Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, teleportation, precognition, clairvoyance, telekinesis, and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near-death experiences, synchronicity, apparitional experiences, etc. Criticized as being a pseudoscience, the majority of mainstream scientists reject it. Parapsychology has been criticized for continuing investigation despite being unable to provide reproducible evidence for the existence of any psychic phenomena after more than a century of research.*
Parapsychology research rarely appears in mainstream scientific journals; a few niche journals publish most papers about parapsychology. (Pigliucci, Boudry 2013) "Parapsychological research almost never appears in mainstream science journals." (Odling-Smee 2007) "But parapsychologists are still limited to publishing in a small number of niche journals."
Terminology The term parapsychology was coined in 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir as the German . It was adopted by J. B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research to indicate a significant shift toward experimental methodology and academic discipline. The term originates from the meaning "alongside", and psychology.
In parapsychology, psi is the unknown factor in extrasensory perception and psychokinesis experiences that is not explained by known physical or biological mechanisms. The term is derived from ψ psi, the 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet and the initial letter of the , "mind, soul". The term was coined by biologist Bertold Wiesner, and first used by psychologist Robert Thouless in a 1942 article published in the British Journal of Psychology.
The Parapsychological Association divides psi into two main categories: psi-gamma for extrasensory perception and psi-kappa for psychokinesis. In popular culture, "psi" has become more and more synonymous with extraordinary psychic, mental, and "psionic" abilities and powers.
History Early psychical research
In 1853, chemist Robert Hare conducted experiments with mediums and reported positive results. Other researchers such as Frank Podmore highlighted flaws in his experiments, such as lack of controls to prevent trickery.Podmore, Frank. (1897). Studies in Psychical Research. G. P. Putnam's Sons. pp. 48–49Podmore, Frank. (1902). Modern Spiritualism: A History and a Criticism. Methuen Publishing. pp. 234–235 Agenor de Gasparin conducted early experiments into table-tipping. For five months in 1853, he declared the experiments a success, being the result of an "ectenic force". Critics noted that the conditions were insufficient to prevent trickery. For example, the sitters may have moved the table with their knees, and no experimenter was simultaneously watching above and below the table.Podmore, Frank. (1897). Studies in Psychical Research. New York: Putnam. p. 47
The German astrophysicist Johann Karl Friedrich Zöllner tested the medium Henry Slade in 1877. According to Zöllner, some of the experiments were successful.Stein, Gordon. (1996). The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 703. "Slade succeeded only on tests that allowed easy trickery, such of producing knots in cords that had their ends tied together and the knot sealed, putting wooden rings on a table leg, and removing coins from sealed boxes. He failed utterly on tests that did not permit deception. He was unable to reverse the spirals of snail shells. He could not link two wooden rings, one of oak, the other of alder. He could not knot an endless ring cut from a bladder, or put a piece of candle inside a closed glass bulb. He failed to change the optical handedness of tartaric dex-tro to levo. These tests would have been easy to pass if Slade's spirit controls had been able to take an object into the fourth dimension, then return it after making the required manipulations. Such successes would have created marvelous PPOs (permanent paranormal objects), difficult for skeptics to explain. Zöllner wrote an entire book in praise of Slade. Titled Transcendental Physics (1878), it was partly translated into English in 1880 by spiritualist Charles Carleton Massey. The book is a classic of childlike gullibility by a scientist incapable of devising adequate controls for testing paranormal powers." However, flaws in the experiments were discovered, and critics have suggested that Slade was a fraud who performed trickery in the experiments.Mulholland, John. (1938). Beware Familiar Spirits. C. Scribner's Sons. pp. 111–112. Hyman, Ray. (1989). The Elusive Quarry: A Scientific Appraisal of Psychical Research. Prometheus Books. p. 209. "In the case of Zöllner's investigations of Slade, not only do we know that Slade was exposed before and after his sessions with Zöllner, but also there is ample reason to raise questions about the adequacy of the investigation. Carrington (1907), Podmore (1963), and Mrs. Sidgwick (1886–87) are among a number of critics who have uncovered flaws and loopholes in Zöllner's sittings with Slade."
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was founded in London in 1882. Its formation was the first systematic effort to organize scientists and scholars to investigate paranormal phenomena. Early membership included philosophers, scholars, scientists, educators and politicians, such as Henry Sidgwick, Arthur Balfour, William Crookes, Rufus Osgood Mason, and Nobel Laureate Charles Richet. Presidents of the Society included, in addition to Richet, Eleanor Sidgwick and William James, and subsequently Nobel Laureates Henri Bergson and Lord Rayleigh, and philosopher C. D. Broad.
