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 | | From: | JP Lassila | | Subject: | Parapsychology FAQ | | Date: | 21 Jan 2005 07:48:07 -0800 |
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 | What is this FAQ about?
This FAQ was first compiled in 1995 by a group of scientists and
scholars interested in parapsychology, the study of what is popularly
called "psychic" phenomena, or just "psi" for short. Since then this
document has been translated into French, German, Portuguese,
Croatian, Spanish and Finnish, and reprinted in magazines around the
world. The authors' professional disciplines include physics,
psychology, philosophy, statistics, mathematics, computer science,
chemistry, anthropology, and history. The major contributors and their
affiliations are listed at the end of this document.
The majority of this group are members of the Parapsychological
Association (PA). The PA is an international professional society
founded in 1957 and elected an affiliate of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science in 1969. While this FAQ is not an
official publication of the PA, the contributors include several
past-Presidents and members of the Board of Directors of the PA. The
authors' cumulative laboratory and field research experience with
parapsychology is estimated at over 400 years.
The authors aimed for consensus on each FAQ item, but as with many
topics, especially in controversial, multidisciplinary domains like
parapsychology, there were some disagreements. In spite of these
disagreements, the authors believed that because of broad public
interest in parapsychology, the relative lack of informed content on
this topic, and the many myths and distortions associated with this
field, it was important to put some basic information about
parapsychology on the Web.
To submit questions to the FAQ, send email to Dean Radin or see the
Consciousness Research Laboratory home page.
Who is the intended audience?
This FAQ was written as a general introduction to parapsychology for
individuals ranging from high-school students to scientists with
little or no background in parapsychology. Writing for such a broad
audience is a challenge because gaining an appreciation for the
science underlying modern parapsychology requires at least a passing
knowledge of statistics, experimental design, quantum mechanics,
sociology and philosophy of science, history of parapsychology, and
the scientific literature on parapsychology.
Because our expected audience is so broad, we have touched only
briefly on many technical issues underlying interesting issues and
debates within the field. Therefore, the approach in this FAQ is to
clarify the complex topic of parapsychology without glossing over
important points and without "dumbing down" the basic content. For a
few particularly tricky issues that we do wish to cover here, we've
included sections labeled Technical Note.
We are slowly building a comprehensive source of information on
parapsychology, mainly through the addition of hyperlinks to other
sources on the Web, including details on the major topics of debate,
the prevailing theories, discussions of empirical evidence, links to
journal papers, reference sources, mission statements and other items
from the major parapsychological research centers, individual
researchers' home pages, and home pages for relevant scientific and
scholarly societies.
Technical Note: The Audience
At least five potential audiences were identified for this FAQ:
physical scientists, social and behavioral scientists, hardened
skeptics, New-Age enthusiasts, and readers with little or no
background in any of the conventional sciences or in parapsychology.
For physical scientists, we felt it was important to discuss
methodology and terminology, and comment on some of the usual
criticisms of parapsychology. For social and behavioral scientists, we
added some implications of the observation that people throughout
history and across all cultures have reported psychic experiences. For
hardened skeptics, or people whose knowledge of parapsychology is
based solely upon the skeptical literature, we felt it was important
to address the fact that despite the wishful thinking of confirmed
skeptics, there is in fact substantial, scientifically persuasive
empirical data available. For people with New-Age interests,
enthusiasms, or assumptions, we felt that at least part of the purpose
here would be to indicate the limits of what claims the scientific
data actually justify. For other readers who may know little or
nothing about the topic, or about science or scientific methods, we've
applied a broad-brush approach to cover as much of the field as
possible in a single document.
What is parapsychology?
Parapsychology is the scientific and scholarly study of certain
unusual events associated with human experience. These experiences
have been called "psychic" for want of a better term.
Please note: A common misconception is that a parapsychologist is a
psychic. Not so. Likewise, a child psychiatrist is not a child!
Instead, a parapsychologist is a scientist or scholar who is seriously
interested in the "paranormal." Unfortunately, many telephone books
and on-line sites use "parapsychologist" as a synonym for psychic
entertainer, mentalist, conjurer, astrologer, or psychic reader. This
is an inappropriate use of the term "parapsychologist." The
Parapsychological Association is an elected affiliate of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the largest
scientific organization in the world. In contrast, organizations of
psychic readers and mentalists are not members of the AAAS because
they are entertainers, not scientists.
What does it mean to study psychic phenomena? A long-held,
common-sense assumption is that the worlds of the subjective and
objective are completely distinct, with no overlap. Subjective is
"here, in the head," and objective is "there, out in the world."
Parapsychology then is the study of phenomena suggesting that the
assumption of a strict separation between subjective and objective may
be wrong. Human experience suggests that some phenomena occasionally
fall between the cracks, and are not purely subjective nor purely
objective. From a scientific perspective, such phenomena are called
"anomalous" because they are difficult to explain within current
scientific models.
