologists, and the na­ ture of the fixed ideas by which they seem to be obsessed. And, personally, I owe Professor Miinsterberg a debt of gratitude also on account of the undesigned, exquisite, and almost ideal illustration which his remarks yield of the aptness of a comparison I ventured to institute in re­ viewing Mr. Podmore’s book in the pages of Mind,1 when I called ‘psychical * phenomena “the Dreyfus Case of Science.” I then pointed out that they had never re­ ceived a fair and open trial, coram populo, that the evi­ dence on which they had been condemned had never been published, and could not be produced, that their banishment from the society of scientific fact and their relegation to the company of the Devil had been effected by a secret and nameless court-martial, which made no serious pretence of examining the evidence, and that for nearly two centuries the authorities who professed to speak in the name of Science had, when questioned, done nothing but invoke the sanctity of the chose jugee, and intimidate inquirers with solemn prophecies of the abso­ lute ruin that would overtake the whole scientific order if any investigation or revision of the matter were to be attempted.2 I also drew attention to the fact that, in spite of all discouragements and threats, a demand for ‘revision’ had grown up, which was supported by an increasing number of ‘intellectuals,’ who were not afraid of being maligned as the hirelings of “a conspiring syndicate of all the super­ stitions.” But I could not anticipate that Professor Miinsterberg would simultaneously have been goaded into di­ 1For January, 1899, No. 29, N.S. ^Professor Miinsterberg, of course, trots out this old bugaboo also. Courageous confidence in the ability of science to deal with every order of fact—with “the psychology of spirits, angels, and demons, if such things there be, as well as with that of men and beasts” (as I said in Mind), he declares to be “wrong and dangerous from beginning to end” (p. 76). Can it be that he has a lurking fear that if he attempted to investigate demons, they might fly away with him?

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vulging the contents of the secret dossier, of which we have heard so much and seen so little, that he would have exhibited to an astonished urbi et orbi the ridiculous documents on which he relies to substantiate his case. In short, it was eSxaig op-oiov that among the Anti-Dreyfusards of Science there should so soon be found a cham­ pion to emulate the career of M. Cavaignac! Once more, therefore, let me express my gratitude for the service he has done to the cause of Psychical Research. Nevertheless, gratitude must not prevent us from ex­ posing the extraordinary nature of the misrepresentations and misconceptions to which he has attempted to give cur­ rency, from drawing attention to the weird character of the arguments whereby he seeks to appease his intellec­ tual conscience, in his hurried return to the shelter of the ancient prejudices from which he ought never to have emerged.

I Professor Miinsterberg does well to open his article with a definition of his subject: but, unfortunately, this definition would be scouted as ridiculous by every psy­ chical researcher. He defines ‘mysticism’1 as “the belief in supernatural connections in the physical and psychical worlds.” Assuredly he did not discover this, or anything like it, in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, which he professes to have included among the 100 volumes he claims to have read—(p. 78)—with more speed, apparently, than care. In fact, if he had paid the most ordinary attention to the continually reiterated ‘de­ clared objects of the Society,’ he could not but have ob­ served that no more grotesquely inappropriate travesty of its object and method could possibly have been de­ vised. The notion that any phenomenon in God’s world could be meant to be supernatural, i.e., put there to pro­ voke and to baffle inquiry, is one of the very worst of the superstititions which the Society for Psychical Research set out to slay. Its fundamental postulate was that no fact could possibly be supernatural, that however anomalous it might appear, it must yet admit of investigation by the appropriate methods, and that to declare it supernatural *Which term, by the way, he uses in a wholly popular and unphilosophic fashion, in order to include under a common name widely divergent attitudes towards these matters.

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was simply an obscure and offensive way of declaring one’s unwillingness to have it investigated. From the psy. chical researcher’s point of view, therefore, Professor Miinsterberg is himself a supernaturalist of the worst type, little better than the advocate of the Satanical explanation. The very term ‘supernatural’ is eschewed by the Society for Psychical Research, and ever since its foundation it has striven to supplant the ‘supernatural’ by the ‘super­ normal,’ aiming at the momentous consequence of sub­ stituting something which courts and challenges, for some­ thing which discourages and defies, inquiry. Either, therefore, Professor Miinsterberg has wholly mistaken the purpose of the psychical researchers ab initio, or he has grossly libelled them in the rest of his article by represent­ ing them as ‘mystics’ and advocates of a ‘supernatural’ view of the alleged phenomena. Among the horns of this dilemma I must leave him to choose the one on which to impale himself, and would ask him only to look up S.P.R. Proceedings, No. 1, p. 4.1 It is because of this initial misrepresentation of the aims of the Society that he seems throughout incapable of con­ ceiving any other motive for taking an interest in anoma­ lous phenomena than a morbid love of the marvellous qua unintelligible, or, as he would call it, ‘supernatural.’ That it is possible to contemplate such matters in the spirit of an explorer, of a C.O.S. worker, or of a detective (those who are familiar with the practical working of the Society and have suffered at its hands, indeed, have often complained of the excess to which it had carried this last spirit), that it is possible to be animated by a desire to extend the sway of scientific method over unconquered ground, and to rejoice rather than repine when the new facts have been connected with the old principles (which, however, they often transform), that it is possible to take up the subject from a keen sense of the scientific scandal and social dangers perpetuated by abandoning it to the Terhaps, however, in view of the difficulty he seems to find in grasping the point of the literature he reads with such rapidity, I had better quote for him an extract from the inaugural circular: “The aim of the Society will be to approach these various problems without prejudice or prepossession of any kind, and in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry which has enabled Science to solve so many problems once not less obscure nor less hotly de­ bated. The founders of the Society fully recognise the exceptional difficulties which surround this branch of research; but they neverthe less hope that, by patient and systematic effort, some results of permanent value may be attained.”

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vaearies of superstition, in short, from a self-sacrificing willingness to “take up the white man’s burden”—all these are alternative motives which Professor Munsterberg is sedulous to ignore. Yet he might have found one or other of them expressed on almost every page of every presi­ dential exhortation ever delivered unto the members of the S.P.R ! But not only is Professor Miinsterberg’s definition of mysticism inapplicable to Psychical Research, it is also liable to grave exception in itself. Is it possible, e.g., to put an intelligible interpretation on the phrase ‘super­ natural connection’? Prima facie it seems a contradiction in terms; for to Professor Munsterberg, the ‘supernatural’ is that which is not connected with nature. If it is con­ nected in any stable and calculable fashion, it ipso facto becomes a fit subject for scientific investigation, i.e., be­ comes natural. If, therefore, Professor Munsterberg had thought his definition sound, he might have contented himself (and his readers) by pointing out that the con­ ception of ‘mysticism’ was self-contradictory, by inferring fergo cadit quastio’ and stopping ‘right there.’ Again, a dangerous ambiguity seems to lurk in the phrase about the connections being ‘in’ the physical and psychical worlds. As a philosopher who ventures to soar to the metaphysical heights he reaches later, Professor Munsterberg must of course know quite well that these worlds are not separate universes, but aspects of the world (of experience), or rather, the results of special methods of handling our experience. Hence, in one sense, any fact will be ‘out of,’ e.g., the physical world, when it does not lend itself to treatment by the established methods of physics, and so is ignored by them. But of course it goes on existing just the same, and may receive recognition in another science or by other methods. That is, it will remain ‘in’ the physical world in a wider sense, and so long as it coheres with other facts (or aspects of facts) it must be capable of scientific exploration, and the only question will be as to the proper method of investigating. The only sin against the Holy Ghost of Science or, less metaphorically, against the fundamental assumption of all science, which it is possible to commit, is the assertion that any fact can be incapable of being connected with others. This offence is far from the thought of the psy­ chical researcher, but by implication Professor Munster­ berg commits it whenever he argues against the recogni-

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tion of any fact on the ground that it is ‘supernatural, * and allows his fears to dictate his arguments. Having started from a vicious definition, Professor Miinsterberg is forced to justify it by ascribing to his ‘mystics’ an utterly anti-scientific attitude. A lay observer is not allowed to use the teleological language of ordinary life in expressing the connection of phenomena as they appeared to him, without having his words twisted into a denial of the possibility of a scientific connection of events. Now, of course, Professor Miinsterberg may nourish whatever metaphysical prejudices he pleases1 against the teleological explanation of things, but there are two things which they do not entitle him to do: (1) They do not entitle him to treat a teleological ordering of events as no order at all—that is merely begging the question, and brings him into conflict with all the religions as well as with ‘mysticism’; and (2) they do not entitle him to over­ look the fact that in many sciences the teleological ex­ planation often yields the clue which leads on to the dis­ covery of the mechanism whereby the effect is mediated. Thus, in biology, the purpose of an organ is often far more easily apparent than the mechanism by which it functions. Similarly, if departed spirits did communicate, we might detect why long before we discovered how they did so. To declare, then, one’s belief that certain events are pur­ posive does not in the least imply that they are not also mechanical, according as we contemplate them in one way or in another.

II I do not know whether the true mystic, if such there be, would resent Professor Miinsterberg’s account of his mental attitude as a distortion, or, as is more probable, would remain profoundly indifferent to anything that might be urged by so unsympathetic a critic. But I do know that Professor Miinsterberg’s distortions of his op­ ponents’ views must not be acquiesced in when they affect people who do aim at precision in the use of their tech­ nical words. His caricatures are not even correctly drawn, and are hardly recognisable. Thus he does not scruple freely to use the technical term which the S.P.R. has in­ 1His argument on p. 83 amounts to an assertion that a final cause is no cause—a doctrine open to much objection philosophically, and only apparently borne out by the present practice of the natural sciences.

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Produced in its infancy, and has clung to ever since, viz., Telepathy- But this is how he defines it (p. 68): “To per­ ceive in an incomprehensible way the ideas and thoughts of others.” On the other hand, the Society has unvaryingly defined its meaning as “the transmission of thoughts and feelings from one mind to another by no recognised chan­ nel of sense.”1 It seems impossible to ascribe to Professor Miinsterberg either such linguistic ignorance or such logical incapacity as would lead to the substitution, without a suspicion of the scope of the change, of “incomprehen­ sible” for “uncomprehended.” By what psychological pro­ cesses, then, did he extract his interpretation from the literature which he claims to have examined? At any rate, a candid critic could not but have ob­ served that the official definition of telepathy in no wise excluded transmission either through as yet unrecognised sensory channels or through a supernormal intensifying of the recognised channels; i.e., telepathy includes both hyperaesthesia and physical hypotheses of the ‘brain wave’ type, and it is simply one of the many delusions with which the subject teems to suppose that the recently al­ leged extensions of hyperaesthesia constitute a refutation of the telepathic hypothesis. They simply show how completely right the S.P.R. was 15 years ago in holding that the bounds of science had to be enlarged to take in the new facts. On the other hand, the suggestion that telepathic transmission is incomprehensible is a request that the S.P.R. should gratuitously commit suicide. Not but what a strong criticism might be directed against the telepathic explanation on grounds other than those Professor Miinsterberg saw fit to adopt. For telep­ athy is, after all, not a positive explanation but a nega­ tion, arrayed in the garb of an affirmation, and crying aloud to gods and men for a more positive definition. Hence the effect that it seems to triumph to its own loss, that in proportion as the facts for which it obtained recog­ nition find positive grounds of explanation and enrich the sphere of science, its own foundations seem to be with­ drawn. But this would be distressing only if the psychical 1“A11 impressions received at a distance without the normal opera­ tion of the recognised sense organs” are telepathic. S.P.R. Proceedings L, p. 147, cf. II., pp. 44, 117, et passim. Mr. Podmore, whom Professor Miinsterberg holds up to scientific execration, explictly states that, “though there are grounds sufficient to justify telepathy as a working hypothesis, the proof of its transcendental nature is still wanting.” Studies in Psychical Research, 1897, p. 8.

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researcher were, as Professor Miinsterberg insinuates, in­ terested in the growth, not of knowledge, but of mystery. I And if the S.P.R. be accused of having been some­ what slow in developing the positive content of ‘telep­ athy,’ it may fairly urge in defence that its workers were few, and that other needs were more pressing. The main use of the conception of telepathy was to assist in the analysis of the far more anomalous phenomena of spir­ itism and ghost-seeing. Of the consequence that the proof of spirit-life, spirit identity and spirit agency was thereby rendered indefinitely more difficult, Professor Miinsterberg betrays not the least suspicion. He treats telepathy throughout as but the most modem avenue to the Hall of Illusion. And yet, if he had only seen it, telepathy would have served his purpose far better if he had not abused it, but used it, like, e.g., Mr. Podmore, to arrest the premature flights of superstition. Hence the ingenious author of the Studies in Psychical Research figures only as “the most ardent believer in telepathy” (p. 77), anxious to credit needless marvels. Just as if his perhaps some­ what hypercritical studies did not embody incomparably the most successful attempt to take a sceptical view of the phenonena as a whole, as if they did not strike a far more telling blow at superstition than the collective efforts of all the a priori scoffers from the days of Hume on­ wards! It is clear, then, that Professor Miinsterberg has grossly misrepresented both the aims and methods of the S.P.R., and the character of the explanations which it has, quite provisionally, suggested. In other words, the secret dossier which he reveals does not refer to the S.P.R. “Ce ca­ naille de D” is not Dreyfus, and whoever reads it thus reads it wrong, and knows it. Professor Miinsterberg owes the Society an apology, and in view of the extent of his obligations to its critical work (from which his explana­ tions derive all the real force they possess), poetic justice would seem to demand that he should at least contribute to its funds the ill-gotten gains of his Atlantic Monthly article!

in Strictly speaking, I might end here—after vindicating the integrity of the only approximation to a Cour de Cassa­ tion which exists in this analogue of the Dreyfus Case against the irresponsible attack of a would-be Quesnay de

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Beaurepaire. But I cannot resist the temptation of com­ menting still further on some of the many delectable passages in Professor Munsterberg’s article. P Professor Miinsterberg has a pretty knack of enunciat­ ing sonorous maxims which, upon examination, turn out either not to be relevant or not to be intelligible. Let us take, for instance, the impressive dictum which tells us (p. 69) that “the psychologist insists that every percep­ tion of occurrences outside of one’s own body, and every influence beyond one’s own organism, must be intermedi­ ated by an uninterrupted chain of physical processes.” Surely Professor Miinsterberg need feel no anxiety lest this should seem “an apparently arbitrary decision”—for no requirement can be more easily complied with. Does not the continuity of Space mediate between all processes that occur in the perceptual universe? and would not the weirdest miracle that a theological imagination ever concocted be accompanied by “an uninterrupted chain of physical processes”? And, contrariwise, would not the lax­ ness of the maxim open wide the door to the wildest claims of hyperaesthesia that might be advanced by any pseudo-scientific ‘crank’? Professor Miinsterberg’s admis­ sions arouse the gravest apprehensions. A blind man, he tells us, may perceive distant obstacles by touch (p. 70), “but that does not conflict with the propositions of psy­ chology, and is not mystical,” and “even if a man . . . had a sense-organ for electric currents more sensitive than the finest galvanometer, the psychologist would have no reason for skepticism, so long as the physical nature of the transmission from the outer object to the brain is ad­ mitted.” Such portentous credulity would render him the victim of any swindler who claimed to perform his tricks by ‘physical’ means, while to the honest investigator, who observed the facts but did not come prepared with fig­ ments to ‘explain’ them, Science would say: “Avaunt, vile mystic, if thou canst not show thy physical media­ tion, thy physical substrata”! Something must somehow have gone wrong with critical canons which lead to such results! The truth is, of course, that Professor Miinsterberg is once more juggling with the double meaning of ‘physical’ mentioned above (p. 59), and trying to infer from the (assumed) impossibility of treating an alleged fact by the present methods of the special science of physics that it can have no existence in a world which (among its many other aspects) is also physical. But, to my limited intelli-

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gence, it appears almost inconceivable to suppose that any fact should not have a physical aspect, however sub­ ordinate, while it is obvious that the principles of physics are not rigid and immutable, like the famous ‘laws of the Medes and Persians.’ Hence I cannot but think that the attempt to proscribe any fact a priori, on the ground of the lese majeste it commits against the laws of physics, necessarily fails. No independent jury would convict a fact of the humblest and most suspicious character on such grounds—whatever verdict might be extracted from a packed and hoodwinked court-martial of Professor Miinsterberg’s laboratory assistants. And the same objection disposes also of Professor Miinsterberg’s laboured contentions that (for some reason which he never succeeds in making clear) ‘mystical’ phe­ nomena are incompatible with the causal connection and mechanical treatment postulated by science. Profes­ sor Munsterberg, I make bold to say, is perfectly aware that this is all moonshine, that the mechanical explana­ tion, just because it is a method of science, is universally applicable; that the causal connection as an 'a priori * postulate is the same; and that if, for the purposes of special sciences or for the sake of excluding distasteful facts, its scope has been unduly narrowed, nothing is easier or more imperative than to expand it to any req­ uisite degree. I should also like to credit him with the knowledge1 that a mechanical and (in his sense) causal explanation of a fact in no wise excludes, prejudices, or dispenses with, its explanation by higher categories, and that all the High Priests of all the Sciences in solemn conclave assembled could not effectively taboo the ‘ro­ mantic’ and teleological interpretation of the facts of life.

IV I may pass next to what is perhaps the cleverest thing in Professor Miinsterberg’s article, viz., the splendid audac­ ity with which he interprets away the rout to which scien­ tific dogmatism has so often been put by the victorious intrusion of new facts. “It is absurd,” he says (p. 83), JHe has read his colleague, Professor James’, Will to Believe, though he misrepresents it. And though his metaphysics, as will be shown (pp. 67-8), result in an impossible separation of the world of phenomena from that of reality, they do contain a sort of admission that both the mechanical and the teleological explanations are (in different senses) true.

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“for the mystics to claim the backing of history, be­ cause it shows that many things are acknowledged as true to-day which were not believed in earlier times. The teaching of history, on the contrary, annihilates almost cruelly every claim of mysticism, as, far from a later ap­ proval of mystical wisdom, history has in every case re­ moulded the facts until they have become causal ones. If the scientists of earlier times disbelieved in phenomena as products of witchcraft, and believe to-day in the same phenomena as products of hypnotic suggestion and hyste­ ria, the mystics are not victorious but defeated. As long as the ethical (sic) category of Satanic influence was ap­ plied to the appearances they were not true; as soon as they were brought under the causal categories they were accepted as true, but they were then no longer mystical __it was not witchcraft any more. This process of trans­ formation goes on steadily; millions of propositions which life suggests remain untrue till they are adjusted.” If Professor Miinsterberg means what he says by his last remark, it would follow that for lack of a little ‘adjust­ ment’ he was losing his chance of becoming the great­ est discoverer of truth the world has yet seen, a veritable millionaire of verities, in fact! If, again, he means what he says in his last sentence but one, it would follow that he should swallow any yarn as soon as any one has taken the trouble to coat it over with an illusory varnish of ‘causal’ phrases. But I am loth to think that he should really believe that the truth or falsehood of reported facts can depend on the atmosphere of worthless a priori theories with which we surround them before investigation. If that were all, it would be contemptibly easy to make the extremest assertions look respectable, and to put Professor Miinsterberg in a hole whence he could extricate himself only by conversion to the principles of psychical research; I myself should not need that provocation to undertake to show that, with unlimited license of conjectural ex­ tension, the orthodox principles of suggestion, hallucina­ tion and the ‘threshold’ of consciousness would be quite capable of ‘accounting for’ far more marvels than have ever been alleged,1 whereas the real difficulty of the sub­ ject is to authenticate the facts, and as soon as a sufficient supply of authentic facts has been accumulated, no diffixAs, indeed, I pointed out five years ago in Philosophical Review, Vol. HL, No. 4, pp. 488-9.

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culty has ever been encountered in fitting them on to previous facts. To Professor Miinsterberg the important aspect of this process is that the facts should have fitted; to the psychical researcher, that the facts should have been admitted—the one is anxious to recover from the shock to his prejudices, the other to obtain recognition for unappreciated truth. It is obvious which of these is the more scientific attitude. And the triumph of science over ‘mysticism * which Professor Miinsterberg here dis. covers is a triumph only over his own absurd concep. tion of mysticism, while the new facts triumph, not over science, but over the prepossessions of the scientists who arrogated to themselves the monopoly of truth. If any historical fact is certain, it is surely this, that if those who had faith in the unknown possibilities of existence had allowed themselves to be deterred by the a priori denunciations of those who thought like Professor Mtinsterberg, the existence of, e.g., hypnotism would never have been brought to light. And if Professor Miinsterberg regards the hundred years’ struggle before the facts were grudgingly admitted a creditable chapter in the history of science, I can compare his audacity only to that of a theologian who should regard the history of witch-burn­ ing as a credit to theology, or of a member of a certain historic Sanhedrim who should take credit for his part in promoting the establishment of the Christian religion by stimulating Pontius Pilate’s somewhat torpid zeal for the discharge of his official duties!

At intervals in the course of his article Professor Munsterberg betrays symptoms of an uneasiness about the progress of his crusade against ‘mysticism.’ Thus, when about half-way through, he confesses (p. 75) that so far “we have given decisions, but not arguments.” One cor­ dially agrees, and after this expects a revolution in the logical texture of the article. But, alas, it goes on very much as before. Then Professor Miinsterberg makes an­ other effort and invokes the suprasensible truths of meta­ physics to supply him with reasons for the utter rejection of mysticism a priori. The appeal is successful, and for the rest of the article the lay reader struggles gallantly with Professor Miinsterberg’s attempts to express thoughts that lie too deep for words and intelligible statement, and to bring them to bear on a very simple dispute about

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facts. At first one is inclined to hold that this recourse to metaphysics is merely due to Professor Miinsterberg’s inability to find any more conclusive reasons, and forms his version of the old story: “No case—abuse the plain­ tiff’s attorney,” viz., “No case; drag in metaphysics!” But ottpntive reflection soon discovers that the real reason is somewhat different. Professor Miinsterberg is a victim of the Germanic spir­ it. So he cannot content himself with simply telling the ‘mystics’ that their facts are in point of fact illusory. He cannot be happy until he has convinced himself that they are a priori impossible. Before he can be got to ad­ mit a fact as a fact, he must be provided with a proof that it is possible, and see that it has a passport duly vj^’d and officially stamped, entitling it to find a home in the world of science. He can no more help doing this than the British spirit can help ferreting out the facts first of all and postponing to subsequent leisure the task of devising an explanation for them. Now personally I have much sympathy with metaphysi­ cal prejudices, and am reluctant to sacrifice their bril­ liance to the laborious pertinacity of the sounder British method. I do not therefore propose to be hard on Pro­ fessor Miinsterberg’s metaphysics. They are a national in­ firmity rather than a personal eccentricity or an attempt to confuse the issue, and I will be merciful to them (and to my readers). Hence I shall say as little as possible about them, and, lest I should spoil their aesthetic effect, shall confine myself to quotations. “Our real inner life is a system of attitudes of will which we do not perceive as objects of consciousness,” and the “causal view has not the slightest meaning for this inner reality.” “The real inner life in its teleological reality is spaceless and timeless” and is “in short not a psychological fact at all.” “Life as seen from a psycholog­ ical point of view ... is utterly worthless.” A future life, therefore, as understood hitherto, is “a violation of the ethical belief in immortality” which “means that we as subjects of will are immortal; that is, we are not reached by death.” Nay, (in this sense) “immortality is certain; for him, the denial of immortality would be even quite mean­ ingless.” This, then, is the real idealism and the true immortality, which cannot become a vulgar object of de­ sire to any one, while with the exception of a few pro­ fessorial ‘immortals’ ‘every one escapes his own notice possessing it.’ No wonder Professor Miinsterberg gets

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angry with those who are trying to profane his trans­ cendental ideals by dragging them down to a world in which they themselves live, and change, and suffer, and speak intelligibly! When such monsters of metaphysical mountains labour to crush Mrs. Piper, the unsympathetic comment of by­ standers is not wanted. I shall remark, therefore, only that Professor Miinsterberg’s metaphysic is Schopenhauerism, that it has inherited Kant’s insoluble difficulty of the double causation of every event, phenomenally and real­ ly, and that in any case it is not really relevant to the point under dispute.* 1 The only thing that really matters about Professor Miinsterberg’s metaphysics is that they constitute him a mystic of the most pronounced type—in his own sense of the word. For he denies all connections between his two worlds, that of psychology and that of reality: hence each is ‘supernatural,’ and neither is intelligible, to the other Our experience as a whole also becomes unintel­ ligible, because it is cleft in twain irremediably by the two worlds Miinsterberg the Professor has set up. And this is sad, but it is so; though it need not have caused any surprise to those who have observed how often ex­ tremes meet and how truly Aristotle held that excellence lay in a mean. Once more a priori scepticism has played into the hands of superstition and puts obstacles into the intermediate path of Psychical Research!

VI Minora canamus. It is a relief to turn from such ex­ cursions into ‘the vast inane’ to the pleasant side-lights Professor Miinsterberg sometimes throws on his personal characteristics. He is a very Galahad among psychology professors. He has never, he assures us, “taken part in a telepathic experiment or in a spiritualistic seance.” But he once had a thrilling adventure “with two famous telep­ athists in Europe” (p. 77), who had discovered “a me­ dium of extraordinary powers” at a distance, unfortu­ nately, which would have involved him in “15 hours’ 1If 1 were disposed to make trouble I might say a good deal more. I should urge, e.g., that acts and purposes in a world which is out of time would seem to be sheer nonsense; that ethical valuations are facts in time as much as any other, and have nothing to do with Professor Miinsterberg’s “ethical belief in immortality”; that he is inconsistent in a variety of ways, etc., etc.

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travelling”—no slight journey even for a well-girt man. For a moment the professor wavered in his decision, and his mighty mind was nigh o’erthrown. But, before he had started, the telepathists had discovered the fraud. A most providential escape, surely; for if the professor had come and seen, he might have been conquered, and then a flood of superstition might have swept us all back into the Mid­ dle Ages! But, after all, his (and our) escape was not, as he confesses, so much due to his scientific caution as to his dilatoriness; the virgin purity of his scientific character was preserved unsullied only by his professorial slowness in packing his trunks!1 Perhaps his readers would have been more interested to hear the reason why he has never expended a couple of hours and of 5-cent car fares and, fortified only with, say, a couple of bags and a choice selection of psychological instruments, tried his luck with Mrs. Piper! After such heroic readiness to pack his trunks for a 15-hour journey, that seems a little strange. The reason, doubtless, lies in his sense of the surpassing innocency of his character He is in very deed “the Isra­ elite in whom there is no guile” we read of in the Scrip­ tures. “Why do I avoid these seances?” he asks pathetical­ ly “It is not because I am afraid that they would shake my theoretical views and convince me of mysticism, but because I know I consider it undignified to visit such performances .... and because I know I should be the last man to see through the scheme and discover the trick” (p. 78). And, after an appeal to the effete old ignava ratio that a conjuror and not a scientist is the proper person to detect trickery,2 he proceeds to commend himself, and his science, for his lack of detective insight. As an 2Note the plural. ^his seems a truism a priori, but is not borne out by experience. For such experts have often most unreservedly admitted the super­ normal character of many of the disputed facts—even where the scientists subsequently discovered trickery. The explanation, of course, is that the expert is quite as liable (or in some cases, be­ cause of his conceit of knowledge, even more liable) to be deceived by trickery on lines which are unfamiliar to him. And, as Messrs. Hodgson and Davey have shown, the subtler sort of spiritistic fraud really rests on a higher plane than ordinary conjuring. It rests not so much on the deception of the senses by apparatus and pres­ tidigitation, but on the fact that the spectator is induced to deceive himself by lapses of attention and errors of interpretation. Hence his mental processes present far subtler, more complicated and interest­ ing psychological problems than those of the conjuror’s audience.

70 Psychology and Extrasensory Perception experimental psychologist he is by his whole training “ab­ solutely spoilt for the business of a detective.” He does not know “another profession in which the suspicion of constant fraud becomes so systematically inhibited as it does in that of the scientist.” Daily work in a scientific laboratory he regards “as a continuous training of an in­ stinctive confidence in the honesty of one’s co-operators.” Hence, he implies, Zollner, Richet, Crookes, etc., were de­ ceived, and he was saved from a like fate only by his resisting the temptation to investigate—or, more precisely (as we saw above) by the fortunate delay in packing his trunks! Now, of course, we must accept Professor Munster­ berg’s description of his own idiosyncrasy I am quite ready to believe that he is as easy to deceive as he is difficult to convince. But on the other points of this argu­ ment I take leave to differ. I think he exaggerates the incompetence of other scien­ tific men in psychical research when he judges them by himself. They are, of course, not born experts in psychical research, but become such by a pretty severe training, in the course of which they may often fall into error For they are no more infallible in their observations than in their a priori convictions. An instinctive insight into the possibilities of fraud comes to them, as to the detective, only as the fruit of long experience. (That is just why I am not impressed by the authority of scientists whose qualifications resemble Professor Munsterberg’s.) But they can make themselves very fair judges of trickery, though perhaps they would do well, both before and after in­ vestigating, to consult with a real expert with the long and varied experience of, e.g., Dr. Hodgson. And it is just because isolated investigation is so hazardous, be­ cause experience and special study are so valuable, that it is so desirable that the S.P.R. should have the means to employ dozens of trained investigators, who ‘know the ropes,’ and are fully alive to all the difficulties of the subject, instead of one. For our science here stands shiver­ ing on the shore of an ‘unharvested sea’ of unknown di­ mensions. Again, I am a little reluctant to accept Professor Munsterberg’s account of the experimental psychologists’ superhuman guilelessness. This may in part be due to the unfortunate outcome of my only attempt to enlist an ex­ perimental psychologist’s co-operation in a ‘psychical’ experiment. He took advantage of the opportunity to se­

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cure the failure of the experiment. No doubt his scientif­ ic conscience permitted, nay, persuaded, him to protect ‘science’ against the possible inroads of ‘superstition’ by such means, but after this I naturally incline to guard myself against the possibilities of deception on both sides. For it is decidedly humiliating to have escaped the wiles of the professional mediums only to fall a victim to the excessive zeal of a professorial psychologist, whose good faith one had taken for granted! Further, and this is a contention which has a wider scope, I would maintain that, whatsoever may be the natural and acquired guilelessness of psychologists de facto, they have no business to pride themselves on it and to cultivate it de jure, and that if Professor Miinsterberg’s account of the mental attitude of himself and his ‘experimental’ confreres is correct, it pro tanto unfits him, and them, for the prosecution of delicate psychological inquiries. For the obstacles which impede the attainment of truth in Psychical Research and in ‘experimental’ psy­ chology are in many important respects identical. And if the psychical researcher has to recognise the superior position of experimental psychology in many respects,1 and may learn not a little from its ingenious use of me­ chanical contrivances for recording and controlling ob­ servations, yet on the other hand the psychical researcher has acquired an openness of mind and a practical ex­ perience of the sources of psychologic error, which might be applied to psychological experiments in a most fruit­ ful and revolutionary manner. Very possibly such assertions will strike Professor Mtinsterberg as novel and preposterous, and he will feel in­ clined to retort that he puts his trust in instruments which cannot lie, and apparatus which cannot be hallucinated. And in a limited sense this is doubtless true: instruments are a mighty defence against fraud, though, like all forti­ fications, they require to be manned by the right sort of garrison and to be properly looked after, in the absence of which care it is, e.g., perfectly easy to produce bogus ‘spirit’ photographs from the most trustworthy cameras. So that the use of instruments of the most marvellous exactness alone will not prevent deception if the ex­ perimenters cannot be trusted. Especially as regards its financial resources and its command of the well-paid services of hundreds of workers with a high academic status.

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But the charge is that in psychical researches they can­ not be trusted, whereas in ‘experimental’ psychology they can, and it is here that I find the home of the delusion which puffs up the psychologist with so overweening a conceit of his own superiority, with so overbearing a contempt for the poor psychical researcher struggling amid the pitfalls of deception. But this view of the situa­ tion may be shown to be utterly erroneous. In the first place, it is not true that exposure to delib­ erate deception is the only or the chief difficulty which besets psychical research. No one who has had any con­ siderable practical familiarity with the evidence and the process of collecting it, believes that conscious decep­ tion is the source of any considerable part of it, or that an appreciable percentage of the narrators of marvellous stories are liars, pure and simple. There are such cases, and they throw much valuable light on the study of hu­ man mendacity (even though it may not be possible to determine by their means the co-efficient of human men­ dacity with mathematical accuracy), even as one has heard of bogus statistics and bogus surveys in other sciences. Occasionally a well-constructed and well-sus­ tained lie may impose even on an expert, though, for­ tunately, this danger is rapidly diminishing as the meth­ ods of criticism of ‘psychical’ evidence are becoming better understood, and as the social atmosphere grows more favourable to the truthful reporting of such experi­ ences. Even the possibilities of fraudulent ‘mediumship’ have become pretty well understood, with the result that the area of the phenomena calling for investigation has been correspondingly restricted. On the whole, therefore, the danger of deception from deliberate and conscious fraud and mendacity is not serious, and it would be as absurd to explain the mass of phenomena in this way as to hold that the constancy of the experimental results ob­ tained by psychologists was due only to a tacit conspiracy to foist a profitable pseudo-science upon the universities of the world. The real danger lies elsewhere. It is, as Plato says, a ‘lie in the soul’ and not ‘in words.’ It lies in the as yet unexplored possibilities of unconscious and self-decep­ tion, of hallucination and suggestion. Of the subtle sophis­ tications which lurk in these agencies we know as yet so little that one sometimes thinks that a new era in psy­ chology might spring from an attempt to answer the ques­ tion—How are collective hallucinations possible? It must be admitted that the psychical researcher is here largely

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groping in the dark, sustained only by the consciousness that every moment be stumbles upon something new and unexpected, and that his best security lies in his acute ap­ preciation of the peril of his position. F But what about the ‘experimental’ psychologist? His position is precisely analogous, only he does not appear to know it! (1) Like the psychical researcher with his ‘sensitives,’ he has to confine most of his experiments to a very limited section of the human race, viz., those who are not only educated up to the point of understanding them, but are also constitutionally endowed with a rare capacity of resisting the tedium of performing them. (2) Like him, he puts his subjects under abnormal conditions and assumes that what is found to hold of men­ tal processes under ‘experimental’ conditions will apply also to them under the normal conditions of natural life. This he does, although he knows quite well that the limen of consciousness and the capacity of attention vary most surprisingly according to the interest which the subject inspires. (3) Like the psychical researcher he is dealing with conditions which give the widest possible scope to sug­ gestion. But unlike the former he seems to have been (at all events until recently) blissfully unconscious of the fact and to have taken no appreciable precautions against the vitiation of his results from this source.1 Yet the con­ ditions of the ordinary psychological laboratory are al­ most the ideal conditions for inducing a maximum of suggestibility First of all the subject’s mind is prepared by impressive and dogmatic statements of his professor to expect certain results. Then he is steeped in a litera­ ture admirably calculated to lower his vitality, to stupefy his critical capacity, to abase his imagination, until no thought can enter it of any but a certain sort of result. Meanwhile he is subjected to a thorough course of ‘ward training’ in the laboratory, receiving all the time frequent ‘hints’ from his director and breathing an atmosphere which simply reeks with suggestion. When finally he pro­ duces his research, is it a wonder that in 99 cases out of 100 its results should be found faithfully to reflect 1It will suffice to refer to an exception which proves the rule, viz., Professor G. A. Tawney {justissimus unus qui fuit in Teucris), who, in an article in the Psychological Review (Nov., 1897), shows that the ‘double-point illusion’ is mainly due to auto-suggestion.

74 Psychology and Extrasensory Perception the assumptions of ‘experimental’ psychology in general and to confirm the views of the director of his laboratory in particular? And do not the training and the ideas in­ stilled in the Leipzig laboratory still play much the same part in ‘experimental’ psychology as the ‘three-stages’ view of the Salpetriere School once did in the theory of hypno­ tism? And is it not generally admitted that the wonder­ fully symmetrical results originating from the Salpetriere were mainly the result of suggestion, though the fact could not be proved until independent centres of experi­ mentation imbued with different notions had come into prominence? We have then positive proofs that the ef­ fects of suggestion can vitiate a whole science; and sug­ gestion can be brought to bear on the youthful minds that frequent psychological laboratories with far greater force than even in the palmiest days of the Salpetriere theory. Would it not then border on a miracle if such strong suggestions had failed to produce their effect, would it not be still more marvellous if such a ‘failure’ should ever be thought worth printing? (4) Like the psychical researcher, the psychological ex­ perimenter deals with mental processes whose delicacy renders them peculiarly liable to hallucination. And when we bear in mind the powerful suggestions that are opera­ tive throughout the process, it will hardly seem surprising that not only, e.g., the ‘perception’ of infinitesimal differ­ ences in sensory stimuli and the reactions of an expectant attention upon an imagined signal, but even the readings of a micrometer or the chronoscopic estimates in thou­ sandths of a second which are needed to produce the required conformity in the results should often be explica­ ble as sheer hallucinations fostered by the peculiar condi­ tions of the experiment. Indeed, we even find some such results recorded by the psychologists, though without any consciousness, apparently, of their methodological signifi­ cance. At all events I feel that I personally could match Professor Miinsterberg’s avowal of his limitless capacity to be deceived in ‘psychical’ experiments by an equally frank avowal of my capacity to deceive myself in psychological experiments. If I did not succeed in getting myself turned out as an unsuitable subject by failing to see anything at all, I am sure I should delude myself into fancying that I saw whatever was expected of me. For in such experi­ ments one cannot trust oneself: there is often just the same difficulty about distinguishing a real from a hallu­ cinatory sense-perception, as there is in some ‘borderland’

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experiences about saying whether one is asleep or awake. (5) Like the psychical researcher, the psychologist cherishes a weakness for figures—in the one case in the shape of statistics; in the other in shape of ‘exact quan­ titative measurements.’ And though, of course, a method of inquiry which can use figures is far more provocative of confidence than one which cannot, it may be ques­ tioned whether in both cases the Pythagorean reverence for Number is not often carried to a superstitious in­ tensity To swamp the inquirer with a flood of figures is not necessarily to solve a problem, especially while one of the chief doubts is as to the relevance of the figures. And, on the other hand, it is well known that with skilful manipulation, statistics and ‘exact quantita­ tive determinations’ may be made to prove many things, while they serve as opiates to the critical faculty and in­ duce a comfortable glow of scientific rectitude. Hence the pride which the psychologist takes in his figures may often prove a snare, and a prelude to his fall from his fancied eminence of uncontested truth. In addition to the above five points, in which the prob­ lems of the psychical researcher and the ‘experimental’ psychologist are analogous, I may briefly allude to two others in which there is a divergence, significant as bearing on the attitude which the latter so often takes up towards the former (6) The psychologist deals with partial processes of hu­ man mentality, isolated as far as possible from their con­ text; the psychical researcher generally experiments with the psychical organism as a whole. The former proce­ dure is more in accordance with the analogy of the other sciences (though, to be sure, it is here a question how far the analogy holds), but it renders him liable to the charge of false abstraction in ignoring the context and the connection of the phenomena studied with the whole mental life. The latter runs the risk of treating as a sim­ ple fact what is really the complex resultant of many factors. But, being more concrete, this method is more interesting and more human, as the psychologist cannot but himself feel. And, being irritated both by the popular preference for the wider sweep of the more concrete method and by his consciousness of the responsive note it strikes in his own bosom, he reacts upon the tempta­ tion by pouring out the vials of his wrath from time to time in indiscriminate abuse of Psychical Research and

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all its works and ways. Which, though very human, is foolish, and not science. (7) The psychical researcher is aware that he has to deal with what appears a more aberrant type of fact, and to exercise the greatest care to take nothing for granted. He must state all the conditions of his experiments with the utmost fulness and the greatest attainable accuracy, regarding nothing as too trivial for mention, and sedulous­ ly eschewing anything like ‘cooking’ of the evidence. And I think that no candid reader can deny that such has been the aim of the S.P.R., and that the evidence it publishes conforms to the highest standards in an ever-increasing degree as time goes on, and the knowledge of its methods becomes more widely diffused. The facts of the ‘experimental’ psychologist, on the other hand, are intrinsically of an entirely commonplace character. They are so closely connected with those of the recognised science of physiology, that their depen­ dence on it has often seemed mere parasitism. Hence the psychologist feels freer from the restrictions which are imposed on psychical research, and his accounts show that he enjoys his freedom to the full. He appears to recognise no limits to the suppression of unsuitable rec­ ords and to the selection of the ‘facts’ he propounds. And in any case his statement of the conditions is hardly ever full enough to disarm the suspicion that the first four sources of error I have mentioned have not been ade­ quately guarded against. Hence the reports of psychologi­ cal experiments are hardly ever such as to carry convic­ tion to any one disposed to dispute their results; they are accepted because, as a rule, they shock no antecedent prejudice. But this uncritical naivete can hardly be es­ teemed a recommendation by an impartial student of the methodology of the sciences, and hence Professor Miinsterberg’s complacent delight in the absence of sus­ piciousness fostered by his psychological methods vividly reminds me of General Mercier’s innocent surprise at be­ ing informed of the illegality and impropriety of his use of the documents whereby the condemnation of Dreyfus was secured. It would be far better if, instead of propa­ gating misrepresentations of the S.P.R., Professor Munsterberg imitated its methods somewhat more closely, and got, e.g., his fellow-townsman, Dr. Hodgson, to open his guileless eyes to some of the sources of illusion which infect his most favourite assumptions.