Areas of study included telepathy, hypnotism, Reichenbach's phenomena, apparitions, hauntings, and the physical aspects of Spiritualism such as table-tilting, materialization, and apportation.Thurschwell, Pamela. (2004). Literature, Technology and Magical Thinking, 1880–1920. Cambridge University Press. p. 16. McCorristine, Shane. (2010). Spectres of the Self: Thinking about Ghosts and Ghost-Seeing in England, 1750–1920. Cambridge University Press. p. 114. In the 1880s, the Society investigated apparitional experiences and hallucinations in the sane. Among the first important works was the two-volume publication in 1886, Phantasms of the Living, which was largely criticized by scholars.Douglas, Alfred. (1982). Extra-Sensory Powers: A Century of Psychical Research. Overlook Press. p. 76. "Phantasms of the Living was criticized by a number of scholars when it appeared, one ground for the attack being the lack of written testimony regarding the apparitions composed shortly after they had been seen. In many instances several years had elapsed between the occurrence and a report of it being made to the investigators from the SPR." In 1894, the Census of Hallucinations was published which sampled 17,000 people. Out of these, 1,684 persons admitted to having experienced a hallucination of an apparition.Williams, William F. (2000). Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience: From Alien Abductions to Zone Therapy. Routledge. p. 49. The SPR became the model for similar societies in other European countries and the United States during the late 19th century.
Early clairvoyance experiments were reported in 1884 by Charles Richet. Playing cards were enclosed in envelopes, and a subject was put under hypnosis to identify them. The subject was reported to have succeeded in a series of 133 trials, but the results dropped to the chance level when performed before a group of scientists in Cambridge. J. M. Peirce and E. C. Pickering reported a similar experiment in which they tested 36 subjects over 23,384 trials, which did not obtain above-chance scores.C. E. M. Hansel. The Search for a Demonstration of ESP. In Paul Kurtz. (1985). A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology. Prometheus Books. pp. 97–127.
In 1881, Eleanor Sidgwick revealed the fraudulent methods that spirit photographers such as Édouard Isidore Buguet, Frederic Hudson, and William H. Mumler had utilized.Edmunds, Simeon. (1966). Spiritualism: A Critical Survey. Aquarian Press. p. 115. "The early history of spirit photography was reviewed by Mrs Henry Sidgwick in the Proceedings of the SPR in 1891. She showed clearly not only that Mumler, Hudson, Buguet and their ilk were fraudulent, but the way in which those who believed in them were deceived." During the late nineteenth century, many fraudulent mediums were exposed by SPR investigators.Moreman, Christopher M. (2010). Beyond the Threshold: Afterlife Beliefs and Experiences in World Religions. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. p. 163. "SPR investigators quickly found that many mediums were indeed, as skeptics had alleged, operating under cover of darkness in order to perpetrate scams. They used a number of tricks facilitated by darkness: sleight of hand was used to manipulate objects and touch people eager to make contact with deceased loved ones; flour or white lines would give the illusion of spectral white hands or faces; accomplices were even stashed under tables or in secret rooms to lend support in the plot... As the investigations of the SPR, and other skeptics, were made public, many fraudulent mediums saw their careers ruined and many unsuspecting clients were enraged at the deception perpetrated."
Largely due to the support of psychologist William James, the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) opened its doors in Boston in 1885, moving to New York City in 1905 under the leadership of James H. Hyslop. Notable cases investigated by Walter Franklin Prince of the ASPR in the early 20th century included Pierre L. O. A. Keeler, the Great Amherst Mystery and Patience Worth.Larsen, Egon. (1966). The Deceivers: Lives of the Great Imposters. Roy Publishers. pp. 130–132Berger, Arthur S. (1988). Lives and Letters in American Parapsychology: A Biographical History, 1850–1987. McFarland. pp. 75–107.
Rhine era
In 1911, Stanford University became the first academic institution in the United States to study extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (PK) in a laboratory setting. The effort was headed by psychologist John Edgar Coover and funded by Thomas Welton Stanford, brother of the university's founder. After conducting approximately 10,000 experiments, Coover concluded that "statistical treatments of the data fail to reveal any cause beyond chance."
In 1930, Duke University became the second major U.S. academic institution to engage in the critical study of ESP and psychokinesis in the laboratory. Under the guidance of psychologist William McDougall, and with the help of others in the department—including psychologists Karl Zener, Joseph B. Rhine, and Louisa E. Rhine—laboratory ESP experiments using volunteer subjects from the undergraduate student body began. As opposed to the approaches of psychical research, which generally sought qualitative evidence for paranormal phenomena, the experiments at Duke University proffered a quantitative, statistical approach using cards and dice. As a consequence of the ESP experiments at Duke, standard laboratory procedures for the testing of ESP were developed and adopted by interested researchers worldwide.
George Estabrooks conducted an ESP experiment using cards in 1927. Harvard students were used as the subjects. Estabrooks acted as the sender, with the guesser in an adjoining room. Estabrooks conducted a total of 2,300 trials. When Estabrooks sent the subjects to a distant room with insulation, the scores dropped to chance level. Attempts to repeat the experiment also failed.