These anomalies fall into three general categories: ESP (terms are
defined below), PK, and phenomena suggestive of survival after bodily
death, including near-death experiences, apparitions, and
reincarnation. Most parapsychologists today expect that further
research will eventually explain these anomalies in scientific terms,
although it is not clear whether they can be adequately understood
without significant (indeed, probably revolutionary) expansions of the
current state of scientific knowledge. Other researchers take the
stance that existing scientific models of perception and memory are
adequate to explain some or all parapsychological phenomena.
What is not parapsychology?
In spite of what the media often imply, parapsychology is not the
study of anything considered weird or bizarre. Nor is parapsychology
concerned with astrology, UFOs, searching for Bigfoot, paganism,
vampires, alchemy, or witchcraft.
Many scientists have viewed parapsychology with great suspicion
because the term has come to be associated with a huge variety of
mysterious phenomena, fringe topics, and pseudoscience. Parapsychology
is also often linked, again inappropriately, with a broad range of
"psychic" entertainers, magicians, and so-called "paranormal
investigators." In addition, some self-proclaimed "psychic
practitioners" call themselves parapsychologists, but that is not what
we do.
What do parapsychologists study?
Many feel that the strangest, and most interesting, aspect of
parapsychological phenomena is that they do not appear to be limited
by the known boundaries of space or time. In addition, they blur the
sharp distinction usually made between mind and matter. In popular
usage, the basic parapsychological phenomena are categorized as
follows:
Psi : A neutral term for parapsychological phenomena. Psi, psychic,
and psychical are synonyms.
Telepathy : Direct mind-to-mind communication.
Precognition: Also called premonition. Obtaining information about
future events, where the information could not be inferred through
normal means. Many people report dreams that appear to be
precognitive.
Clairvoyance : Sometimes called remote viewing; obtaining information
about events at remote locations, beyond the reach of the normal
senses.
ESP: Extra-sensory perception; a general term for obtaining
information about events beyond the reach of the normal senses. This
term subsumes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition.
Psychokinesis : Also called PK; direct mental interaction with
physical objects, animate or inanimate.
Bio-PK : Direct mental interactions with living systems.
NDE : Near death experience; an experience reported by those who were
revived from nearly dying. Often refers to a core experience that
includes feelings of peace, OBE, seeing lights and other phenomena.
OBE : Out-of-body experience; the experience of feeling separated
from the body, often accompanied by visual perceptions as though from
above the body.
Reincarnation: The belief that we live successive lives, with
primarily evidence coming from the apparent recollections of previous
lives by very small children.
Haunting : Recurrent phenomena reported to occur in particular
locations that include apparitions, sounds, movement of objects, and
other effects.
Poltergeist: Large-scale PK phenomena often attributed to spirits,
but which are now thought to be due to a living person, frequently an
adolescent.
Technical Note: Terms
The above terms are representative of common usage, but
parapsychologists usually define psi phenomena in more neutral or
operational terms. This is because labels often carry strong but
unstated connotations that can lead to misinterpretations.
For example, telepathy is commonly thought of as mind-reading.
However, in practice, and certainly in laboratory research,
experiences of telepathy rarely involve perception of actual thoughts,
and the experience itself often does not logically require
communication between two minds, but can also be "explained" as
clairvoyance or precognition. Keep in mind that the names and concepts
used to describe psi actually say more about the situations in which
the phenomena are observed, than about any fundamental properties of
the phenomena themselves. That two events are classified the same does
not mean they are actually the same.
In addition, in scientific practice many of the basic terms used above
are accompanied by qualifiers such as "apparent," "putative," and
"ostensible." This is because many claims supposedly involving psi may
not be due to psi, but to normal psychological or misinterpreted
physical reasons.
Why is parapsychology interesting?
Parapsychology is interesting mainly because of the implications. To
list a few examples, psi phenomena suggest
(a) that what science knows about the nature of universe is
incomplete;
(b) that the capabilities and limitations of human potential have been
underestimated;
(c) that fundamental assumptions and philosophical beliefs about the
separation of mind and body may be incorrect; and
(d) that assumptions about the divine nature of "miracles" may have
been mistaken.
As an aside, we should note that many parapsychologists today,
including most of the authors of this FAQ, take an empirical,
data-oriented approach to psi phenomena, and specifically avoid
discussing speculative implications that are not supported by data.
However, some researchers regard the current findings of
parapsychology as having a wide variety of important implications,
including implications about the spiritual nature of humankind. Thus,
in deference to the broad readership expected of this document, we
present in the following Technical Note some of the possible
implications of psi, acknowledging that this section is, of course,
speculative.
Technical Note: Some Implications of Parapsychology
Physicists tend to be interested in parapsychology because of the
implication that we have a gross misunderstanding about space and time
and the transmission of energy and information.
Biologists are interested because psi implies the existence of
additional, unexplained methods of sensing the world.
Psychologists are interested for what psi implies about the nature of
perception and memory.
Philosophers are interested because psi phenomena specifically
address many age-old philosophical problems, including the role of the
mind in the physical world, and the nature of the objective vs. the
subjective.
Theologians and the general public tend to be interested because
personal psi experiences are often accompanied by feelings of
profound, ineffable meaning. As a result, psi is thought by some to
have "spiritual" implications.