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VII Now why, it may be wondered, have I done Professor Munsterberg’s incoherent and ridiculous reasonings (“Raisonniren” as the Germans aptly say) the honour of so de­ tailed a refutation? It is not that so elaborate a counter­ blast is needed against sophistries which can hardly impose on their author. It is not for the sake of gaining a dialectical victory and humbling his professorial pride. It is not in the hope of effecting his conversion. For if any man can remain deaf to the charming of his colleague, Professor James, no power in heaven or earth can move him in his prejudices. It is simply because I would put it to MM les Generaux de I’Etat-major that, even from their own point of view, they are making a mistake in their conduct of this awkward little affair. Their methods of suppressing the ‘revisionists’ are too crude and inef­ ficient. We want something fresher than a re-hash of the old a priori prejudices in lieu of conclusive documents. We want something more unlike the belated forgeries of Colonel Henri than Professor Munsterberg’s perversions of the S.P.R.’s attitude. He is simply adding blunders to the ancient crimes, and, from the point of view of hu­ manity, adding crimes to the ancient blunders. For, socially speaking, the policy pursued in this Dreyfus Case of Science has been criminal as well as stupid, criminally stupid and stupidly criminal. The success of the S.P.R., to say nothing of more fanatically ‘Dreyfusard’ associations, must make it obvious even to the obtusest professor that the policy of the chose jugee has failed. It, has not achieved what was expected of it—it has not burked inquiry. And it is quite plain that it can­ not do so in the future, however great becomes the growth of Science. For, as the sciences grow more specialised and their language more technical, the radius of their influence contracts rapidly, their ideas affect the minds of men less and less. Already in Professor Munsterberg’s article (un­ less its obscurity was intentional) the real ground of his technical objection to ‘mysticism’ can hardly have been intelligible to one out of a thousand of educated readers. And experimental psychology is still in its infancy, cry­ ing aloud to every alma mater to notice and nourish it. To what depths of technicality and obscurity may we not then expect it to descend by the time it is full grown? Now the impotence of science is the opportunity of su­

Psychology and Extrasensory Perception perstition. It flourishes unchecked all around the scien­ tist, who will not compromise his dignity by recognising its existence. He cannot check its growth by arguments so technical that they are understood only by the very few who have been able to spend the best years of their youth in his laboratories. His attitude of a priori disgust is too unsympathetic to have the slightest effect upon the convictions of his adversaries who, as Profes­ sor James has well pointed out, “are indifferent to Science, because Science is so callously indifferent to their experi­ ences.”1 In fact, it stands to reason that one cannot expect to convince any adherent of mistaken views by either ignoring him or saying to him: “Now, my good man, you are either a liar or a lunatic.” And for the scientists to hold utterly aloof from the beliefs of the vulgar is just as stupid and dangerous a practice in the end as was that of the Roman philosophers to discourse about humanity, while leaving untouched in­ stitutions like that of the gladiatorial games. Similarly the psychologist consumes his energies in researches which, from a social point of view, can only appear ingenious modes of academic trifling, while leaving unexplored sub­ jects which prima facie raise the most stupendous issues, have the most direct practical bearing on society, and most naturally fall into his province. No wonder, then, that the policy of the chose jugee, as practised for the last two centuries, has not eradicated superstition: it has been a blunder. By the same token, it has also been a crime; for a different policy 'would have eradicated superstition. And thus the real responsibility for the persistence of superstition lies not with the igno­ rant masses, who interpreted their experience according to their lights, but with the educated Pharisees, whose delicate nostrils were offended at the very idea of associat­ ing with publicans and sinners. It is these latter who are the true obscurantists, who by keeping aloof have kept alive the belief in witchcraft, Satanism, and the offensive aspects of supernaturalism generally, whose consciences ought to be burdened with the unspeakable evils these be­ liefs have brought upon mankind. And if they knew not 78

xWill to Believe, p. 323. Professor Miinsterberg has apparently read this excellent essay, and that after doing so he should write as he does gives the measure of what one would be disposed to call either his moral bias or his mental obtuseness, if one did not know to what lengths the pathological obfuscation of the psychological intellect may be carried in the discussion of these matters.

F. C. S. Schiller 79 what would be the effect of their attitude, they were foolish, if they knew it, they are, to put it mildly, dis­ ingenuous. Does it not behove, then, every good scientist and every good citizen to work for the ‘revision’ of the Dreyfus Case of Science?

3 Frederic Myers’s Service to Psychology * WILLIAM JAMES

On this memorial occasion it is from English hearts and tongues belonging, as I never had the privilege of belong­ ing, to the immediate environment of our lamented President, that discourse of him as a man and as a friend must come. It is for those who participated in the endless drudgery of his labors for our Society to tell of the high powers he showed there; and it is for those who have something of his burning interest in the problem of our human destiny to estimate his success in throwing a little more light into its dark recesses. To me it has been deemed best to assign a colder task. Frederic Myers was a psychologist who worked upon lines hardly ad­ mitted by the more academic branch of the profes­ sion to be legitimate; and as for some years I bore the title of “Professor of Psychology,” the suggestion has been made (and by me gladly welcomed) that I should spend my portion of this hour in defining the exact place and rank which we must accord to him as a cultivator and promoter of the science of the Mind. Brought up entirely upon literature and history, and interested at first in poetry and religion chiefly; never by nature a philosopher in the technical sense of a man forced to pursue consistency among concepts for the mere *Published originally in the Proceedings of the SPR, Vol. XVII, 1901, this paper was reprinted in Memories and Studies (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1911), and in William James on Psychical Research, edited by Gardner Murphy and Robert Ballou (New York: The Viking Press, 1969)

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love pf the logical occupation; not crammed with science at college, or trained to scientific method by any pas­ sage through a laboratory; Myers had as it were to re­ create his personality before he became the wary critic of evidence, the skillful handler of hypothesis, the learned neurologist and omnivorous reader of biological and cosmological matter, with whom in later years we were acquainted. The transformation came about because he needed to be all these things in order to work success­ fully at the problem that lay near his heart; and the ardor of his will and the richenss of his intellect are proved by the success with which he underwent so unusual a trans­ formation. The problem, as you know, was that of seeking evi­ dence for human immortality. His contributions to psy­ chology were incidental to that research, and would prob­ ably never have been made had he not entered on it. But they have a value for science entirely independent of the light they shed upon that problem; and it is quite apart from it that I shall venture to consider them. If we look at the history of mental science we are immediately struck by diverse tendencies among its sev­ eral cultivators, the consequence being a certain opposi­ tion of schools and some repugnance among their dis­ ciples. Apart from the great contrasts between minds that are teleological or biological and minds that are me­ chanical, between the animists and the associationists in psychology, there is the entirely different contrast be­ tween what I will call the classic-academic and the roman­ tic type of imagination. The former has a fondness for clean pure lines and noble simplicity in its constructions. It explains things by as few principles as possible and is intolerant of either nondescript facts or clumsy formulas. The facts must lie in a neat assemblage, and the psy­ chologist must be enabled to cover them and “tuck them in” as safely under his system as a mother tucks her babe in under the down coverlet on a winter night. Until quite recently all psychology, whether animistic or associationistic, was written on classic-academic lines. The consequence was that the human mind, as it is figured in this literature, was largely an abstraction. Its normal adult traits were recognized. A sort of sunlit terrace was exhibited on which it took its exercise. But where that terrace stopped, the mind stopped; and there was nothing farther left to tell of in this kind of philosophy but the

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brain and the other physical facts of nature on the one hand, and the absolute metaphysical ground of the uni­ verse on the other. But of late years the terrace has been overrun by ro­ mantic improvers, and to pass to their work is like going from classic to Gothic architecture, where few out­ lines are pure and where uncouth forms lurk in the shad­ ows. A mass of mental phenomena are now seen in the shrubbery beyond the parapet. Fantastic, ignoble, hardly human, or frankly non-human are some of these new candidates for psychological description. The menagerie and the madhouse, the nursery, the prison, and the hos­ pital, have been made to deliver up their material. The world of mind is shown as something infinitely more com­ plex than was suspected; and whatever beauties it may still possess, it has lost at any rate the beauty of academic neatness. But despite the triumph of romanticism, psychologists as a rule have still some lingering prejudice in favor of the nobler simplicities. Moreover there are social prejudices which scientific men themselves obey. The word “hypno­ tism” has been trailed about in the newspapers so that even we ourselves rather wince at it, and avoid occasions of its use. “Mesmerism,” “clairvoyance,” “medium”— horrescimus referentes!—and with all these things, in­ fected by their previous mystery-mongering discoverers, even our best friends had rather avoid complicity For instance, I invite eight of my scientific colleagues severally to come to my house at their own time, and sit with a medium for whom the evidence already published in our Proceedings had been most noteworthy. Although it means at worst the waste of the hour for each, five of them decline the adventure. I then beg the “Commission” connected with the chair of a certain learned psychologist in a neighboring university to examine the same medium, whom Mr. Hodgson and I offer at our own expense to send and leave with them. They also have to be excused from any such entanglement. I advise another psycho­ logical friend to look into this medium’s case, but he re­ plies that it is useless, for if he should get such results as I report, he would (being suggestible) simply believe himself hallucinated. When I propose as a remedy that he should remain in the background and take notes, whilst his wife has the sitting, he explains that he can never consent to his wife’s presence at such performances. This friend of mine writes ex cathedra on the subject of psy-

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chical research, declaring (I need hardly add) that there is nothing in it; the chair of the psychologist with the Commission was founded by a spiritist, partly with a view to investigate mediums; and one of the five colleagues who declined my invitation is widely quoted as an effective critic of our evidence. So runs the world away! I should not indulge in the personality and triviality of such anec­ dotes, were it not that they paint the temper of our time, a temper which, thanks to Frederic Myers more than to anyone, will certainly be impossible after this generation. Myers was, I think, decidedly exclusive and intolerant by nature. But his keenness for truth carried him into re­ gions where either intellectual or social squeamishness would have been fatal, so he “mortified” his amour propre, unclubbed himself completely, and became a model of patience, tact, and humility wherever investigation re­ quired it. Both his example and his body of doctrine will make this temper the only one henceforward scientifically respectable. If you ask me how his doctrine has this effect, I an­ * swer By coordinating! For Myers’s great principle of re­ search was that in order to understand any one species of fact we ought to have all the species of the same general class of fact before us. So he took a lot of scat­ tered phenomena, some of them recognized as reputable, others outlawed from science, or treated as isolated cu­ riosities, he made series of them, filled in the transitions by delicate hypotheses or analogies, and bound them to­ gether in a system by his bold inclusive conception of the Subliminal Self, so that no one can now touch one part of the fabric without finding the rest entangled with it. Such vague terms of apperception as psychologists have hitherto been satisfied with using for most of these phenomena, as “fraud,” “rot,” “rubbish,” will no more be possible hereafter than “dirt” is possible as a head of classification in chemistry, or “vermin” in zoology What­ ever they are, they are things with a right to definite de­ scription and to careful observation. I cannot but account this as a great service rendered to Psychology. I expect that Myers will ere long distinctly figure in mental science as the radical leader in what I have called the romantic movement. Through him for the first time, psychologists are in possession of their full material, and mental phenomena are set down in an ade­ quate inventory To bring unlike things thus together by forming series of which the intermediary terms connect

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the extremes, is a procedure much in use by scientific men. It is a first step made towards securing their in­ terest in the romantic facts, that Myers should have shown how easily this familiar method can be applied to their study. Myers’s conception of the extensiveness of the Sub­ liminal Self quite overturns the classic notion of what the human mind consists in. The supraliminal region, as Myers calls it, the classic-academic consciousness, which was once alone considered either by associationists or animists, figures in his theory as only a small segment of the psychic spectrum. It is a special phase of mentality, teleologically evolved for adaptation to our natural en­ vironment, and forms only what he calls a “privileged case” of personality. The outlying subliminal, according to him, represents more fully our central and abiding being. I think the words subliminal and supraliminal unfor­ tunate, but they were probably unavoidable. I think, too, that Myers’s belief in the ubiquity and great extent of the subliminal will demand a far larger number of facts than sufficed to persuade him, before the next generation of psychologists shall become persuaded. He regards the subliminal as the enveloping mother-consciousness in each of us, from which the consciousness we wot of is precipi­ tated like a crystal. But whether this view get confirmed or get overthrown by future inquiry, the definite way in which Myers has thrown it down is a new and specific challenge to inquiry. For half a century now, psychologists have fully admitted the existence of a subliminal mental region, under the name either of unconscious cerebration or of the involuntary life; but they have never definitely taken up the question of the extent of this region, never sought explicitly to map it out. Myers definitely attacks this problem, which, after him, it will be impossible to ignore. What is the precise constitution of the subliminal— such is the problem which deserves to figure in our science hereafter as the problem of Myers; and willynilly, inquiry must follow on the path which it has opened up. But Myers has not only propounded the problem definitely, he has also invented definite methods for its solution. Post-hypnotic suggestion, crystal-gazing, auto­ matic writing and trance speech, the willing game, etc., are now, thanks to him, instruments of research, reagents like litmus paper or the galvanometer, for revealing what

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would otherwise be hidden. These are so many ways of putting the subliminal on tap. Of course without the si­ multaneous work on hypnotism and hysteria independent­ ly begun by others, he could not have pushed his own work so far. But he is so far the only generalizer of the problem and the only user of all the methods; and even though his theory of the extent of the subliminal should have to be subverted in the end, its formulation will, I am sure, figure always as a rather momentous event in the history of our science. Any psychologist who should wish to read Myers out of the profession—and there are probably still some who would be glad to do so today—is committed to a definite alternative. Either he must say that we knew all about the subliminal region before Myers took it up, or he must say that it is certain that states of supernormal cogni­ tion form no part of its content. The first contention would be too absurd. The second one remains more plausible. There are many first-hand investigators into the sublimi­ nal who, not having themselves met with anything super­ normal, would probably not hesitate to call all the reports of it erroneous, and who would limit the subliminal to dissolutive phenomena of consciousness exclusively, to lapsed memories, subconscious sensations, impulses and phobias, and the like. Messrs. Janet and Binet, for aught I know, may hold some such position as this. Against it Myers’s thesis would stand sharply out. Of the subliminal, he would say, we can give no ultra-simple account: there are discrete regions in it, levels separated by critical points of transition, and no one formula holds true of them all. And any conscientious psychologist ought, it seems to me, to see that, since these multiple modifications of personal­ ity are only beginning to be reported and observed with care, it is obvious that a dogmatically negative treatment of them must be premature, and that the problem of Myers still awaits us as the problem of far the deepest moment for our actual psychology, whether his own tentative solutions of certain parts of it be correct or not. Meanwhile, descending to detail, one cannot help ad­ miring the great originality with which Myers wove such an extraordinarily detached and discontinuous series of phenomena together. Unconscious cerebration, dreams, hypnotism, hysteria, inspirations of genius, the willing game, planchette, crystal-gazing, hallucinatory voices, ap­ paritions of the dying, medium-trances, demoniacal pos­ session, clairvoyance, thought-transference—even ghosts

86 Psychology and Extrasensory Perception and other facts more doubtful—these things form a chaos at first sight most discouraging. No wonder that scientists can think of no other principle of unity among them than their common appeal to men’s perverse propensity to su­ perstition. Yet Myers has actually made a system of them, stringing them continuously upon a perfectly legitimate objective hypothesis, verified in some cases and extended to others by analogy. Taking the name automatism from the phenomenon of automatic writing—I am not sure that he may not himself have been the first so to baptize this latter phenomenon—he made one great simplifica­ tion at a stroke by treating hallucinations and active im­ pulses under a common head, as sensory and motor autom­ atisms. Automatism he then conceived broadly as a message of any kind from the subliminal to the supra­ liminal. And he went a step farther in his hypothetic interpretation, when he insisted on “symbolism” as one of the ways in which one stratum of our personality will often interpret the influences of another. Obsessive thoughts and delusions, as well as voices, visions, and impulses, thus fall subject to one mode of treatment. To explain them, we must explore the subliminal; to cure them we must practically influence it. Myers’s work on automatism led to his brilliant concep­ tion, in 1891, of hysteria. He defined it, with good reasons given, as “a disease of the hypnotic stratum.” Hardly had he done so when the wonderfully ingenious observations of Binet, and especially of Janet in France, gave to this view the completest of corroborations. These observations have been extended in Germany, America, and elsewhere; and although Binet and Janet worked independently of Myers, and did work far more objective, he nevertheless will stand as the original announcer of a theory which, in my opinion, makes an epoch, not only in medical, but in psychological science, because it brings in an entirely new conception of our mental possibilities. Myers’s manner of apprehending the problem of the subliminal shows itself fruitful in every possible direction. While official science practically refuses to attend to sub­ liminal phenomena, the circles which do attend to them treat them with a respect altogether too undiscriminating —every subliminal deliverance must be an oracle. The re­ sult is that there is no basis of intercourse between those who best know the facts and those who are most compe­ tent to discuss them. Myers immediately establishes a ba­ sis by his remark that insofar as they have to use the same

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organism, with its preformed avenues of expression—what may be very different strata of the subliminal are con­ demned in advance to manifest themselves in similar ways. This might account for the great generic likeness of so many automatic performances, while their different starting-points behind the threshold might account for cer­ tain differences in them. Some of them, namely, seem to include elements of supernormal knowledge; others to show a curious subconscious mania for personation and deception; others again to be mere drivel. But Myers’s conception of various strata or levels in the subliminal sets us to analyzing them all from a new point of view. The word subliminal for him denotes only a region, with possibly the most heterogeneous contents. Much of the content is certainly rubbish, matter that Myers calls dissolutive, stuff that dreams are made of, fragments of lapsed memory, mechanical effects of habit and ordinary suggestion; some belongs to a middle region where a strange manufacture of inner romances perpetually goes on; finally, some of the content appears superiorly and subtly perceptive. But each has to appeal to us by the same channels and to use organs partly trained to their performance by messages from the other levels. Under these conditions what could be more natural to expect than a confusion, which Myers’s suggestion would then have been the first indispensable step towards finally clearing away. Once more, then, whatever be the upshot of the pa­ tient work required here, Myers’s resourceful intellect has certainly done a service to psychology. I said a while ago that his intellect was not by nature philosophic in the narrower sense of being that of a logi­ cian. In the broader sense of being a man of wide scientific imagination, Myers was most eminently a phi­ losopher. He has shown this by his unusually daring grasp of the principle of evolution, and by the wonderful way in which he has worked out suggestions of mental evolu­ tion by means of biological analogies. These analogies are, if anything, too profuse and dazzling in his pages; but his conception of mental evolution is more radical than anything yet considered by psychologists as possible. It is absolutely original; and, being so radical, it becomes one of those hypotheses which, once propounded, can never be forgotten, but sooner or later have to be worked out and submitted in every way to criticism and verification.

Psychology and Extrasensory Perception The cornerstone of his conception is the fact that con­ sciousness has no essential unity. It aggregates and dis­ sipates, and what we call normal consciousness—the “hu­ man mind” of classic psychology—is not even typical, but only one case out of thousands. Slight organic alterations, intoxications and auto-intoxications, give supraliminal forms completely different, and the subliminal region seems to have laws in many respects peculiar. Myers thereupon makes the suggestion that the whole system of consciousness studied by the classic psychology is only an extract from a larger total, being a part told off, as it were, to do service in the adjustments of our physical organism to the world of nature. This extract, aggregated and personified for this particular purpose, has, like all evolving things, a variety of peculiarities. Having evolved, it may also dissolve, and in dreams, hysteria, and divers forms of degeneration it seems to do so. This is a retro­ grade process of separation in a consciousness of which the unity was once effected. But again the consciousness may follow the opposite course and integrate still farther, or evolve by growing into yet untried directions. In ve­ ridical automatisms it actually seems to do so. It drops some of its usual modes of increase, its ordinary use of the senses, for example, and lays hold of bits of informa­ tion which, in ways that we cannot even follow conjecturally, leak into it by way of the subliminal. The ulterior source of a certain part of this information (limited and perverted as it always is by the organism’s idiosyncrasies in the way of transmission and expression) Myers thought he could reasonably trace to departed human intelligence, or its existing equivalent. I pretend to no opinion on this point, for I have as yet studied the evidence with so little critical care that Myers was always surprised at my neg­ ligence. I can therefore speak with detachment from this question and, as a mere empirical psychologist, of Myers’s general evolutionary conception. As such a psychologist I feel sure that the latter is a hypothesis of first-rate philosophic importance. It is based, of course, on his conviction of the extent of the subliminal, and will stand or fall as that is verified or not; but whether it stand or fall, it looks to me like one of those sweeping ideas by which the scientific researches of an entire generation are often molded. It would not be surprising if it proved such a leading idea in the investigation of the near future; for in one shape or another, the subliminal has come to stay 88

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with us, and the only possible course to take henceforth is radically and thoroughly to explore its significance.

Looking back from Frederic Myers’s vision of vastness in the field of psychological research upon the program as most academic psychologists frame it, one must confess that its limitation at their hands seems not only unplausible, but in truth, a little ridiculous. Even with brutes and madmen, even with hysterics and hypnotics admitted as the academic psychologists admit them, the official outlines of the subject are far too neat to stand in the light of analogy with the rest of nature. The ultimates of nature—her simple elements, if there be such—may in­ deed combine in definite proportions and follow classic laws of architecture; but in her proximates, in her phe­ nomena as we immediately experience them, nature is everywhere Gothic, not classic. She forms a real jungle, where all things are provisional, half-fitted to each other, and untidy When we add such a complex kind of sub­ liminal region as Myers believed in to the official region, we restore the analogy; and, though we may be mistaken in much detail, in a general way, at least, we become plausible. In comparison with Myers’s way of attacking the question of immortality in particular, the official way is certainly so far from the mark as to be almost prepos­ terous. It assumes that when our ordinary consciousness goes out, the only alternative surviving kind of conscious­ ness that could be possible is abstract mentality, living on spiritual truth, and communicating ideal wisdom—in short, the whole classic platonizing Sunday-school con­ ception. Failing to get that sort of thing when it listens to reports about mediums, it denies that there can be any­ thing. Myers approaches the subject with no such a priori requirement. If he finds any positive indication of “spirits,” he records it, whatever it may be, and is willing to fit his conception to the facts, however grotesque the latter may appear, rather than to blot out the facts to suit his con­ ception. But, as was long ago said by our collaborator, Mr Canning Schiller, in words more effective than any I can write, if any conception should be blotted out by serious lovers of nature, it surely ought to be the classic academic Sunday-school conception. If anything is wnlikely in a world like this, it is that the next adjacent thing to the mere surface-show of our experience should be the realm of eternal essences, of platonic ideas, of crystal

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battlements, of absolute significance. But whether they be animists or associationists, a supposition something like this is still the assumption of our usual psychologists. It comes from their being for the most part philosophers in the technical sense, and from their showing the weakness of that profession for logical abstractions. Myers was pri­ marily a lover of life and not of abstractions. He loved human life, human persons, and their peculiarities. So he could easily admit the possibility of level beyond level of perfectly concrete experience, all “queer and cactus­ like” though it might be, before we touch the absolute, or reach the eternal essences. Behind the minute anatomists and the physiologists, with their metallic instruments, there have always stood the outdoor naturalists with their eyes and love of concrete nature. The former call the latter superficial, but there is something wrong about your laboratory biologist who has no sympathy with living animals. In psychology there is a similar distinction. Some psychologists are fascinated by the varieties of mind in living action, others by the dissect­ ing out, whether by logical analysis or by brass instru­ ments, of whatever elementary mental processes may be there. Myers must decidedly be placed in the former class, though his powerful use of analogy enabled him also to do work after the fashion of the latter. He loved human na­ ture as Cuvier and Agassiz loved animal nature; in his view, as in their view, the subject formed a vast living picture. Whether his name will have in psychology as honorable a place as their names have gained in the sister science, will depend on whether future inquirers shall adopt or reject his theories; and the rapidity with which their decision shapes itself will depend largely on the vigor with which this Society continues its labor in his absence. It is at any rate a possibility, and I am disposed to think it a probability, that Frederic Myers will always be remembered in psychology as the pioneer who staked out a vast tract of mental wilderness and planted the flag of genuine science upon it. He was an enormous collector. He introduced for the first time comparison, classification, and serial order into the peculiar kind of fact which he collected. He was a genius at perceiving analogies; he was fertile in hypotheses; and as far as conditions allowed it in this meteoric region, he relied on verification. Such advan­ tages are of no avail, however, if one has struck into a false road from the outset. But should it turn out that

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Frederic Myers has really hit the right road by his divin­ ing instinct, it is certain that, like the names of others who have been wise, his name will keep an honorable place in scientific history.

4 The Psychological Foundations

of Belief in Spirits * CARL G. JUNG

If we look back into the past of mankind, we find— among many other religious convictions—a universally spread belief in the existence of phantoms or ethereal be­ ings dwelling in the neighbourhood of men, and influenc­ ing them invisibly, yet very powerfully. These beings are frequently supposed to be the spirits, or souls, of the dead. This belief is to be met with among most highly civilized men, as well as among Australian negroes who are still living at the level of the palaeolithic age. Among Western peoples, however, belief in the influence of spirits has been counteracted by the development of natural science and intellectual criticism during the last 150 years, so that among the educated of to-day it has been almost completely suppressed together with other ultra-scientific convictions. But just as these latter beliefs still exist among the masses, belief in spirits also is far from being entirely extinguished. The “haunted house,” for instance, has not yet disappeared from the most business-like or intellectual cities, nor has the peasant yet ceased to believe in the *Originally read at a general meeting of the British Society for Psychical Research, July 4, 1919, this paper was first published in the Society’s Proceedings, May, 1920, Vol. XXXI. It was first translated into English by H. G. and C. F. Baynes from the German manuscript. A later expanded version was published in Zurich in 1948, and translated into English by R. F. C. Hull. The latter version was used in Jung’s Collected Works, (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1970), Vol. 8.

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bewitching of his cattle. On the contrary, a recrudescence of belief in spirits occurred even in an age of materialism, which is the inevitable consequence of intellectual enlight­ enment. It was not a recrudescence of obscure supersti­ tions, but of an interest in its essence scientific, an intense desire to direct the searchlight of truth on to the dark chaos of facts. The illustrious names of Myers, Sidgwick, Gurney, Wallace, Crookes, Zoellner and many other prominent men, are associated with the rebirth and the rehabilitation of the ancient belief in spirits. Even if the real nature of the observed facts be disputed, even if the explorers may be accused of errors, and sometimes of self-deception, there still belongs to them the immortal merit of having thrown the whole of their authority on to the side of non-material facts, regardless of public disapproval. They faced academic prejudices, and did not shrink from the cheap derision of their contemporaries; even at a time when the intellect of the educated classes was spellbound by the new dogma of materialism, they drew public attention to phenomena of an irrational na­ ture, contrary to accepted convictions. These men typify the reaction of the human mind against the senseless and desolating materialistic view. Considered from the standpoint of history it is not to be wondered at that so-called “spiritual” phenomena should be used as an efficient weapon against the mere testimony of the senses, because belief in spirits has always been a defence against mere sensationalism. This is the case with the primitive man, whose complete dependence upon nature makes concrete circumstances of the greatest importance for him. One must remember the manifold distresses and needs of his life, placed amongst hostile neighbours and dangerous animals, and often harrowed by a merciless nature. His keen senses, his cupidity, his de­ ficient self-control, all expose him to adverse experiences. Hence he is always in danger of losing that mystic and supernatural something which alone makes man a man. But his belief in spirits, or rather in the spiritual, delivers him from the fetters of a merely tangible and visible world again and again. It is this irrational function that forces on him the certainty of spiritual reality, whose laws and demands are to be followed as carefully and as con­ scientiously as those relating to physical nature. Primitive man really lives in two worlds. This concrete world is for him at the same time a spiritual world. The objective world is undeniable, and for him the spiritual world has an

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equally positive existence. This is not only his opinion, but rather a naive perception of spiritual phenomena, projected from his unconscious on to the concrete object. Wherever such naivete is lost through the disillusioning touch of contact with Western civilization and its disas­ trous “enlightenment,” then also his feelings of awe in relation to the spiritual law disappear, and consequently he degenerates. Even Christianity cannot save him from degeneration, because in order to have a beneficial effect on man, such a highly developed religion demands a highly differentiated psyche. Thus “spiritual” phenomena are for the primitive an immediate experience of an ideal or spiritual reality. If it be asked, what are primitive “spirit” phenomena, we may answer that the seeing of apparitions is the most frequent phenomenon. It is generally assumed that this seeing of apparitions is commoner among primitives than among civilized people, and that it is due to nothing but superstition. It is generally held that educated people do not have such visions, unless they are ill. It is quite certain that civilized man makes use of the hypothesis of “spirits” incomparably less frequently than the primitive. In my view, however, and according to my experience as a phy­ sician, the psychological phenomenon which the primitive attributes to a spirit is quite as common among civilized men. The only difference is that where a primitive speaks of ghosts, the European speaks of dreams and phantasies and neurotic symptoms, and attributes less importance to them than the primitive does. He gives them too little weight, and on account of this undervaluation the Euro­ pean regards many things as morbid which, under another aspect, would be highly interesting and highly important. Therefore, owing to this rationalizing, what are living entities for the primitive become for him morbid symp­ toms. Men’s perceptions are the same as they always were, but we interpret them in a different way, and the modem way enfeebles them, making an incomprehensible illness of them. But the psychological fact in itself is not invali­ dated by a modern interpretation. If, indeed, a highly civilized and enlightened European is obliged to live in primitive conditions for a long time, it often happens that he has some unusual experiences which defy a rationalistic interpretation. One of the essential determinants of belief in spirits is the dream. Persons appear in most dreams, and the primitive believes them to be spirits or souls. The dream

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has for him an incomparably higher value than for a civil­ ized man. He is usually a good deal taken up with his dreams; he talks much of them and attributes an extraor­ dinary ' importance to them. When he talks of his dreams he is frequently unable to discriminate between them and actual facts. They are quite real to him. A competent explorer of primitive psychology says: “Le reve est le vrai dieu des primitifs.” To the civilized man as a rule dreams appear to be valueless; yet there are some individuals who attribute a high importance to them, at least to particularly weird and impressive dreams. Such impressive dreams make one understand why the primitive should suppose them to be inspirations. It is of the essence of an inspiration that there must be something that in­ spires, a spirit or a ghost, although the modern mind would not draw such a conclusion. The appearance of the dead in a dream seems a particularly strong argument for the primitive belief in spirits. Further grounds for belief in spirits are found in psy­ chogenic nervous diseases, especially those of a hysteri­ cal character, which are not rare among primitives. As such troubles arise out of psychological conflicts, mostly of an unconscious order, they appear to the naive men­ tality as if caused by certain persons, living or dead, who are in some way connected with the individual’s conflict. If the person is dead, the assumption that his spirit is persecuting the living is easily arrived at. As the origin of pathogenic conflicts frequently goes back to early child­ hood and is connected with memories of the parents, it naturally follows that the spirits of relatives are par­ ticularly revered or feared by primitives; hence ancestor worship is universally spread. Worship of the dead, in the first place, is undertaken as a protection against their malevolence. Experience in the psychological treatment of nervous patients shows again and again how great the influence of the parents is, even when they have been long dead. The psychological after-effects of the parents are so important for an individual’s fate that one can easily understand the significance of ancestor worship. Mental diseases have also great influence in causing belief in spirits, particularly those which are accompanied by hallucinations, either of a delirious or katatonic charac­ ter, belonging chiefly to the Dementia Praecox class, which is the commonest form of mental disorder. Always and everywhere insane persons have been regarded as pos­ sessed by evil spirits, and this belief is supported by the

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patients’ hallucinations. The patients are less tormented by their visions than by the voices they hear The voices are often those of relatives or at least of people connected with the patient’s psychological conflicts. It is also fairly common to hear the voice of God or of the devil. It appears, of course, to the naive mentality that such voices come from spirits. When speaking of belief in spirits of the dead reference must also be made to belief in souls of the living, the latter belief being a correlate of the former. In the primitive conviction the ghost is generally the spirit of a dead person, hence it must before have been the soul of a living person. This at least is held where the belief that man has only one soul prevails. But man is frequently supposed to have two or more souls, one of which is more or less independent and relatively immortal. In such a case the “spirit” of the dead is only one of the several “souls” of the living. Hence it is only a part of the psyche, —a psychical fragment, as it were. Thus belief in souls is an almost necessary condition of belief in spirits, at least so far as the spirits of the dead are concerned. The primi­ tive is convinced that there are not only such spirits, but also elementary demons, who are not believed to have ever been human souls or psychical fragments of them. Before discussing the grounds for belief in souls I wish to sum up the facts already mentioned. I have pointed out three main sources of the belief in spirits which are accessible to science: viz. the seeing of apparitions, the phenomenon of the dream, and the pathological disorders of the psyche. The commonest of these grounds of belief is the dream. What does modern science know of the dream? A dream is a psychological product originating in the sleeping state without conscious motivation. In a dream consciousness is neither fully awake nor fully extinguished; there is still a small amount of consciousness. There is, for instance, nearly always some consciousness of the ego, but rarely of the ego as it appears to a consciousness fully awake. It is rather a limited ego, sometimes peculiarly transformed or distorted. The dream-ego is, as a rule, a mere fragment of the conscious ego. The ego is a psychic complex of a particularly solid kind. As sleep is seldom dreamless, we may assume that the complex of the ego rarely ceases to be active. Its activity is but restricted by sleep. The psychic contents of the dream appear to the ego just like those external phenomena which appear to it in the waking

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state. Hence it happens that we find ourselves in situations like those in real life, but rarely exercise thought or rea­ son about them. As in our waking state things and human beings enter our field of vision, so in the dream, psychic contents, images of different kinds enter the field of con­ sciousness of the dream-ego. We do not feel as if we were producing the dreams, but rather as if they came to us. They do not submit to our direction, but obey their own laws. Obviously they are autonomous complexes, which form themselves by their own methods. Their motivation is unconscious. We may therefore say that they come from the unconscious. Thus, we must admit the existence of independent psychic complexes, escaping the control of our consciousness and appearing and disappearing ac­ cording to their own laws. From our waking experience we are convinced that we produce our thoughts and that we can produce them when we wish. We also think we know where our thoughts come from, and why, and to what end we have them. If it should happen that a thought takes possession of us against our will, or if it unexpected­ ly disappears against our will, we feel as if something ex­ ceptional or morbid had happened. It seems as if the dif­ ference between the waking and the sleeping states were extraordinary. In the waking state the psyche is ap­ parently controlled by our conscious motivation, but in the sleeping state it seems to produce strange and incom­ prehensible ideas, which force themselves on us some­ times quite against our intention. Similarly the vision comes like a dream, but in the waking state. It enters consciousness concurrently with the perception of real objects, being an emergence of un­ conscious ideas into the continuity of consciousness. The same phenomenon takes place in mental disease. The ear does not only perceive the vibrations of sound, but it also seems to hear thoughts, which are not the immediate contents of the conscious mind.1 Besides the judgments made by intellect and feeling, opinions and convictions arise forcing themselves upon the individual, apparently based upon perceptions, but in reality derived from unconscious ideas. Such are delusions. These types of phenomena,—dreams, waking visions and mental disease,—depend on the fact that the psyche as a whole is not an indivisible unity, but a more or less There are also some exceptional cases where the voices loudly repeat the conscious thoughts of the individual.

