PSYCHIC PROCESS, ENERGY TRANSFER, AND THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT

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• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00787R000500380004-4
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• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 17, 2002
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: December 4, 1978
• Content Type: OPEN

Approved For Release 2002/11/18 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500380004-4
A PAW Special Report
Psychic Process,
Energy Transfer, and Things
That Go Bump in the Night
Two OF THE most celebrated joys of the academic lifestyle are
the freedom to pursue any scholarly problem, no matter how
irrelevant or far out it may seem at the time, and the impetus
to do so provided by the perceptive, persistent, sometimes irreverent
questions of the young students we are privileged to teach. Never in
my career have these two benefits been more beautifully illustrated
than in the case of the extraordinary topic of this report. Indeed, it is
as much the flavor of light-hearted exploration of a very exotic field,
hand-in-hand with an intelligent and dedicated undergraduate, as the
substance of the field itself that I would like to share with you.
Late in the spring of 1977, Carol Kay Curry '79, an electrical en-
gineering and computer science major from Pasco, Washington,
came to me to ask whether she might undertake some inde-
pendent work in psychic phenomena that would build upon her
background and skills in instrumentation and data processing. Al-
though I was well aware of the many times I have proudly spoken or
written about the breadth and flexibility of the Princeton engineering
curriculum, and the care with which we hand-tailor each undergrad-
uate program to suit individual interests, the involvement of one of
our students in psychic research seemed to me to strain even those
generous guidelines.
In an attempt to table the issue, I asked, somewhat rhetorically,
which faculty member could conceivably supervise this work, and
Carol, with her characteristic bluntness, responded that, obviously,
I would. With the dilemma thus compounded, but no retreat path
left, I provisionally agreed, pending the results of a full summer of
background research in the field. This she undertook with consider-
able zest, digesting and reporting an enormous amount of literature
in the process. Together and separately we visited numerous labora-
tories around the country, attended several professional meetings,
had discussions with various people here and elsewhere, and started
a few experiments of our own. As the following academic year be-
gan, we agreed the project was worth pursuing.
That winter I happened to be on leave at Stanford, where more
interest is shown in this field than at most universities. Carol was
able to join me there for a few weeks, and together we talked with
faculty and staff, and worked with a small research group at
the nearby SRI International laboratory. A hastily convened,
informal seminar just prior to our leaving the Stanford campus
elicited unexpected interest and audience participation, and pro-
vided many more valuable contacts. Our more formal Farnum Lec-
ture at Princeton in April 1978 likewise exposed an unanticipated
interest in this community and led to the request for this report.
Thus, the impressions we now hold of the psychic world are
mainly distilled from the past year and a half of study and light in-
volvement with the subject, and we hope your reaction to our pre-
liminary findings will be weighted accordingly. In particular, Carol
and I wish to emphasize that we claim no authority in this field and
take no position of advocacy. Indeed, we intend no judgment of
any sort. Rather, we shall simply set before you some of the things
we have seen and done, some of the people we have met, some
of the thoughts we have shared, and let you assess them as you will.
Even this is a difficult task
for the
,
re are a great many threads that
On a rainy Monday night last April, more than 200 members of the need to be woven together. We would like to begin by describing the
Princeton community jammed into the Wilson School Auditorium to remote viewing "credibility exercises" we undertook just to con-
hear Dean of the Engineering School Robert G. Jahn '51 - nor- vince ourselves that there is some scholarly substance to the field.