From the materialistic perspective, one of the foundations of the
current scientific worldview, human consciousness is nothing but an
emergent product of the functioning of Brain, Body, and Nervous System
(BBNS). That is, no matter how different mind may seem from solid
stuff like bodies, it is generated solely by the electrochemical
functioning of the BBNS, and so it is absolutely dependent on it. When
the BBNS dies, so does consciousness. From this perspective, claims of
survival of bodily death, or ghosts, or apparitions, must be due to
wishful thinking. Furthermore, the limits of material functioning
automatically determine the ultimate limits of mental functioning,
thus ESP and PK appear to be impossible, given our current
understanding about how the world works.
And yet, psi phenomena have occurred in all cultures throughout
history, they continue to occur, and some of the reported phenomena
have been persuasively verified using scientific methods. Because psi
seems to transcend the assumed limits of material functioning, and
therefore the BBNS, some interpret psi as supporting the idea that
there is something more to mind than just the BBNS, that there is some
sort of "soul," or the like.
This "non-physical" aspect, an aspect that does not seem to be as
tightly bounded by space or time as present scientific models require,
might survive bodily death. If so, there may be important truths
contained in some spiritual ideas and practices. Of course,
parapsychology is a very long way from being able to say that "the
data shows that X" (insert your favorite religious group here) are
specifically right about religious doctrines A, B, and C but dead
wrong about dogmas P, Q and R.
We must emphasize that there is a big difference between simply noting
that the findings of parapsychology may have implications for
spiritual concepts, versus the idea that parapsychologists are driven
by some hidden spiritual agenda. Some critics of parapsychology seem
to believe that all parapsychologists have hidden religious motives,
and that they are really out to prove the existence of the soul. This
is no more true than claiming that all chemists really harbor secret
ambitions about alchemy, and thus their real agenda is to transmute
mercury into gold. The reasons why serious investigators are drawn to
any discipline are as diverse as their backgrounds.
Practical applications of psi
Studies of direct mental interaction with living systems suggest that
traditional mental healing techniques, such as prayer, may be based on
genuine psi-mediated effects. In the future it may be possible to
develop enhanced methods of healing based on these phenomena.
Psi may be involved in Murphy's Law: "If anything can go wrong, it
will." That is, modern machines based upon sensitive electronic
circuits, such as copiers and computers, may at times directly
interact with human intention, and as a result, inexplicably fail at
inopportune times. Of course, the converse may also be true. That is,
the possibility exists to repair, or to control sensitive machines
solely by mental means. Such technologies would significantly benefit
handicapped persons.
Other potential applications include improved methods of making
decisions, of locating missing persons or valuables, and of describing
events at locations we cannot go to because of distance, time, or
accessibility. This includes the possibility of psi-based historians
and forecasters.
Psi abilities may be of benefit to psychotherapy and other forms of
counseling, as well as for assisting in healing a range of diseases.
Psi may also be used to provide a statistical edge in the financial
markets and in locating archeological treasures.
How can I develop my psychic abilities?
Some research indicates that the ancient yogic lore was correct: Sit
down, close your eyes, relax, and quiet your mind. If you do this,
you will have psychic experiences. Of course, in this increasingly
fast-paced, TV- and cell-phone-saturated world, many people have
forgotten what it means to quiet the mind. One of the most effective
means of quieting the "chattering monkey mind" is meditation. There
is insufficient research available to know whether any particular
meditative method is better than another for generating these
experiences, but there is evidence that meditators perform better in
some laboratory psi tests than non-meditators.
How can I stop the voices in my head?
The vast majority of people who complain that others are listening to
their thoughts, or believe that others' thoughts are intruding into
their minds, are suffering from mental illness. This may not be true
all of the time, but it is true often enough to provide a very strong
recommendation: If the thoughts of other people are disturbing you,
please see a psychologist or psychiatrist. The likelihood that the FBI
or the CIA are conducting mind-control experiments on you is extremely
small. And if your doctor or psychiatrist has given you medication,
you should take it to see if the voices go away. If they do, then you
were probably experiencing a chemical or neurological imbalance, which
can be adjusted. If the voices do not go away, even after taking
medications prescribed by a doctor, then you may be acutely sensitive
to psychic impressions and may benefit from long-term meditative
practice to quiet your mind. Please note that exceptional levels of
natural psychic sensitivity is exceedingly rare, but it is not
unknown. If you are disturbed about your experiences, we strongly
recommend that you check first with your doctor on these matters.
Read all:
http://www.psiresearch.org/para1.html
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| | From: | |-|erc | | Subject: | Re: Parapsychology FAQ | | Date: | Sun, 23 Jan 2005 13:47:37 +1000 |
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| "JP Lassila" wrote The likelihood that the FBI
> or the CIA are conducting mind-control experiments on you is extremely
> small. And if your doctor or psychiatrist has given you medication,
Complete conjecture.
Only a small number of people claim they are, so they could all be right.
Strange that "thinking the governmnet is after you" is a direct symptom requiring
immediate sedation. Occams razor has cut off the blood to your brain.
Herc
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