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divided totality. Although the separate parts are connected with each other, they yet are relatively independent of each other Their independence extends so far that certain of the psychic fragments are very rarely, or perhaps never, associated with the ego. I have called those fragments autonomous complexes, and I founded my theory of com­ plexes upon their empirical existence. According to this theory the ego-complex forms the centre of our individ­ uality. But the ego-complex is but one among several complexes. The other complexes are more or less asso­ ciated with the ego-complex and thus far they are con­ scious. But they also can exist for some time without being associated with the ego-complex. A striking and well-known example thereof is the con­ version of St. Paul. Although the moment of a conversion seems sometimes quite sudden and unexpected, yet we know from repeated experience that such a fundamental occurrence always has a long period of unconscious incu­ bation. It is only when the preparation is complete, that is to say, when the individual is ready to be converted, that the new view breaks forth with great emotion. St. Paul had already been a Christian for a long time, but un­ consciously; hence his fanatical resistance to the Chris­ tians, because fanaticism exists chiefly in individuals who are compensating for secret doubts. The incident of his hearing the voice of Christ on his way to Damascus marks the moment when the unconscious complex of Chris­ tianity became conscious. That the auditory phenomenon should represent Christ is explained by the already existing unconscious Christian complex. The complex, being un­ conscious, was projected by St. Paul on to the external world as if it did not belong to him. Unable to conceive of himself as a Christian, and on account of his resistance to Christ, he became blind, and could only regain his sight through submission to a Christian, that is to say, through his complete submission to Christianity. Psycho­ genic blindness is, according to my experience, always due to an unwillingness to see, i.e. to understand and to accept, what is incompatible with the conscious attitude. This was obviously the case with St. Paul. His unwillingness to see corresponds with his fanatical resistance to Christianity This resistance was never wholly extinguished, a fact of which we have proof in the epistles. It broke forth at times in the fits he suffered from. It is certainly a great mistake to call his fits epileptic. There is no trace of epilepsy in them, on the contrary, St. Paul himself in

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his epistles gives hints enough as to the real nature of the illness. They are clearly psychogenic fits, which really mean a return of the old Saul-complex, repressed through conversion, in the same way as there had previously been a repression of the complex of Christianity Science does not allow us consistently with intellectual honesty to explain the case of St. Paul on supernatural grounds. We should be compelled to do the same with many similar cases within our medical experience, which would lead to conclusions antagonistic both to our reason and feeling. Autonomous complexes appear in dreams and visions, in pathological hallucinations and delusions. Being strange to the ego they always appear as if externalized. In dreams, they are often represented as other persons; in visions, they are visibly projected into space; the same is the case with voices in insane people, in so far as they are not ascribed to persons in the patients’ surroundings. Ideas of persecution are very often associated with persons to whom the patient attributes the qualities of certain of his unconscious complexes. The patient feels these persons to be hostile because his ego is hostile to the unconscious complex, just as Saul resented the complex of Christianity which he could not acknowledge. He persecuted the Chris­ tians as representatives of his unconscious complex. “Spirits,” viewed from this standpoint, are unconscious, autonomous complexes which appear as projections be­ cause they are not associated with the ego. I mentioned before that belief in souls of the living is a logical correlate of belief in spirits of the dead. Whilst spirits are felt to be strange and incompatible with the ego, souls seem to belong to it. The primitive feels the proximity or the influence of the spirit as something disagreeable or dangerous or uncanny, and he is much easier in his mind when the spirit is banished. It is other­ wise with the loss of a soul, which feels to him like an illness, and he may also attribute physical illness to the loss of a soul. Children may not be beaten, because their souls, if outraged, might withdraw from them. So the soul is something that seems normally to belong to a man, but the spirits seem to be something that normally should not be near him. He avoids visiting “haunted” places and touching things supposed to be inhabited by spirits, un­ less he is doing so for purposes of magic. The plurality of souls is a plurality of relatively auton­ omous complexes like the plurality of spirits. The soul

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complexes seem to belong to the ego and the loss of them appears morbid; on the contrary, the spirit complexes ought to be separate from the ego. Their association with it means illness, and their dissociation from it means healing. Thus primitive pathology knows two causes of illness, namely, the loss of a soul and the possession by a spirit. According to these primitive beliefs we may postulate the existence of certain unconscious complexes which nor­ mally belong to the ego, and certain others which nor­ mally do not belong to it, Le. which ought to remain wholly unconscious. The former are the soul complexes, the latter the spirit complexes. This discrimination, current among primitives, corre­ sponds exactly to my theory of the unconscious. Ac­ cording to my view, the unconscious is divided into two spheres. One of these is what I call the personal uncon­ scious. It includes all those psychic contents which are forgotten during the course of life. Their traces still exist in the unconscious, even if their conscious reproduction has become impossible. Moreover, the personal uncon­ scious contains all those subliminal impressions or percep­ tions which have too little energy to reach consciousness. The unconscious combinations of representations belong thereto, in so far as they are too feeble and indistinct to become conscious. Finally, the personal unconscious includes all psychic contents which are incompatible with the conscious attitude. As a rule this involves a whole group of psychic contents. These contents appear to be inadmissible above all on account of their moral, aesthetic, or intellectual deficiency. A man cannot always feel and think in a beautiful, good and true way, and in trying to keep up an ideal attitude everything inconvenient is auto­ matically repressed. If one function, for instance thought, is especially developed and is dominating the conscious, then the function of feeling is naturally repressed and falls therefore into the unconscious. The other part of the unconscious is the super-personal or collective unconscious. The contents of the collective unconscious are not personal but collective; i.e., they do not appertain to one individual only, but at least to a group of individuals and as a rule to/ whole nation, and finally to the whole of mankind. The contents of the col­ lective unconscious are not acquired during an individual’s life, but are congenital instincts and primordial forms of apprehension, the so-called archetypes or ideas. Although the child possesses no congenital representations, it yet

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possesses a highly developed brain with possibilities of func­ tioning in a definite way. The brain is an ancestral in­ heritance. It is the organic result of the psychic and ner­ vous function of the whole ancestry of man. Thus the child brings into life with him an organ ready to function in the same way that it has functioned through all pre­ vious ages. There in the brain are the pre-formed in­ stincts and also the primordial types or images, the foun­ dations upon which mankind has always formed his thought and feeling, which includes the whole wealth of mythological motives. It is, of course, not easy to prove the existence in a normal man of the collective uncon­ scious, but there are obvious traces of mythological im­ ages, at least in his dreams. The existence of a collective unconscious is more easily disclosed in certain cases of mental derangement, especially in Dementia praecox. There one sometimes meets with an astonishing develop­ ment of mythological imagery. Certain patients develop symbolic ideas which can never be accounted for by the experience of their individual life, but only by the history of the human mind. What is displayed is a sort of primi­ tive mythological thinking producing its own primordial forms unlike normal thinking, which makes use of per­ sonal experience. The personal unconscious contains complexes belonging to the individual which form an indispensable part of his psychic life. When any complexes which ought to be associated with the ego become unconscious, either by repression, or by decrease of their potentiality, the indi­ vidual has a feeling of loss; when a lost complex again becomes conscious, for instance by psychotherapeutic measures, he experiences an increase of psychic energy. The cure of neurosis is often effected in this way. When, on the contrary, a complex of the collective unconscious associates itself with the ego, the individual is impressed by the strangeness of these contents. They are felt to be uncanny, supernatural and often dangerous. They may sometimes be felt as helpful interventions of supernatural powers, but more often as injurious influ­ ences of a morbid nature, and these result in actual physi­ cal illness, or psychic alienation from normal life. An individual’s consciousness is always altered by the associa­ tion of contents which ought normally to remain uncon­ scious. If the physician succeeds in removing such a mor­ bid association from consciousness, the patient feels as if relieved from a burden. The sudden intrusion of such

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strange contents often takes place in the early stages of Dementia praecox. Patients encounter queer thoughts, the world seems changed, people appear to have strange and distorted faces, etc. While the contents of the personal unconscious are felt to belong to one’s own psyche, the contents of the collec­ tive unconscious appear to be strange to one’s own psyche, as if they came from outside. The reintegration of a per­ sonal complex has the effect of relieving and often of healing; whereas the intrusion of a complex of the col­ lective unconscious is a disagreeable and even dangerous phenomenon. It appears to have a supernatural quality; in other words, it is accompanied by a feeling of awe. The parallelism of this theory with the primitive belief in souls and spirits is clear. Souls correspond to the com­ plexes of the personal unconscious, and spirits to those of the collective unconscious. The scientific standpoint gives the prose of the matter when it calls the awful and revered beings that inhabit the shadows of the primaeval forests “psychological complexes.” But if we consider the extraordinary role played by belief in souls and spirits in the history of mankind, we cannot be content with the mere statement of the existence of such complexes, we must study the nature of these complexes further. The existence of complexes is easily demonstrated by means of the association experiment. This experiment consists in a very simple procedure: the experimenter calls out a word to the test-person and the test-person im­ mediately replies with the next association coming into his mind. The reaction-time, i.e. the lapse of time be­ tween the stimulus word and the reply, is measured by a stop-watch. One would expect all simple words to be followed by an equally short reaction-time, and all dif­ ficult or rare words to cause a prolonged reaction-time. But as a matter of fact, the reaction-times differ far less on this than on other accounts. Some very long reaction­ times are unexpectedly produced by very simple stimulus words, and in the same case there may be no delay in replying to quite unusual stimulus words. Through careful examination of the test-person’s individual psychology, I discovered that a prolongation of the reaction-time is usually due to interference by a feeling associated with the stimulus word or with the reply. The feeling itself always depends upon the fact that the stimulus word has struck a complex. Prolongation of the reaction-time is not the only symptom that discloses the existence of a

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complex. There are many others which I cannot now enumerate. The complexes revealed by means of the association experiment usually concern things which the test-person would prefer to keep secret; often things of a painful nature, of whose very existence he is unconscious. When a stimulus word strikes a complex, the test-person may have no associations at all, or a super-abundant supply of them, so that choice is momentarily impossible. Hence we see that disturbed reactions are indicated in many ways other than by a prolongation of time. Moreover, if, having completed the series of tests, we ask the test­ person to repeat the answers he gave, we find that the normal reactions are remembered, while those connected with the complex are easily forgotten. The properties of the autonomous complex can be summed up from these facts. The complex creates a disturbance of mental reaction; it delays or distorts the reply; it produces an inconvenient reaction, or it sup­ presses the memory of the former reply. It interferes with the conscious and interrupts our intentions; therefore we call it autonomous. When we try the experiment on a neurotic or insane person, we discover that the com­ plexes disturbing the reactions belong in fact to the main content of the psychic derangement. These complexes not only disturb the experimental reactions, but are also de­ terminants of the morbid symptoms. I have examined cases where the test-person replied to specific stimulus words with incoherent and apparently meaningless words, breaking out against his conscious intention, as if a strange being had spoken through him. Such words belong to the unconscious complex. Complexes when excited by ex­ ternal stimuli can produce sudden confusion, or violent emotion, depression, anxiety-states and all sorts of mental disturbances. Complexes behave just like independent be­ ings, so that the primitive theory of spirits seems an ex­ cellent formulation for them. We may carry this parallel further. Certain complexes arise on account of painful experiences in a person’s life, causing psychic wounds which may not heal for years. It often happens that a painful experience suppresses cer­ tain vital qualities in an individual. Then a personal un­ conscious complex is originated. The primitive might ap­ propriately regard it as the loss of a soul, for indeed certain parts of the psyche have disappeared. A great number of complexes arise in such a way.

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But there is another no less important source of com­ plexes, and while the one just described is easily com­ prehensible, since it concerns the conscious life, the other is obscure and difficult to understand, since it has to do with perceptions and impressions of the collective uncon­ scious. Usually the individual does not realize that such perceptions are derived from the unconscious; rather, it seems to him as if they were due to external and concrete facts. He thus rationalizes internal impressions of an un­ known nature. But they are really irrational and ideal contents of his own mind, of which he was never before conscious; they are not due to any of his external expe­ riences. Primitive language expresses such facts not inapt­ ly when it describes them as invisible ghosts approaching man from the other side, namely, from the world of shadows. It seems to me that impressions of this kind arise when grave external occurrences shake the individ­ ual to his very foundations, so that his whole previous attitude breaks down, or when certain contents of the collective unconscious obtain such an access of energy that they are able to influence the conscious. This may also take place when the life of a nation or of a large group of human society undergoes a profound change of a political, social or religious nature. Such a change involves a transformation of the psychological attitude. Changes in history are generally attributed to external causes. But I hold the view that the greatest changes in human history are to be traced back to internal causal conditions, and that they are founded upon internal psychological necessity. For it often seems that external conditions serve as mere occasions on which a new atti­ tude long in preparation becomes manifest. The develop­ ment of the Christian era is an example of this. Political, social, and religious conditions influence the unconscious, since all the factors which are suppressed in the conscious religious or philosophical attitude of human society ac­ cumulate in the unconscious. This gradual accumulation means a gradual increase of the energy of the uncon­ scious contents. Certain individuals gifted with particu­ larly refined intuition become aware of the change going on in the collective unconscious and sometimes even suc­ ceed in translating their perceptions of it into communi­ cable ideas. The new ideas spread more or less rapidly in proportion to the preparedness and readiness in the unconscious of other people. In proportion to the more or less universal unconscious preparation people are ready

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to accept new ideas, or else to show particular resistance to them. New ideas are not only the enemies of old ones, but they also often appear in an extremely unacceptable form. Whenever any contents of the collective unconscious become animated, the conscious feels disturbed, more of­ ten, it appears, in a disagreeable than in an agreeable way. This may be due to the fact that disagreeable experi­ ences always make a greater impression than agreeable ones. In any case animation of the collective unconscious creates a certain confusion in the conscious. If this ani­ mation is due to a complete breakdown of all conscious hopes and expectations, the danger arises that the un­ conscious may take the place of conscious reality. Such a state is morbid. We actually see something of this kind in the present Russian and German mentality. An out­ break of violent desires and impossible phantasies among the lower strata of the population is analogous to an out­ burst from the lower strata of the unconscious in an individual. In the case of Russia and Germany what we see is the visible and concrete collapse of two great na­ tions. But animation of the unconscious may begin from with­ in, in the absence of a definite external catastrophe. In such a case it is due to the gradual development of a new psychological attitude in the depths of a nation’s mentality. Thus, in an epoch of worldliness and material­ ism an idealistic attitude may slowly develop in the un­ conscious. For example, the evolution of Christianity was not due to the collapse of the Roman empire. It originated at the time of the Pax Romana, during the epoch of the Empire’s greatest splendour and power. Such a new era is conditioned by developments that are taking place practically in everybody, that is, by a process in the col­ lective unconscious. In everybody at such a time, uncon­ scious energy disturbs the conscious, but the individual in such a case does not consider himself ill, because he is not different from his fellow beings. He simply takes part in a collective transformation, whose origins and aims remain unconscious. The individual may be unhappy and distressed, and probably has genuine reasons for his sad­ ness, for social and political conditions will suffer greatly from the fundamental changes going on. He will not, however, have the typically morbid feeling of one whose unconscious becomes disturbed on account of painful ex­ periences of an individual nature.

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The animation of the collective unconscious does not always create disturbances, for it may also work benefi­ cially, but it always carries with it something of a super­ natural character. Owing to this the effect of the collec­ tive unconscious is always beyond the grasp of man. At one time it helps, at another time it destroys him. It is never to be relied upon. Therefore primitive man is espe­ cially subject to the fetters of the unconscious. Yet among primitive civilizations we already find attempts to conjure the supernatural power and influences of the unconscious. Amongst primitives there are peculiarly intuitive individ­ uals, sometimes of superior intelligence, namely, sorcerers. They are supposed to know how to handle demons. In history the primitive tribal sorcerer is the man who originates psychological methods and teachings which aim at domination of the supernatural. The rites and legends he invents represent qualities of the unconscious as he conceives of them. Thus he translates some inner expe­ riences into human language and creates the foundations of the history of the human mind. Our intellect is born from mythology, and mythology is nothing but a transla­ tion of inner experience into the language of pictures. Thus spirits are transformed into mind. A well-known instance of the spirit translated into language and teaching is the miracle of Pentecost. To the Gentiles the apostles seemed in a state of mental con­ fusion, because they were under the influence of the spirit, viz. a phenomenon of the collective unconscious. But from this state they derived the words, the images and the power to teach the world. Through the translation of unconscious contents into comprehensible language, the power of the spirit, in other words, the energy of the unconscious complex, becomes transformed into a power­ ful idea, which enables the human mind to free itself from the fetters of demoniacal influences. As souls are parts of the individual psyche, so spirits are parts of the collective psyche. Souls are complexes split off from and lost to the conscious; spirits are com­ plexes of the collective unconscious, which replace a lost adaptation to reality, or which compensate for the in­ adequacies of large groups of men. What are regarded as spirits of the dead are psycho­ logically created in the following way When an individual dies, the psychological attachment of his relatives’ feelings is cut off. The attachment represents the application of a certain quantity of psychic energy. When the application

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f this energy becomes impossible, through the death of ? object, there only remains the idea or image of the dead. The energy is now applied to this image, and when the attachment has been intense, the image remains alive and forms a spirit. As the spirit takes away a certain amount of energy from real life, he may be injurious, primitives, therefore, frequently say that when a man dies be changes his character in an unfavourable way and seeks to do as much damage as he can to the living. Obviously this opinion originates in the fact that a persistent at­ tachment to a dead person makes life seem less worth living, consequently less worthy of effort. I have given you an outline of a conception of the spirit problem from the viewpoint of modern psychology. I have confined myself to the limits of science and have purposely avoided the question whether spirits are real or concrete objects, and whether their independent exis­ tence can be proved concretely. I avoid this question not because I regard it as futile, but because I am not com­ petent to discuss it from a scientific standpoint, having no evidence in my possession. I think you are as conscious as I am of the fact that it is most difficult to find reliable evidence for the independent and objective reality of a spirit. The usual spiritistic proofs offered are as a rule nothing but psychological products, dependent upon the unconscious of the percipient. Even the so-called physical effects always depend upon the cooperation of the percipi­ ent and seem to be exteriorized effects of unconscious complexes. I am personally convinced of the reality of such facts, but I cannot accept them as evidence for the independent reality of spirits. These phenomena form a special chapter in psychol­ ogy Science must, I think, confine itself to the limits of cognition, for science is essentially intellect; it means the application of one undoubted psychological function, namely, thought. But intellect is only one among several psychological functions, and therefore does not suffice to give a complete picture of the world. Feeling, for in­ stance, which is another psychological function, some­ times arrives at different convictions from those of intel­ lect, and we cannot always prove that the convictions of feeling are necessarily inferior to those of the intellect. We have also subliminal perceptions, which are not at the disposal of the intellect, and which, therefore, are miss­ ing in a merely intellectual picture of the world. So we

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must admit that our intellectual conceptions are deficient so far as a complete comprehension of the world is con­ cerned. But when we make use of intellect, as is the case in science, we have to adapt ourselves to the demands of intellectual criticism, and we must limit ourselves to the scientific hypothesis so long as there is no reliable evidence against its validity.

5 Psychoanalysis and Telepathy * SIGMUND FREUD

Introductory Remarks We do not seem destined to work in peace on the development of our science. Barely did we victoriously repel two attacks—one of which sought to deny once more that which had been brought to light and to replace all of its content with the motif of denial, while the other attempted to beguile us into believing that we had misun­ derstood the nature of this content, inviting us to replace it lightly with another—barely did we begin to feel safe from these foes, when a new danger arose; this time in the form of something tremendous and fundamental, which threatens not only us, but even more perhaps our opponents. It no longer seems possible to brush aside the study of so called occult facts; of things which seem to vouchsafe the real existence of psychic forces other than the known ♦This paper has a long history. It was originally published in “Schriften aus dem Nachlass,” Gesammelte Werke, 17:25-44 (Lon­ don: Imago Publishing Co., Ltd., 1941) . A note of the editors of the Gesammelte Werke comments that “this manuscript has no title and is dated August 2, 1921. It was written for the Conference of the Central Committee of the International Psychoanalytical Associa­ tion, which met in the Harz early in September, 1921. A large portion of this material was also used in the New Introductory Lectures to Psychoanalysis (Lecture XXX: Dreams and the Oc­ cult). The ‘third case’ mentioned in the introductory part of this work is separated from the rest of the manuscript and forms an appendix thereto. It was reproduced in the New Introductory Lectures and was therefore not reprinted here.” This authorized translation from the German by Dr. George Devereux appeared in Dr. Devereux’s book Psychoanalysis and the Occult (New York: International Universities Press, Inc., 1953).

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forces of the human and animal psyche, or which re­ veal mental faculties in which, until now, we did not be­ lieve. The appeal of this kind of inquiry seems irresistible. In the course of a brief vacation I had occasion to reject three requests for contributions emanating from newly founded periodicals devoted to this type of inquiry We believe that we know the source from which this trend derives its strength. It is but one manifestation of the devaluation which, ever since the world catastrophy of the great war, has affected everything established; it is part of the attempt to probe the great upheaval toward which we are drifting, and whose scope we are unable to fathom as yet. It is surely also an attempt at compensa­ tion, which seeks to regain by other—supernatural— means the lost appeal of life on this earth. Indeed, cer­ tain trends in the exact sciences may also have favored this development. The discovery of radium has complicated the possibility of explaining the physical world quite as much as it has broadened it, and the newly won insight into the so-called theory of relativity caused some of its uncomprehending admirers to lose a certain amount of confidence in the objective plausibility of science. You will recall that Einstein himself recently found it necessary to protest against such a misunderstanding. It is by no means self-evident that the strengthening of the interest in occultism represents a danger for psycho­ analysis. On the contrary, one might expect a mutual sympathy between the two. Both have been subjected by official science to the same unfair and arrogant treatment. Psychoanalysis is still suspected of mysticism, and the Unconscious is deemed to belong to those things between Heaven and Earth of which hidebound philosophy does not wish to dream. The many invitations to collaborate which we receive from occultists show that they consider us as belonging, in part at least, to their group, and that they count upon our support against the pressure of the authority of exact science. Conversely, psychoanalysis, which is opposed to all that which is hidebound, estab­ lished and generally accepted, has no interest in defending these authorities in a self-sacrificing manner; it would not be the first time that psychoanalysis would champion the obscure but indestructible intuitions of the common peo­ ple against the arrogant assumed knowledge of the intel­ lectuals. Thus, an alliance of, and collaboration be­ tween, psychoanalysts and occultists would seem to be both plausible and promising.

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however, on closer examination, certain difficulties arise. The overwhelming majority of occultists is not moti­ vated by a thirst for knowledge, nor by a sense of shame that science should have failed for so long a time to take cognizance of undeniable problems, nor by the wish to master this new set of phenomena. On the con­ trary, they are believers who want to find new proofs, who seek a justification which would enable them to con­ fess their creed openly. However, this creed which they seek first to prove, and then to foist upon others, is an old religious belief, which, in the course of human evolution, has been pushed into the background by science, or else it represents still another faith, which is even closer to the obsolete convictions of primitives. By contrast psycho­ analysts can deny neither their scientific ancestry, nor their kinship with the representatives of science. Being extremely distrustful of the power of the human wish, and of the temptations of the pleasure principle, they are ready to sacrifice everything—the dazzling radiance of a fully elaborated theory, the uplifting awareness of the possession of a well-rounded Weltanschauung, the psychic security derived from a broad motivation for reality-ade­ quate and ethical action—in order to discover a little bit of objective certainty. They are content with fragmentary crumbs of insight and with initial hypotheses which are somewhat indefinite and subject to change without no­ tice. Instead of waiting for the right moment in which to escape from the forceful grip of known physical and chemical laws, they hope for the appearance of more comprehensive and deep-going natural laws, to which they are ready to give allegiance. Psychoanalysts are funda­ mentally unreconstructed mechanists and materialists, even though they refuse to strip the mind and the soul of their as yet undetected qualities. They study occult material only because they hope that this would enable them to eliminate once and for all the creations of the human wish from the realm of material reality. In view of this difference in attitude, collaboration be­ tween analysts and occultists has little prospect of being profitable. The analyst has his own sphere of activity— the unconscious portion of psychic life—from which he may not deviate. If, in the course of his work, he is on the lookout for occult phenomena, he runs the risk of overlooking everything which is closer at hand. He would lose that unbiased, impartial and unanticipative attitude which, up to now, was an essential part of his analytic

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armor and equipment. If occult phenomena obtrude them, selves in the same manner as other phenomena do, he will avoid them as little as he avoids other things. This seems to be the only decision compatible with analytic ac­ tivity. The analyst’s self-discipline can protect him against the subjective risk of having his interest absorbed by occult phenomena. Things are different, however, as regards the objective danger. It is probable that the study of occult phenomena will result in the admission that some of these phenomena are real; but it is also likely that a great deal of time will elapse before one will be able to formulate an acceptable theory accounting for these new facts. Eagerly expectant people will not wait that long, however. The moment a first assent is forthcoming, the occultists will declare that their cause has triumphed. Belief in one al­ leged fact will be held to constitute belief in all others. The scope of belief in the phenomena themselves will be broadened to include also belief in those explanations of these phenomena which they favor most, and which are dearest to them. They mean to use the methods of scien­ tific investigation only as ladders which are to enable them to rise above science. It will be a calamity if they ever rise that high! The skepticism of spectators and of listeners will not induce them to reconsider the matter, nor will the objections of the multitude impede them. They will be welcomed as liberators from the irksome ob­ ligation of thinking rationally. They will be jubilantly ac­ claimed by that predisposition to credulousness which goes back to the childhood of humanity and of the individual. Should this come about, we may anticipate a dreadful collapse of critical thought and of mechanistic science. Will technology be able to stem this tide by its inflexible concern with the magnitude of force, with mass and with the quality of matter? It is a vain hope that analytic work would escape this collapse of values simply because its object is the mysteri­ ous unconscious. If the spirits, with whom man is familiar, provide the final explanation, then there will be no in­ terest in the laborious approach of analysis to unknown psychic forces. Even analytic technique will be forsaken when the hope beckons that occult measures will enable one to enter into direct communication with the spirits who determine everything, just as one forsakes patient detail work, when there is hope of winning riches at a single stroke, through speculations. During the war we

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113 heard of persons who stood between two enemy nations, belonging to one of them by birth, and to the other through choice and residence. It was their fate to be treated as enemies first by one of these nations, and then, when they were lucky enough to escape, also by the other. The fate of psychoanalysis may be similar. However, one must endure one’s fate, regardless of what it may be. Psychoanalysis too will have to adjust to its destiny. Let us return to the present, and to our proxi­ mate task. In the course of the last years I have made certain observations which I do not wish to withhold from those at least who are close to us. The disinclination to become involved in the prevailing trends, the fear of diverting interest from analysis and the total lack of disguise of my case material explain why I do not wish to give a wider publicity to my report. It is felt that my material possesses two unusual advantages. In the first place, it does not give rise to the type of misgivings and doubts which most of the data of the occultists elicit. In the second place, the compelling nature of the ma­ terial becomes apparent only after it is subjected to analyt­ ic study. Admittedly, my material consists only of two cases of the same kind. A third case, which is of another type, and is susceptible of a different interpretation, is merely added as an appendix. The two cases which I now propose to present in detail concern events of the same kind: They are prophecies of professional fortune­ tellers which did not come true. Nonetheless, they made an extraordinary impression upon the persons to which they were imparted. Hence, their essence cannot be their bearing upon the future. Every contribution to their ex­ planation, and every objection to their convincingness will be most welcome to me. My personal attitude toward such material remains one of reluctance and ambivalence.

I A few years before the war a young man came to me for analysis from Germany. He complained that he could not work, had forgotten everything about his life, and had lost interest in everything. He was a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy, who studied in Mu­ nich and was about to take an examination. He was a highly educated and devious person, the in­ fantile and unruly son of a financier, who, as was subsequently shown, had been able to cope success-

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fully with a tremendous anal eroticism. When asked whether nothing at all had been left over from his life and interests, he admitted that he had outlined a novel, whose historical locale was Egypt under Amenhotep IV, and in which a ring played a very im­ portant role. Taking this novel as our starting point, we found that the ring was the symbol of marriage. With this much to go on, we managed to revive all of his memories and interests. It was disclosed that his breakdown was the result of a great internal renunciation. He had an only sister, some years his junior, whom he loved with unconcealed intensity. The two had often wondered why they could not marry each other. Nonetheless, at no time did this tenderness exceed the limits of what is proper be­ tween siblings. A young engineer fell in love with the sister. She reciprocated his love, but the suitor found no grace in the eyes of the strict parents. In their distress the lovers turned to the brother for help. He became the champion of their cause, relayed their letters and, when home on a vacation, made it possible for the lovers to meet. Finally be persuaded the parents to authorize the engagement and the marriage of the lovers. During the engagement period something ex­ tremely suspicious occurred. The brother and his future brother-in-law decided to climb the Zugspitze, the brother acting as a guide. The two lost their way, were in danger of falling to their death, and saved themselves only with considerable effort. The patient offered no strenuous objections when I interpreted this adventure as an attempted murder and suicide. A few months after the marriage of his sister the young man started an analysis. After six or nine months he regained his working capacity and left analysis in order to take his exami­ nation and write his Ph.D. thesis. A year later, hav­ ing obtained his Ph.D., he returned to me for further analysis, because, as he put it, for a student of phi­ losophy psychoanalysis possessed an interest which transcended therapeutic success. I know that he re­ sumed his analysis in October. A few weeks later he mentioned in some connection the following experi­ ence. There lived in Munich a female fortuneteller, who enjoyed a great reputation. The Princes of Bavaria

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consulted her whenever they planned some under­ taking. She asked only that she be given a date. (I forgot to inquire whether the date had to include a]so the year ) This date had to be the birthday of a person, although the fortuneteller did not ask for the name of the person in question. After obtaining this date, she consulted her astrological books, made long computations and finally made a prophecy about that person. Last March my patient had allowed himself to be persuaded to visit this fortuneteller. He gave her the birth date of his brother-in-law, without, how­ ever, giving her the brother-in-law’s name, and with­ out revealing to her that he had him in mind. The oracle stated that next July or August this person would die of crab or oyster poisoning. After report­ ing this to me, the patient added: “It was magnifi­ cent!” I did not understand what he meant, and contra­ dicted him vigorously: “What is so magnificent about that? You have been with me for several weeks now. Had your brother-in-law really died, you would have told me so long ago; therefore he is still alive. The prophecy was made in March and was to take effect this summer. It is already November. Hence, the prophecy did not come true. What is it, then, that you admire about it?” He replied: “I admit that it did not come true. What is remarkable about it is this * My brother-inlaw is passionately fond of crabs, oysters and the like, and the preceding August he did, in fact, have crab poisoning and almost died of it.” We did not discuss the matter any further. Let us now examine this case. I have faith in the veracity of the narrator. He has to be taken seriously, and is at present a teacher of philosophy in K. I know of no motive which could have induced him to mystify me. His narrative was incidental and not at all tendencious. Nothing else was linked with it, and no conclusions were drawn from it. He did not seek to persuade me of the existence of occult psychic phenomena, in fact, I had the impression that the meaning of this experi­ ence was not at all clear to him. This narrative star­ tled me so much, and made so disagreeable an im­ pression upon me, that I preferred not to subject it to an analytic interpretation.

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The communication seems equally unassailable in still another sense. It is certain that the fortuneteller did not know the client. Ask yourself what degree of intimacy a knowledge of the date of birth of the brother-in-law of an acquaintance presupposes. On the other hand, all of you will join me in doubting stubbornly that, by means of some formulae and with the help of some tables, one may discover so specific an aspect of destiny as illness due to crab poisoning. Let us not forget how many people are born on the same day. Is it conceivable that the community of fate which may be determined by the date of birth would include such details? I therefore feel that the astrological computations may be en­ tirely disregarded in this discussion. It is my belief that the fortuneteller might just as well have done something else, without changing thereby the results of the interview. Thus, the source of the deception cannot possibly have been the fortuneteller, whom we might just as well call “the medium.” If you concede the reality and genuineness of this observation, then we are already provided with an explanation thereof. As is the case with most of these phenomena, we find that their explanation in terms of the occult hypothesis is unusually adequate, and accounts for everything that requires an explanation. Unfortunately, this explanation is inherently a very unsatisfactory one. The fortuneteller could not pos­ sibly have known that the person bom on the date given to her had had a crab poisioning, and she could not have found this information in her tables and computations. On the other hand, her client did possess this information. The occurrence can be fully explained if we are willing to assume that this knowledge was transmitted from the client to the alleged prophetess by unknown paths, and by means other than the known forms of communication. This, in turn, seems to call for the conclusion that thought transmission exists. In that case the purpose of the fortuneteller’s astrological work was to divert her own intra-psychic forces, and to occupy them in­ nocuously This made it possible for her to become receptive and permeable to the impact of the thought of others, and enabled her to become a genuine “medium.” The study of wit has acquainted us with

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similar devices for facilitating the automatic unfold­ folding of psychic processes. The import and significance of this case can be further increased by seeking to understand it analyti­ cally. Analysis reveals that that which was inductive­ ly transmitted from one person to another was not just any odd scrap of casual information. On the con­ trary, it was an extremely strong wish, which stood in a special relationship to the conscious, and which found a conscious, though slightly disguised, expres­ sion through another person. Similarly, when the in­ visible end of the spectrum impinges upon a photo­ graphic plate, it reveals itself, in a form accessible to the senses, as the colored continuation of the spectrum. It seems possible to reconstruct the rea­ soning of this young man after the illness and re­ covery of his brother-in-law, who was also his hated rival. “Well, he managed to pull through this time! This does not mean, however, that he will now give up this dangerous predilection. Let us hope that he will die of it the next time.” As a counterpart to this, I could quote to you the dream of another person, in which a prophecy was part of the manifest content. Dream analysis revealed that the content of the prophecy was congruent with a wish fulfill­ ment. I cannot simplify my interpretation by saying that my patient’s death wish toward his brother-in-law was unconscious and repressed. During the previous year this wish had become conscious to him in the course of his analysis, and the results of its repression had disappeared. Yet the wish continued to exist, and, without being pathogenic, was still quite intense. One might call this wish a “suppressed” one.

II In the town of F. there lived a girl, who was the oldest of five siblings, all of them girls. The youngest was ten years her junior. One day she let the baby fall from her arms, and later on she called it “her child.” Her own birth was followed after the shortest possible interval by the birth of another sister, both births occurring in the same year. The mother was older than the father and not amiable at all. Not only was the father some years her junior, but he

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also devoted much time to his little girls and im­ pressed them with his various tricks. Unfortunately he was not at all impressive otherwise. As a business­ man he Wfts unable to support his family without the help of relatives. His oldest daughter soon became the confidante of his worries, which were due to his inadequate earning capacity. After overcoming her rigid and passionate child­ hood character, the girl grew up as a veritable model of all virtues. Her high moral pathos was coupled with a narrowly limited intelligence. She became a grade-school teacher, and was highly respected. The timid homage of a relative, who was a music teacher, did not move her. No man had, as yet, awakened her interest. One day one of her mother’s relatives appeared on the scene. Though much older than the girl, he was still a fairly young man, since at that time the girl was only nineteen years of age. He was a foreigner, who lived in Russia, and was the head of a large com­ mercial enterprise. He had become so rich that it took nothing less than a world war and the collapse of the greatest despotism to impoverish him. He fell in love with his young and austere cousin, and wished to marry her The parents did not urge her to accept him, but she knew what they wanted her to do. Behind all her moral ideals there beckoned the hope of fulfilling the fantasy wish of helping her father, and of saving him from his difficulties. She expected her future husband to help her father with money, as long as the latter remained in business, and to pen­ sion him off when he finally gave up his business; and also to provide her sisters with dowries and trous­ seaux, in order to enable them to get married. She then fell in love with him, married him soon thereafter, and followed him to Russia. With the exception of a few, not easily under­ standable occurrences, which acquire a meaning only in retrospect, everything went very well indeed with this marriage. She became a tenderly loving and sensually satisfied woman, who was the providence of her family. Only one thing was lacking: She had remained childless. Finally, at the age of twenty­ seven, while she was living in Germany, she over­ came various misgivings and consulted a German gynecologist. With the usual thoughtlessness of spe-

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cialists, this physician assured her of success provided that she consented to subject herself to a minor operation. She was ready to do so, and in the evening spoke to her husband about this matter. Since it was getting dark at that time, she wished to turn on the lights. However, her husband asked her not to do it, since he had something to tell her which he preferred to say in the dark. He told her to cancel her opera­ tion, since he himself was responsible for their child­ lessness. Two years earlier, he had heard at a medi­ cal congress that certain maladies deprived the man of the capacity to procreate children, and an exami­ nation had disclosed that he too was in that situa­ tion. After this revelation the operation was canceled. She then suffered an internal breakdown, which she sought in vain to conceal. She could love her husband only as a father substitute, and now she had learned that he could never become a father. She was confronted with three alternatives, all of which were equally impossible for her: infidelity, renunciation of the child, and separation from her husband. The latter was impossible for her, for the best of practical reasons. The penultimate alterna­ tive was impossible because of certain very strong unconscious motives which you will readily guess. Her entire childhood had been dominated by the thrice deceived hope of getting a child from her father. Her only way out was the one which happens to arouse our interest in her: She became severely neurotic. For a while she protected herself against various temptations by means of an anxiety hysteria, which later on turned into compulsive rituals. She was placed in mental institutions, and, finally, after ten years of illness, she came to me. Her most strik­ ing symptom was that in bed she fastened (ansteckte) her bed linen to the blankets by means of safety pins. In this manner she betrayed her husband’s in­ fection (Ansteckung) which had deprived her of children. This patient, who at that time was about forty years old, once told me of an event which took place during the early stages of her moodiness, but before the appearance of the compulsion neurosis. In order to divert her, her husband took her along on a business trip to Paris. The couple was sitting in the

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hotel lobby with one of the husband’s business ac­ quaintances, when a certain unrest and commotion became apparent in the room. She asked a hotel employee what was going on, and learned that Mon­ sieur le Professeur had arrived, and was giving con­ sultations in his cubicle near the hotel entrance. M. le Professeur was a great fortuneteller, who asked no questions; instead he made his visitor press his palm into a bowl of sand, and revealed the future by a study of the handprint. She said that she too wanted to visit the fortuneteller, in order to have her future revealed to her, but her husband advised against it, saying that it was nonsense. However, when her hus­ band departed with his business acquaintance, she removed the wedding ring from her finger and sneaked into the cabinet of the fortuneteller. He studied her handprint for a long time, and then said: “You will have great struggles in the near future, but everything will end well. You will marry and will have two children by the time you are thirty-two years old.” She told this story admiringly, and ap­ parently quite without insight. My comment: “It is regrettable that the fulfillment of the prophecy is eight years overdue,” made no impression on her. I might have imagined that she admired the confident temerity of this prophecy, the “rabbi’s eagle eye.” Unfortunately, my usually reliable memory is not certain whether the first part of the prophecy was that all would end well, and that she would marry, or simply that she would be happy. My attention was entirely focused upon the clearly remembered final sentence and its striking details. Indeed, the first sentences, about struggles which will have a happy ending, correspond to the vague remarks which occur in all prophecies, including those which one can buy ready made. The definiteness of the two numbers occurring in the last sentence is therefore doubly impressive. Yet, it would certainly not be without interest to know whether the Professor had really spoken of a marriage. Although she had re­ moved her wedding band, and at twenty-seven looked young enough to be taken for a single girl, it would not have required much subtlety to recognize the mark of the wedding band on her finger Let us limit ourselves therefore to the problem presented

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by the last sentence, which promised her two chil­ dren by the time she was thirty-two years old. Indeed, these details seem entirely arbitrary and inexplicable. Even the most credulous would hardly presume to derive them from the interpretation of the lines of the hand. These details would have been unquestionably justified, had fate confirmed them. This, however, fate had failed to do, since she was now forty years old, and still childless. What, then, Was the origin of these numbers? The patient her­ self had no ideas whatsoever regarding this matter. The simplest thing would be to disregard this prob­ lem entirely, and to cast this apparently worthless event into the limbo of many other meaningless data of an allegedly occult nature. This would be very convenient indeed; it would be both the simplest solution and the most desirable relief for us. However, I am forced to say that, un­ fortunately for us, it is precisely analysis which is in a position to provide an explanation of these two numbers, and, at that, an explanation of a kind which is entirely satisfying and, given the nature of the situation, almost self-evident. Indeed, the two num­ bers are in perfect concordance with the life history of our patient’s mother The latter married after her thirtieth birthday and her thirty-second year was precisely the one in which—deviating from the usual fate of women, and almost as though seeking to make up for lost time—she gave birth to two children. The prophecy is therefore easy to interpret: “Don’t grieve over your present childlessness; it means noth­ ing. You can still have the same fate as your mother, who at your age was not even married, and yet had two children at the age of thirty-two.” The prophecy, coming from the mouth of a fortuneteller who was ignorant of all these personal details, and was oc­ cupied with a handprint in the sand, promised her the gratification of that mother identification which was the secret of her childhood. We are free to as­ sume that this completely unconscious wish fulfillment presupposed the following: “You will be rid of your useless husband through death, or else you will find the strength to leave him.” The nature of the com­ pulsion neurosis is more compatible with the first al­ ternative, while the victorious struggles mentioned

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in the prophecy seem to suggest the latter alternative. You will recognize that, in this case, analytic in­ terpretation plays an even greater role than in the preceding one; one might even say that it actually brought the occult factor into being. Consequently, in this instance too one seems obliged to concede the compelling convincingness of the possibility that an unconscious wish, and the thoughts and factual ma­ terial connected therewith, have been transferred from one person to another. I see only one way of escaping the compellingness of this case, and cer­ tainly do not propose to conceal it from you. In the course of the twelve or thirteen years which had elapsed between the prophecy and the reporting thereof in therapy, the patient may possibly have evolved a falsification of memory. Indeed, the Pro­ fessor may only have uttered some comforting, and not at all amazing, banalities, into which she grad­ ually inserted the significant numbers derived from her unconscious. If this is so, then the facts, which seek to force so momentous a conclusion upon us, become rather flimsy. We would gladly share the views of the skeptic who is willing to discuss such material only if it is reported immediately after the event, and perhaps even then only with certain misgivings. I recall that, on being appointed to a professorship, I had an audience with the Minister, in order to thank him. While leaving the audience, I caught myself in the act of trying to falsify the conversation which had taken place between him and myself, and it was never again possible for me to remember correctly the conversation which had actu­ ally taken place. I must leave it to you to decide whether or not this explanation is a legitimate one. I can neither refute nor confirm it. For this reason this second observation, though inherently more im­ pressive than the first one, is also more open to doubt.

The two cases which I submitted to you concern prophecies which did not come true. I believe that such observations provide the best material for the study of the problem of thought transference, and I would like to induce you to collect similar cases. I also prepared for you a sample of another kind of material. This case

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• that of a patient of a special kind, who discussed in h's analytic hour matters which were related in a striking anner to an experience of my own immediately before his hour. But you are about to receive a tangible proof f the fact that it is only with the greatest reluctance that I concern myself with these occult questions. While in Gastein, I took out the notes which I had selected and taken along for the purpose of preparing this report, and found that the sheet of paper on which I had jotted down these latter observations was not there. Instead, there was another sheet, which contained certain other, irrelevant notes of another kind, which I had mistakenly brought along with me. Nothing is to be done in the face of so obvious a resistance. I cannot give you a report of this case, because I am unable to reconstruct it from memory Instead, I will add a few remarks about a per­ son well known in Vienna, the graphologist Rafael Scherman, who is reputed to have performed the most amazing feats. He is said to be able not only to infer the character of a person from a sample of his handwriting, but also to give a description of that person, and to make predictions which are eventually confirmed by fate. Many of these re­ markable feats are admittedly reported by Scherman himself. Without telling me of his plan beforehand, a friend of mine once tried to make Scherman fantasy about a sample of my own handwriting. He was able to disclose only that it was the writing of an old gentleman —which was easy to guess—with whom it is difficult to live, because he is an insupportable domestic tyrant. Members of my household would hardly confirm this. But, as is well known, in the field of the occult there prevails the comfortable basic principle that a negative case does not prove anything.

I made no direct observations on Scherman, but have, through the intermediary of a patient, entered with him into a relationship of which he is not cognizant. I want to tell you something about this matter Several years ago a young man came to me for analysis. He made so very agreeable an impres­ sion upon me, that I gave him preference over many others. It was found that he was involved in an af­ fair with one of the best known demimondaines. He wished to extricate himself from it, but, lacking all power of self-determination, was unable to do so. I

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was able to free him from his bondage, and, in the course of this process, one obtained also full insight into his compulsion. Several months ago he con­ tracted a normal marriage, compatible with middle­ class standards. In the course of the analysis it soon became apparent that the compulsion against which he fought did not bind him to this demimondaine, but to a woman of his own social class, with whom he had had an affair ever since his youth. The demi­ mondaine had been accepted only as a “whipping boy,” who enabled him to gratify through her all the vengefulness and jealousy whose true object was his beloved mistress. In accordance with a familiar pat­ tern, he escaped the inhibitions of ambivalence by means of a displacement to a new object. He was in the habit of torturing this demimondaine, who had fallen in love with him in the most unselfish manner, with the most refined cruelty When she was no longer able to conceal her suffering, he de­ flected to her also the tenderness he felt for the love of his youth. He gave her presents and conciliated her, only to start the cycle all over again. When, under the influence of the therapy, he finally broke with her, it became apparent what his behavior to­ ward this substitute for his beloved one had sought to accomplish: He sought to obtain a compensa­ tion for his youthful attempt to kill himself when his beloved refused to yield to him. After this sui­ cidal attempt he finally managed to conquer his be­ loved, who was older than himself. During this phase of his treatment he was in the habit of visit­ ing Scherman, with whom he was acquainted. Scherman repeatedly found in the handwriting samples of the demimondaine indications that she was at the end of her strength, on the verge of suicide, and certain to kill herself. This she failed to do, how­ ever. Instead, she shook off her human foibles, re­ called the principles of her profession, and her duties toward her official lover. It was clear to me that the wizard had revealed to my patient only the latter’s own secret wish. After ridding himself of this screen personage, my patient engaged seriously in the task of freeing him­ self also from his real bondage. I inferred from his dreams that he was just then evolving a plan to break

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off the affair with the love of his youth, without deeply wounding or materially damaging her. She had a daughter, who behaved very affectionately toward her mother’s lover, and was supposedly unaware of the secret role of the latter. He wished to marry this girl. Soon thereafter the plan became conscious, and the man undertook the first steps leading to its reali­ zation. I encouraged this intention, which offered an irregular, but nonetheless possible way out of a diffi­ cult situation. However, he soon had a dream which was very hostile toward the girl. He once more con­ sulted Scherman, who declared that the girl was childish, neurotic and not suitable for marriage. This time this great expert on the human heart was right, because the behavior of the girl, who was practically engaged to this young man, gradually became so in­ consistent that it was decided to get her into anal­ ysis. The analysis resulted in the cancellation of the marriage plans. The girl had had a detailed uncon­ scious knowledge of the relationship between her mother and her fiance, and was attached to the lat­ ter only because of her oedipus complex. The analysis was terminated at this point. The pa­ tient was free and capable of making his own way in the future. He married a respectable girl, who did not belong to his family circle, and about whom Scherman expressed a favorable opinion. May he be right again this time! You have already understood in what way I wish to interpret my experiences with Scherman. You note that all of my material pertains solely to the problem of thought induction. I have nothing to say about the rest of the wonders of occultism. I have already publicly ad­ mitted that from the occult viewpoint my own life was a singularly barren one. Perhaps the problem of thought transference will seem rather trifling to you in compari­ son with the great world of occult miracles. Yet consider that even this hypothesis already represents a great and momentous step beyond our present viewpoint. The re­ mark which the custodian of St. Denis usually appended to his narrative of the martyrdom of that saint also ap­ plies to this problem. After being decapitated, St. Denis is said to have picked up his head and, holding it in his arms, to have walked quite a distance with it. At this

126 Psychology and Extrasensory Perception point the custodian made the comment: “Dans des cas pareils, ce n’est que le premier pas qui coute.”1 The rest

comes easy. 1In such instances only the first step is hard.

6 Presidential Address

to the Society for Psychical Research * william

McDougall

I will not attempt to express my sense of the great honour you have done me in electing me to the presidency of this Society. That sense is much accentuated by the fact that my predecessor in this chair, whose loss we all deplore, was so great a man; a man of science so great that his name will remain among those few which the English people will ever cherish with pride and gratitude. Our Society was fortunate indeed in being able for many years to claim him as a member, and still more fortunate in that he consented to occupy this chair before he was called away. In looking with mingled pride and humility at the list of former Presidents of the Society, I cannot avoid re­ marking that one only of them was primarily and pro­ fessedly a psychologist. I mean of course William James, the man who more than all others has been for me the shining leader, the perfect exponent of scientific candour and courage. I notice also that but few other names of professed psychologists appear on our roll of membership. I am moved by these facts to offer some slight apology and explanation on behalf of my professional colleagues; for surely they, beyond all other men of science, should have ♦Originally delivered as a talk before the Society on July 19, 1920, this paper was first published in the Proceedings, Vol. 31, 1921.

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felt the call to support, if only by passive membership, the work and reputation of this Society. They, by special knowledge and training, are or should be better equipped than any others to evaluate the work of the Society, to criticise it, or, better still, actively to cooperate in it. The fact that the great majority of them stand aloof requires some consideration; for it is capable of being, and in some quarters has been, interpreted in a sense detrimental to our work. It may be said—here is a body of men on whose judgment the public may best rely in forming its opinion about Psychical Research, and that judgment seems to be adverse; for the bulk of them do not sup­ port the work, even to the small extent of joining the Society This conclusion would, I think, be false. The explanation of the fact is in the main to be found in a different direction. An open mind towards the phenomena which the So­ ciety investigates is far commoner, I am sure, among men of science, than appears to the general public. This opin­ ion, which I venture to express in this highly responsible position, is founded not only upon my personal contacts with men of science, but also upon the fact that only one scientific creed logically permits the deduction that these alleged phenomena do not and cannot occur That creed is dogmatic materialism: and although that creed can still claim a few confident exponents, it is distinctly out of fashion at the present time. However materialistic may be the dominant habit of thought among men of science, there are but few of them who will confess to a whole-hearted acceptance of materialism as a philosoph­ ic creed. The bulk of them are sufficiently well edu­ cated to know that as such it is untenable; and also to know that from it alone can they logically deduce the impossibility of the alleged phenomena. The grounds of the aloofness of so many men of science from the work of our Society, in spite of their minds being more or less open to conviction in its sphere, are many and complex. It would perhaps not be altogether unprofitable to at­ tempt to describe and examine them. But for my present purpose I wish to point out one only of them, one by no means discreditable to those who are influenced by it. I mean a sense of responsibility towards the public. Men of science are afraid lest, if they give an inch in this matter, the public will take an ell and more. They are afraid that the least display of interest or acquiescence on their part may promote a great outburst of super­

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129 stition on the part of the public, a relapse into belief in witchcraft, necromancy, and the black arts generally, with all the moral evils which must accompany the prevalence of such beliefs. For they know that it is only through the faithful work of men of science during very recent cen­ turies that these debasing beliefs have been in large mea­ sure banished from a small part of the world, they know that, throughout the rest of the world, these superstitions continue to flourish, ready at any moment to invade and overwhelm those small areas of enlightenment. They know that such overwhelming of those areas must plunge their populations back among the grovelling fears and the cruel and hateful practices which have been the scourge and torment of mankind since that remote age when the race became endowed with the two-edged and dangerous weapon of imagination. Now the psychologists, just be­ cause they of all men must be regarded as best equipped to judge of these difficult matters, feel this responsibility more acutely than any other class of scientific men. Fur­ ther—they feel a great responsibility for the reputation of their own science and are afraid of doing it an injury. Any physicist, like the great physicists who have adorned and strengthened this Society, may display an active in­ terest in Psychical Research without the least risk of injury to the reputation of his science. Physical science stands firmly established in the esteem of all men; for it is clear to all that it has provided the material basis of our civilisation. Psychology stands in a very different posi­ tion. It is only beginning to assert its position among the sciences; the general public and even some of our uni­ versities still regard its claim to be a science, and a science of high practical value, with doubt and suspicion. In face of this situation the academic psychologist is rightly cau­ tious. His attitude may, I think, be succinctly and con­ cretely expressed by saying that he is afraid of the left wing of our Society, and that, if the Society consisted only of its right wing, he would come in and co-operate cheerfully and profitably. But both wings are necessary to our Society; we cannot hope to fly to any good purpose on one alone. It has been the great virtue of our Society that, in spite of differences of opinion, sometimes acute, it has kept the allegiance of men and women of so widely different views in respect to its problems. My own convic­ tion is that the risk I have indicated must be run. I my­ self belong very decidedly to the right wing; but I rec­ ognise the importance of the left; I recognise also the

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right of its members to their opinions, and I esteem the driving power and the freedom of speculation which come from the left as essential to the success of our work. The importance of the work of our Society seems to me to justify the taking of some risk. But that work does not really add to the risk of relapse into barbaric super, stition; rather it is our best defence against it. For Pan. dora’s box has been opened, the lid has been slightly lifted, and we are bound to go on and to explore its remotest corner and cranny. It is not only or chiefly the work of this Society that has raised the lid a little and exposed us to this danger The culture of Europe has for a brief period rested upon the twin supports of dogmatic affirmation and dogmatic denial, of orthodox religion and scientific materialism. But both of these sup. ports are crumbling, both alike sapped by the tide of free enquiry And it is the supreme need of our time that these two pillars of dogmatism shall be replaced by a single solid column of knowledge on which our culture may securely rest. It is the policy of sitting on the lid of the box that is risky; a danger and threat to our civilisation. I have said that I belong to the extreme right of our Society, and I fear that I may shock and hurt some of our members of the left by the following remark, which nevertheless, I feel I am bound to make. It is conceivable to me that we may ultimately find the box to have been empty from the first, as empty as some of our dogmatic critics assert it to be. Even then I should maintain that the work of our Society in boldly exploring its recesses and showing its emptiness to the world had been of the very greatest value. But I do not anticipate this result, though I do not dread it. As regards our positive con­ clusions and their value I will say only this, I believe that telepathy is very nearly established for all time among the facts recognised by Science, mainly by the work of this Society. If and when that result shall have been achieved, its importance for Science and Philosophy will far outweigh the sum of the achievements of all the psychological laboratories of the universities of two con­ tinents. As regards the other main lines of enquiry of our So­ ciety, I confidently hold that nothing hitherto established by Science or Philosophy can be shown to imply that these enquiries must have a purely negative result. Our con­ clusions must be founded eventually upon just such collec­ tion and critical sifting of the empirical evidence as our

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Society has resolutely pursued for nearly forty years. Dur. g these forty years a whole generation of devoted work­ ers has passed away. But what are forty years in the creat procession of knowledge! Even though it were clear “kat four hundred years will be needed for the attainment of definite conclusions, we ought not to shrink from the task, or falter by the way. The supreme importance of the problems before which we stand would justify an in­ definitely great expenditure of time and energy upon them. For the interestes of our culture and civilisation demand that the present chaos of conflicting opinions and preju­ dices shall be replaced by clear and definite knowledge. After these few remarks in the nature of a confession of my attitude towards our works, I propose to devote the remainder of my time to formulating a speculative suggestion, which may have value as a working hypothesis for some branches of our work. The suggestion is not a new one; what I have to say is merely an attempt to develop a little an old idea in the light of modem knowl­ edge.1 Some years ago I published a book, Body and Mind, in which I maintained that, however we conceive the body, we are compelled to conceive our conscious mental life as the activity of a unitary being endowed with the faculties of knowing, feeling and striving, the ego, soul, or self. It has been made a reproach to me that the long argument of that book came to an end just when it began to be really interesting. My present purpose is to outline another step of the argument, to add one more chapter to the book. In the years that have passed since its publication, I have been much concerned both practically and theoretically with cases of nervous disorder. Now these cases of functional nervous disorder have been widely held to make untenable that conception of the unitary ego to which the argument of my book had pointed. In such cases we often seem to find evidences of the division of the self into two or more parts, each of which seems to be endowed with the fundamental facul­ ties of mind, conscious knowing, feeling and striving, a striving that expresses itself in part in the control of flt is the notion of ‘monads’ which came down to us from Leibnitz. In recent years it has been developed as the basis of a pluralistic metaphysic by Prof. James Ward (in his Pluralism and Theism) and by his disciple Mr. C. A. Richardson (in his Spiritual Pluralism). R. H. Lotze may be claimed as its chief exponent in the nineteenth century: and Mr. Gerald Balfour (in his presidential address) has urged its claims upon the attention of this Society.

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bodily movements. To many thinkers the facts of this or. der seem to shew that the stream of consciousness is, li^ any other stream, a composite structure, something that is composed of separable parts; for, they say, if it is capa. ble of being broken into parts, it must consist of such parts, and must be conceived as formed by the coming together of such parts. Thus they arrive at the notion of consciousness as a sort of stuff which may be variously combined, broken up and recombined, much as a stream of water or, let us say, of treacle, may be split into minor streams and recombined. Some then speak of a cosmic reservoir of this stuff, some of which is somehow filtered through a screen in tiny trickling streams to form the consciousness of you and me and each of us. Others speak of a mind-dust, ultimate elements or atoms of conscious­ ness, which may be brought together in greater or lesser masses or streams to form what each of us calls his con­ sciousness. If I am asked—has my more intimate study of these cases of divided personalities led me to accept this way of regarding consciousness; has this way forced itself upon me as an inevitable conclusion from the facts?—I reply —not in the least. The argument for the unity of the ego seems to me as strong and conclusive as ever. And that other way of regarding consciousness, as a stuff which can be divided into smaller or united into larger streams, seems to me just as impossible and false as ever it did. Do I then deny the facts on which the critics of the ego rely? No—I accept these facts as established. I believe we are compelled to recognise that sometimes, and not in­ frequently, a single human organism or person is the seat of more than one stream of conscious knowing, feeling and striving, more than one train of mental activity; and that these trains may be not only distinct, but may be in acute opposition and conflict one with another just as really as I may be in conflict with you, a conflict of purposes, of efforts towards different ends. If my former conclusion holds good, it follows that each of such distinct streams of purposive effort is the activity of a unitary self or ego. Are we then to fly to the ancient theory of possession, whenever we observe evidence of such multiplicity of distinct mental activities within a single organism? By no means. The obvious and, I believe, inevitable inference from the facts is that I who consciously address you am only one among several selves or egos which my organism, my person, comprises. I am

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Qfily the dominant member of a society, an associa­ tion of similar members. There are many purposive ac­ tivities within my organism of which I am not aware, which are not my activities but those of my associates, j am conscious at any moment only of those processes within the organism, and of those impressions from with­ out, which it is most necessary that I should take cogni­ sance of. And I consciously control and adjust only a few of the executive processes of my organism, those only which are of primary importance for my purposes. But I and my associates are all members of one body; and, so long as the whole organism is healthy, we work harmoni­ ously together, for we are a well-organised society, the members of which strive for a common good, the good of the whole society. My subordinates serve me faithfully in the main, provided always that I continue to be resolute and strong. But, when I relax my control, in states of sleep, hypnosis, relaxation and abstraction, my subordi­ nates, or some of them, continue to work and then are apt to manifest their activities in the forms we have learnt to call sensory and motor automatisms. And if I am weak and irresolute, if I do not face the problems of life and take the necessary decisions for dealing with them, then conflict arises within our system, one or more of my subordinates gets out of hand, I lose my control, and di­ vision of the personality into conflicting systems replaces the normal and harmonious co-operation of all members in one system. And in extreme cases such a revolted sub­ ordinate, escaped from the control of the dominant mem­ ber or monad, may continue his career of insubordina­ tion indefinitely, acquiring increased influence over other members of the society and becoming a serious rival to the normal ruler or dominant. Such a rebellious member was the famous Sally Beauchamp, and such was, I suggest, the childish phase of the Doris Fischer case. All such automatisms imply literally a dis-association of the society or association. We may, I think, see a close analogy between the or­ ganisation of such a society of selves and that of an army. At headquarters sits the general or commander-in-chief. Through a radiating system of telephone wires he con­ stantly receives reports which inform him of the general condition and activities of each part; and chiefly his at­ tention at any moment is given to the reports from areas of greatest activity. But he is not made acquainted with every detail of the life and activity of the army; the re-

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ports which reach him have passed upwards through a hierarchy of officers of successively higher rank; at each stage they have been condensed and epitomised; and from those parts of the whole organisation where every, thing is going on smoothly in routine fashion no report is made. Thus his information is always highly general; it is the cream skimmed from the whole mass of facts. Hjs powers of attention and assimilation permit him only such epitomised and highly condensed information. In the same way, the orders that he gives are general only He decides and gives orders only on the larger movements. The working of them out in detail is effected by the descending series of members of the hierarchy; his orders are concerned only with new adjustments and movements of the whole or its parts; and to those parts which are ex. ecuting routine actions, he issues no orders; to do so would diminish rather than increase their efficiency; it would be a needless and unwarranted interference with his experienced subordinates, who exercise at their discre­ tion an authority delegated by him. Especially if any disorder or disharmony of the parts of the system arises, his authority is required to restore order; he continues to suffer pain or distress which dis­ tracts his attention from all other duties until the disorder is rectified. This analogy gives us, I suggest, a true picture of the life of the human organism. One great difference obtains between the two systems of our analogy. In the army the general’s touch with all parts of the organism is effected through a material system of written and printed orders and telephone wires and dispatch riders. In the organism on the other hand communication between the members seems to be direct, that is to say it seems to be of the nature of reciprocal telepathic rapport, in large part at least. But still the dominant monad is in direct rapport, not with every member of the system, but only with those immediately beneath him in the hierarchy; and the same seems to be true of every member of the system. Thus my consciousness is not a ‘collective consciousness,’ it is not a fusion of the minor consciousness of the subordinate members of my organism. By our fundamental postulate such fusion is impossible. It is rather a condensed essence of all their separate and distinct consciousnesses; it re­ flects what in them is most essential, whatever is most necessary for me to know; and this is presented to me in a conveniently condensed and elaborated form. That

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this is really true we see on considering any complex act of perception, as when I perceive visually a complex field of objects. Between the impressions on my sense organ and the completed perception there intervenes a large amount of synthetic activity of truly mental nature; this is the work of my subordinates. And only certain fea­ tures of the whole field in which I am most interested come fully to my consciousness in elaborated detail; much of the rest of the field remains outside my consciousness, but nevertheless plays a part in determining the total re­ action of my organism, subconsciously as we say, i.e, through the work of my subordinates. And in executing any complex bodily action, I make the decision or choice of action and issue a general order, but of the details of its execution I remain for the most part unconscious, although these details are guided by mentally elaborated impressions on my sense organs, again the work of my subordinates. Let us see how this conception throws light upon cer­ tain forms of automatism so frequent and widespread as to fall within the bounds of the normal. In sleep I, the dominant member of my system, become passive and inert; I cease to send out controlling messages. My sub­ ordinates, released from my controlling purposes, may continue to be alert and to think their own thoughts; and these are more or less reflected in my passive self as dream-images and dream-thoughts. Since the modes of activity of these subordinates are more primitive, near­ er to the purely organic and instinctive, than my own (for we must suppose that the mental functions are dele­ gated to them in an order corresponding to their positions in the hierarchy, the most primitive to those lowest in the scale, the less primitive to those nearer to myself) the dream shews those archaic primitive and intuitive qualities which have been so well pointed out by Dr. C. G. Jung. And they come to my consciousness as some­ thing wholly foreign to myself, in the shaping of which my purposes and my thinking have had no share. In hypothesis also I am passive and my subordinates work independently of my control. They may receive and understand, retain and execute suggestions of which I re­ main unconscious. And, if they carry out these suggestions in the posthypnotic period, I may be surprised to find myself performing actions of which I have no intention and no prevision, and, if I attempt to inhibit or prevent such actions, I may be aware of a real difficulty in doing

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so, i.e. a difficulty in controlling and subduing the efforts of my subordinates. Frequently I form an intention and initiate a train of action for its execution and then I may turn my at. tention to other topics, while my faithful subordinates continue to work towards the end prescribed. To take a very simple instance, I form the intention to go to a certain place and start out; then, though I may be wholly occupied with thoughts of other things, my purpose is duly achieved by my organism, i.e. my subordinates. Or a more complex instance, I may set out to play a piece of music, and, having begun, may engage in conversa­ tion on other topics, while the execution of my purpose nevertheless continues to unroll itself through processes which involve a great amount of mental activity, includ­ ing the appreciation at every step of the complex musical sounds which my fingers call from the instrument. This view of the nature of a person thus renders in­ telligible many facts of our normal mental life which on any other view remain paradoxical; and it solves the difficulty of reconciling the facts of automatism and di­ vided personality with the fundamental principle of the unitary ego or self as the ground of the unity of con­ sciousness. And we can apply it successfully to solve an­ other great difficulty, namely the apparent dependence of memory on the integrity of the brain. The facts which seem to imply this dependence have, ever since they began to be discovered, formed a principal support of materialism. The facts are that destruction of this or that part of the brain seems to deprive me of certain memories or memory functions. And the assumption of materialism, reached by an inference from these facts, is that destruc­ tion of the whole of my brain would deprive me of all memories. Now the view I am putting before you assumes that each monad of my system retains the memory of its own activities. Hence I myself retain no memory of a multitude of the mental activites by which the life of my whole organism has been governed; namely of all those that belong to my subordinates. Nevertheless these or many of them are normally at my disposal. By suitable direction of my attention I can secure their reflection in my consciousness as dreamlike images of the past. And in hypnosis there seems to be no limit to the extent to which this process may be carried, remote events and

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. tails to which my attention was never directed being ° fleeted to my dreaming passively receptive self. r yVe niay fairly assume that, when a part of my brain • destroyed, some grave disorder of my functional relaJs ns with some of my subordinates must ensue, so that J can no longer command their memories, and these are for all practical purposes lost to me. But in spite of such loss of some part of the memories which normally are at my service, I retain the memories of those experiences which were most truly my own, and those powers of thought and feeling and command which I have developed by my own efforts in pursuit of the ends which I have chosen of my own volition. If this is true of the destruction of any one part of my brain, we may infer that it would be true also in the event of the destruction of all its parts. Whether there would then remain to me any capacity for sensory ex­ perience and sensorial imagination seems to me an ob­ scure question that must be left open at the present time. I am inclined to think that sensorial perception and imagination are essentially the expression of the interac­ tion of the monads. If that be true, then, unless and until I should enter upon relations with some other society, become a working member of some other system, I should enjoy only imageless thought. This way of regarding the effects of brain-injuries upon memory seems to be compatible with all the facts. And there is one class of facts which it seems impossible to interpret in terms of any other hypothesis. I refer to the effects upon sense-perception, produced by destruc­ tion of certain parts of the sensory cortex of the brain, as recently demonstrated by the brilliant researches of Dr. Henry Head.1 These researches seem to have shewn that, when certain sensory areas are destroyed, leaving intact the basal ganglia of the brain, the patient does not lose altogether the capacities of sensory experience with which the destroyed areas are concerned. Rather he re­ tains the capacity for the corresponding qualities of sensa­ tion; but these sensory experiences are now of a crude undiscriminating kind. The change may be roughly ex­ pressed by saying that impressions on the sense organs which normally initiate delicate intellectualised percep­ tions, evoke in such patients only crude sensations. On the view I am putting before you, we may interpret Reported in a series of papers in recent volumes of Brain,

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such facts as follows. The sense impressions are normally transmitted through a hierarchy of monads, undergoing further elaboration at each level, until they are reflected to the dominant in a highly elaborated form, conveying delicate spatial, temporal, and other meanings. The in. jury to the brain throws the higher members of this hierarchy out of action. In consequence the lower mem, bers must now report directly to the dominant; just as if, in an army, the superior officers of a division are thrown out of action, reports to headquarters must be sent forward by subordinate officers of the division, who lacking the special experience of their incapacitated su’ periors, will report crudely and inadequately, so that their reports will reach headquarters lacking the intellectual elaboration and condensation which normally characterise them. That seems to be a quite satisfactory interpre. tation of the facts of this order, and I can conceive of no alternative; and I find in this strong confirmation of the hypothesis. You will observe that I take the spatial relations of the parts of the brain to be significant of some real and important relations. But I do not mean to bind myself to the view that the material world and its spatial relations as perceived by us is exactly what it appears to be. Nor do I apply to the monads any metaphysical adjectives, such as timeless or eternal or immortal or indestructible or indivisible; to do so would be to go beyond the warrant of the facts, it would gratuitously involve us in difficulties, and it is quite unnecessary. For the purposes of science we may with advantage leave the metaphysical questions on one side; we need not enquire whether what we call the body is merely the appearance to us of the system of monads, i.e. we need not attempt to choose between a dualistic and a monistic, or a pluralistic metaphysic. It is for the metaphysicians to adapt their speculations to the results of scientific research as these are brought to light and formulated in far-reaching hy­ potheses. The hypothesis which I sketch in vaguest outline brings before our minds a host of new questions to which we cannot at present return any definite answers. But this does not in any sense detract from its value or raise any presumption against it. Any such far-reaching hypothesis must have this result, which is indeed evidence of its value as a guide to research. Among such questions three stand out very prominently for my mind.

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First, Plato described the soul as a charioteer, con­ trolling with more or less success a team of powerful unruly creatures, the passions, which draw him along in reckless fury This has usually been regarded as a literary metaphor May we, in the light of the view I am putting before you, take this description to be literally true? In other words—is each of the great primary instinctive ten­ dencies of our nature the peculiar function of some one subordinate monad? It is a possibility that deserves con­ sideration. Secondly, what is the relation of the dominant monad to heredity and evolution? Is he not only the ruler of his society, but also the patriarch and progenitor? I do not see how we can avoid the assumption that the monads are propagated by a process analogous to budding. And this process must be of two kinds. On the one hand a throwing off of a bud which contains all the potentialities and powers of the progenitor and is capable of becom­ ing the progenitor of a new society and hence of govern­ ing the whole development of a new individual organism. On the other hand, a process of budding off subor­ dinates to which only subordinate powers are delegated. And, since the development of the individual mirrors that of the race, we must suppose that these functions are delegated in an order which recapitulates that delegation of functions which must have been the essential process in the specialisation and differentiation of racial types. Such specialisation and differentiation of functions within the organism can only have been combined with continued effective integration of the organism through such ex­ tensive delegation of functions combined with continued dominance of the parent monad. Lastly, there is the question of the bearing of this view upon the great problem which for so many members of the Society for Psychical Research is or should be its predominating interest, the problem of life after death. Well, adoption of our hypothesis would necessitate a development of our view of the life after death of the body, one directly in line with the development which that view has already undergone in the slow process of cultural evolution. Primitive man conceived the dead as having still not only the bodily form and organs but also the dress and ornaments and weapons which they bore in this life. Then these external adjuncts of personality were given up, and men were content to conceive the dead as having the naked bodily form and organs only.

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By a further and comparatively recent step, the con ception of the dead was purged of the material embod *' ment, and men learned to think of them as spirits devo/j of bodily form; but they continue to expect that the de parted soul should retain every mental function and th memory of every mental activity manifested throughout the life of the organism. But now, I suggest, we have tn make a further step and purge our conception still fur< ther. I, if I survive the dissolution of my bodily organise shall, by our hypothesis, retain only those functions which I have not delegated but have developed by active exercise and those memories which are most truly mine, the memories of my own activities. And after all is not this truly a gain, an advance of our conception? Does it not represent that purification from dross and from the lower elements of which so many seers have spoken? Further, it would seem to follow that, just as in this life I live effectively and fully only by actively participating in the life of an intimately organised society of like mem­ bers, so hereafter can I hope to live richly and satisfactorily only by entering into and playing an active part as a member of some other society which will demand my faithful co-operation and service. For we are essentially social beings; outside of and apart from such intimate communion, our selves would have no meaning and no value, and perhaps could not be said to live or be con­ scious in any intelligible sense of those words. I venture to think that these considerations may afford some guidance, if they are kept in mind when we confront the baffling problems, the perplexities and disappointments which seem to be the lot of those bent upon the major quest of Psychical Research.

7 Occult Processes

Occurring During Psychoanalysis * HELENE DEUTSCH

But if the phenomenon of telepathy is only an activity of the unconscious mind, then no fresh problem lies before us. The laws of unconscious mental life may then be taken for granted as applying to telepathy.

—Freud (VI)

Modem science does not challenge a priori the exis­ tence of so-called “occult” phenomena. It does, however, view them with justifiable skepticism, and demands proofs and explanations. The inclination toward the occult is one of the mani­ festations of man’s eternal desire to break down the barrier between the self and the world, and to fuse his emotional experiences and the external world into a whole. This is achieved in two ways: On the one hand he pro­ jects these psychic forces outward, in order to make them appear in the external world as “supernatural” forces, while on the other hand the mastery of these superna­ tural forces seems to suggest to him that human capacities include also certain mystical and divine powers. In this manner, the basic forces of man—all that which is beyond his trivial knowledge and ordinary powers— are negated, and are viewed as something supematurally divine. By recognizing these supernatural forces in him♦Originally published in the German publication Imago, 12:418433, 1926. This paper was translated into English by George Devereux and appeared in his anthology Psychoanalysis and the Occult.

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self, mortal man becomes, in a roundabout way, the very Divinity which he had fashioned in his own likeness. Psychoanalysis, which discovered the great power of the unconscious in psychological events, also explores the ways and means whereby man seeks to escape all that which emerges from his inner darknesss. For example, psy­ choanalysis has found that when the push of the wardedoff forces becomes too strong, man seeks to unburden himself by means of projections. In the course of these defensive activities, man evolves a belief in spirits, and asssumes an animistic attitude, which he then keeps alive in the guise of “spiritistic insights” or of “occult phenom­ ena.” By contrast, psychoanalysis refers these puzzling hu­ man experiences back to their intrapsychic birthplace in the unconscious—back to that “mystical” place from which they have sprung. It investigates individual experi­ ences which cannot be explained by means of conscious volition, until it locates their place of origin and, thus, discovers the explanation of the “mysterious” in internal happenings. The psychoanalyst understands and interprets a psycho­ logical event by dissecting it with the help of the subtly accurate technique of psychoanalysis. For this reason only a small part of “occult phenomena” is accessible to di­ rect analytic observation. “Telepathic phenomena,” which Freud defined as “the reception of a mental process by one person from another by means other than sensory per­ ception” (VII), are especially suitable for such inquiries. During psychoanalysis the psychic contact between ana­ lyst and analysand is so intimate, and the psychic processes which unfold themselves in that situation are so mani­ fold, that the analytic situation may very well include all conditions which especially facilitate the occurrence of such phenomena. Thus, very careful observations should enable one to recognize that a given psychic process, which unfolds itself before our very eyes, is “telepathic,” and should also help one to reveal its true nature by means of the methodology characteristic of psychoanalytic technique. The value of insights obtained in this manner is due principally to the fact that one is not dealing here with discrete happenings, but with psychic events which are part of a continuous process, and which can be fully understood only within the framework of that process. The same events, when torn from the contextual whole of the analytic process, would impress the outsider as

Helene Deutsch

143 typically “occult,” and, because of the impossibility of in­ terpreting them, would retain their typically “occult” char­ acter. One has the impression that only by fitting such “occult” incidents into a continuum can one deprive them of their mystical features. Such analytic experiences also enable one to conclude that, by the use of similar devices, occult phenomena could be “unmasked” even outside the analytic situation; that mysteriously incomprehensible events could be re­ duced to simple and intelligible ones, by linking them with a chain of events which had been interrupted somewhere, or by filling in the gaps which came into being in the course of certain psychic processes. In the previously cited brief study, “The Occult Signifi­ cance of Dreams,” Freud states: “I have often had the impression, in the course of experiments in my private circle, that strongly emotionally colored recollections can be successfully transferred without much difficulty. If one has the courage to submit to an analytic examination the associations of the person to whom the thoughts are sup­ posed to be transferred, correspondences often come to light which would otherwise have remained undiscovered. On the basis of much experience I am inclined to draw the conclusion that thought transference of this kind comes about particularly easily at the moment at which an idea emerges from the unconscious, or, in theoretical terms, as it passes over from the ‘primary process’ to the ‘secondary process’ ” (VII). The systematic utilization of the technique of free as­ sociation explains why the psychoanalytic situation seems to be, par excellence, the setting in which “emotionally colored recollections” are constantly in statunascendi, i. e., in the state in which they “pass over from the ‘primary process’ to the ‘secondary process.’ ” Freud does not dis­ cuss in detail the conditions under which the person to whom thoughts are being transferred receives this emo­ tionally charged complex of ideas, which emerges from the unconscious. The above considerations lead one to suspect that this process represents a reaction of the un­ conscious, which manifests itself only through free asso­ ciations. In addition, the content of this reaction, and its concordance with the thoughts of the person who orig­ inated the stimulus, can be revealed only by means of analytic investigations. Under certain conditions which are not altogether clear, but which are probably connected with transference (in the analytic sense), the transmission

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of ideas to a given person elicits in that individual a reactive process, which is then transformed into percep­ tual thought content. Since sense impressions, which usual­ ly precede such a process, are lacking, the occurrence acquires the characteristics of the “occult.” One may therefore suspect that the condition for this transfer of “emotionally colored recollections” consists in a certain unconscious readiness to receive them. Only if this condi­ tion is fulfilled can the recipient function as a “receiving station.” These emotionally cathected ideas must mobilize in the unconscious of the second person analogous ideas of similar content, which then manifest themselves in the conscious as “internal experiences.” Later on, when the identity of the two sets of thoughts is perceived, the internal apperception acquires the characteristics of an external one. A close scrutiny of processes occurring during analysis enable one to recognize that they satisfy rather fully the conditions necessary for the occurrence of occult phe­ nomena. The following reflections will seek to determine the exact point at which, in analytic work, the occurrence of occult phenomena is impeded. We know that the analyst’s task is twofold: Probably his most important duty is to receive passively the ma­ terial which the patient offers to him in the course of his obscure self-betrayals and transference experiences. His second task is the evolving of a wholly conscious insight into the nature of the material so received, and the in­ tellectual processing of this material. In his technical “Recommendations” Freud says: “All conscious exertion is to be withheld from the capacity for attention, and one’s ‘unconscious memory’ is to be given full play.” [The analyst] “must bend his own un­ conscious like a receptive organ toward the emerging unconscious of the patient; be as the receiver of the tele­ phone to the disc. As the receiver transmutes the electric vibrations induced by the sound-waves back again into sound-waves, so is the physician’s unconscious mind able to reconstruct the patient’s unconscious, which has di­ rected his associations, from the communications derived from it.”1 This internal experience of the analyst, which we pro’ ’Sigmund Freud, “Recommendations for Physicians on the PsychoAnalytic Method of Treatment.” Collected Papers, 2:323-333 (London: Hogarth, 1924 [1912]).

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pose to discuss in detail further below, establishes between him and the analysand a contact which is outside the conscious apparatus, even though this process itself is stim­ ulated by a motor-verbal discharge on the one hand, and by a reception of the latter through the organ of hearing on the other hand. However, that which takes place be­ tween the first stimulation of the senses, and the subse­ quent intellectual processing of this stimulus is a process which is “occult,” and lies outside the conscious. Thus, we may speak of the analyst’s “unconscious perception.” His ability to unravel and to utilize this perception seems to overlap rather completely with the concept of “ana­ lytic intuition.” The analyst’s “intuitive empathy” is a capacity which transcends his own consciousness, and springs from unconscious sources. Only subsequently does conscious knowledge tame these unconscious forces by directing them at a goal, and by fitting them into har­ moniously connected thought sequences. In brief, the “inspirational” element is mastered by soberly transform­ ing it into matter-of-fact insight. The concept of “un­ conscious—respectively analytic—perception” is, as we shall see, assigned here the same psychological meaning as “internal perception.” The affective psychic content of the patient, which emerges from his unconscious, becomes transmuted into an inner experience of the analyst, and is recognized as belonging to the patient (i.e., to the ex­ ternal world) only in the course of subsequent intellec­ tual work. The possibility of establishing an analogy between this experience and telepathic phenomena is, therefore, probably derived from the transformation of a message, emanating from an external object, into an in­ ternal experience, and from the reprojecting of this ex­ perience upon its place of origin, from which the stimulus had emanated in the first place. In analytic work this “reprojection” is a product of a subsequent conscious intelectual activity, which fills all the gaps of the experi­ ence. In occult phenomena this reprojection takes place unconsciously, in the course of obscure emotional pro­ cesses. It is not a specific, distinctive and characteristic aspect of the analyst’s “free-floating attention” that that which has been unconsciously perceived in the patient and has then become the analyst’s “own” experience, is subse­ quently communicated to the conscious as an inner ex­ perience. On the contrary, this seems to be the essence of all intuition in general. Indeed, intuitive empathy is

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precisely the gift of being able to experience the object by means of an identification taking place within oneself and, specifically, in that part of one’s own self in which the process of identification has taken place. This intuitive attitude, i.e., the analyst’s own process of identifica­ tion, is made possible by the fact that the psychic struc­ ture of the analyst is a product of developmental processes similar to those which the patient himself had also ex­ perienced. Indeed, the unconscious of both the analyst and the analysand contains the very same infantile wishes and impulses. In a sense the intuitive reception of these wishes therefore represents a reviving of those memory traces which these already outgrown tendencies had left behind. The process whereby one re-experiences the memory traces present in one’s own psychic material is identical with the process by means of which the ana­ lyst’s experience of the patient is transformed into an inner perception. In this sense, the psychic process of the ana­ lyst’s preparatory intuitive work resembles that of the analysand. This process revives similar infantile urges in both of them: In the case of the analysand, by means of transference, and in the case of the analyst by means of identification. This aspect of the analyst’s unconscious relationship with the patient is known as “countertrans­ ference.” However, countertransference is not limited to an identification with certain portions of the patient’s ego, which happen to be cathected in an infantile manner. It also entails the presence of certain other unconscious at­ titudes, which I would like to designate by the term “com­ plementary attitude.” We know that the patient tends to direct his ungratified infantile-libidinous wishes at his ana­ lyst, who, thus becomes identified with the original objects of these wishes. This implies that the analyst is under the obligation of renouncing his real personality even in his own unconscious attitudes, so as to be able to identify himself with these imagines in a manner compatible with the transference fantasies of his patient. I call this pro­ cess “the complementary attitude,” in order to distinguish it from mere identification with the infantile ego of the patient. Only a combination of both of these identifica­ tions constitutes the essence of unconscious “countertrans­ ference.” The utilization and goal-directed mastery of this countertransference are some of the most important duties of the analyst. This unconscious countertransfer­ ence is not to be confused, however, with the analyst’s gross, affective, conscious relationship to the patient.

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The difference between the analyst and the analysand consists principally in the genuine freedom of movement of those of the analyst’s own drives which, due to repres­ sion, are in a state of resistance in the patient. Thus, whereas the patient, who is in a state of transference, expresses his unconscious tendencies in the form of acting out, in the analyst the sublimating, intellectual working through of his wishes is interposed between wish and ac­ tion. As a rule, the patient tries to transform analytic treatment into a situation which will gratify his uncon­ scious wishes. By contrast, the analyst renounces, in a goal-directed manner, all attempts to obtain from the pa­ tient any gratification other than the one implicit in sub­ limating insight. Whenever one of the analyst’s uncon­ scious impulses is repressed, his intuitive performance (which, as stated above, includes also his identification), is thereby impaired with regard to those of the patient’s problems which are connected with this particular re­ pressed drive. Similarly, the analyst is also short-circuited when his own unconscious impulses prevent him from giving up an already established identification. Disturbing influences of this kind often emanate from an analyst who has failed to master his complementary attitude. In some cases the analyst is reluctant to abandon a painfully ac­ quired identification, and is therefore unable to assume a new role which is more compatible with the current transference situation. In other instances the analyst’s ex­ isting identification with one of the patient’s infantile ob­ jects gratifies his unconscious needs so fully that he is unwilling to abandon his established role. In both of these instances the analyst’s inadequate mastery of the “com­ plementary attitude” disturbs the free movement of the waves of the transference.1 We know, for example, that the progress of the analysis is greatly impeded whenever the analyst’s current affective experiences put him under additional strain. It is to be assumed, therefore, that the unconscious inhibition of the free movement of the -1These matters became especially clear to me in the course of control hours with candidates of the Vienna Training Institute. For example, female candidates often assert that the patient is unable to abandon an established father transference. Equally common are certain tenacious mother transferences experienced by male can­ didates. In both types of cases one usually finds that the incompletely mastered masculinity complex of the woman analyst, or the male analyst’s own passive-feminine wishes, are responsible for the oc­ currence of such difficulties.

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analyst’s libido will exert an even more disturbing influ­ ence. This brief examination of the psychoanalytic situation seeks to justify the assumption that the analytic situation reveals the presence of certain “occult” happenings. Every analyzed person will recall instants when he felt that his analyst was a “mindreader.” As to the analyst himself, he knows that his conscious capacities provide no adequate substitute for his unconscious receptiveness. The above considerations seem to indicate the existence of an essential relationship between analytic intuition and the telepathic process. It seems permissible, therefore, to assume also that this intuitiveness can, on occasion, ex­ ceed in intensity the intuitiveness needed for analytic work. When such a feat of intuition is not subjected to the same working through of the intellect to which it is subjected in analysis, i.e., when such intuitively perceived material erupts from the deeper layers of the psyche and intrudes into the sphere of consciousness, it tends to acquire the ap­ pearance of an “occult phenomenon.” In such instances the occult medium experiences in a clairvoyant manner that which the analyst gradually deprives of all occult significance, by means of slow and cautious interpretations. Up to this point we have discussed the reactions of the analyst’s unconscious to the unconscious processes of the patient. The reverse of this process, i.e., the influence of the analyst upon the patient, was found to manifest itself in the form of certain disturbing influences which also seem to affect not so much the patient as the analyst himself, whose intuitive performance they tend to inhibit and even to paralyze altogether. Other types of influences which the analyst’s unconscious may exert upon the pa­ tient cannot be directly observed by the analyst himself. Let us assume, however, that it could be shown that the patient’s associations sometimes express the conscious thoughts of the analyst, i.e., thoughts which the analyst is able to control. Could such processes be demonstrated, they would prove the existence of telepathy, provided only that one had carefully excluded the possibility that any part of the analyst’s thought may have been con­ veyed to the patient by means of sense perceptions. Let us suppose, for instance, that the analyst’s interest in a certain problem suddenly resulted in the appearance of the looked-for material in the patient’s productions, or that the analyst’s internal, and supposedly well-concealed, impatience—which is due perhaps to the fact that other

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demands are being made upon him—suddenly brought the analyses of all of his patients to a standstill. The first of these phenomena could be reduced to the analyst’s antic­ ipatory ideas, while the latter would be due to an in­ crease in the acuteness of the patient’s capacity for ob­ servation. A wealth of other examples, all of which are reducible to a special state of the perceptual apparatus, could also be mentioned in this context. In the course of two analyses I found it possible to ob­ serve the establishment of a contact between my own conscious psychic material and the unconscious of the pa­ tient which circumvented the sensorium. The analytic in­ vestigation of these peculiar psychological phenomena yielded results so highly characteristic that they strike me as being worthy of publication. The first case is that of a male patient, who had been in analysis for several months. One day, while recounting the events of the preceding day, he in­ formed me that one of his feminine acquaintances, who lived abroad, had just become engaged. This event, which was a matter of indifference to the pa­ tient, elicited a strong affective reaction in me, be­ cause the groom-to-be had played an important role in the fate of a person who was quite close to me. Consequently—and contrary to analytic rules—the focus of my attention began to shift from the patient to the news which he had given me. Naturally, I did not tell him that I had a personal interest in these tidings. In fact, I feel confident that I have not per­ mitted any impression of my interest to reach the patient’s conscious. Yet, as if to satisfy my personal interest in this matter, the patient himself soon made this engagement the pivot of his analysis. Day after day I waited breathlessly for further news about this event, and, day after day, the patient brought me just what I wanted. I wish to stress once more that neither before nor after these events had my patient’s female acquaintance played any role whatsoever in my life. In addition, the groom himself was totally unknown to the patient. Yet, as if complying with my “invita­ tion,” the patient contrived to initiate an intensive exchange of letters with the bride-to-be, and thus managed to become her confidant. This enabled him to obtain information about every detail of this love relationship. The outcome of this was that the analy­

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sis seemed to go on the rocks. I could save the analy­ sis only by suppressing my own curiosity This en­ abled me to find a way around the obstacle which I myself had placed in the path of further progress. Analysis eventually disclosed the following facts The lady in question, who, until then, had not interested the patient in the least, had suddenly become the object of his erotic fantasies. At the same time the lady’s fiance became the patient’s bitterly hated rival. The patient’s interest in this matter was rooted in the unconscious wish to assume the role of the “injured third party ” Needless to say, the weird manner in which this “love” came into being was closely related to the transference situation, as is often the case when analysands “fall in love” during analysis. In addition, the lady was also identified with me, which meant that her fiance was brought into an erotic rela­ tionship with the analyst. Soon thereafter the patient brought into the analysis memories pertaining to the infantile prototype of this situation. As a child, the patient hated bitterly all men who seemed to interest his mother, because he was convinced that these men were his mother’s lovers. Hence, in the transference situation, the patient fantasied that my interest in this matter was an erotic one. He therefore attempted —just as he had done in the case of his mother—to win for himself my equivalent, i.e., the lady in ques­ tion. The original impetus behind this repetitive acting out of infantile material was completely unknown to the patient. It was clear to me, however, that my own intensive interest had communicated itself to his unconscious, which had been listening all along for just this kind of material. This discovery was then subjected to a secondary elaboration in the patient’s unconscious. The material was, first of all, linked with infantile material, and was then provided with an outlet in the form of the “acting out” described above. This complicated endopsychic performance was then interpolated between the starting point of the “telepathic process,” as represented by my wish to obtain certain information, and the terminal point of the process, which consisted in the gratification of my wish by the patient. The underlying motiva­ tion of this phenomenon, as reflected by this endopsy­ chic process, could only be unraveled by analysis. As

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to the patient’s motivation, it was, in turn, rooted on the one hand in the analytic transference, and on the other hand in the affinity between my con­ scious wish and certain memory traces present in the patient’s psyche. The second incident came about in the following manner: On the eve of my eighth wedding anniver­ sary I was intensively preoccupied with thoughts concerning this occasion, and felt that this day should be celebrated in some way. I noted, however, that due to my day-long professional obligations, thoughts about my own personal affairs could come to the fore only during the last hour of my workday. After the hour I felt that my preoccupation with my own problems had greatly impaired my attentiveness dur­ ing the last hour I therefore prepared myself for admittedly deserved reproaches, which this woman patient, who was very sensitive to slights of this kind, was sure to heap upon me the next day. Before I go any further, I wish to stress that there was nothing in the appearance or atmosphere of my house to suggest that an anniversary was in the offing, and that no one outside my immediate family knew of this event. Last, but not least, the patient, who hap­ pened to be a foreigner, knew no one acquainted with me. The next day the patient began her hour by telling me her dream of the previous night, which went as follows: A family is celebrating its eighth wedding anniversary. The couple is sitting at a round table. “She” is very sad, and the husband is angry and irritated. Already in her dream, the patient knows that the sadness of the woman is due to her childless­ ness. Though married for years, the woman is still childless, and now she knows that she must forever abandon this hope. Analysis disclosed that the physi­ cal setting of the dream was the result of a conden­ sation of my office with the living room of the pa­ tient’s parents. Associations revealed that the woman who, in the dream, was celebrating her wedding an­ niversary, was the product of a series of identifica­ tions between the patient, the patient’s mother and myself. Because of recurrent miscarriages, the pa­ tient, who had been married for three years, felt that her strong desire for a child was doomed to be frustrated. She had had a miscarriage even during

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her analysis, and we already knew that her psy­ chologically determined childlessness was intimately linked with the fate of her oedipus complex. She was the oldest of six siblings born at regular inter­ vals. In the eighth year of her marriage, and already surrounded by a large brood, the patient’s mother terminated her reproductive activities. The patient’s own childlessness was the result of a neurotic reac­ tion to the pregnancies and deliveries of her mother. The dream identification between herself and her mother was determined by the wish that the father, instead of giving further children to the mother, should give them to the patient herself, so that she could take the place of her mother The structure of the transference situation was responsible for the fact that I too was fitted into this situation. In fact, the dream was organically connected with the trans­ ference. Is it, however, sheer coincidence that the patient had this dream precisely on my eighth wed­ ding anniversary, and that my thoughts during the preceding analytic hour were mirrored in the mani­ fest content of the dream? It is my impression that, in this instance too, conditions of transference and identification, similar to those obtaining in the first case, established a relationship between my con­ scious thoughts and the unconscious of the patient. Here too the unconscious behaved like a sensitive resonator, ready to respond to that portion of the psychic material of another person which is closely related to certain strong unconscious urges of the receiving person. In this instance too this readiness, which is determined by some definite factor, enabled the patient’s psychic apparatus to receive certain im­ pressions by means other than those of conscious per­ ception. These directly observed occurrences seem to indicate that there are excitations which, although they do not stimulate sense impressions, nonetheless produce in the psychic sphere reactions similar to those they would have produced had they stimulated the organism by material means. Thus, in the instances just mentioned, analysts will readily see that consciously perceived impressions would have affected the unconscious in the same way in which the unconscious was affected in the absence of all such impressions. Indeed, it is a well-known fact that the trans­

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153 ference induces the patient to accept eagerly each of the analyst’s acts, and that, as in the preceding instances, these acts are then subjected to a characteristic elaboration, and reappear eventually in fantasies and in dreams. In both of our cases the situation had certain very distinctive aspects. Things happened as though the system Conscious had suddenly become transparent, and as if an occurrence in the perceptual apparatus had communicated itself di­ rectly to the lower layers. In both cases it was possible to demonstrate the presence of infantile-affective factors in the psychic reaction, which mobilized “something” ac­ tual, though inaccessible to the conscious, which was then elaborated in a very specific manner. In the first case we are dealing with a reawakening of infantile jealousy in the transference, and, in the second case, with the re­ nouncing of an infantile wish. These processes were stim­ ulated by external factors, which could find an outlet only in the deeper layers of psychic life. Only after the unconsciously perceived material had acquired an adequate degree of intensity, by becoming linked with unconscious wish impulses, could it intrude into the conscious. At the same time, the connection between this material and ex­ ternal influences was lost, because this material had not been received in the usual form of sense impressions. Potzl has shown that genuine sense impression, which had not become true conscious percepts, later on return in fantasies and in dreams, and thus prove the reality of their impact.1 It is also known that, under the sway of emo­ tions, we can either strengthen, or else lose altogether, certain conscious capacities. Thus, our emotions some­ times make us negate altogether something which is fully accessible to our perceptions. (Negative hallucinations.) However, this does not prevent our unconscious or preconscious from incorporating these perceptions, which, later on, they utilize, whenever it seems expedient to do so, by circumventing the conscious. However, in such cases we always deal with impressions which have the inherent capacity of being perceived consciously. By contrast, in our two cases the thoughts transferred from me to the patient did not possess the capacity of affecting the sense organs. If we assume that my conscious thought had transformed itself into some motor excitation—and this xOtto Potzl, “Experimentell erregte Traumbilder in ihren Beziehungen zum direkten Sehen.” Zeitschrift fur die gesamie Neurologic und Psychiatric, 37:278-349, 1917.

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assumption seems a legitimate one—the intensity of thi3 excitation was certainly so minimal that it could not have stimulated the human sense organs. It is also quite true that a psychic process had acquired within me the value of an action, but the nature of this action was such that it had to remain inaccessible to sense perception. Only if this kind of message, which emanates from the external world, meets in the deeper layers of the psychic apparatus impulses to which it is related either through its capacity to fulfill a wish, or through some other emo. tional motive, does an associative linking and strengthen­ ing of both of these influences take place. Then, as iu dreams or certain other well-known processes, these mes­ sages manifest themselves as conscious thoughts. In such cases the analytic technique of free associations often suc­ ceeds in finding the connecting link between stimulus and reaction. Our cases suggest that this connecting link is usually a complicated endopsychic process, which in­ volves the assimilation of perceptions with one’s own psy­ chic material. The capacity of this material of being per­ ceived entails, in turn, the possibility of an “unconscious perception,” in that something, which does not seem ac­ cessible to the sensorium, is nonetheless fitted into the psychic structure. In other words, although external per­ ception does not occur, the external influence can, under certain conditions, turn into an “inner perception.” In that form it can be communicated to the perceiving ego. The transformation of such messages emanating from the external world into inner perception is made possible by the identity of the psychic content of both the subject and the object. In the analytic situation, the identity of the analyst’s unconscious with that of the analysand finds ex­ pression in “analytic intuition.” It must be admitted that in these two cases, which I myself have observed, there occurred an identification of my conscious with the pa­ tient’s unconscious. However, here too this transforma­ tion of the “inner perception” must have corresponded to an intuitive process. In both instances the conscious content, which was com­ municated to me by the patients, had already been sub­ jected to a secondary elaboration. Hence, its original derivation from the external world could no longer be recognized by the patients themselves. The “telepathic” na­ ture of the process could only reveal itself to me. We may also suppose that, under certain conditions, the establishment of this identity—the transformation of the

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external message into an “inner” perception, respectively ^_can also take place without an extensive modification of the content thereof, so that, even though the conscious receives the message from the deeper layers of the psyche, its content is nonetheless completely identical with that portion of the external world from which the stimulus emanated in the first place. If this identity is recognized by the sensorium, the pro­ cess acquires the appearance of an “occult phenomenon,” because the perception emanating from within is im­ mediately reprojected into the external world. This process differs from the processs underlying projection in halluci­ nations only in so far that its content is actually identical with the real content of the field upon which the idea is projected. The receiving medium knows nothing of the complicated internal processes which preceded this event. The medium believes in the reality value of his projections just as the psychotic believes in that of his hallucinations. The difference between the two lies in the fact that the environment recognizes the reality value of the medium’s projections, because objective reality and the content of the projection which had been structured by reality hap­ pen to be congruent. This last hypothesis has to be further verified by analyt­ ic experience. However, analytic experience already indi­ cates that “occult phenomena” are a manifestation of a greatly strengthened intuition, which is rooted in the un­ conscious affective process of identification. The two cases discussed above have shown us how such a “phenomenon” can come into being. By contrast, an­ other case observed by me had a more impressively “oc­ cult” character.

In the course of analysis the liberation of libidinal forces caused a hitherto strongly inhibited female pa­ tient to fall violently in love with an obviously un­ suitable love object. Constant renunciations, necessi­ tated by the love object’s incapacity to love, made this strong and passionate relationship regress to a process of identification. The patient gradually re­ nounced most of her emotional and intellectual per­ sonality in favor of this identification. One might even go so far as to say that she thought the thoughts of her love object, felt his emotions, and, thus, partly compensated herself for the inadequate reciproca­ tion of her feedings. When the love object suddenly

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broke off the relationship, the process of identification became extraordinarily intensified. She now mobih ized all her psychic forces in an attempt to retain this object within herself—if not in reality, then at least through identification. This enabled her to achieve a kind of continued togetherness with the lost love object. The patient further supplemented this process of introjection by building also a real bridge between herself and the man she loved. In other words, by means of a discreet but incessant watchfulness, she managed to keep herself fully in­ formed of all aspects of this man’s life. Thus, with­ out seeming to intrude, she followed his every step. She developed a truly superb capacity for com­ bining the various details which she discovered into a fully developed and continuous whole. Thus, I had the impression that she knew even before the man himself had become aware of it, that his previously platonic relationship with another woman had now acquired an erotic tinge. This insight seems to have been made possible by the fact that she re-experi­ enced internally each of the man’s actions with an intensity which greatly transcended the man’s own emotional capacities. One evening she sat at home in a state of utter despair, secluded from the world, and totally domi­ nated by a single emotion. The last scraps of news which had reached her seemed to indicate that the man in question was planning a tryst with his girl friend. Her imagination followed the man’s actions step by step. She fantasied that, under a certain pretext, he had managed to induce his girl friend’s mother to leave the house. She then depicted to her­ self the courtship which would precede the man’s sexual advances. At a certain hour, which the pa­ tient was able to name, she experienced with halluci­ natory clarity the love scene between these two per­ sons. The gradual building up of the situation to its climax was performed in a state of semiconscious­ ness, and became wholly conscious only during her next analytic hour. Fascinated by the patient’s statements, I attempted to investigate this matter. My acquaintance with my patient’s rival enabled me to obtain proof that the real events and the internal experiences of my pa­ tient were in perfect concordance. The entire pre-

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conscious combinatory chain of thoughts was shown to have been correct. The hallucinated events had, indeed, taken place at the time mentioned by the patient, and in precisely the manner in which she had described them to me. The patient herself was fully aware of the fact that the hallucination corresponded to her own innner knowledge, which was projected into the external world. However, unlike other hal­ lucinations, this “knowledge” was not an unconscious process, but a superb combinatory feat, which trans­ cended the limits of the “normal” and was fed by libidinal energies. The patient derived her “suprasensory gift” from the process of identification, which also dominated her conscious thinking. The sequelae of this “telepathic” experience are also of interest in connection with the problem under consideration. From this day onward the patient abandoned her pursuit of Mr. X, because, having discovered her internal telepathic nexus with him, she believed herself to be closely connected with her love object. At this juncture she brought into the analysis a whole series of telepathic dreams, which “revealed” to her various events of Mr. X’s life. My further inquiries showed, however, that at this point her telepathic “knowledge” had failed her completely. Analysis did disclose, however, that the dream events, which purportedly referred to her love object, actual­ ly reflected every detail of her infantile experiences with her brother Thus, the things she professed to have “telepathically” perceived in dream did, indeed, correspond to a reality, but this reality was one which had been preserved in the form of unconscious mem­ ory traces, and which had been recently reactivated. Her recent disappointments in love had set into mo­ tion a regressive process, and caused her to re-expe­ rience, in connection with her recent love object, that which had taken place originally in connection with an infantile love object. This temporal displace­ ment, from the past to the present, and from the old love object to the new one, caused her dreams to acquire an allegedly telepathic character. If we believe in the continuity and causality of psychic life, and if we do not deny the very real powers of the repetition compulsion, then we must also accept psychic “predestination” and must recognize in the constructive

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forces thereof one of the sources of prophetic inspiration. I believe that, by making a certain kind of object choice, this patient actually contrived to be disappointed in love, and, thus, unconsciously utilized in her “occult knowledge” that which she had previously experienced in connection with her brother. Be that as it may, analytic experiences confirm that “occult” powers are to be sought in the depth of psychic life, and that psychoanalysis is destined to clarify this problem in the same manner in which it has previously clarified other “mysterious” happenings in the human psyche.

PART II

A Beginning Science: Observations and Overviews

8 PSI and Psychology:

Conflict and Solution * J. B. RHINE

A parapsychologist who reviews the history of psy­ chology since the founding of the American Psychological Association must be expected to give main attention to the controversy between these two areas of study, a con­ troversy that has endured more or less continuously throughout a seventy-five year period. The issue could not possibly be avoided, it is one of the outstanding clashes in the history of science. I shall attempt, therefore, to outline the vigorous contest that has lasted down through this period (which I shall divide into four sections * three sections of twenty years each and one of fifteen years) and try to find an explanation and a possible solution.

First Twenty Years:

1892-1911

Two Meetings in 1892 The review must begin, of course, with the historic meeting called in 1892 by President G. Stanley Hall at *This paper was an invited address given on September 4, 1967, at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Associa­ tion in Washington, D. C., under the title “A Parapsychologist Reviews Seventy-Five Years of Psychology.” It was sponsored by the Division for Old Age and Maturity. The Chairman was Dr. Robert Kastenbaum. An adapted version of the paper was also presented as the dinner address at the Foundation Day Review Meeting held by the Institute for Parapsychology in Durham on September 1, 1967 It was first published in the June, 1968, issue of the Journal of Parapsychology.

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Clark University, at which twenty-six psychologists met and organized the APA, an organization which last year numbered a thousand times the size of the original group. The emphasis at the founders’ meeting naturally was ac£ demic and professional; it represented for the most part the American university world of psychology of that time. Although there were a number of men in the group (among them, William James, Josiah Royce, James Hy. slop, and Stanley Hall himself) who had already been active in the investigation of psychical research (as parapsychology was called at that time), there is no record that the subject was even mentioned in the organization of the as­ sociation. Hall’s interest had declined by then; but Hyslop was to give many of the later years of his life entirely to the American Society for Psychical Research, and James was to say years later that he thought the most important research of the next fifty years would be in that field. Quite evidently a lively enough interest remained with some of the APA founders, but psychical research just did not seem to belong to the schedule of academic psy­ chology as the organizers of the APA saw it. Psychology in American institutions had already taken shape along lines that did not include psychical research; and there is no indication that even its psychologist friends expected things to be otherwise. Interestingly enough, however, another psychological meeting occurred that same year in which psychical re­ search did figure rather prominently. The second conven­ tion was an international affair, a much larger one indeed, the Second International Congress of Psychology When it met at University College in London for three days in August of 1892, it too was a distinguished assembly, with an attendance of around three hundred. The psychologi­ cal leaders of the day were there in force. Von Helmholtz, Ebbinghaus, Hitzig, and Miinsterberg were among the Germans; Richet, Janet, Binet, and Bernheim were there, among others, from France. Four Americans read papers. Yet, odd as it may seem today, the man who presided over this notable gathering was none other than the President of the Society for Psychical Research himself, Professor Henry Sidgwick, the Cambridge philosopher. Nor was this any sort of mere accidental association. One of the leading events of the London convention was a psychical research report, Sidgwick’s own paper on the Census of Hallucinations, which he had been authorized to

J B. Rhine 163 prepare by the preceding Congress three years before. This was a systematic collection and analysis of reported hallucinations coincident with death, experiences suggest­ ing a telepathic basis of exchange. Some impression of the atmosphere of the Congress may be gathered from a quotation from Sidgwick’s later report to the SPR. “The severe taboo long imposed upon the subjects with which we deal has been tacitly removed. , , . We cannot but feel that this forward step has been achieved more rapidly than we had any good ground to expect.” Quite evidently, then, psychical research had its day in court at this international gathering of psycholo­ gists in London, even if the subject was not recognized at the APA meeting in Worcester.

Reactions and the Realities And yet, the impression Professor Sidgwick received was, as it turned out, more than a little overoptimistic. Nothing really important for parapsychology seems to have come of this day of recognition—nothing at least as far as the next twenty years of psychological history indicate on either side of the Atlantic. There were no recorded efforts of attempts by psychologists, even in Britain, to follow up the high recognition given the subject of psychical research in London. Brilliantly as the light of tolerant interest had shone for those three resplendent days, it seems in retrospect to have been a flash in the pan. Even in later international congresses, there was no fur­ ther recognition. Let us look for an explanation. Professor Sidgwick was a philosopher and did not represent British psychology. There is no indication that the psychologists of Britain were as much affected even as those in the U.S. by the psychical research movement—at least during the first twenty years under review. Their names do not appear in the reports of publications of the SPR of London, and neither do those of the psychologists from the Continent. The fact is, however, that there were other university scholars who did pursue psychical research on both sides of the Atlantic during these years; and this suggests that psychology, as a new field, was not prepared to handle these difficult borderline claims. This reserve seems, on the whole, reasonable enough. Psychology was having a hard time making its own way in the universities in the shadow of better established

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branches of science. Psychologists needed to work with something that could be nicely measured under controllable conditions and would give results that could be readily reproduced from one laboratory to another One sees from Stanley Hall’s account of Wundt’s academic difficulties and his own memory of how much his first laboratory had been on trial at Johns Hopkins that the new science was quite on the defensive. The individual psychologist, like the psychology profession as a whole, was seeking acceptance. He needed to choose his ground with care and confine himself to research material that was manageable. The case material of psychical research represented by the Census of Hallucinations was not, as everyone can agree, the type to impress experimental psychologists. The parapsychologist himself does not claim for such case ma­ terial sufficient reliability to warrant final conclusions, valuable and even essential though it is in its rightful place and use. But even the experiments that had been conducted in psychical research for a decade or more be­ fore 1892 would also have presented difficulties for the academic psychologist. Professor Charles Richet’s experi­ ments with his hypnotized subject, Leonie, will suitably il­ lustrate the point. Richet had been testing Leonie for clairvoyant ability (ESP of concealed, objective targets) The targets used were playing cards, each one enclosed in an opaque envelope, and the rate of success shown by the subject’s guesses was evaluated by means of the mathe­ matics of probability. The methods were in principle gen­ erally commendable and the results significant. But when Richet was invited to demonstrate Leonie in England and attempted to do so, she failed in that country to reproduce the impressive results she had given in Paris. Whatever Leonie’s capacity actually was, it turned out to be more elusive than Richet had supposed. The ability being tested did not lend itself to the easy demonstration which a new academic science in the competitive university world would have required at the time. The type of handicap illustrated by Richet’s case was by no means all that psychical research had to contend with. Such claims as that of clairvoyance were identified with strange cults (e.g., spiritualism) which were difficult to take seriously, even apart from academic restraint. Clairvoyance was an ability claimed by the spiritualist medium; investigation of the former was associated with the latter. Accordingly, while a physicist like Sir William

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Barrett, a psychiatrist like Pierre Janet, or a philosopher like Sidgwick could openly take part in such investigations, the university psychologist at the turn of the century, trying to walk the straight and narrow path of his new science, felt much less free to wander off into this occult hinterland. A backward glance over this first period reveals one point that seems especially worth making * The relations between psychology in the universities and the parapsy­ chology of the societies for psychical research were fairly normal. There were some criticisms by psychologists, but there were defenders, too, much as between any two branches of inquiry. There was no great display of philo­ sophical antagonism and rejection. One gets the impres­ sion that if parapsychology had been ready with easily reproduced test demonstrations of any single one of its phenomena, the entree into academic psychology would have met with no serious opposition from any quarter. The professional minds were still rather widely open; no fixed and firm lines of the image of psychology had yet been drawn. The abilities under study in psychical re­ search, however, were not such as to lend themselves to an easy approach. Only a few of the more independent men of the period, such as James and McDougall (who were perhaps less academically oriented than most psy­ chologists, in any case) could see far enough ahead to re­ serve in their charts of human nature a place, at that state, for such elusive phenomena.

Second Twenty Years:

1912-1931

Psychology of the Period The second twenty years of APA history roughly repre­ sent another stage in the history of psychology, and a dif­ ferent type of period for psychical research as well. It was a time of considerable change and upheaval in Ameri­ can psychology, what with the Watsonian rebellion, the landing of McDougall at Harvard Yard, the phenomenal rise of psychotechnologies and specializations, and the in­ filtration of new European schools and movements in psychology All these developments made for a distur­ bance of ideas and a babel of new jargons that broke up the relative complacency of the first two decades of the APA. Under such abnormal conditions things could hap-

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pen to the academic departments of psychology that would earlier have been unthinkable.

Psychical Research Gains Admittance It was then that psychical research began to penetrate psychology departments, and it did so in quite a number of universities, here and abroad. Coover conducted experi­ ments in telepathy and clairvoyance at Stanford; Munsterberg, Troland, and Estabrooks did telepathy tests at Harvard, as did Stratton at California and Titchener at Cornell; Heymans and Brugmans did likewise at Groning­ en. There were others as well—over a dozen of the bestknown names could be rounded up—so that by the end of the period, in 1931, one might hopefully (and with much more reason than Sidgwick had had forty years earlier) have expected that parapsychology was at last successfully invading the academic departments of psy­ chology. The test results obtained were good enough for that period to justify continued interest. More than half of the reported studies gave adequately significant evi­ dence of one or the other of the two types of ESP ability investigated. Most of them had to do with the guessing of playing cards or other target objects the results of which were relatively easy to evaluate by familiar, acceptable mathematical methods. The test conditions were, on the whole, as good and as well guarded as the experimental psychology of the time was prepared to make them. And yet, as it turned out, something was seriously wrong, individually and in general. The ESP invasion of the already well-established departments of psychology was definitely not a success. There was no adequate con­ tinuity about any single one of these separate investiga­ tions. It is true, Coover had a laboratory for psychical research and continued, even after 1931, to give lipservice courses with that name, but he was effectively through with the subject after publishing his results in 1917 In fact, in his report it looks as if he deliberately hid the acceptable (by present standards) significance of his findings under a camouflage of statistical obscurity (He is known to have been under great pressure.) At Harvard, Troland did not obtain significant results; but both Munsterberg and Estabrooks did. The latter offered very strong evidence (much stronger, as later analysis showed, than he himself realized), but he failed to get confirmatory results later, at another institution, when he

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turned the experiment over to an assistant. Brugmans too gave up psychical research when his subject seemingly lost his ability. These are some of the individual examples of the widespread failure to continue with the ESP re­ search efforts in this twenty-year period in which psy­ chology opened up for a time to the claims of psychical research.

Insuperable Difficulties Encountered Obviously, psychology, with its greater security, was at least a little more open than before to the investigation of the problems of psychical research, but the latter branch of inquiry was still not ready for the new opportunities offered. It is true some good work was done in these un­ dertakings; some minor advances in method were made. For example, in the tests allowing for the possibility of telepathy (GESP tests), different rooms were used (e.g., by Brugmans and Estabrooks) for the sender looking at a card and the receiver attempting to identify it. Unselected volunteer subjects were used by Estabrooks; Coover used his psychology classes. But the idea of recognizing the psychological peculiarities of the ability under test had not come sufficiently into focus. ESP was still lumped off with the other mental abilities being tested; that is to say, it was treated as something always readily available and only waiting to be caught by the simple administration of a test. Had the capacity actually been comparable, let us say, to memory or learning, parapsychology would pre­ sumably have remained in the psychology departments of the university world where it had already gained these openings. But ESP was not so easily handled. The timing was premature. Also, unfortunately, considerable extramural pressure was exerted to induce acceptance of psychical research. The issue was in some cases forced upon a psychology department by popular interest in the claims of spiritual­ ism. Such influence was felt in several ways. In the American universities money for research was a factor. Wealthy people interested in spiritualism made gifts to Stanford, Harvard, Clark, Pennsylvania, and other insti­ tutions to encourage psychical research. The interest of the public was very strong, and persons of prestige and influence in some cases publicly espoused the spiritualist cause. The societies for psychical research organized lay interest in the claims and helped to bring more attention

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to the problem than the methods, the available research workers, and their capabilities could sustain. The outcome is more understandable today than it was then. The great project of proving the existence of “Jife after death” seemed compellingly simple to the lay mind as well as to many scholars; and the question was, of course, incomparably important. The same science that lauded Darwin for helping to solve the mystery of the origin of man could not easily be excused from looking at evidence on the question of his post-mortem destiny— especially when persons like James, Hyslop, and McDou­ gall in psychology and men of like stature in other sciences were willing to concede that it was at least worthy of study. Besides, it seemed then that it should be easy to do telepathy tests in the psychology laboratory Telepathy was a key concept, equally so for those who favored as for those who opposed the hypothesis of spirit communi­ cation through mediums. The very concept of spirit con­ tact assumed a basis of telepathic exchange; it was mere­ ly telepathy with the dead instead of the living. Even those who were attempting to refute the claims of the spiritists clung to the counterhypothesis that the medium could be obtaining her information by telepathic exchange with living persons instead of the discarnate. Telepathic ability was therefore of central importance to both sides of this issue, which was itself one of the great intellectual questions of the period. But all the pressure and support of public interest, even though reinforced with financial help, were not enough to make up for the difficulties I have mentioned as inherent in the research itself. Again, just as in the preceding period, the academic culture of the day was evidently still tolerant enough to permit these ventures into psychical research; there was still no significant display of philo­ sophical bias against it. But tolerance, though certainly advantageous, was not enough by itself. Research has to succeed if it is to sustain interest, encourage workers, and receive support and approval. When it is too difficult for successful exploration, the problems, however important, fall into neglect. We can see better today that parapsy­ chology was awaiting a combination of special conditions that the period of the first forty years of APA history plainly failed to provide. In the light of present under­ standing it is hard to see any way in which it could have succeeded during this period in holding a place in the

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academic world, either in psychology or, for that matter, in any other department of science. It was simply not ready for the demands of the academic arena.

Third Twenty Years:

1932-1951

The third section of APA history was a more settled period of psychology in America than the preceding one, a time marked by rapid growth in numbers as well as increased diversification of research and more widely ex­ tended application. It was, also, of course, the period that included World War II, from which came the heavy in­ volvement of psychological services as it reached into broad areas of human life and action. Debate over schools of psychology declined, and a more open-minded interest in new developments was shown. It was a comparatively good time to introduce parapsychology, provided a strong and dependable case could be made for it.

Parapsychology at Duke This third score of years of APA history covers the main part of the development of parapsychology at Duke. Al­ ready in the fall of 1927 McDougall had moved there from Harvard, and there, too, my wife and I had gone, intending to work under him for a time. What followed then in North Carolina has been reported elsewhere and needs to be outlined here only inasfar as it relates to the interaction of parapsychology with psychology This does call, however, for a brief tracing of the development of parapsychology during this period when it so closely cen­ tered in and around the Department of Psychology at Duke. In 1926, Professor McDougall, in his Clark University address entitled “Psychical Research as a University Study,” had urged that this subject be encouraged within the universities. The fact that this attitude was also shared by the founding president of Duke, Dr William Preston Few, made that institution an unusually favorable center for such study. In addition to this, the very newness of the University, as well as the already liberal tradition which the school had inherited from Trinity College, gave an air of intellectual freedom and adventure that was exceptional. Both in and out of the Department of Psychology, which I was invited to join, the fullest co-operation was given to the work attempted in the field of psychical research, and

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this persisted undiminished throughout the seven years of preparation leading up to the first publication of results.

Publication and Consequences. The situation changed however, in 1934 as soon as the results were published’ The first report was my monograph, Extrasensory Perception, describing the first six years of initial experimenta­ tion. The main point reached in this modest, obscurely published volume was the conclusion that extrasensory perception had been found in some carefully controlled experimental tests (along with many more freely explora­ tory series). The conditions used in the better tests of clairvoyance were regarded as the more conclusive part of the findings. The card-guessing techniques which were the basis of the tests were not in themselves novel, and the mathematics of probability applied to the results was standard procedure. The various types of precautions that had been taken against sensory cues, such as the use of wooden screens and opaque envelopes and, in some ex­ periments, separate rooms and different buildings, em­ phasized progressive safeguarding on that problem and by now are more or less familiar. There were, however, some features that were, at the time, a little more unusual; for example, the introduction of a two-experimenter plan which gave the additional as­ surance of essentially “double-blind” accuracy. Also, the standards of acceptable significance of the results were above those used in other sciences. The main difference be­ tween the Duke results and all that had preceded them was their rather steady six-year continuity and also the impression the work gave of being a vigorous, on-going program of university psychical research. The world, the university, and the psychology profession had not had to consider the like hitherto. An impact such as parapsy­ chology had never made before was now being experi­ enced. A still further sign of the permanence of this intrusion was given when, in 1937, the Journal of Parapsychology was established. The Journal soon became the main edu­ cational instrument of the field and in the course of time took on some features that improved its role. One of the first of these was the Board of Review, appointed in 1938 and composed of nine critical American psychologists who were willing to read and evaluate all papers before publi­ cation. Following that unwieldy and short-lived plan, came the appointment of one, and later two, competent mathe-

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maticians to the staff for the pre-publication screening of a1l statistical papers. In these and other ways, a systematic effort was being made not only to advance the study of ESP on sound lines, but also to meet each challenge to its reliability as it arose. New research developments, of course, reinforced the early work by adding more evidence and advancing it to stronger positions. For example, reports of precognition tests began to appear in 1938 and they completely re­ moved what had been a major issue in the debate over clairvoyance testing: the counterhypothesis of sensory cues. In the new experiments, ESP was found to operate as well on a target order that was not merely hidden from view but which did not even exist anywhere at the time of the test. Then there appeared, in 1940, the book Extrasensory Perception After Sixty Years, a volume that rounded up all the experimental evidence of ESP to date, along with all the criticisms thus far recorded. For this book the seven leading critics of parapsychology among the psy­ chologists were asked to contribute their critiques on the material assembled. Only three of the seven accepted the invitation. Their criticisms were answered in the book. From that time on, open criticism of parapsychological research dropped off almost completely and the research was able to move ahead with greater freedom. So firm was the internal security of the Duke center and such the stability of the research methods and findings that the program did not waver; there was even some continuing progress. Principal Findings. As a matter of fact, the actual findings of this research period at Duke and elsewhere were substantial, although only the broader lines can be indicated here. First, parapsychology began to take defi­ nite shape as a field and to assume outlines of an orga­ nized whole. The loosely connected types of phenomena that were being studied began to show lawful interrelation and even a degree of unity. An acceptable definition was found for parapsychology as well as a clearly distinguish­ able boundary. One by one the major claims which had been based originally only upon spontaneous human ex­ periences were subjected to laboratory test and experi­ mentally verified. Independent confirmations, both in and out of the Duke center, followed in the course of this period.

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Simplest to handle experimentally was the hypothesis of clairvoyance; it was naturally the first type of ESP to be investigated because it was the easiest to be adequately established and confirmed. Telepathy was the type most familiar to the public, but this hypothesis required much greater complication of experimental design than clair­ voyance. With two subjects to control, the precautions had to be very much more elaborate. In fact, a telepathy test was so complicated that a proper experiment had never before been carried out. The first distinctive test of telepathy—that is, one that excluded other types of ESP—came with the Duke work of this period. Next in line for attack was the claim of precognition, or ESP of the future. The original tests have since gone through many stages of advancement and have reached a level of methodological control unsurpassed in any divi­ sion of behavioral study. This advantage, along with the ready convenience of the techniques, has made it the most extensively used psi research method in the field to­ day. Last of all the types was PK (psychokinesis), or “the direct action of mind on matter,” as Charcot originally defined it. This claim lent itself to easy laboratory testing through the use of dice-throwing techniques which yielded results so objectively conclusive that the Laboratory in 1945 published an invitation to any qualified scientific committee to examine the evidence for themselves. The mere fact that the invitation is still unaccepted is a suf­ ficient rebuke to the critics. Still more important than the findings in each area were the relationships between them, i.e., the impression of lawfulnesss which the results gave and which extended from one research to another as a broader picture emerged. After a time, certain general characteristics of the psi process stood out, the most revealing of all being the subjects’ lack of conscious control over all the types of psi ability. This observation meant that it occurred un­ consciously, a fact which accounted for its elusive nature. After that discovery, it seemed an important step just to be able to measure effectively and quantitatively a gen­ uinely unconscious mental process. It was new method­ ological ground even for psychology. Again, it was surprising to find psi ability to be wide­ spread, most probably even a specific human capacity instead of being confined to a few rare individuals as had been the popular belief. Likewise, the observation that

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psi was not linked with illness or abnormality was another advance. Most significant of all, however, at this stage of our culture, was the cumulative evidence that psi communica­ tion simply does not show any of those physical relations to the target common to sensorimotor exchange. The case for precognition more definitely sealed the evidence of this fact which had accrued from the other branches of the research. Thus there appeared for the first time in history a sharp experimental challenge to the pervading belief (a sort of intuitive conviction) that man is entirely physical. Difficulties and Developments, Confirmation of such a new finding as psi was of course crucial to its survival. Even before 1892, however, it was known that psi-testing was difficult. It was still not easy in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Some of those even at Duke who attempted to get results were unable to do so, while others under the same condi­ tions and with the same subjects were significantly suc­ cessful. The general tendency at first was to treat the capacity like any other ability, but such an approach al­ most invariably failed to produce anything but chance results for certain experimenters. In order to manifest psi, most subjects had to be motivated, put at ease, allowed to concentrate, and to be given helpful, suggestive, and sometimes challenging instructions. The subject-experimen­ ter relationship was found to be important. Gradually, however, enough discerning and qualified workers (including some psychologists) undertook the ex­ periments to supply a marginally adequate basis of con­ firmation for the work initiated at Duke. In some of these cases, even a higher rate of scoring than that of the Duke work was produced, and some advances were made also on the side of methodology. After a time, the original idea that specially gifted subjects were necessary for sig­ nificant research was modified and played down. The use of such subjects did favor the production of high scoring rates, but it greatly confined the research to the few ex­ perimenters who were fortunate enough to find the rare individual. For a number of additional reasons, the re­ search at Duke turned early to the use of all volunteers available and to reliance upon lower rates of scoring from a larger number of subjects. This procedure paid off comparatively well, at the same time a few indi­ vidual experimenters continued to look for exceptionally

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high scorers, while one or two others even attempted to produce them through training. Naturally, an early search was begun for psychological correlates of psi ability, and a profitable yield of results was obtained, much too rich and complicated for survey here. With this and other explorations attempting to link psi with other fields, a healthy young science was already emerging by 1951 as the period ended. Its territory and definition were clear enough: no one who took a fair and objective look at psi phenomena at all maintained that the extrasensorimotor was sensorimotor. The major claims of the field deriving from case studies had been verified experimentally and had been independently confirmed. Its findings rested upon no single research center, or school, or country, or profession. To be sure, there were still many great mysteries as in other branches of science, and parapsychology still lacked a verifiable theory of the fun­ damental function involved—but so, too, did psychology. What counted most was that psi research was continuing fairly steadily and even showing some progress. Centered at Duke, a sustained and forthright effort was being made to keep psi research going, to meet the criticisms, and to develop methods that others could follow. There were many independent repetitions, not only in the U.S.A, but in Western Europe as well. Gardner Murphy, already well oriented in his own independent interest, began ESP work at Columbia and later supported Gertrude Schmeid­ ler in her work at the College of the City of New York. Lucien Warner at New York University, Dorothy Martin and Frances Stribic at Colorado, Hans Bender at Bonn, Whately Carington and S. G. Soal in Britain, along with many others, confirmed the case for ESP, adding new in­ dependent findings of their own in so doing.

Reactions of Psychologists What responses were the psychologists making to these findings? When the monograph Extrasensory Perception appeared in 1934, the profession showed a lively interest. While some psychologists were justifiably annoyed by the sensationalism given to the findings by popular writers (over whom no control could be exercised), there was for the most part little about which to complain. It is true, a few old-timers such as Joseph Jastrow and McKeen Cattell, who had (with some good reason) been critical of psychical research now and then in their own writings,

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175 registered skepticism of the new work, but only in vague generalities. Even the foremost behaviorists, whose views perhaps most definitely clashed with the findings of para­ psychology, took a fair, if not friendly, interest. Karl Lashley told me that he once sat up all night guessing cards. Even John B. Watson expressed an interest in a copy of the book, “ESP-60” Hunter actually initiated some experiments at Clark, in which he and his wife took part. Knight Dunlap told me he went through five hun­ dred packs of ESP test cards himself. The point is not whether any of these people convinced themselves or were satisfied by the evidence that ESP occurs, but that they were not so close-minded they would not look or listen. Also, a number of surveys were made (notably by Lucien Warner and C. C. Clark) as to psychologists’ opin­ ions of ESP; and while very few psychologists were found ready to accept the findings, the percentages were over­ whelmingly positive on the question of whether the field was a legitimate one for science. Eighty-seven per cent were affirmative in the first survey. Even at the three uni­ versities (Stanford, Harvard, and Clark) where there was still unused money for psychical research, and where one might expect to find special reluctance to acknowledge the subject, there were psychologists who paid some attention to the ESP work. E. G. Boring once told me he had considered inviting me to Harvard for a year to conduct my researches there, and at least two psychologists from Stanford served for a time on the Board of Review that helped in the criticism of papers before publication in the Journal of Parapsychology. Even though they may all have expected to help me discover the errors they sus­ pected I had fallen into, this was not unfriendly co-opera­ tion. This did not mean, however, that parapsychology was at all settled in the field of psychology at this time. The 1934 and later publications did bring many criticisms, rather gentle and objective at first, and later more vigor­ ous in tone. The statistics were assailed for a while, but in 1937 there came the well-known release, by the Presi­ dent of the American Institute for Mathematical Statis­ tics at the meeting of their Institute, endorsing the sta­ tistics. That statement more or less ended the attacks on methods of evaluation. The next year, the APA held a round table at its Columbus meeting. Three psychologists criticized the methods, and three parapsychologists de­ fended them. Audience applause well indicated that the

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defenders had won the contest at least at that time and place. The huge crowd that filled the auditorium that day represented a large part of the psychology profession as it was in 1938. And yet, a dozen years later, as this period approached its close, it was evident that none of those hundreds of psychologists had returned to his university and set up the continuing research program in ESP which their massed attendance and response at the symposium might have led one to expect. There were a few colleges where psi research was being pursued by psychologists, the most outstanding being City College, New York, where Murphy himself was chairman of the psychology department. Here and there was a biologist, a physicist, or a psychiatrist doing something on psi, but the departments of psy­ chology on the university level in the U.S.A, were almost as bare of parapsychology in 1951 as when the period began. Even at Duke, by the time the period closed, the Lab­ oratory no longer had any connection with the Department of Psychology. As far back as 1934, immediately following the publication of the monograph, it became evident that the unexpected spontaneous notoriety the work at once received was not a healthy outcome for the department. My own natural reaction was to isolate the psi researches from the rest of the department; and with Professor Mc­ Dougall’s approval, I asked for a different name to iden­ tify my area of work. And so began the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke. Over the years the distance tended to widen between the Department and the Laboratory, and in 1950 I resigned my professorship, which was by then the only remaining bond with the Department of Psychol­ ogy. From then on until my formal retirement from the University (in 1965), parapsychology at Duke was entirely independent of psychology. But even as we in parapsychology took up our separate status on the Duke campus, no one thought in 1950 that McDougall’s dream of parapsychology as an integrated part of psychology was an illusion. The thought would have been, rather, that in due time, given the strengthening of the findings of parapsychology that is normally to be expected, psychology would be prepared to welcome the addition of psi research. As the saying went, the “para” was thought to be only a temporary “prefixation.” Many more psychologists were interested in parapsychology than ever before, even if only a few were doing research.

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It stood to reason that our findings had to belong even­ tually to a properly inclusive psychology of man.

Analysis of the Third Period What, then, was delaying that stage? First, there was the same old trouble of psi research, that it was much more difficult than work in other areas of psychology. Even in 1950, it was still hard to say just how a researcher could be certain he could get significant test results. There were still individuals, some of them mature, well-trained psychologists, who just did not succeed. (As a result they often became very critical of the successful work of oth­ ers.) But meanwhile an important development had taken place in the field of psychology itself. Its rapid growth as an established academic department naturally developed increased confidence in what “good psychology” really was. Any body of academic scientific workers naturally wants prestige, respectability, and the general approval of other groups. One of the ways to obtain these rewards is to avoid open interest in such far-out claims as psi communication. This is easier to do if they are also hard to verify, and much easier still, if, at the same time, the results challenge existing boundaries to knowledge—in short, are a bit revolutionary. While this conservatism has many good advantages for a professional field, it places a degree of restraint on the membership as the organization grows in power and influence. The individual who wants approval, advancement, and status tends to keep in line. There were many psychologists in this period who would admit of a private interest; some, too, who did worthwhile research they chose not to publish. But while this restraint was strongest with psychologists, it was by no means confined to them. It seems a normal enough professional group response. But even while this restrictive influence was growing with the very success of the professional organizations, the unrelenting progress of psi research increased the pres­ sure on academic psychology. The persistence and vigor of the work in parapsychology now had to be reckoned with, all the more with every year and with the growing confirmation it continued to receive from new workers and from other centers as time passed. Moreover, along with intelligent lay interest in the research, there came an active and widespread development of enthusiasm

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among students which seemed to promise a long-continu­ ing interest in the subject. In reaction to this development, the university depart­ ments became increasingly inattentive to the claims of the psi field. After all, they could no longer intelligently criti­ cize the real case for psi, and yet they could not accept it either, because (as D. O. Hebb well said) ESP could not be accounted for by physics and physiology To such a situation the response of indifference and silence was a natural consequence. Finally the aggravating sensationalism which went on unabated was a factor in generating this studied coolness to the work with psi. Many said as much. Parapsychology now belonged far too much to the entertainer, the popular writer, the comic-strip artist, and even to Broadway This overpopularization troubled even most of those working in parapsychology itself, but there was little they could do to restrain it. It did make the research more of a target for critical attack, as if the research workers were them­ selves to blame for the amount of publicity Thus it was that, as the period ended, there was more uncertainty concerning the relation of parapsychology to the general field than there had been twenty years before. In spite of all the progress that had been made in psi research, it would have been a worse time to try to start a new research center in any university department of psychology in the U.S.A, than it had been to make the be­ ginning at Duke a quarter of a century earlier.

Fourth Period:

1952-1967

Psychological Outlook Concerning the last fifteen years of the APA’s history, it is possible to be more brief. Although it has also been a time of phenomenal expansion for psychology, especially as an organized system of diversified services to mankind, most of you have lived closely with this progress and cer­ tainly no review of it is needed. One gets the general impression that a certain overex­ tension of the applied, the practical, the psychotechnical, and the hyphenated branches of psychology has occurred during these later years, in contrast to the amount of work on the central problems of psychology It is reasonable to expect, however, that this very disproportion will call in

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time for a balancing emphasis upon the search for the more basic principles of man’s nature. It is noteworthy that the greater number of psycholo­ gists showing an interest in psi research today can be largely identified with the newer branches of application and specialization which deal more directly with people, phe newly discovered parapsychical facts about human personality seem to be of most interest to those who are not leaning heavily on the boundary fences of physics and physiology, but who are trying to deal with their science more directly in terms of its own peculiar realities.

Psi Research in 1952 Parapsychology has been advancing too, even though on a necessarily much smaller scale. Most of the develop­ ments are less spectacular than the advances of the pre­ ceding period of this field, in fact, they have more to do with the maturing of organized thinking about the field and its relation to other sciences than with basic new re­ search discoveries. One of the new aspects is the professional group feeling that has developed in the field, even though the number of workers is still comparatively small and they are widely dispersed. This group consciousness was aided by the formation of the Parapsychological Association at Duke in 1957, with the Journal of Parapsychology as its periodical. The introduction of courses in a number of col­ leges led to the preparation of a textbook that is now in its third printing.

Financial Aid. One estimate of the development of the field can be gained from its economic side. During the preceding period most research workers would probably have identified financial limitations as a primary consid­ eration. During the present period they are secondary or even a close third. Shortage of qualified research per­ sonnel and need of improved research rationale are genreally more urgent. Not only has financial aid become somewhat more available, but there has been to some degree a wider range of sources from which financial assistance can be drawn. Whereas in earlier periods all of the contributions came from individuals personally interested in the field, a fair share of the funds obtained in recent years has come from philanthropic foundations, with small amounts from

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government agencies in the form of contracts, and small amounts likewise from business organizations or industrial research laboratories. By far the greater amount, however is still to be credited to the interested, generous individ^ ual as against all the other sources combined. One of the reassuring trends in the area of financial aid to parapsychology is the broadening of the reasons for giving it. Whereas, in the first half of the twentieth cen­ tury and earlier, funds given were almost entirely con­ tributed out of interest in the problem of post-mortem survival, during the present period they have been do­ nated for a more general range of usage. The field has taken on a sufficiently distinctive definition that this lib­ eration of gifts from overrestricted earmarking has been made possible. Another good development of the present period has been the establishment of a few special foundations dedi­ cated to the support and encouragement of research in parapsychology and related areas. This development, if continued and sufficiently strengthened, will give the field an order of security (both financial and other) it has never hitherto possessed and help to relieve the secondary order of concern over lack of status and recognition. Expansion and Development, Some impression of the spread of psi research over the world in recent years can be had from facts connected with the McDougall Award. This annual event, like the Parapsychological Association, was initiated at Duke in 1957 and was later adopted by the Institute for Parapsychology when it took over the Laboratory The Award is granted each year by the Insti­ tute staff for the most outstanding contribution to para­ psychology published during the preceding year by work­ ers not on the staff of the Institute. During the ten years in which the awards have been made, two have been given for American contributions and two for British, with one divided between the two countries; one award each was made to Czechoslovakia, India, Netherlands, South Africa, and Sweden. Another indication of the expansion of parapsychology may be had from the establishment of new research cen­ ters. A number of these have had the sponsorship of psychiatry, such as the one at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, one at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, and a third at the Neuropsychiatric Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles.

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181 Others with more physically and technologically oriented connections are located at the Newark College of Engi­ neering in New Jersey, the Department of Biophysics at the University of Pittsburgh, and the Boeing Research Laboratories in Seattle. The center in Leningrad is in the department of phys­ iology; that at Strasbourg, in psychophysiology; and the laboratory at St. Joseph’s College in Philadelphia, in the department of biology. Psychology-centered psi re­ search in the university is found mainly in foreign coun­ tries rather than in the U.S. City College in New York has what may rightly be called a center; and at Clemson University, as well as at branches of the University of California (Los Angeles, Berkeley, Davis), psychologists are allowed to do psi research. But something more like centers have long existed in Europe at Utrecht and Frei­ burg. More recently work has begun that seems firmly planted in psychology departments at the Japanese De­ fense Academy and the Universities of Edinburgh, Lund, and Andhra (India). Some recognized research, of course, is not connected with any institution whatever as, for ex­ ample, the work of Forwald in Sweden and that of Ryzl while still in Prague. One of the noteworthy changes taking place in the present period is the development of more teamwork with workers in other branches and the use of skills, knowl­ edge, and equipment of many other research areas. Some of the psi workers today are working with physiological equipment or with computer analyses; others are depend­ ing on electronic apparatus in the measurement of psi performance or utilizing new devices in statistics. Num­ bers of them are using psychological tests or perhaps work­ ing in a laboratory of microphysics, or of animal behav­ ior. New Programs and Attitudes. There is more self-confi­ dence among psi workers today than was noticeable in earlier years. At the very beginning of the period a bold step was taken in going back to the raw case studies of what people say happens to them that suggests the operation of psi. It took a certain degree of confidence in the status of parapsychology to admit such case ma­ terial for serious study, since it had once been scornfully rejected as having no evidential value. It is now recog­ nized that the revelations nature makes in spontaneous situations may with careful treatment long serve to en-

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rich the thinking of even the most experimental-minded researcher. Likewise, the same searching for new angles on the nature of psi turned the research to the study of animals, first for a combing of the anecdotal material hitherto swept under the rug by the zoologists but highly fruitful when studied with cautious objectivity. The experimental work that followed has opened a vast new territory for psi research; it begins to appear that man is not alone in his possession of psi capacity. The research for a more readily available supply of sub­ jects for testing took parapsychology into the schools, and it will be long in getting out of them, so profitable has been the work with this most highly classified section of humanity. The largest block of psi data on record is now that of the school children of the world. Farthest out among the newer steps being taken are the attempts to extend the boundaries of the field. Bolder things are being undertaken with precognition in search of clues as to how this strangest occurrence of all really fits into the natural order. Also the study of PK, long confined to tests with moving targets such as dice, is now being openly aimed at living targets as well; and very cautiously the attack has begun on the formidable prob­ lem of whether PK can influence static, inanimate objects. There has been of late a distinctly freer approach in parapsychology. The feeling is that it is time now to ex­ plore wherever the exploring is good; that is, wherever the instruments of inquiry and suitable beginning points can be found. Experimental standards and precautions are well enough established to give the confidence needed for pushing farther on into whatever belongs to the field. The only limitations are those of the possibility for objective study and the availability of methods. The older fears of “getting too far out” or of compromising the status of the field are gone. Again, this would appear to be a sign of growing independence in this branch of inquiry.

The Widening Gap Between But where now have we left the field of psychology? Or is it better to ask where has psychology left parapsychol­ ogy? Have the last fifteen years opened the doors of recog­ nition to parapsychology or closed them tighter than ever? On the one hand, we can say that more psycholo­ gists can be counted as interested in psi research today

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than ever before, and more psychology students are think­ ing of parapsychology as a possible career field than ever in the past. These are important facts, whatever they may mean. But to say parapsychology is getting more psycholo­ gists does not necessarily mean that psychology is accept­ ing parapsychology. In fact there are indications to the contrary. To begin with, let us look at the McDougall Award again: Of the fourteen researchers to whom the ten awards were granted (some of them were joint), only two were psychologists; three were in education; three were primarily mathematicians; two, physicists; and one each linked with biology, biochemistry, medicine, and engi­ neering. Also, of the university departments of psychology mentioned above at which recognized centers of research are located, none is in the U.S.A., although there were a few universities mentioned where an individual psychol­ ogist is allowed to conduct some incidental psi research. Quite evidently, then, the gap is at least not noticeably closing. In fact, as far back as the thirties more stir over parapsychology was evident in psychology departments in this country than there is today. On the whole, psychi­ cal research even had a comparatively better standing with American University psychology at times in the first quar­ ter of the century than it has in this one. Even the increase in interest in parapsychology among younger psychologists may owe something to this very gap itself—that is, to what appears to be a tacit decision of university psychology to get along without psi and its implications. It may be that as concern over the intrusion of parapsychology is diminished, the normal curiosity of the individual psychologist is again permissible and the same interest can be shown in parapsychology as in any other field. In other words, it would appear that the more the exclusion of psi research from the main body of psychology is taken for granted, the more free individual psychologist may feel to show an interest in it.

Solution of a Historic Problem Under the Circumstances As a matter of fact, the situation now in regard to this de facto separation suggests a solution to the tediously long controversy of psychology concerning parapsychol­ ogy. The suggestion is that the separation be regarded as

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a permanent one; that the independent status parapsychok ogists have already learned to live with be accepted in all good grace. At the same time, it can be recognized for what it is—a purely practical matter, a “separation of con­ venience.” There is no point in arguing what ought to be or even what may one day be. It does help greatly, however, to see, as we now can do the factors which make this separation seem necessary’ Let us recall that the Duke work proceeded smoothly in the Department of Psychology for six full years, right up until the reaction of public interest followed publication. Even after the storm broke and a different designation, the Parapsychology Laboratory, was requested for the ESP work, it was entirely a policy move—one that would make for better departmental relations. But the research kept right on advancing and popular interest expanded too. In time, further moves became desirable and physical separation from the department came next. Finally, in 1950, complete independence from the Department of Psychology seemed a wise solution. The point is that none of the relations leading to these retreats began with scientific disagreements. But imme­ diately following the manifestation of popular response, the tension in the department mounted and some of those who had collaborated in earlier experiments now began to have reservations. It is not surprising that those who had not done well as psi testers were among the most critical. If psi had only been easier to demonstrate, one thinks, or if it could have been investigated without publicity—but such thinking is unrealistic. The fact was and still is that psi, unlike the familiar sen­ sorimotor capacities, is not easily caught and demon­ strated. Furthermore, it is theoretically mystifying (as much so as consciousness itself, which was all but ban­ ished from psychology by the behaviorists). And finally, psi phenomena are inflammably interesting to most people. These were and still are some of the underlying realities to be faced when we deal with psi. Moreover, the obvious corrective action indicated is separation. It was a remedy that worked. Years later it provided a mutually acceptable ending to the unsuccessful attempt to “integrate” para­ psychology at Duke. If this interpretation is right, the situation is under­ standable. The policy of accepting independence for para­ psychology is now little more than frank recognition of the way things are. But there is no need for a dramatic

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jnanifesto or a declaration of independence. Seventy-five years is a long enough period for psychology not to in­ clude psi research. As an obvious matter of history, parapsychology is still today, with regard to academic psychology in America, essentially where it was in 1892. Time, along with many trials and quite a few errors, has only endorsed the judgment of the APA founders who tactfully decided to leave psychical research to the extra­ curricular agencies and societies.

Some Consequences of Autonomy The very fact that this new realization of freedom is recognizedly a policy move is some assurance that it will lead to the improved relations for which it is intended. As a first step into professional independence it should, as first steps usually do, remind us of our inherent depen­ dence upon all our neighbors, of the universal interdependence of the divisions of natural science. But to say, as I have, that the gains from independence are social and subjective is not to downgrade them. One of the ef­ fects of belonging to a “free and equal” branch of research is the enjoyment of such proper pride as rightfully at­ taches to progress in the hard work of exploratory science. It is not fair to have to trade the joys of explora­ tion in a new field at the low rate of exchange that de­ rives from pressing the products upon a field unprepared to appreciate them. Parapsychology deserves its own place in the free market of ideas, and the right to bargain on its own for the “rate of exchange” of its findings. It should also be some relief to the psi worker to find, as the independent status of his science becomes recog­ nized, that no longer will he be embarrassed when apply­ ing for grants by having his findings referred for evalua­ tion to the “authority” of an essentially alien committee of psychologists. The latter, too, will be relieved not to be asked to judge matters involving work with which they could naturally not presume to be prepared to deal. The main value to parapsychology, however, in becom­ ing an autonomous unit among the branches of science clearly lies in the reorientation value to its own workers. The psi worker who discovers he has a truly distinctive field of his own must spontaneously be more strongly im­ pelled to explore the full range of the territory he claims. Moreover, he can now explore what he finds in its own right and not forever in the limiting terms of a neighbor-

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ing field. Even his concept of applicable methods of research and the interpretation of results will undergo re­ classification with the new perspective of an indepen­ dent domain. There is another advantage: The field of parapsy­ chology has long needed better warnings along its borders against the too easy assumption that whoever has a good training in the main field (psychology, of course) should have no difficulty in taking over a project in this new subdivision. This is often a fatal assumption. Sensori­ motor methodology and design do not well fit the situa­ tion on the psi side of the line. There is a bigger difference than has yet been appreciated. Now we will at least have a better marked borderline on which to hang counseling signs to guide and welcome the entering alien. Finally, autonomy awakens thoughts of the need for self-support. As a matter of fact, the psi work has always had to take care of itself. Nonetheless, future support is a matter of concern, especially since university recognition will continue to be delayed until the new science es­ tablishes its own basis of admission. But every branch of science has passed through a stage of its history in which its larger usefulness was discovered, when its potentiality was appreciated, and its value to some larger discipline was recognized. It is this discovery of usefulness that leads to support and advancement. What engineering did to physics, medicine to biology, agriculture and industry to chemistry, are examples of the principle to which I refer. Psychologists have seen what the area of human needs has done to the growth of their profession, especially in the last fifty years. My point here is that only when parapsychology takes itself seriously enough as a self­ regulated unit among the sciences will it freely turn with enough self-assurance to identify and extend its own greater role of usefulness and meaning in the life of man­ kind. Psi research is obviously of special concern to those who are interested in the full range of the unexplored nature of man, over and above the existing subdivisions of science. As has happened already in many of the smaller branches, parapsychology is certain to find itself grouped sooner or later with other fields in one or more of those composite sciences which are reshaping the mod­ ern structure of knowledge—groupings such as the space sciences, the earth sciences, the microbiological sciences, or such major disciplines as medicine, education, and the

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like. When we come eventually to the stage when the sciences of man take a preeminent position, we shall find that one of the places around the conference table will have to be reserved for parapsychology If the findings are as important as they seem to work­ ers in this field, we shall need no great concern over fu­ ture recognition by the academic world, by the larger bodies of the sciences, and by other institutions that mat­ ter. Rather, the urgent needs today have to do with hold­ ing on to the firm beginning psi research has made. This research science needs to operate for the present mainly in the freer terrain of the independent institute or center, or with such semi-autonomous attachments as may be found in hospitals, clinics, engineering schools, smaller col­ leges, and industrial research laboratories. In time its own roots will make the attachments that are right, and proper, and lasting. Such growth is slow, but it can be assisted by careful effort and understanding and by rec­ ognition of its significance.

9 Psychology and Psychical Research * GARDNER MURPHY

I shall try to make five points 1 that official psy­ chology ignores psychical research; 2. that despite this fact all the problems of psychical research present psy­ chological aspects; 3. that in addition to the psychological aspects, all the problems of psychical research likewise pre­ sent non-psychological aspects; 4. that technical psychol­ ogy is already being put to work in psychical research; 5. that the discovery of the nature of the non-psycholog­ ical processes at work is a problem not soluble by specu­ lation even of the most brilliant kind, but only by a long series of research studies.

I I believe that a historical study of the relations between psychology and psychical research will reveal a strange paradox. On the one hand, professional psychologists are in general disinclined to touch the problems of psychical research. In so far as we can tell from questionnaire in­ quiries, from their subscriptions to journals, and from their degree of familiarity with research, it would appear that most psychologists belong in one or the other of two main groups. First, there are those who find in psychical research a serious metaphysical and professional threat. The potential mind-body dualism which appears to them to be inherent in most psychical phenomena strikes them as scientifically beneath their dignity, and this means that they ‘know in advance’ that the data cannot exist. The *This paper first appeared in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 50, January, 1953.

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second group are those who remain agnostic regarding the phenomena, attempt no general dogmatism, but are disinclined to give their effort to anything as bizarre, as far off the main track of science, and as likely to betray them as belonging to the ‘lunatic fringe’ of the intellec­ tual world. I quote here from memory an excellent sum­ mary of a personal position by B. F Skinner, an ex­ ceptionally able and clear-headed leader of one wing of experimental psychology: ‘Of course there might be some­ thing there, but I don’t care to gamble on anything as far from the realm of science in which I feel competent, anything that seems to me a priori so unlikely to yield a constructive scientific result, as long as there are so many interesting and important problems with which I can cope in my laboratory.’ There is of course a third small group who believe that psychical research is important, and a fair number who believe that many significant facts are well authen­ ticated. Without attempting to indicate any certainty as to the number, I would call attention to the fact that Lucien Warner found by a questionnaire addressed to the Members of the American Psychological Association a dozen years ago that very few of this group accepted extrasensory perception as a fact. He has just conducted a follow-up study, finding that the proportion has not greatly changed. This small group tends for the most part to be familiar with and to give credence to experimental findings primarily, and to lean rather heavily upon the work of the Duke University laboratory The number of professional psychological subscribers to the Journal of Parapsychology at the time when I was one of its editors was fourteen; a nationwide advertisement directed to American psychologists to try to induce a few more to subscribe produced not one single additional subscription. Within the group who have a positive orientation there are certainly not more than a few dozen in the world who might be called broadly familiar with the history and range of the phenomena of psychical research.

II The other face of the paradox lies in the fact that al­ most every problem, in fact I would venture to say every problem, in psychical research involves a straightforward problem in psychology. Indeed it has been so recognized from the very beginning. Human interests, motives and

190 Psychology and Extrasensory Perception habits must be considered in relation to every phenomenon of telepathic interchange, or of apparent communication. The processes of memory and thought are typically studied not only to see in what way the paranormal event tran­ scends what could be comprised within the ordinary psy­ chology of the individual, but one tries to see how these processes operate when the paranormal is present. Now­ adays the personality as a whole, so far as it is known, is regularly brought into relation to the fact that psychical phenomena occur with some persons and not with others, or depend upon interpersonal relations involving inti­ macy, affection or other dynamic interchanges. Moreover, the comprehensive theories of psychical phenomena, such as those of Myers among the pioneers, or of Tyrrell (12) or Carington among the modems, are psychological theo­ ries worked out in terms of conceptions of conscious and subconscious, and conceptions of dissociation, learning, memory, emotion, will; and in the case of Carington, the whole classical association theory (2). To give a trivial and random example, but one which I believe will exemplify our point: that psychical research is a truly psychological study. When Rider Haggard had a dream apparently relating to the death of his dog, the interest and credibility of the experience related largely to the fact that human beings do love their dogs, that dogs do love their masters; that there is some sort of intelligible emotional interrelation between them; and that it is conceivable that under conditions of extreme crisis there may be some sort of communication or even merg­ ing of experience of agent and percipient. We then have psychical research constituting a psy­ chological discipline, in which as a matter of fact we find over the years that new psychological discoveries, whether from experimental psychology, from psychoanal­ ysis, or from projective testing are regularly brought in as technical adjuncts to the tasks which psychical research pursues. It may well be an exaggeration that I have undertaken to defend. Are there not paranormal events in which psychology as such offers no plausible clue? Suppose for example that we have the phenomena of unexplained raps or lights as people sit together in a darkened room. They may have gathered together in order to receive communi­ cations or they may simply sit to ‘see what happens’. If lights or raps appear under conditions which satisfy them as excluding normal physical causes, they may then refer

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191 to paranormal phenomena, and will proceed to stress the technical possibilities of sound recording, photography or any other device by which they may objectively authen­ ticate the event. They do not do very much with the psy­ chology of the process. To be sure, if it were only queer people who experienced these things, the problem might be called psychological—in keeping with the curious mod­ ern habit of regarding abnormal behaviour as psycholog­ ical but normal behaviour as requiring no psychological explanation. But if the observers are normal people, we hear the question. What has psychology to offer in rela­ tion to raps which can be physically recorded or lights which can be photographed? Indeed, what can psychology offer in relation to the ‘psychokinetic effect’? I believe the answer to these questions will turn out to depend upon the fact that in psychical research there is usually an implicit assumption about psychology and like­ wise an assumption about some unexplained system of events which transcends all the present sciences, whether physical or psychological. Thus the minute one tries to exert a personal influence upon a paranormal event, as in asking raps or lights to ‘repeat their message’, one is dealing with the psychological aspects of the event, but also with something more. But what do we mean by the word psychology? I believe we should use the term strictly, and refer to psy­ chology in its most systematic and scientific form, in­ cluding that unified modern psychology which studies con­ tact with the world of physical stimulation through the sense organs, a psychology in which memory, association, and other more complex processes are conceived to be partially derivative from relatively simple sensory and mo­ tor responses. The whole realm of genetic, comparative and physiological psychology gives us a rich and unified scientific system in which psychological phenomena are brought into intimate relation with the physiological and physical events in the life of the organism. Psychoanal­ ysis, for example, is rapidly merging into this psychology at many points, e.g. through the physiology of instinct and the learning process and through psychosomatic med­ icine. Psychologists need not of course espouse a meta­ physical monism or any kind of ultimate theory as to mind-body relations; but in actual practice they regard psychological events as at least in part the derivatives of biological, and ultimately of physical events. The psychol­ ogist who uses his psychology in coping with the data of

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psychical research is grateful for the whole rich field of experimental, clinical, child and comparative psychology and as a matter of fact would regard himself as derelict in his duty if he did not utilize every possible clue from the physiological and physical sciences.

in When we say, therefore, that psychical research com­ prises events which are more than psychological, we mean that this comprehensive and systematic psychology} including and utilizing much from the physical and bio­ logical sciences, cannot at present offer any coherent at­ tempt at an explanation. When, for example an act of will is reported as altering the movement of a falling die or determining the region upon which the die comes to rest, the assumption is that something more than psychol­ ogy is at work. There is a vis a tergo, something which, while deriving from the psychological world, moves from it into the realm of the physical and causes a physical effect. Yet as soon as we are certain that there is more here than psychology, we use psychology to the limit to ex­ plain the form of the results! Efforts, for example, have been made, notably by J. B. Rhine, to show that psy­ chological laws are evident in psychokinesis; laws, for ex­ ample, in relation to motivation, to interest, to boredom or negativism, to freedom from psychological interference. The ‘decline curves’, whether they appear in a day’s work, a record sheet, in a half sheet or even in a single run, relate to the psychological structure rather than the phys­ ical structure of the task. We have then a consistent view that psychology must be given all the work to do which it can possibly bear Yet psychology will not ordinarily be regarded as sufficient for the whole job, because the psy­ chology which we know today is one which does not know how to cope with the interrelations of the organism and environment except in physical terms. In the same breath, therefore, it is necessary for the student of psy­ chokinesis to prove two things; first, that the phenomena are psychological and second that there is also a process at work which is not psychological. There are probably many who believe that we have manoeuvred ourselves into a difficulty by assuming a false conception of psychology. Instead of the psychology of today, anchored on physiological, evolutionary and psy-

193 chopathological evidence, they may favour an essentially dualistic (Cartesian) conception of mind and body, or one of the more or less dualistic systems which C. D. Broad would include under ‘substantive vitalism’. I must indi­ cate my reason for rejecting all such dualism; for I think that if we are really to use psychology it must be the hind of psychology which the last hundred years—since evolutionary theory, experimental psychology and psycho­ analysis—have given us. The older view of course may be sound; but to say that this kind of dualistic system represents a usable psychology, and to court all over again the enormous difficulties involved in having a nonbiological control-system operate constantly to produce the physical and even the biochemical processes of individual behav­ ior, is apparently to add to, rather than substract from, the metaphysical difficulties. For example, if we have some sort of nonphysical control of the organism of this sort, such as some of the vitalists have assumed, then we must put these principles to work in the control of growth, repair, reproduction and other life processes, so well differentiated from non-life processes. Then, however, we must introduce a separate set of nonphysical concepts to explain paranormal activity. We thus need a double dual­ ism, one invented ad hoc to explain life itself, another invented ad hoc to explain the paranormal. (To say, as some have done, that there is paranormal activity in every normal process seems to me simply to create hydra-like difficulties in order to escape the relatively few and clear difficulties which are based on our present ignorance.) I believe, then, that we can adequately summarize the situation by saying that in psychical research we have a primary matrix of psychological assumptions and data which carry us a considerable part of the way towards the explanation of all the authenticated phenomena, from apparitions and hauntings to telepathic and precognitive transactions, and the physical phenomena as well. But we need a good firm bridge to the paranormal, which lives on an island at some distance from the here and now where we pass most of our lives. It is an open question at least whether the bridge which will ultimately connect psychology with psychical research will prove to be the same one which today begins to connect descriptive psy­ chology, the psychology of our own immediate experi­ ence, with the psychology of the organic biological system. Let us not prejudge this issue. Gardner Murphy

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IV From the present viewpoint, therefore, psychical research might be regarded as a combination of two huge enterprises, the first being psychological, the second es­ sentially philosophical, in the sense that it seeks by all the methods known to man to find a way of bridging a gap in nature for which we have at present no adequate conceptual approach. My own chief task in this chapter is the psychological rather than the philosophical. It may be wise to map out three typical ways in which con­ temporary psychology might offer clues to the phenomena of psychical research. 1. In accordance with the whole dynamic emphasis of the psychology of recent decades, under the influence of the evolutionary theory, the cultural approach and psy­ choanalysis, we may first stress the problems of motive tion. We are impressed with the fact that in the great majority of spontaneous cases of telepathy, a preoc­ cupation of the percipient with the activities of the agent is obvious in the record. In some cases the percipient consciously seeks to make contact. He attempts some­ thing analogous to the traditional process of mind-read­ ing. In other cases he allows himself an apprehensive cocking of the head in the direction of the agent from whom good news is hardly to be expected. In other in­ stances, which are probably more common, he does not consciously orient himself towards the agent; but since he is a person devoted to and preoccupied with the agent, it does not seem to be too far-fetched to assume that he is chronically and unconsciously sensitized to the agent’s do­ ings. In a third group of instances, the agent seems to be impressing himself upon the percipient rather than the percipient’s striving to receive from the agent. This differ­ ence in relative activity is certainly important, but there is good reason to believe today (as Mrs Sidgwick main­ tained) that agent and percipient are connected by a deep channel of reciprocal influences, such that the conception of formal movement from one to another is a less effec­ tive way of defining the situation than is the conception of interchange. We might (although Mrs Sidgwick did not do so) point to a number of phenomena in biology and in physics such as the polarization which leads to an electric current, in which it is convenient to refer to

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195 a movement from one point to another, but in which we know that it is really interdependence that is involved. I think we would be safe in saying that the relations of the motive patterns of agent and percipient are impor­ tant; that this probably means a mutual desire of some sort for intercommunication. While this is most easily demonstrated with reference to spontaneous telepathy, it is also not very difficult to dem­ onstrate in experimental telepathy, despite the difficulty of creating experimentally the strong motivation which operates in the case of so many spontaneous cases. In experimental telepathy and clairvoyance, results go up and down as motives wax and wane. One of the motives is clearly the motive to achieve prestige, as is evident in some of the Duke University studies in which knowledge of results is obtained under competitive conditions. Sheer hunger for social participation and social recognition prob­ ably played a large part in the high scoring level of the blind, dependent, and other handicapped children studied by Pegram and others, and such motives have probably played a large part in party-game experiments with nor­ mal children. A small child, dependent as he is on the adult, can also probably be credited to some extent with a desire to do what the adult wants. But motives, as Pegram brilliantly argued, probably segregate themselves according to psychological level; and it is quite likely that the motives which are important under laboratory conditions are quite different from those which are important in spontaneous cases, with the result that relatively superficial layers of personality are involved in the former, deeper layers of the personality in the latter. Everything that we know about the psychology of mo­ tivation ought to be useful in relation to the study of mo­ tives which figure in paranormal occurrences. There has long been emphasis upon unconscious motivation as pre­ disposing the percipient to one or another type of experi­ ence, which then may undergo some form of disguise or elaboration before reaching the conscious level. Freud himself pointed out thirty years ago the possibility that telepathic phenomena encountered in psychoanalytic prac­ tice are of this sort. It is I think to the credit of William Mackenzie (5) to have pointed out for the first time the broad implications of this sort of unconscious motivation in causing both mental and physical expressions of a para­ normal sort. It was his conception that deep unconscious

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needs orient the individual toward certain types of re, ceptiveness, and in the case of physical phenomena to^ ward a kind of symbolic moulding or manipulation of the immediate physical environment. Again, the phenomena of conflict between motives are full of significance of psychical research. There is a good deal of evidence, for example, in systematic displacement effects and in consistent missing effects, that there are un­ conscious motives which interfere with paranormal con­ tact with a specific target; and it becomes not altogether implausible to suggest that one set of motives is strug. gling to guide the cognitive responses in the direction of the target while another set is striving to draw them away. In the case of consistent below-chance scoring it i8 reasonable to follow Rhine in believing that both such fac­ tors are chronically at work. A person cannot consistent­ ly miss unless in a certain sense he is oriented to the target and unless at the same time he is oriented to miss the target. To make sense out of consistent sub-chance scor­ ing, what is really needed from the psychological point of view is the conception of motives and of motive con­ flict. Without these conceptions it is hard to see what could be done. I am inclined to think that the data of Schmeidler, Humphrey, and others who have shown the relations of personality to ESP scores, are all special cases of the rela­ tion of the individual’s motivation to his way of using his perceptual powers in a given case. It is true that some of these studies emphasize the results of personality tests, but this does not prove that complex structural aspects of personality (‘character structure’) were involved; the results could easily be due simply to positive and negative motivation in reference to the task. Indeed, the studies just quoted emphasize the role of specific personal atti­ tudes to the specific task. It may be asked why it is that we take the position here that psychology has something to teach psychical re­ search, rather than arguing that psychical research has something to offer psychology. My own point of view would be simply that we are dealing with the same classes of phenomena all the way through; that the motive prob­ lem is the same in both fields; that whatever we learn from one type of investigation offers hypotheses which have a large likelihood of being fulfilled when tried out in the other sphere. 2. Our second psychological clue is the principle of

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organization. Ever since J. B. Rhine showed the systematic form of decline curves in ESP (8), and later in PK, there bas been much to suggest the rather characteristic pic­ ture of a relatively high scoring level at the beginning qI a task. A particularly pretty piece of evidence in the mat­ ter of organization is one appearing in a study by J. B. Rhine, dealing with ‘segment salience’ and ‘run salience’. This is a study of precognition, in which, in a general Way, the scores are furthest from chance at the begin­ ning and end of runs; to this fact the term ‘run salience’ is applied. When, however, picture cards are inserted after each five ESP cards which have to be called in the rou­ tine task, these picture cards being different and interest­ ing, and breaking up the otherwise rather monotonous sequence, the effect is to increase deviation from chance just before and just after the interpolated card. The re­ sult is to break up the run of 25 into 5 subruns of 5 each, in which we find that the first and the last items in each run of five tend to be furthest from chance ex­ pectation. This gives, when visualized, a sort of long loop (run salience) with a series of little scallops (segment salience), both run salience and segment salience being present in the same experiment and often in the same subject. It is of course conceivable that all of these decline and salience effects are due to wandering interest or at least to the disappearance of that first fine flush of enthusi­ asm and naive simplicity of orientation which may often characterize ‘beginner’s luck’; so that even these effects would be due to motivation. It is entirely possible also that the U-curves (success at beginning and end) are due to the recovery of interest towards the end of the task, as in the case of the ‘end spurt’ found in curves of work. There is at least, however, a large likelihood that we are dealing here with the relative ease of seeing that which comes first and that which comes last in a presen­ tation. Under conditions to brief exposure in the tachistoscope, we expect people as a matter of course to see the first and last letters of a word somewhat better than they see the middle. The same is of course true of temporal exposures. It is the first and last items, whether in brief or long series, that are best registered. There is a host of material from memory experiments indicating these laws of position, and at least some suggestive evidence that they are related to certain formal attributes of the

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nervous system or of the very process of perception itself. Perhaps the two kinds of principles, those relating to motivation and those relating to organization, are ulti­ mately reducible to one. It is possible, for example, that at the beginning of a perceptual task one is oriented towards or ‘focused upon’ a target in a fashion which embraces both motivation and organization, and that to­ wards the end of a series a new form of adjustment is established in which one gives oneself the instruction: ‘Let’s forget what has gone by; let’s rise to our highest level now.’ If there is any truth in this last suggestion, there may be no fundamental difference between the em­ pirical laws of motivation and the empirical laws of or­ ganization, since both would be expressions of the same reality. It may turn out that even in simple everyday per­ ception, as in hearing music or spoken language, one is inclined to give accent, to give a voluntary or a semi­ voluntary emphasis to certain phases of the sequence, par­ ticularly to initial and terminal phases, and that organiza­ tion may ultimately turn out to be an expression of this sort of dynamics. But there is not evidence enough to warrant a decision upon the point at this time. The factors of motivation and organization have up to this point been considered as aspects of massed results from many subjects. Important supplementary evidence comes from the more intensive studies of two outstanding subjects investigated by S. G. Soal and his collabora­ tors. In one subject there was apparently a strong un­ conscious preoccupation at first with precognitive scoring; a tendency in other words to aim ahead of the point in time at which the target was presented. In the case of the other, perhaps as a result of the wish not to be a mere competitor, but to show her own distinctive ability, there is almost no precognitive success but brilliant tele­ pathic success. Such studies tend on the whole to suggest the view that organizational factors are connected very intimately with motivation, at least in the sense that the individual is selectively sensitized to certain aspects of the stimulus configuration to the relative exclusion of others. This would mean therefore that in the complex blur of energies impinging upon our sense organs through the flow of life and time about us, some things, some pat­ terns would be relevant to one person and not to another. The concept of relevance would therefore be not only a binding strand to connect motivation and organization but

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a clue to our third major principle, that of individual sen­ sitivity or predisposition to psychical phenomena. 3, When we come to the question of individual sensi­ tivity, we must distinguish between the problem of con­ stitutional (hereditary) predisposition and the broader question of the present personality make-up in respect to sensitivity, regardless whether this be considered to be ‘constitutional’, ^acquired’ or both. I think that it is some­ what of a scandal that after all these years we have no really fundamental knowledge about a constitutional factor in predisposition to psychical experiences, nor do we even possess fundamental knowledge regarding types of ex­ perience which consistently mould the individual into a type of sensitivity for such experiences. Such evidence as the following does indeed exist: There is a considerable number of cases of spontaneous experi­ ences running in certain family lines; even a few cases where the sharing of a specific paranormal experience suggests an actual biological similarity in sensitivity among the percipients. There are a few cases of sensitives whose parents, children or other relatives have shown similar sensitiveness. Certainly the most striking is that of Mrs and Miss Verrall, whose paranormal abilities, expressed through automatic writing, were studied over many years. There have been some interesting—indeed some rather quaint—theories about racial and national differences in psychic prediposition, as for example the suggestion that the reason why the Poles, among all the Catholic nation­ ality groups of Europe, are the richest in mediumship, stems from the fact that Poland was the only country essentially untouched by the Inquisition and therefore the only one in which there was no rooting out of sensitives. I believe that anyone at all familiar with the complexities of the problem of heredity and the problem of family and national characteristics will do nothing in response to any such argument but maintain a generous yet never­ theless very firm scepticism. In the absence of anything like direct evidence, I be­ lieve that the biologically oriented psychologist would say that the theoretical likelihood of an inheritance factor in family lines large enough to produce real similarities in paranormal sensitivity is very good, and that we are all ready for experimental and statistical investigation of the problem, comparing the relative success of persons of various degrees of blood kinship when tested by com­ parable methods. One might, for example, use a tech-

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nique like the one recently used by Eysenck (4) to dem. onstrate the inheritance of neuroticism among certain London children—comparing identical twins with fraternal twins of the same sex. In fact, we know of no psychological attributes which do not reveal any constitutional aspects whatever. Some, times they are not large enough to be measured in a way that yields results which are socially important. In some cases the results obtained from measurement are ot great social importance. This has sometimes led to the naive idea that some traits are inherited and others ac. quired. All the evidence of modern genetics is that every characteristic of the living organism, whether plant or animal (and that this holds true with a vengeance in the case of a creature as complex as man) is the unfolding of constitutional predispositions under the specific influence of a lifetime of physical and social forces, so that the in. tact organism is not a mosiac of hereditary and environ­ mental fragments, but a unitary whole in which nevertheless a certain slant or loading has been given by congenital predispositions. To put aside the question of heredity, and settle down to the question of personality types as empirically known regardless of the question how the types arose, let us fl. lustrate the range and complexity of the problem by re. ferring to the capacity of the sensitive to develop double consciousness, to ‘dissociate’ or develop incipient ‘double personality’. The early years of psychical research yielded evidence suggesting that the great sensitives were persons capable of a high degree of dissociation or intrapsychic splitting. They were people who could somehow bury themselves in the paranormal task, freeing themselves al­ most altogether from the sensory world from which most of us cannot really turn away. This concept applies to those who fall into a spontaneous trance or semi-trance or brown study, or those who by means of the crystal or conch shell lure themselves away from this present in­ teresting world to lose themselves in the fantasies built up from a point of light or a murmur of sound. The same point applies to the numerous studies of persons un­ der hypnosis, as in Gurney’s studies of telepathy in the ’eighties, Janet’s studies of hypnotization at a distance, the studies of automatists involved in survival evidence, in­ cluding the cross-correspondences. These automatists could dissociate at least enough to obtain automatic writ­ ing, while Mrs Piper went into deep trance in which

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oral utterance supplemented the automatic writing in trance which became the primary vehicle of communication. It remains to add that the studies of Mrs Willett’s phe­ nomena apparently give us various phases of trance in which there is no need for absolute loss of personal con­ sciousness in order to obtain a high degree of dissociation; some of the words communicated are offered as con­ versation heard ‘on the other side’ while other communi­ cations suggest that the communicators were themselves directly controlling the physical ‘machine’. In the Leonard sittings, again, it is apparent that the communicators, rath­ er than the control Feda, are sometimes represented as directly controlling the expressive organs. All of this, entirely independent of any theory about the modus operandi of communication, would seem to support rather strongly the view that a personal capacity for deep fission is actually a basic factor in paranormal capacity. This is made theoretically easy for us to digest by reminding us of the fact of perennial conflict, the fact that ‘the conscious mind always guesses too much’, gets preoccupied with irrelevant things and interferes with the simple and pure quest of the target. Confirmation of this way of thinking has usually been regarded by most of us as obtainable from spontaneous cases: the fact, for ex­ ample, that a rather large proportion of cases of spon­ taneous telepathy and precognition occurs in dreams or dreamlike states or in periods of profound relaxation, or in a ‘brown study’ or, as J. B. Rhine says, standing ‘on dead centre’ between two other activities. It is easy to compare the mind to a clear reflecting pool which may lose this capacity when ruffled by disturbing influences. The whole theory of dissociation has however fallen into a bog in recent years. For one thing, a good deal of dissociation has proved on inspection to be make-be­ lieve. It is evident that much of the dissociation which was thought to be very fundamental in hysteriform reac­ tions was little more than a determination not to show awareness of a stimulus, or not to move a limb. A dis­ tinction between voluntary and involuntary dispositions of the organism is legitimate; but a number of experimental studies would seem to indicate that what looked like good old-fashioned dissociation was in point of fact nothing more than a determination to acknowledge one tendency and deny the presence of another. In particular the many evidences offered by Binet, Morton Prince, and others to the effect that two complicated activities could go on

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simultaneously in a dissociated mind have tended to crum­ ple up. As experienced a witness as W. R. Wells writes me that he has never observed dissociation of the classic sort and doubts whether it exists at all except in certain rare and well defined cases of multiple personality. None of this gainsays in any way the reality of a rela­ tive dissociation, a capacity to put to one side that which interferes with present concerns. This however is a mat­ ter of common knowledge, occurs constantly to us all as a normal process of living; and to say that the sensitive is capable of this kind of dissociation is nothing more than to say that he or she is a human being. It may well be that sensitives are in general capable of more of this kind of relative dissociation than are most other people. The presence of a fairly large number of good cases in which the subject is in a drowsy state or looking into a crystal or cultivating a process of automatic writing would cer­ tainly support such a view. It must however be remembered that we find plenty of persons in all of these states of light dissociation who give us nothing paranormal, e.g. automatic writers, who pro­ duce reams in which no paranormal content is found; and on the other hand we have plenty of good paranormal phenomena from persons in whose life history there is really no evidence of a special predisposition to dissocia­ tion of any sort. Another difficulty was pointed out by Bruck (1) in 1923, whose hypnotic experiments appeared to give brilliant positive results. But at the end of the series, by way of a control, the subject was asked to do a few experiments in a waking state, and these were also so brilliant that the experimenter raised the question whether the hypnosis had made any essential difference. Characteristic of the modern situation is the work of Grela, who compared subjects in four different working conditions, one of which was hypnosis with a suggestion of positive results. The scoring levels in ESP obtained under these conditions were as a matter of fact slightly but not significantly high­ er than those obtained under other conditions. So far as it goes, this evidence slightly but only slightly supports the dissociation hypothesis. As a matter of fact Grela’s study, so far as it went, tended to show that those in­ dividuals who gave relatively high scores in one of the four working conditions tended in the long run also to give relatively high scores in the other working condi­ tions; so that the evidence of an individual factor is

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stronger than the evidence for the importance of dissocia­ tion. I have myself on many occasions administered strong positive suggestion to deeply hypnotized subjects regard­ ing positive success in telepathy experiments, using ma­ terial such as pictures contained in envelopes, where the odds against success were relatively high, but where some­ thing would be obtained in a relatively short time if any clear-cut paranormal gift were present. I have never had any positive success whatever by this method. Granting fully that others have had what appear to be positive re­ sults, and granting fully that the interpretation of nega­ tive results is always complicated, I cannot say that I continue to enjoy that confidence in the importance of techniques for inducing dissociation which I once enter­ tained. I think that terms are not very clear, experimental hypotheses not very well defined, and the basic dynamics of conflict and dissociation not very well understood; and that we are a long way from being able to repeat (in the easy fashion of many years ago) the observation that if you once free the deep levels from interference by top levels, you will ipso facto get your result. There is another whole line of approach to this ques­ tion of dissociation which takes a positive rather than a negative form. A great many telepathic and clairvoyant subjects have worked not under conditions of drowsiness or relaxation but under conditions of intense effort; what would ordinarily be called a highly keyed-up state. I remember for example how the Polish clairvoyant, Ossowiecki, emphasized to me the strain which he put upon himself in the concentration required for success. One of Rhine’s early subjects maintained terrific effort during a series in which he made 25 consecutive hits, and remarked thereafter that ‘he wouldn’t do that again for a million dollars’. As between the view that dissociation is help­ ful and the view that concentration is helpful it has seemed easy to resolve the apparent conflict by saying that what is at times called dissociation is what is called at other times concentration; that in both instances we have high­ ly focused activity standing out in sharp and brilliant out­ line against a dull and vague background; that what is occurring is the mobilization of the mind as a whole to a very high degree, in reference to the target of the mo­ ment; and that perhaps the sensitive has a sharper capac­ ity for this kind of differentiation between figure and ground than most people have. Ultimately, then, the same

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devices which emphasize relaxation, for example the in. duction of drowsiness or the hypnotic state, would uh timately be achieving essentially the same result which is obtained by ‘concentration’. Before attempting to judge the merits of this verbal reconciliation of the two positions, attention should be given to the fact that a good many experimental series exist in which the experimenter’s plan is plainly to produce a normal hyperactive, keyed-up state of a sort which hardly suggests any relevance at all in the notion of dis­ sociation or a sharp figure-ground differentiation. Rhine and his associates find for example that alcohol in one series, benzedrine in another series, caffeine in another series, are associated with the elevation of psi scoring levels. In one experiment, when ESP scores had been de­ pressed by sodium amytal, they were pulled back to a high level by caffeine. How anyone can confront this and state that the facts agree with the classical conception of re­ laxation, dissociation, and so on is very difficult for me to see. Of course we do not know all that is going on; but we are hardly justified in assuming anything more to be at work than what we would ordinarily call the stimulation or keying-up of the organism; or if one likes to think of a certain disintegration or loss of integra­ tion as occurring in drowsy or narcotic-induced states, all one can say is what Rhine says, namely, that when the integrative effects of the central nervous system are re­ stored the paranormal phenomena are restored. This latter statement is in harmony with the evidence of Humphrey that even the intellectual level in certain groups is related to positive scoring, and her evidence (and that of some others) that active preoccupation with the outer social world (extroversion) is likewise associated with positive results. But to say that extroverts or in­ telligent people are in any way necessarily prone to dis­ sociation is carrying us rather far from the region of verifiable doctrine. Indeed, a number of persons who have confronted Humphrey’s carefully repeated studies of the effects of extroversion upon ESP scores have felt that there was ‘something wrong’. ‘Shouldn’t we expect in the light of the history of psychical research that it would be the introverts who would be most psychic?’ Do differ­ ent people with different powers succeed in different kinds of paranormal tasks? What do we really know? The reader has by now probably gathered that my double purpose has been first to show, in relation to the

205 problem of personal predisposition towards psi, the plausi­ Gardner Murphy

bility and a priori reasonableness of the dissociation theory, and second to suggest a series of questions, partly terminological, partly factual, which have certainly got to be cleared up before we can state that we are ready to use these concepts with any degree of confidence. It will behove us to watch closely the developing ‘psychology of individual differences’. If I were to offer my own best guess as to the value of these classical concepts today, it would be along the fol­ lowing lines Basically we are concerned with the capacity of the individual to develop an orientation—an orienta­ tion involving both conscious and unconscious aspects— towards a target, usually a target having personal signifi­ cance. I include targets which consist of the mental states of other persons, targets which consist of physical objects or events, and targets of either class which are at a differ­ ent point in time from that at which the organism is functioning.1 Now this basic orientation towards a target which is not reachable through the senses may exist in various de­ grees of strength, and it may be interfered with by vari­ ous factors great or small, and interfered with in a drastic or relatively superficial way. So far, there may be some sense in the conception that conscious preoccupations are a handicap, since these, together with preoccupations of an entirely unconscious sort, may hinder the aim or con­ fuse the mental set of the participating subject. This con­ ception of the damage done by preoccupations would however be a relatively unimportant one. The primary problem is always the urgency and clarity of the aim, the orientation towards the target. There is, moreover, as I shall try to show in what follows, the absolute necessity for a further hypothesis as to what makes possible the extrasensory contacts with the target; and this unknown factor, the factor which I have referred to above as the nonpsychological factor, is very likely far more impor2The receptivity of the sensitive is likewise conceived to be capable of being affected either by events in the social and physical world which is immediately known to us, or by events in a world of discamate entities. As I have already indicated on various occa­ sions, I am not able to reach a conclusion regarding the question whether we survive death, being in fact strongly inclined to suspect that the question is wrongly phrased; that there is something wrong about our approach to the time dimension and our conception of personality as a sharply defined thing which either does or does not continue forward beyond a certain point in time.

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tant than the dissociation or freedom from interference in the mind of the sensitive at the time.

V I have attempted to indicate that we make contact through the sensory processes and through the extransensory processes in essentially the same way; that as far as psychology is concerned the basic dynamics are the same in the two areas. Everything which helps us, for example, to perceive clearly at the level of normal perception helps us to perceive clearly at the level of extrasensory per­ ception; examples are strong motivation, favoured posi­ tion in the organization of a task, and a dissociative ten­ dency. To state the problem in the broadest possible way, the question is whether there is any process whatever in the psychology of the living individual which operates in the case of paranormal activities which is not also opera­ tive constantly as a necessary aspect of normal everyday psychology. This question suggests another * do paranormal phenomena occur only when in addition to our ordinary normal psychology there are realized certain special con­ ditions of an unknown sort which bring about contact between the individual and the environment? On another occasion (6) I argued that there were at least three respects in which paranormal processes differed from normal ones. I urged that they were trans-spacial, transtemporal and transpersonal. Perhaps it would be bet­ ter, instead of saying trans-spacial, to say transphysical, since a very attentive reader might make the point that to perceive paranormally at a distance of one millimeter (if one can absolutely rule out sensory communication) is just as far from normal organismic behaviour as to perceive paranormally at a distance of a hundred million light years. The question is really the physical relationship and not the question of space. We tend to believe that distance between target and subject is unimportant in paranormal processes; but this is of only secondary im­ portance if we know, as we do, with some degree of cer­ tainty that we are not dealing with any of the types of physical energy with which contemporary physics is concerned. Of course what the physics of the future may reveal none of us should be foolish enough to try to pre­ dict; this is perhaps one of the reasons for being a little hesitant about insisting so strongly today that we know

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we are dealing with psychic or spiritual factors rather than physical ones. All sorts of possibilities occur here. It may turn out that what we call physical factors are indistinguishable from what we call spiritual factors; it may turn out that the physical factors are special classes of psychical or spiritual factors; it may turn out that there are many different classes of phenomena intermediate between what we call the physical and the spiritual. Metaphysical theories have become richer rather than poorer as a result of the extraordinary volte-faces of physics in the last fifty years. We are safe, however, in emphasizing that the present problem is the reality of a transphysical relationship be­ tween agent and target is so far as the physics of today is concerned. The second point, about transtemporal relationships, may also need a little clarification. We may regard the functions of the living organism, with its typical processes of growth, decline and dissolution as following a four­ dimensional time line similar to the four-dimensional time lines of other events known to physics. We have how­ ever, in the case of paranormal phenomena contacts with events which belong unmistakably at a point on the time line not capable of being perceived under normal condi­ tions. Several ingenious theories, such as those of Salt­ marsh, have suggested that this is due to the fact that instead of dealing with a zero duration of time we ought to think of a ‘specious present’ or ‘blurred now’; some­ thing like the conception of indeterminacy which would make clear that an event is not really an event of zero duration but is a definite time-consuming process. While it is true that most of the experiments in precognition have dealt with very short time intervals, there are a number of spontaneous cases which seem to involve in­ tervals of hours, days, or weeks; and if the specious pres­ ent has to be stretched to comprise more than the ordi­ nary moment which we experience subjectively as now, it is hard to see how it is very useful anyhow. In the same way, while admitting the right of others to doubt, I am pretty well convinced that some of the cases of apparitions are not cases of ‘latency’, in which the impact of the paranormal impression had to wait for some hours to emerge in consciousness, but are true in­ stances of the percipient’s looking back in time to the moment of a tragic event which is cognized. In the absence of conclusive evidence, I will not stress the point,

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but as far as I am concerned I will emphasize the trans­ temporal as fully as the transphysical aspects of para­ normal communication. In the matter of transpersonal communication, I did not at the time of my address to the S.P.R. (6) mean much more than had been suggested in the twenties by Mrs Sidgwick (10) in her idea of two-way flow between per­ sons in paranormal contact. I think I am willing to go a short step further than that at this time. I feel myself moving in the direction of belief that the phases of in­ dividuality which interact in such cases are phases com­ prising more than the personal or I-centred consciousness with which we are ordinarily concerned. Whether they correspond well to Myers’s subliminal, I do not know (7); and whether light is thrown upon them by the Indian conception of the Atman I likewise do not know. I am prepared, however, to say that I believe the transpersonal aspect of these events is as important as the transphysical and transtemporal, and that I believe that a great deal of blindness in psychical research has resulted from the tradition of the western world—earlier so largely Platon­ ic and in recent centuries so largely individualistic—which has tried to make a sharp clear jewel out of the individual personality utterly separable from its environment. I be­ lieve, as a matter of fact, that a large part of the motiva­ tion which has maintained our system of religion and ethics, and a large part of the motivation which has sup­ ported psychical research, has been related to the con­ ception of the unlimited value of unique sharply defined self-sufficient individuality, which is so precious in itself that we can hardly bear to think of its undergoing radical change even in life, and the dissolution of which in death appears to us to cast a blemish upon the fair name of the universe as a whole. Whether the transphysical, the transtemporal and the transpersonal are aspects of the same thing, I do not know. All three, however, seem to be involved in the para­ normal, and in the case of some phenomena at least, such as S. G Soal’s (11) study of divided agency in telep­ athy, it is possible to use the same evidence as support of two of these principles at once. Soal has for example presented evidence of an interpersonal relationship when dealing with a transphysical type of contact. It seems to me likely that the ability of the subject to shift, as some have done, from a clairvoyant to precognitive activity, is likewise evidence that the basic dispositions and orienta­

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l’onS which are helpful in the one are helpful also in the other. It seems likely that all paranormal phenomena ^present all three of these types of transcendance of we know now as ‘physical law’. Now if this be the case, it would be likely that the saine basic discovery which would reveal the manner in which we may transcend one of these three kinds of limitation would likewise lead to the discovery of the means of freeing ourselves of the other two. The more attractive, naturally, are the ‘dimensional’ theories be­ ginning perhaps with Ouspensky or Dunne, and continuing through Smythies and the commentators upon his theory. yVhat we are all impelled to do is to find one basic scientific operation which will carry us all the way over the gulf; that is, which will carry us from normal psy­ chology to the full-fledged expression of the paranormal. Now it may be worth while to recall that scientific dis­ coveries in general are not of this type. For the most part, the bridging of straits and bays is done with multiple span bridges, not with one-span bridges. The transition from pre-Darwinian to Darwinian evolution, which looked at one time as if it could be made in a single step, has turned out to involve a fantastically complicated set of inter­ mediate concepts relating to the nature of the gene, the fundamental unit of heredity, relating also to the na­ ture of growth and adaptation, together with the recogni­ tion that many of the basic principles emphasized by Darwin were unsound. In the realm of physics itself we find endless trans­ formations of an evolutionary sort, many of which are similar to those found in the evolution of life. Can we go from physics to biology in a single step? Schrodinger (9), diffident as he is regarding his capacity as a physicist to talk meaningly about basic problems in biology, is one of the few who has attempted to fix upon a physical principle which would help to carry us from the physical world to the life world. But if one looks at the last few pages of his little book, one finds what is customary in these books: an appeal to a realm of psychological or nonphysical reality so vaguely phrased that it stands in sorry contrast to the crisp orderliness of the physical and biological argument. It is perhaps sound to say that Schrodinger has made a good guess as to one—not the only one, but nevertheless one—important factor stand­ ing between the physical and the biological. It is likely that quantum physics, as it begins to turn into quantum

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biology, will turn out to give us an important clue; f0 it apparently can be shown that many sharp changes o breaks in the course of biological development are dj pendent upon sharp changes or breaks at the level of the single quantum of action. I might express my scepticism about the *one sten * efforts to span the gulf by asking a very simple question, which is parallel to the one we are asking in psychical research: how likely is it that somebody during the twen, tieth century will discover one clear principle which brings into orderly relationship the world of subjective experj. ence and the world of physiological activity? No psychob ogist at all familiar with the complexities of the problem and of the history of the attempts at their solution is like, ly to believe that the answer can be ‘dreamed up * by some brilliant genius. It has taken dozens of years since the beginnings of experimental psychology and since the beginnings of modern quantitative experimental biology to give us the rudimentary fragments which we now possess as to the intimate relations between specific psychic structures—perceptions, memories, and so on—and specific organic processes. Is it likely that we shall soon see with a tremendous flash of insight the whole complex towering unitary reality? If it be replied that an Einstein may appear who can pull all these diverse phenomena into a single structural form, I am afraid I should have to say that the biology and psychology of today are neither as simple nor as clearly organized nor as well equipped with conceptual tools as the physics of the early twentieth century, and that the Einstein formulations themselves, continuing to come over a lifetime since the time of the special theory of relativity (1905), have appeared in a long and com­ plex conceptual development rather than a single mas­ sive discovery. My own guess would be that physiology is from any standpoint very much less of an exact science today than physics was in 1905, and that those aspects of psychology with which we are now dealing, namely the world of our subjective experiences, will not achieve for many decades anything like the coherent structural form which would permit even a supergenius to point out a plausible and consistent relationship between them and the physiological matrix within the living organism. This is nt>t intended as pessimism. This is a suggestion to the effect that there probably is a unifying principle which connects subjective psychology with the physiology

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f the organism, but that it will probably be discovered . y a series of steps, not by a single step. In exactly the same way I would suggest that there probably is some one fundamental principle which con­ nects ordinary psychology with the phenomena of psy­ chical research. But this one clear central principle is likely to be discovered by a long series of investigations, sc) This causal dependence is rigidly determined in exact accordance with the “laws of mechanics”; i.e., there must be a mechanical chain of causation, with no discontinuity in either space or time, connecting the pre­ ceding event or “cause” with the later dependent event or “effect.” (2a) All mental processes are generated and determined by material processes in the brain or nervous system of the person who experiences them. (2b) The only way in which one person can convey information to an­ other is by material means, that is, by moving his own material body (as in gesture, speech, facial expression, and the like) and thus transmitting physical energy to the sen-

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sory organs (eye, ear, or skin) on the surface of the other person’s body, and so to his brain (10).1 Now, if the apparent results of parapsychology were firmly established, they would plainly refute each of these several assumptions. The first would be disproved by pre, cognition, the second by psychokinesis; while telepathy clairvoyance, and retrocognition would all be incompati * ble with the last three. These principles will thus serve to pinpoint what are popularly supposed to be the distinguishing characteristics of paranormal experiences as contrasted with normal experiences: they are (1) transtemporal, (2) transspatial, (3) transphysical, and (4) transpersonal. We cannot, of course, claim that the evidence from parapsy. chology is already sufficiently decisive to furnish a com­ plete rebuttal; but it does set up a strong presumption against these so-called postulates. And I myself would hold that many of the undeniable facts of general psychology, when frankly faced, provide additional evidence in the same direction. It will be noted that the four postulates presuppose what Eddington has called the Newtonian conception of the universe: they assume absolute time and absolute space, and exact causal laws reducible in essence to those of mechanics. This highly attractive conception was based primarily on the study of mesoscopic or man-sized phe­ nomena; i.e., on processes which could be manipulated by human hands and observed by human eyes, supple­ mented by such instruments as the microscope and tele­ scope. It was, in fact, the model-universe delineated in systematic detail by Tait and Kelvin in their famous Trea­ tise on Natural Philosophy, This simplified scheme works perfectly well so long as we are dealing with the familiar phenomena of ordinary life, in which the smallest con­ ceivable particle is the atom, and which obey the familiar laws of motion. It is therefore adequate to describe all the ordinary overt actions of the human body. But today no physicist or physiologist would regard them as “funda­ mental requirements of all natural science.” Einstein’s theory of relativity has abolished absolute time and space; xMuch the same four “basic limiting principles” (formulated with somewhat greater precision and detail) have already been put forward by Prof. Broad as “forming the framework within which the scientific theories of contemporary industrial civilizations are confined” (2, pp. 9-11). Prof. Hansel, however, states that his formulation was reached quite independently and was intended to represent the current views of most present-day psychologists.

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quantum theory with its principle of indeterminacy has substituted probabilistic laws for exact causal laws; nu­ clear research has revealed many kinds of interaction un­ known to physicists at the turn of the century; while both einstein and Heisenberg insist that the conscious observer can no longer be omitted from an exact description of what any scientific observation entails. Above all, the cru­ cial processes in the brain—the transmission of nervous impulses—takes place at the synaptic knobs, which are so minute that we have every reason to suppose that they must be governed, not by the laws which (according to the writers I have just quoted) contemporary psychologists “tacitly and almost unanimously adopt”; i.e., the laws of mesoscopic processes, but by the laws of quantum theory This modernized view is accepted and emphasized by Sir John Eccles, who is, I suppose, the foremost neurologist of the present day Eccles, indeed, regards the brain, not as a generator of mind or consciousness, but rather as a detector of extraneous influences, such as those we com­ monly refer to as mind or will (8, pp. 261-86; 9) This, as I have argued elsewhere (4, pp. 66-71), suggests a possible interpretation of many of the more puzzling findings of parapsychology If, for example, we adopt, as many present-day physicists are inclined to do, a rela­ tional theory of space and either a multidimensional theory of time or the possibility of time-reversal, then telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition no longer appear so wild­ ly anomalous. The detector hypothesis itself seems to im­ ply something akin to psychokinesis. In particular it might be urged that we no longer need to draw any sharp dis­ tinction between mental processes and phy ' 1. An early hint of a theory along these lines was put for­ ward by Hans Berger, who, it may be remembered, was the first to record what he termed the Elektrenkephoto­ gram. As a result of his own personal experiences and of experiments with his students, Berger was fully convinced that “the parapsychological phenomenon of Gedankenubertragung between one brain and another must be rec­ ognized as fact.” He at first supposed that the “electrical waves” he had detected might operate as a kind of mental radio. He quickly saw that such a notion was untenable, and suggested instead that the reduction of electrical manifestations during visual perception and other attentive states resulted from a conversion of electrical energy into a hitherto unrecognized “psychical energy,” which could be propagated across space and interact with the electro­

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chemical processes of the recipient’s brain by a kinSee his The Case of the Midwife Toad (London: Hutchinson, 1971), esp. Appendix 1. ‘The Law of Seriality’ L3In C. G. Jung and W Pauli, The Interpretation of Nature and The Psyche (London: Routledge, 1955, and Princeton. Princeton University Press, 1955, translated from the German edition of 1952).

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graciously by first dismissing all of Kammerer’s precious coincidences as easily explicable by chance alone. He then offers the reader an assortment of truly staggering coinci­ dences which, though they are mostly retailed at second or third hand, like the inimitable tale of M. de Fontgibou and the plum pudding, he clearly expects the reader to take seriously. Jung does, however, go one better than Kam­ merer in this respect: he carries out an actual experi­ ment on coincidences. For this he collected data on a large batch of married couples by having their horoscopes analysed for certain astrogological correspondences, those in fact traditionally associated with marriage, and com­ pared the results with those obtained from randomly matched pairs. And, lo and behold, he got a highly sig­ nificant result! Now, whatever you may think of this exper­ iment, it is only by considering some preselected sample of this kind that we could hope to throw any light on Kammerer’s original question, namely: do coincidences occur more often than they should? So long as we stick to the spontaneous coincidences of real-life we can never answer this question if only because probabilities cannot be assessed retrospectively. Unlike Kammerer, who was a sceptic on this score, Jung was, of course, a convinced believer in the paranormal and in his autobiography gives many striking instances of it in his own life. He suggested, however, that it was use­ less to try and explain either ESP or PK in causal terms, i.e. as a species of mind-matter interactions, since this would amount to a magical type of causation for which there was no place in the scientific outlook. His concept of ‘synchronicity’, on the other hand, allowed one to treat any observed correspondences between target and re­ sponse as, at one and the same time, coincidental and yet meaningful! Jung then gave his concept a further dynamic twist, which linked it up with his own clinical observations, by suggesting that such meaningful coincidences would for some reason be more likely to occur when the atmo­ sphere was emotionally charged. This stipulation further helped to explain why parapsychological findings so rarely stand up to repetition, the original excitement, which brought them into being as it were, has evaporated. Just as Jung begins by slighting Kammerer, so Koestler introduces his version of the theory by criticizing Jung whom he finds confused and inconsistent. It is not so easy, however, to discover just where Koestler’s theory differs from that of Jung. What does emerge is that

John Beloff

389 jCoestler’s concept of ‘confluent events’ which is sup­ posed to supersede both Kammerer’s ‘seriality’ and Jung’s ‘synchronicity’ has a still wider compass. Koestler hopes that it will throw some light not only on parapsychological phenomena but also on such questions as the inheritance of acquired characteristics which, following Kammerer, he still takes seriously or the hierarchical structure of living things which he has discussed at length in previous vol­ umes. Here, however, we shall be concerned only with its implications for parapsychology. What, then, are we to make of this puzzling, not to say paradoxical notion? Undoubtedly it offers one escape route from the demands for a causal mechanism which, as we have seen, is likely to lead only to futility. As a theory of the paranormal, however, it would have more to recommend it if all the evidence we had was of the spontaneous variety If, for example, the night my grand­ mother dies her portrait accidentally falls off the wall we should be sorely tempted to call that a meaningful co­ incidence. It is less easy, however, to make the idea sound plausible when we are dealing with the experimental evi­ dence. An experiment is, by definition, a situation where a certain independent variable is deliberately manipulated in order to produce a certain change in some dependent variable. If the experiment is a success, that is if we can demonstrate that this effect is statistically significant and is not due to some uncontrolled artefact, then we have sure­ ly all we need to constitute a causal relationship whatever the variables in question. If, for example, I could make it rain whenever I recited a certain ritual incantation, I would be justified in claiming that I had causal control over the rainfall even though I knew nothing more about the nature of this control. In other words, there is nothing in the logic of cause and effect which would limit the concept to that of mechanical causation. To treat parapsychologi­ cal effects, as Koestler would have us do, as exemplifying ‘confluent’ rather than ‘causal’ relationships is to treat them as a species of divination. All divinatory practices, from the auguries of the Romans to the I Ching (or Book of Changes) of the Chinese14 are predicated on the assumption that a meaningful coincidence can arise be­ tween a fortuitous oracle and some future event with 14See the recent edition, edited and with an introduction by Ray­ mond Van Over (New York: New American Library, Mentor, 1971).

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which we are concerned. As a model, however, I cannot see that it can offer much guidance for parapsychological research. Let us therefore see what follows if, in defiance of Jung or Koestler, we boldly posit a non-mechanical causation as the basis of psi phenomena. Suppose we attribute to mind certain transcendental powers that would allow it a certain measure of independence from the physical para­ meters which we take as defining the real world. Sup­ pose, in particular, we start with the admittedly colossal assumption that any item of information that can be identified is, potentially, accessible to us no matter where in the universe the target is situated relative to our bodies, whether in time or space, and no matter how that infor­ mation is encoded. If, for the sake of argument, we start from that end and take as axiomatic what otherwise would seem most in need of explanation, the traditional position is reversed and what we then have to ask is. why, if that be the case, are we hardly ever able to acquire any information at all other than that which passes through the normal sensory channels? The idea that this might be the right question to ask in the circumstances stems from the French philosopher, Henri Bergson, who, in 1896, wrote a book entitled La Matiere et La Memoire.1^ At that time Bergson was not concerned with anything of a paranormal nature, he was interested in propounding a metaphysic which would escape the worst perplexities alike of Realism and Idealism. Thus, against traditional Realism he could never bring himself to believe that brain processes could of their own accord generate per­ cepts. He therefore adopted instead a position more akin to naive realism according to which the percept is not just a subjective representation of external reality but an actual slice of that reality Again and again, in his book, Bergson keeps insisting that the brain is not con­ cerned with knowledge as such, it is mind or memory or spirit, call it what you will, that is the organ of knowledge, the brain and nervous system is concerned purely with behaviour, with action. The elaborate sensory and per­ ceptual apparatus of the organism cannot therefore be that which gives us our knowledge of the world, rather* 15See Matter and Memory (London: Allen & Unwin, 1911, trans­ lated from the 5th French edition of 1908; 7th impression 1962). Bergson became president of the S.P.R. in 1913. In his presidential address he develops the relevance of these ideas to the problems of the paranormal. See Proc. S.P.R. 26, 1913, 462-479 (in French).

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it is that which restricts our knowledge and confines it to that small segment of the environment which is of im­ mediate importance to us as separate biological entities. In brief, the brain is primarily a filter which evolution has devised to insure our attention to the here and now, “c’est 1’organe de 1’attention a la vie” in Bergson’s famous phrase. In more recent times this bold idea has been favourably considered by the late C. D. Broad, the emi­ nent Cambridge philosopher, especially in his article ‘The Relevance of Psychical Research to Philosophy’,1617and an attempt to explore in detail its implications for perceptual psychology has been made by M. M. Moncrieff in a book entitled The Clairvoyant Theory of Perception.11 I myself believe that, far-fetched as it must seem, it is still the most hopeful point of departure we have for any general theory of the paranormal. No filter is ever perfect and so we could regard para­ psychology as being concerned with those special cases where, owing to some innate defect or leak in the filtering system, information reaches the mind direct from the out­ side world instead of indirectly via the senses. Looked at in this way many puzzling features of the evidence at once become more comprehensible. There is, first of all, the fact, since ancient times paranormal awareness has been associated with altered states of consciousness; with trance­ states, with ecstasy, with intoxication and frenzy, with deep meditation or the mind-expanding routines of mysti­ cism, with almost anything that enables us to elude the trammels of the normal waking state. Even the dream state has traditionally been regarded as a potential outlet of this kind and it is worth noting that one of the most interesting developments of recent experimental parapsy­ chology, the work of the Maimonides group in New York, is based on using dreams as a means of demonstrat­ ing ESP, exploiting for the purpose the new techniques of modem sleep research.18 The filter-theory may also help to explain what so many investigators have discov­ ered to their cost, namely the evanescence of psi phe­ nomena. In place of the learning-curves that we find with all other skills, psi ability is characterized by decline­ effects. Now, decline-effects are just what we look for in 16In Philosophy, 24, 1949; reprinted in his Religion, Philosophy and Psychical Research (London: Routledge, 1953) 17London: Faber, 1951. 18M. Ullman & S. Krippner, Dream Studies and Telepathy (Parapsychology Foundation Monograph, 1970).

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the case of habituation phenomena where an organism re­ acts to rid itself of some disturbing stimulus. In our present analogy we must suppose that if, by some mishap, the filter is penetrated, it rallies to repair its defences, becomes more efficient with the result that ESP is thereafter ex­ cluded. Then there is the curious phenomenon known to parapsychologists as ‘psi-missing’ which consists in consis­ tently negative scoring. It is directly analogous to the phenomenon of perceptual defence in experimental psy­ chology and suggests likewise the existence of a second line of defence whereby information which does manage to get through will not be recognized or acted upon. The mention of perceptual defence brings me to the last section of this paper. Recently, when I read Norman Dixon’s new book on Subliminal Perception,19 it struck me forcibly that so many of the properties which he attributes to subliminal perception (or SP as we may call it) could equally be attributed to ESP The gist of Dixon’s theory is that when a stimulus falls below a certain critical level of intensity it tends to elicit a response which is not just weaker, but qualitatively different from the response which it elicits at normal intensities. In other words true Dixonian SP involves not merely a certain amount of dis­ crimination in the absence of awareness but a different kind of processing mediated by a different set of brain mechanisms capable of operating in parallel with those which mediate ordinary conscious perception. For exam­ ple, if the stimulus is a word and the subject, though not consciously aware of seeing anything at all, is asked to guess what the word is, he will respond with a word which is not necessarily similar structurally to the stimulus word but is related to it semantically. Very often, especially if the stimulus word has some emotional connotation for him the transformation which occurs will be of a symbolic kind and may have decidedly Freudian overtones. One of the more bizarre examples of this sort of thing which Dixon discusses in his book at some length is the so-called ‘Poetzl Phenomenon’ after the Austrian neurolo­ gist O. Potzl who first demonstrated it in 1917 What Potzl did was to present his subjects with a rather elab­ orate picture which he exposed once, for a lO.m.s. interval, in a tachistoscope. If asked to do so immediately fol­ lowing this exposure the subject was quite unable to re­ produce more than the barest fragment of the picture. “London: McGraw-Hill, 1971.

393 However, if asked the following day to describe his dreams of the preceding night a greater than chance resemblance could be discerned between features of his dreams and features of the stimulus picture. Recent work on the Poetzl phenomenon, using, I may say a rigorous experi­ mental design, has shown that the same effect can be ob­ tained without resorting to dreams if, following the ex­ posure, the subject is merely asked to relax and either to free-associate or to describe any images or fantasies which spontaneously emerge into consciousness. Dixon attempts to explain such findings by suggesting that SP depends, not on the classical arousal system which sustains the cortex in a state of vigilance and involves the R.A.S., but on a secondary arousal system which comes into play during the dream state or when vigilance is relaxed and involves the limbic system. Its biological function, as Dixon sees it, is to allow the organism access to a much wider range of stimulation than is possible with the selective atten­ tion which typifies supraliminal perception. SP is, of course, a most unreliable form of perception, nevertheless it does, he believes, contribute something towards the ultimate efficiency of performance. How far dare we press the analogy between SP and ESP? For a start we must distinguish between ESP as manifested under two different conditions, that of the forced-choice test and that of the free-response test. In the forced-choice situation a guess can be only either right or wrong, there is no question of it being qualitatively similar or dissimilar to the target symbol. In this situation a good subject (and I must remind you that there is nothing in the world quite as rare as a good subject) can, hopefully, score at a statistically significant level above chance. We then say that our subject is using his ESP though we must remember that he has no con­ scious perceptual experience of the target and no clue as to whether he is right or wrong on any particular trial, his success is at the purely behavioural level of guessing. A comparable effect can be obtained if a forced-choice situa­ tion is used with subliminal stimuli. Indeed, from the subject’s point of view he might just as well be doing an ESP test since he is equally unaware of the target though it should not be so difficult under these conditions to demonstrate a statistically positive effect. With a free-response test, however, we find something much closer to Dixonian SP or to a Poetzl effect. Suppose, for example, the task you set your subject is to reproduce John Beloff

394 Psychology and Extrasensory Perception a message or a picture presented inside a sealed-opaque envelope or to say something relevant about the owner of some token or proxy object. Assuming that you can get results at all on this kind of a test they are likely to incorporate all kinds of distortions and disguises and the subject is likely to make plentiful use of images which spontaneously spring into consciousness. Such qualitative changes are of course specially in evidence where the protocols are based on dream experiences, as in the Maimonides experiments. Indeed, before we can demon­ strate a correspondence at all in a free-response test it is usually necessary to resort to a blind matching of targets and protocols carried out by independent judges. There have in the past, I may say, been subjects so out­ standingly gifted that they have succeeded in reproducing with almost perfect fidelity some complicated drawing or inscription presented inside a sealed envelope—the great Polish clairvoyant, Stafan Ossowiecki could occasionally achieve this feat—but needless to say it is very rare and seems to demand an almost superhuman effort of concen­ tration. There is thus, I suggest, good grounds for thinking that, at least so far as the psychodynamics of the process is concerned ESP is similar to SP, we might almost describe it in this context as perception at zero intensity! The work of Martin Johnson demonstrating a connection be­ tween patterns of ESP scoring and his “defence mecha­ nism test” which utilizes, if not subliminal at least preconscious perceptions, further encourages us to pursue this comparison.20 Moreover, Dixon’s conjecture as to the func­ tion of SP, namely that it enlarges the scope of percep­ tion though at a cost in accuracy and dependability, seems to apply with even greater force to ESP. As with SP, so with ESP success is achieved, not by a deliberate effort of will but by relaxing and then concentrating on what­ ever impressions supervene. It is important, however, to realize also the limitations of this model. It is useful if we want to understand what transpires once the critical information becomes part of an individual mind, but it tells us nothing about how that mind establishes contact with the target in the first in­ stance. In the case of SP there is no great mystery on this 2°M. Johnson and B. Kanthamani, ‘The Defense Mechanism Test as a Predictor of ESP Scoring Direction,’ J. Parapsych. 31, 1967,

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point since it is generally conceded that the threshold for nervous excitation will be very much lower for a given stimulus than the threshold for conscious recognition, though it is noteworthy that SP evoked considerable scepticism and resistance when it was first mooted. But, once we can no longer appeal even to a minimal stimula­ tion, the situation is quite different. The Bergsonian phi­ losophy of mind made ESP effectively omniscient and then appealed to our physiological nature to explain why that omniscience could not be freely exercised. But it could say little about what we might call the supreme mystery of ESP, namely how it is that we can focus on just that particular target which has been designated in the experi­ mental instructions. It is not enough here to insist that ESP has unlimited scope, the problem is how it can also be selective and discriminative. Confronted with this tre­ mendous problem I can sympathise with those sceptics who prefer for the time being to deny that there are any genuine cases that require explanation.

Appendix: Psychical Research as a University Study * william

McDougall

This course of lectures on Psychical Research is, I believe, the first of its kind to be given in any university, whether of this or of any other country; and I venture to think that this innovation will prove to be yet another leaf added to the laurels of Clark University, already so dis­ tinguished by its impartial and courageous spirit of re­ search. Other lecturers, persons distinguished in the most vari­ ous lines of activity, but all of them qualified by special study of the field of Psychical Research, will deal with special parts or aspects of the field and from the most diverse points of view. For it is the intention of those who have designed the course that it should represent with perfect impartiality every point of view from which this most difficult and controversial field may be approached; the only stipulation being that each lecturer shall present his facts, his evidences, and his reasoning upon them in a truly critical spirit and with all the impartiality and open­ ness of mind attainable by him. This course being so great an innovation, it is fitting that this lecture should be devoted to the justification of the inclusion of Psychical Research among University Studies; for there can be no doubt that Clark University, while it will be praised by many for its courage and its pioneer spirit in thus opening its doors to a study hitherto denied University recognition, will also be severely criti­ * Originally delivered at the Lecture Series Symposium, this paper was published subsequently by Clark University Press, Worcester, Mass., 1926. It also appeared in William McDougall, Explorer of the Mind: Studies in Psychical Research, edited by Raymond Van Over & Laura Oteri (New York: Garrett/Helix Press, 1967).

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cized by others. It will be said by those adverse critics that the University is encouraging superstition and coun­ tenancing charlatanry; that it runs the risk of leading its students into a slough of despair, of entangling them in a quagmire where no sure footing is to be found, where will-o’-the-wisps gleam fitfully on every hand, provoking hopes that are destined to disappointment and emotions that blind us to the dangers of this obscure region; dangers ranging from mere waste of time to disturbance of intel­ lectual balance and loss of critical judgment; dangers which he who enters by the gate we seek to open must inevitably encounter. Let us begin, then, by frankly admitting that such criti­ cism is not wholly without substance and foundation. The field of Psychical Research has pitfalls and morasses un­ known in other fields of science. The student entering this field cannot avoid contact with vast currents of traditional sentiment, which sentiments, in nearly all cases, he either shares or repudiates with an intensity of feeling that ren­ ders calm and critical judgment well nigh impossible. It is as though the student were invited to embark with Cole­ ridge’s Ancient Mariner; to exclaim, with him, “We were the first that ever burst into that Silent Sea”; to witness, with him, strange and even horrible phenomena that seem to defy all the ascertained laws of nature, a phantasma­ goria that can have no reality and no origin other than the phantasy of minds disordered by the conflict of strong emotions and blinded by glittering hopes long held before the imagination of mankind, hopes long deferred and now threatened with total extinction by the triumphant prog­ ress of scientific enquiry. Let it be admitted, then, that this is no field for the casual amateur; for the man who merely wishes to take a rapid glance at the phenomena and thereupon form his own conclusions; for the person who approaches it in the hope of finding solace for some personal bereavement; for the dilettante who merely seeks a new and sensational hobby. It is a field of research which at every step de­ mands in the highest degree the scientific spirit and all round scientific training and knowledge; a field which gives the widest scope for the virtues of the scientific intellect and character and which, just because it makes these de­ mands and affords this scope, is of the greatest value as an intellectual discipline. Here the mind long disciplined in other branches of science may find the supreme test of its powers and its

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training, tests of impartial observation, of relevant selec­ tion, of sagacious induction and deduction, of resolute dis­ counting of emotional bias and personal influence. Here better than in any other field, it may learn to recognize its own limitations, limitations of knowledge, of power, of principle; and to recognize also the limitations of science and philosophy themselves, their inadequacy to give final answers to problems which mankind has long answered with ready-made formulae, handed down from the dim dawn of human reflection, and before which it now halts with burning desire for certainty or unsatisfied longing for more light. The difficulty, the obscurity, the dangers of a field of research are no sufficient grounds for excluding it from our Universities. Has not the teaching of all science in our schools and Universities been vigorously opposed on just such grounds, on the ground that such teaching might lead young people into intellectual and moral error, or raise in their souls insoluble problems and conflicts that would destroy their peace of mind? That question has been de­ cisively answered. Our Western civilization has definitely repudiated the old way of authority, has committed itself irrevocably to live by knowledge, such knowledge as the methods of science can attain. It cannot return to live by instinct and traditional beliefs; it has gone so far along the path of knowledge and of self-direction in the light of knowledge that it cannot stop or turn back without dis­ aster. The inclusion of Psychical Research in the scientific studies of our Universities is the inevitable last step in this advance from a social state founded on instinct and tradi­ tion to one that relies upon knowledge and reason. But it may be answered by our opponents—The intro­ duction of Science to our Universities was justified, in spite of its risks, because Science offers a mass of wellestablished truths, truths which are indispensable to the life of the modem state. Psychical Research has rightly been excluded because it furnishes no such body of established truth; it has solved no problems, has attained to no sure conclusions. Let us admit that this contention also is not without substance and force. But to accept it as a sufficient argu­ ment would be disastrous. It would imply a false and fatally narrow view of the functions of our Universities. It is on just such grounds that the movement against the teaching of evolution takes its stand. It is said that evolu­ tionary biology must not be studied by young people, be-

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cause evolution is not an established fact, but merely a theory, or a mass of unverified hypotheses. Yet all en­ lightened opinion rejects this reasoning, rightly holding that the teaching of established truth is only one of, and per­ haps not the most important of, the functions of a modem University Such teaching may perhaps be the sole or main function of Technical Schools. Our Universities have other, higher, more important functions. We may, I think, distinguish three main functions of the University, as follows: First, the function of educating the young people within its gates; secondly, the function of research, of extending the bounds of knowledge; third­ ly, a function which, as the life of the modem State as­ sumes an accelerating complexity, becomes more and more important, namely, the function of exerting a con­ trolling influence in the formation of public opinion on all vital matters. Consider each of these three great functions in relation to our question: Should Psychical Research find a place in our Universities? First, then, the educational function. Under this head we may properly distinguish two very different, though in­ separable, subfunctions; namely, first, the imparting of knowledge; secondly, intellectual and moral discipline. It is only as regards the former of these that Psychical Re­ search is open to the indictment of its opponents. Let us admit, for the purpose of the argument, that it has not achieved any conclusions that may be taught as firmly established truths. That admission denies it a role only in what we may roughly estimate as one-sixth of the total field of activity of the modern University, a fraction of the field which is its lowest or least important part. As regards the other educational functions, intellectual training and moral discipline, it may well be claimed for Psychical Research that it ranks very high, perhaps highest of all possible subjects of University Study. For consider —In what does such discipline consist? First, in attacking problems patiently and resolutely, in spite of failures and disappointments, in spite of uncertainty that any solution may be attainable. Surely, in this respect Psychical Re­ search may claim a foremost place! No other field of study makes such large demands on the patience and reso­ lution of the student. Secondly, the discipline of observing exactly and recording faithfully phenomena presented to our senses. There is a lower form of such discipline to which the young student of science is extensively sub­ jected; namely, the task of recording as exactly as possible

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all he can observe within some very limited field, as when he has to weigh exactly some chemical substance, or when he is set down before a microscope and required to draw what is there presented to his view. Psychical Research offers little scope for discipline of just this kind; but this is a lower form of observation, one which does not of itself lead to discovery. There is a higher form of observation which requires selective sagacity; it is conducted with a problem in view and under the guidance of some hypothe­ sis which is to be tested. It requires the observer to dis­ tinguish the relevant from the irrelevant, to look for the relevant, to concentrate upon it, and to devise experiments which shall isolate or accentuate the relevant. For disci­ pline in this higher kind of directed observation, Psychical Research offers unlimited opportunities and makes upon the observer demands of the highest order. Then as re­ gards the reasoning processes by aid of which general con­ clusions are drawn from the phenomena observed. Here the demands upon the thinker in the field of Psychical Research are very great and the discipline consequently severe. The physicist or chemist observes the reactions of a single sample of some substance under particular condi­ tions, and is forthwith in a position to state a general con­ clusion with high probability The biologist observes some particular feature in fifty or one hundred specimens of some species and, without great risk, makes a generaliza­ tion as probably true of all members of the species. But the Psychical Researcher is dealing with the most complex and highly individualized of all known objects, namely human beings; before he can summarize his ob­ servations in any generalized statement, he must exercise infinite caution, observe unlimited precautions, be ready to allow for an immense range of possible disturbing fac­ tors of unknown nature and magnitude. And, when he proceeds to apply statistical treatment to his data of ob­ servation, he finds himself facing problems of unrivalled delicacy. For he can never, like other scientists, be content with the comfortable assumption that each of his unit facts is exactly or even approximately equivalent to every other one of the same general order. If, by reason of the complexity and delicacy of its problems, Psychical Research rivals all other branches of science, it far surpasses them all in respect of the demands it makes on character and, consequently, in respect of the character-discipline which it affords. It requires perfectly controlled temper, and a large and understanding tolerance

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of human weaknesses of every kind, intellectual and moral alike; an infinite patience in face of renewed disappoint­ ments; a moral courage which faces not merely the risk and even the probability of failure, but also the risk of loss of reputation for judgment, balance, and sanity itself. And, the most insidious of all dangers, the danger of emo­ tional bias in favour of one or other solution of the problem in hand, is apt to be infinitely greater for the Psychical Researcher than for the worker in any other field of science; for, not only is he swayed by strong senti­ ments within his own breast, but also he knows that both the scientific world and the general public will react with strong emotional bias to any conclusion he may an­ nounce, just because such conclusions must have intimate bearing on the great controversy between Science and Religion, a controversy which, in spite of the soothing re­ assurances which great scientists and religious leaders now utter in unison, is still acute and may well become again even more embittered and violent than it has been in the past. As regards the second function of the University, the extension of knowledge, Psychical Research may boldly claim its place within the fold; on this ground any opposi­ tion to it can only arise from narrow dogmatic ignorance, that higher kind of ignorance which so often goes with a wealth of scientific knowledge, the ignorance which per­ mits a man to lay down dogmatically the boundaries of our knowledge and to exclaim “ignorabimus.” This cry— “we shall not, cannot know!”—is apt to masquerade as scientific humility, while, in reality, it expresses an un­ scientific arrogance and philosophic incompetence. For the man who utters it arrogates to himself a knowledge of the limits of human knowledge and capacity that is wholly unwarranted and illusory. To cry ignorabimus in face of the problems of Psychical Research, and to refuse on that ground to support or countenance its labour, is disingenu­ ous camouflage; for the assertion that we shall not and cannot know the answers to these problems implies a knowledge which we certainly have not yet attained and which, if in principle it be attainable, lies in the distant future when the methods of Psychical Research shall have been systematically developed and worked for all they may be worth. The history of Science is full of warnings against such dogmatic agnosticism, the agnosticism which does not content itself with the frank and humble avowal that

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we do not know, but which presumes to assert that we cannot know. Let us suppose that, after forty years of tentative skirm­ ishing in the wilderness, Psychical Research, in part as the consequence of this course of lectures, should be received within the scientific fold and systematically cultivated in our Universities; and suppose that, after a hundred years of such cultivation, its representatives, surveying the re­ sults of all the work done, should find themselves com­ pelled to utter a purely negative verdict, to assert that Psychical Research had attained to no positive answers to any of the problems it had set out to solve. What then? We should still have to repeat—There is the gate to which we have no key; there is the veil through which we may not see. But, also, we should still have to add—And there the Master-knot of Human Fate! And, though Science might then turn aside, baffled and discouraged, it would at least have given some respectable foundation for the cry Ignorabimus and have made some real contribution to our knowledge of the limitations of human knowledge. But, some hearer will object, this question of the limits of human knowledge is one not for Science but for Philosophy; and in all our Universities Philosophy has long had a well-recognized place and its numerous repre­ sentatives; it is for the philosophers to answer the ques­ tions which Science leaves unsolved. Such an objection would imply an old-fashioned and quite mistaken view of the scope and functions of Philosophy. Philosophy may rightly claim to teach us how to think, how to live, and how to die. It may answer the question— Given the present state of the world and of our knowledge of it, what ought I to do? But it is wholly incompetent to answer the questions—What may I hope? What may I expect? A cosmogony that is to be more than a fanciful speculation must be a scientific cosmogony; and, as science progresses, our cosmogony must change with it. Every cosmogony that professes to be philosophical rather than scientific is a hollow pretense. Only Science working by the methods of Science can presume to answer the ques­ tion—What is? Philosophy must learn that its proper field is defined by the question—What ought to be? And here I will ask leave to revert to the disciplinary, the educational, function of Psychical Research with spe­ cial reference to students of Philosophy. In my opinion, formed through considerable contact with such students, their chief lack is knowledge of Science; and of all forms

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of Science, that which can most enlighten them in litera­ ture can go far to induce in them that which so many of them need, namely, a clear recognition of the limitations of the scope of Philosophy and a corresponding humility in themselves as philosophers. For here they will find that questions which philosophers through all the ages have answered in their peculiar and utterly diverse fashions are capable of being approached by the methods of Science; and the mere act of following in imagination such lines of approach can hardly fail to bring home to the student the fact that the methods of Philosophy, divorced from Science, are of no avail. He will be brought to realize that Philos­ ophy, whether it aims to sketch the main features of the Universe or seeks to instruct us regarding the values and the duties of mankind, must, in both cases, proceed from the fullest possible knowledge of what Science has achieved, or lay itself open to those charges of futility and ignorant pre­ sumption which so often have been launched against it. What, then, are the essential questions on which we may expect new light from Psychical Research? They may all be resumed in one, namely—Does Mind transcend mat­ ter? Or more fully stated—Is all that we call mental, intel­ lectual or spiritual activity, is all understanding and reason, all moral effort, volition, and personality, merely the out­ come and expression of a higher synthesis of physical structures and processes and, therefore, subject to the same general laws and interpretable by the same general princi­ ples as those which Physical Science arrives at from the study of the inanimate world? Or are mental activities, are all or some of the essential functions of personality, in some degree independent of the physical basis with which they are so intricately interwoven? Have they their own peculiar nature, interpretable only in terms of principles quite other than those whose validity has been proved by the victory of man over his physical environment? It is the old problem of materialism versus spiritualism or idealism, of mechanism versus vitalism in biology; or, as I would prefer to formulate it, the problem of animism versus mechanistic-monism. This has been the central problem of Philosophy for more than two thousand years; and always the philosophers have been pretty equally di­ vided into two groups, those who say “Yes” and those who say “No.” The course of development of modem Science has on the whole tended strongly to give predomi­ nance to the view which denies the transcendence of Mind. Idealistic philosophers have struggled in vain to stem this

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tide, urging that it is absurd to regard as subject to the laws formulated for the interpretation of physical phenom­ ena, the mind, which conceives the physical world and which has itself in some degree created those phenomena. But this and all similar reasoning remains inconclusive and must ever remain so. We are up against a question of empirical fact; and the answer to the question can be brought only by the methods of empirical Science. Many of the greater physicists have inclined to think that their own science points towards a positive answer to this question of transcendence; and it is possible that the progress of physical science and of biology may in the course of time lead us to a decisive answer to this central problem. But, if so, the answer will be achieved only very slowly by very indirect methods of attack. The essence of Psychical Research is the proposal to attack the problem directly. If Mind in any manner and degree transcends the physical world and its laws, surely it may somehow and somewhere be possible to obtain direct evidence of the fact by the methods of science, by observation of phenomena and by reasoning from them! That is the prop­ osition on which Psychical Research is founded. Psychical Research proposes, then, to go out to seek such phenom­ ena, namely phenomena pointing directly to the trans­ cendence of Mind, and, if possible, to provoke them experimentally. Phenomena of this kind have been re­ ported in every age; and in every age antecedent to our own age, dominated as it is by the principles of scientific evidence, their obvious implication has been accepted. Psychical Research proposes to marshal all such sporadi­ cally and spontaneously occurring phenomena, to examine them critically, to classify them, to discover if possible the laws of their occurrence and to add to them experi­ mentally induced phenomena of similar types. Consider now the third great function of our Universi­ ties, the guidance of public opinion. It is perhaps from this point of view that the admission of Psychical Re­ search to the Universities is most urgently needed. Here is a most obscure question vitally affecting the intellectual outlook and the moral life of men in general. Surely it is for the Universities to find, if possible, the light that we need! What ground can be found for their neglect or re­ pudiation of the task? Several such grounds are implied, though rarely formulated explicitly. First it may be said, the task is one for the philosophers and theologians, who are well represented in the Uni-

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versifies. But philosophers and theologians have wrestled with it for long ages; and there is no faintest reason to believe that by their methods alone they can achieve in the future any greater success than they have attained in the past. Let us glance at the grounds they offer us for accepting a positive answer in face of the general ten­ dency of science to insist on the negative answer. They may all be reduced to two. First, the moral ground; to believe in the transcendence of Mind is a moral need of mankind in general. Such belief, it is said, is essential to the maintenance and progress of our civilization. Our civi­ lization has been built up on a foundation of and under the sway of such belief; and, if that foundation and that influence should be taken away, our civilization must surely decline; even though it be possible for exceptional individuals to continue to attain high moral excellence in an attitude of stoic agnosticism. This argument is re­ spectable; it has weight and substance. Given a balance of evidence and the impossibility of assured knowledge, we would be justified in accepting that view which seems the more conducive to human welfare. This argument, which perhaps William James was the first to state and defend explicitly, is, I suppose, implied by those who ask us to continue to accept the transcendence of Mind as an arti­ cle of faith. But this moral argument in no sense justifies a refusal to countenance or support Psychical Research, which is nothing less than an endeavour to replace faith by knowledge in this matter. If, from time to time, re­ ligious leaders exhort their flocks to eschew Psychical Research and pour scorn upon it and all its works, we cannot wholly acquit them of a preference for ignorance over against knowledge. It would seem that they fear the result of Psychical Research; they fear either a negative outcome of the great enquiry, or a positive outcome which shall disturb the minds of their flocks by bringing knowledge not strictly in accord with traditional beliefs. Therefore they ask us to remain content to accept these beliefs on authority. But it is too late to advocate that policy with any hope of success. As I said before, it is obvious that we have left the age of authority behind and that our civilization is irrevocably committed to the at­ tempt to live by knowledge, rather than by instinct and authority. Consider now the second main ground offered for acceptance of the positive answer. If we ask whence does ecclesiastical authority derive the views it seeks to impose, the answer is that they are founded upon alleged

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historical events of a remote age, events of just such a nature as Psychical Research is concerned to investigate at first hand as contemporary events. However we regard the evidence of those remote events, we can hardly claim that the lapse of some two thousand years has made the evidence of them less disputable; and in any case it is clear that mankind in general is ceasing to find that evidence sufficient. More and more we are inclined to say—You ask us to accept the transcendence of mind because we have certain records of events which, if the records be above suspicion, would seem to justify and establish that belief; and yet you would forbid us to examine, in a can­ did and critical spirit, similar events that are reported as occurring among friends and neighbours. Truly, he who repudiates Psychical Research in the interests of religion and of religious authority cannot easily be absolved from the charge of a timid obscurantism. But it is not only in respect of this high problem of transcendence that public opinion needs from the Uni­ versities guidance of a kind which they can give only if they cultivate Psychical Research. That after all is a prob­ lem for the intellectual few; although the views of those few may have far-reaching influence upon the lives of the many. The great public does not much concern itself with the question—Are we truly in some degree rational beings capable of moral choice and creative endeavour? In the main they continue to regard themselves as such beings, in spite of all statements of scientists and philosophers to the contrary. But they are much concerned to know what kind and degree of influence Mind can exert upon bodily processes, what truth there is in the claims of many sects and schools of mental healers. They do keenly desire to know whether there is a kernel of truth in the widely accepted claims of communication with departed friends; whether each of us, as science tells us, is forever shut off from all his fellows by the distorting and inadequate means of communication provided by sense-organs and muscular system, whether there is not some common stock of memory and experience upon which men may draw in ways not recognized by Science; whether at death each of us is wholly exterminated; whether ghost stories are founded only on illusion and other forms of error. There is in all lands an immense amount of eager ques­ tioning about such matters; immense amounts of time and energy are given to ineffective efforts to obtain more light on such questions. And unfortunately there is a multitude

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of persons who for the sake of filthy lucre take advantage of these eager desires, these strong emotional needs, and of the prevailing lack of sure knowledge, to falsify, ob­ scure and fabricate the evidence. It is perhaps this last aspect of the present situation which most urgently calls for action of the Universities. In spite of the immense and growing prestige of Science and its steady and scornful negative to all such questioning, the whole civilized world increasingly becomes the scene of a confused welter of amateur investigation, of con­ flicting opinions, of bitter controversies, of sects and schools and parties, each confidently asserting its own views and scornfully accusing the others of error, and of woeful blindness or wilful deception. The negations of the scientific world are of little or no effect upon this chaos of conflicting beliefs and ardent de­ sires. And so long as Science stands apart, coldly refusing to take a hand in the game, refusing to take seriously the questions asked, refusing to bring to bear upon the many phenomena that keep alive these conflicts, these hopes, and these beliefs, its powerful, highly organized apparatus of investigation, its negations will continue to exert but little influence toward stilling the tempest. Let me state the demand upon our Universities at its simplest and lowest. Let us suppose that we are firmly con­ vinced that no positive knowledge is attainable, that the outcome of a sustained, organized, and co-operative attack upon the problems of Psychical Research, such as the Uni­ versities alone are capable of making, must lead to purely negative conclusions; I submit that, nevertheless, we ought to recognize such enquiry as a task which the present state of chaos in the public mind urgently requires of the Uni­ versities that they undertake and steadfastly pursue. The situation, its needs and its demands on the Uni­ versities may be illustrated on a small clear-cut scale by one particular problem which has long been recognized as crucial in Psychical Research, namely the problem of telepathy. Does telepathy occur? That is to say—Do we, do minds, communicate with one another in any manner and degree otherwise than through the sense-organs and through the bodily organs of expression and the physical media which science recognizes? Science asserts that no such communication occurs or can occur. Yet in all ages antecedent to our own, belief in such communication has been universal. And in our own sceptical age and community, such belief is still very

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general. It is held by all intelligent Christians; for it is implied in the practice of prayer and communion. A very large proportion of intelligent educated persons believe they have observed or experienced instances of such com­ munication. In that highly educated, scientific and scepti­ cal class, the medical men, it is I think true to say that about one in three believes that he has first-hand knowl­ edge of indisputable instances of it. A careful, highly critical statistical survey of such sporadic instances, made by persons of the highest qualifications, has resulted in a strongly positive verdict. A number of carefully conducted attempts to obtain evidence of it under experimental laboratory conditions have given equally positive results. A number of men of great distinction and of the highest intellectual and moral qualifications have announced them­ selves as convinced, after due enquiry, of its occurrence. Yet, in spite of all this, Science, especially Science as represented in the Universities, refuses to regard the ques­ tion of its occurrence as one to be taken seriously, as one deserving of investigation. And why? Simply because we cannot at present see how such communication can take place. Now, to deny that phenomena of a certain kind may oc­ cur on the ground that we cannot understand how they may be brought about, is very unsatisfactory even in the sphere of physical science. It is still more unsatisfactory and positively misleading in the biological sciences. And in relation to any events in which the human mind or personality plays a part, it is reprehensible and utterly inadmissible as a ground of denial or refusal of investi­ gation. What more suitable task for a research department of a University can be conceived than the task of investigating such a problem? The individual man of science may and does offer two valid excuses for ignoring this and other problems of Psychical Research. He may say—That is not my line, I have other things to do. Or he may say—I have tried and have had purely negative results. But our Uni­ versities as a group of national institutions cannot excuse themselves in this way The signs of the times call aloud to them that they shall follow the courageous lead of Clark University, shall frankly acknowledge their responsibility and welcome Psychical Research to an honoured place within their gates. Nowhere else may we hope to find the calm critical temper of scientific enquiry sufficiently de­ veloped and sustained, to no other institutions or associa­

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tions can we hopefully entrust the task of shedding the cold clear light of science upon this obscure and much troubled field of vague hopes and vaguer speculations. In conclusion, greatly daring, I will venture to say a few words in reply to a question which I feel sure many of my hearers wish to put to me, the question, namely—In your opinion has Psychical Research hitherto achieved any positive results? I am not the sort of person who holds a great number of clear-cut positive and negative beliefs. I am rather a person of the kind that deals in probabilities and degrees of probability, recognizing that our best for­ mulations are but relatively true, that human mind and speech are incapable of formulating absolute truths. There­ fore I can attempt in all frankness only qualified answers. In my view the evidence for telepathy is very strong; and I foretell with considerable confidence that it will become stronger and stronger, the more we investigate and gather and sift the evidence. In my opinion there has been gath­ ered a very weighty mass of evidence indicating that hu­ man personality does not always at death wholly cease to be a source of influence upon the living. I am inclined to regard as part of this evidence the occurrence of ghostly apparitions; for it seems to me that, in many of these experiences, there is something involved that we do not at all understand, some causal factor or influence other than disorder within the mental processes of the percipient. I hold that a case has been made out for clairvoyance of such strength that further investigation is imperatively needed; and I would say the same of many of the alleged supernormal physical phenomena of mediumship. I am not convinced of the supemormality of any of these in any instance. But I do feel very strongly that the evidence for them is such that the scientific world is not justified in merely pooh-poohing it, but rather is called upon to seek out and investigate alleged cases with the utmost care and impartiality. To some of you this confession will seem to make ex­ travagant claims for Psychical Research; to others it will seem that I am quite unduly sceptical. Such wide differ­ ences of view will continue to divide us until the Uni­ versities shall have brought order, system, and co-opera­ tive effort into the domain of Psychical Research.

Glossary of Parapsychological Terms * A description of the basic experimental methods, of the findings, and of the statistical procedures for evaluating ESP and PK results may be found in Parapsychology, Frontier Science of the Mind by J. B. Rhine and J. G. Pratt (published by Charles C Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, U. S. A., Blackwell Scientific Publications, Ltd., Oxford, England, and The Ryer­ son Press, Toronto, Canada). *AGENT The “sender” in tests for telepathy, the person whose mental states are to be apprehended by the percipient. In GESP tests, the person who looks at the target object. BT (Basic Technique) The clairvoyance technique in which each card is laid aside by the experimenter as it is called by the subject. The check-up is made at the end of the run. CALL: The subject’s guess (or cognitive response) in trying to identify the target in an ESP test. CHANCE. The complex of undefined causal factors irrelevant to the purpose at hand. Mean Chance Expectation (also Chance Expectation and Chance Average) The most likely score if only chance is involved. CHI-SQUARE: A sum of quantities, each of which is a devi­ ation squared divided by an expected value. Also a sum of the squares of CR’s. CLAIRVOYANCE: Extrasensory perception of objects or objective events. CR (Critical Ratio): A measure to determine whether or not the observed deviation is significantly greater than the ex­ pected random fluctuation about the average. The CR is obtained by dividing the observed deviation by the standard *This glossary is taken from the Journal of Parapsychology with the kind permission of Dr. J. B. Rhine. While not complete, for the parapsychological vocabulary is immense, these terms and definitions can be considered authoritative and up-to-date.

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deviation. (The probability of a given CR may be obtained by consulting tables of the probability integral, such as Pearson’s.) CRa (Critical Ratio of the Difference): The observed differ­ ence between the average scores of two samples of data divided by the standard deviation of the difference. * DEVIATION The amount an observed number of hits or an average score varies (either above or below) from mean chance expectation of a run or series or other unit of trials. DIFFERENTIAL EFFECT: Significant difference between scoring rates when subjects are participating in an experiment in which two procedural conditions (such as two types of targets or two modes of response) are compared. DISPLACEMENT: ESP responses to targets other than those for which the calls were intended. Backward Displacement: ESP responses to targets preceding the intended targets. Displacement to the targets one, two, three, etc. places preceding the intended target are designated as (—1), (—2), (—3), etc. Forward Displacement: ESP responses to targets coming later than the intended targets. Displacement to the targets one, two, three, etc., places after the intended target are designated as (-j-1), (4-2), (4-3), etc. DT (Down Through): The clairvoyance technique in which the cards are called down through the pack before any are removed or checked. ESP (Extrasensory Perception) Experience of, or response to, a target object, state, event, or influence without sensory con­ tact. ESP CARDS: Cards, each bearing one of the following five symbols: star, circle, square, cross, and waves (three parallel wavy lines) A standard pack has 25 cards. Closed Pack: An ESP pack composed of five each of the five symbols. Open Pack: An ESP pack made up of the ESP symbols selected in random order EXPECTATION See Chance. EXTRACHANCE: Not due to chance alone. GESP (General Extrasensory Perception) ESP which could be either telepathy or clairvoyance or both. MCE (Mean Chance Expectation): See Chance. P (Probability): The fraction of times that in a great number of chance repetitions the observed result will be equalled or exceeded. p (Probability) The number which the fraction of successes approaches in the limit with a sufficiently large succession of chance trials; e.g., in chance matchings with five targets, p = 1/5, or one success in five trials. PARAPSYCHICAL (Parapsychological): Attributable to psi. PARAPSYCHOLOGY The branch of science that deals with

412

Glossary

psi communication, i.e., behavioral or personal exchanges with the environment which are extrasensorimotor—not dependent on the senses and muscles. PERCIPIENT: The person experiencing ESP; also, one who is tested for ESP ability. PK (Psychokinesis): The extramotor aspect of psi; a direct (i.e., mental but nonmuscular) influence exerted by the subject on an external physical process, condition, or object. PLACEMENT TEST: A PK technique in which the aim of the subject is to try to influence falling objects to come to rest in a designated area of the throwing surface. PQ (Psi Quotient): A measure of psi efficiency in a given test performance. PQ = 1000(CR2)/w where n is the num­ ber of trials. (See Journal of Parapsychology, Volume 34, 1970, pp. 210-14.) PRECOGNITION: Prediction of random future events the oc­ currence of which cannot be inferred from present knowledge. PREFERENTIAL MATCHING: A method of scoring re­ sponses to free material. A judge ranks the stimulus objects (usually pictures in sets of four) with respect to their simi­ larity to, or association with, each response; and/or he ranks the responses with respect to their similarity to, or associa­ tion with, each stimulus object. PSI. A general term to identify a person’s extrasensorimotor communication with the environment. Psi includes ESP and PK. PSI-DIFFERENTIAL EFFECT: See Differential Effect. PSI-MISSING: Exercise of psi ability in a way that avoids the target the subject is attempting to hit. PSI PHENOMENA: Occurrences which result from the op­ eration of psi. They include the phenomena of both ESP (including precognition) and PK. PSYCHICAL RESEARCH: Older term used for parapsychol­ ogy. RUN: A group of trials, usually the successive calling of a deck of 25 ESP cards or symbols. In PK tests, 24 single die-throws regardless of the number of dice thrown at the same time. SCORE: The number of hits made in any given unit of trials, usually a run. Total score: Pooled scores of all runs. Average score: Total score divided by number of runs. SD (Standard Deviation): Usually the theoretical root mean square of the deviations. It is obtained from the formula V npq in which n is the number of single trials, p the prob­ ability of success per trial, and q the probability of failure. SERIES: Several runs of experimental sessions that are grouped in accordance with the stated purpose and design of the experiment. SET: A subdivision of the record page serving as a scoring

Glossary

413

unit for a consecutive group of trials, usually for the same target. SIGNIFICANCE: A numerical result is significant when it equals or surpasses some criterion of degree of chance im­ probability The criterion commonly used in parapsychol­ ogy today is a probability value of .02 (odds of 50 to 1 against chance) or less, or a deviation in either direction such that the CR is 2.33 or greater. Odds of 20 to 1 (prob­ ability of .05) are regarded as strongly suggestive. SINGLES TEST: A PK technique in which the aim of the sub­ ject is to try to influence dice to fall with a specified face up. SPONTANEOUS PSI EXPERIENCE: Natural, unplanned occurrence of an event or experience that seems to involve parapsychical ability. STM (Screened Touch Matching): An ESP card-testing tech­ nique in which the subject indicates in each trial (by point­ ing to one of five key positions) what he thinks the top card is in the inverted pack held by the experimenter behind a screen. The card is then laid opposite that position. SUBJECT: The person who is tested in an experiment. TARGET: In ESP tests, the objective or mental events to which the subject is attempting to respond; in PK tests, the objective process or object which the subject tries to influence (such as the face or location of a die). Target Card: The card which the percipient is attempting to identify or otherwise indicate a knowledge of. Target Face: The face of the falling die which the subject tries to make turn up by PK. Target Pack: The pack of cards the order of which the subject is attempting to identify. TELEPATHY: Extrasensory perception of the mental state or activity of another person. TRIAL: In ESP tests, a single attempt to identify a target object; in PK tests, a single unit of effect to be measured in the evaluation of results. VARIANCE, THEORETICAL: A measure of the dispersal of a group of scores about their theoretical mean (see MCE, or Mean Chance Expectation}. High Variance: Fluctuation of scores beyond mean chance variance. Low Variance: Fluctuation of scores below mean chance variance. Mean Variance (theoretical): The expected variance of the theoretical mean score. Run-Score Variance: The fluctuation of the scores of indi­ vidual runs around the theoretical mean. Subject Variance: The fluctuation of a subject’s total score from the theoretical mean of his series. Variance-Differential Effect: Significant difference between variances of run scores (or other units) in two experimental series designed to affect results differentially.

Selected Bibliography (with emphasis on psychology and ESP) Beloff, John. The Existence of Mind. New York: The Citadel Press, 1964. Broad, C. B. Lectures on Psychical Research. New York: Humanities Press, 1962. Ciba Foundation. Extrasensory Perception (G. E. Wolstenholme and E. C. Millar, eds). New York: Citadel Press, 1966. Devereux, George (ed). Psychoanalysis and the Occult. New York: International Universities Press, 1953. Edsall, F S. The World of Psychic Phenomena. New York: David McKay Co., 1958. Ehrenwald, Jan. Telepathy and Medical Psychology. Intro, by Gardner Murphy London. George Allen & Unwin, 1947. Eisenbud, Jules. Psi and Psychoanalysis. New York. Grune and Stratton, 1970. Estabrooks, G. H., and Gross, N. E. The Future of the Human Mind. New York. E. P Dutton & Co., 1961. Eysenck, H. J. Uses and Abuses of Psychology. London, Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1953. Freud, S. Studies in Parasychology (P. Rieff, ed) New York: Collier-Macmillan, 1963. Gudas, F. (ed). Extrasensory Perception. New York: Scrib­ ner’s, 1961. Hansel, C. E. M. ESP: A Scientific Evaluation. Intro, by E. G. Boring. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966; London: MacGibbon & Kee, Ltd., 1966. Heywood, Rosalind. Beyond the Reach of Sense: An Inquiry into Extrasensory Perception. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1961.

414

Selected Bibliography

415

Jung, C. G. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. (A. Jaffe, ed, trans, by R. and C. Winston). New York: Pantheon Books, 1963. Mangan, G. L. A Review of Published Research on the Re­

lationship of Some Personality Variables to ESP Scoring Level. New York: Parapsychology Foundation, 1958

(Parapsychological Monographs, No. 1). Murphy, G. (with L. A. Dale). Challenge of Psychical Re­ search: A Primer of Parapsychology. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. Murphy, G., and Ballou, R. (eds). William James on Psy­ chical Research. New York: Viking Press, 1969. Myers, F. W. H. Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death (abridged and ed. by S. Smith) Foreword by A. Huxley. New Hyde Park, New York: University Books, 1961. Pratt, J. G. Parapsychology: An Insider’s View of ESP. New York: Doubleday, 1964. Pratt, J. G., and others. Extra-Sensory Perception after Sixty Years. Boston: Bruce Humphries, 1966. Progoff, Ira. The Image of an Oracle. A Report on Research into the Mediumship of Eileen J. Garrett. New York: Garrett/Helix Press, 1964. Rao, K. R. Experimental Parapsychology: A Review and In­ terpretation, with a Comprehensive Bibliography. Spring­ field, Illinois. Charles Thomas, 1966. Rhine, J. B. Extra-Sensory Perception (rev ed.). Boston: Bruce Humphries, 1964. -------- , New World of the Mind. New York: Morrow, 1962. —----- , and Brier, R. (eds). Parapsychology Today. New York: Citadel Press, 1968. —.... , and Pratt, J G. Parapsychology: Frontier Science of the Mind (rev ed.). Springfield, Illinois: Thomas, 1962. Rhine, L. E. ESP in Life and Lab: Tracing Hidden Channels. New York: Macmillan, 1967. -------- , Hidden Channels of the Mind. New York. Sloane, 1961. Schmeidler, G. (ed). Extrasensory Perception. New York: Atherton, 1969. Schmeidler, G., and McConnell, R. A. ESP and Personality Patterns. Preface by Gardner Murphy. New Haven. Yale University Press, 1958; London: Oxford University Press, 1958.

416

Selected Bibliography

Sidgwick, E. M. Phantasms of the Living, 1923, bound in one volume with Phantasms of the Living, 1886, by E. Gurney, F. W. H. Myers, and F Podmore (abridged and edited by Mrs. Sidgwick). Intro, by Gardner Murphy. New Hyde Park, New York: University Books, 1961. Soal, S. G., and Bateman, F. Modern Experiments in Telepa­ thy, New Haven. Yale University Press, 1954. Tart, Charles (ed). Altered States of Consciousness, A Book of Readings, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1969. Tyrrell, G. N. M. The Personality of Man, Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1947. Van Over, R., and Oteri, L. (eds). William McDougall, Ex­ plorer of the Mind: Studies in Psychical Research, New York: Garrett/Helix, 1967.

Selected Periodicals in Parapsychology

Journal and Proceedings, Society for Psychical Research. 1 Adam & Eve Mews, London, W8 6UQ.

Journal and Proceedings, American Society for Psychical Re­ search. 5 West 73rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10023.

Parapsychology Review, Parapsychology Foundation. 29 West 57th Street, New York, N.Y. 10019.

Journal of Parapsychology, Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man. Box 6847 College Station, Durham, North Carolina 27708. Theta, Psychical Research Foundation. Duke Station, Durham, North Carolina 27706.