mally noted for his work on advanced space propulsion systems - Then we will turn to our early experiments in the domain of psycho-
lecture on the unlikely subject of psychic research. More than an kinesis, which has become our main interest. Finally, we will out-
hour after the conclusion of his talk, many of them were still there, line some of the analytical models that have been proposed for inter-
asking questions and offering comments on various aspects of the preting psychic phenomena, and discuss possible applications and
subject. Since then, he has been besieged with countless requests for implications of psychic process. Each of these threads is sufficiently
transcripts of his remarks and for personal interviews by students, strange to common experience that it must be handled rather care-
faculty, other workers in the field, and government officials. At the fully and deliberately if the final fabric is not to be totally bizarre. To
editors' suggestion, Jahn agreed to prepare this special report "in us, no one thread has proven entirely persuasive; only in the inter-
the hope that PAW's readers might share some of the fun we have weaving does a pattern seem to emer a and it is that pattern which
had in this strange ac tydi''Rease 2002/11/18 C I4IRDP9>Itt 1OMUR0005003ob004-4
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Remote viewng: The `Credibility Exercise'
EARLY IN OUR STUDY, we had to make a basic choice of strat-
egy: Should our work revolve around the talents of gifted
psychics - people we would import specifically to generate
the phenomena we would investigate - or should we focus on "do-
it-yourself" experimentation, confining ourselves to those phenom-
ena that could be produced more or less routinely by our own stu-
dents and staff? For a number of reasons we chose the latter route.
First, with a few exceptions, "blueblood" psychics tend to be dif-
ficult to schedule and work with in a disciplined, academic fashion.
Second, involving students in the generation of the phenomena
seemed at least as important as their passive study of it. Finally, we
were persuaded that the greater significance of this field lies in what
is, or could be, accessible to the general public - rather than in
what a few gifted subjects can achieve - and one of our aims was to
assess what that domain might be.
Having chosen this route, however, we then needed a "credibility
exercise" - i.e., we had to establish that we were indeed capable of
generating effects to study. At this point Carol came to me bearing
an article from the Proceedings of the Institute of Electrical and
Electronic Engineers, in which two physicists from SRI, Russell
Targ and Harold Puthoff, claimed it was possible for relatively un-
trained persons to transmit significant amounts of information over
long distances by a technique they called "remote viewing. "25 Sim-
ply stated, the process involves an outbound experimenter who posi-
tions himself at a randomly selected "target" location at a pre-
scribed time, and an inbound experimenter who attempts to vis-
ualize aspects of the scene in which his colleague is immersed. The
authors reported remarkable anecdotal results and described at-
tempts to quantify systematically information transferred by this
procedure.
Because of its simplicity and immediate verifiability, Carol and I
decided that this was the thing to try. For our first attempt, I took
advantage of a visit to the Brookhaven National Laboratory near
Stony Brook, Long Island, where at the appointed time I excused
myself from a reception, sat out on the lawn, and sketched the scene
I saw in front of me. Carol, who has never been to Brookhaven, was
in Princeton baby-sitting at the time. Figure I shows my sketch (I
will apologize only once for the quality of the art work): I was seated
roughly in the lower-right corner, just beside the building labeled
"dorm," looking up the hill toward a row of trees on the ridge, a
flag pole, and a water tower. On my right was a pine forest with
some birds singing in it; on the left was a road with a car or two, and
some people walking along the edge.
The sketch that Carol made is shown in Figure 2. You see that
while the general flavor of the picture is somewhat different, there
are interesting correlations of objects. For example, she has iden-
tified the tower, the cars, birds, trees, and the building behind me.
Curiously, there is a right-left inversion in the composition of the
The History of Psychic Research
IN A SENSE, the study of psychic phenomena is one of the oldest
of human endeavors." As far back as can be traced, mortal man
has pondered the supernatural in one form or another. Cave
drawings at Lascaux and Altamira, circa 20,000 B.C., reflect
this preoccupation, and the religious rites of early societies were
heavily loaded with psychic formalisms. The golden civilizations
of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans dealt extensively in psy-
chic process: the Delphic Oracle was politically important from
the earliest Hellenic times to the age of Alexander the Great, and
was consulted on problems as diverse as the proper measures to
stop a plague, the constitutions of Greek city-states, and the best
locations for new colonies. Even Aristotle, one of the most em-
pirical of the classical philosophers, studied the causal links in
prophetic dreams.
The Bible, like most other basic theological texts, treats psy-
chic process as a central ingredient, in a tone so matter-of-fact
that one is inclined to believe that people in those times accepted
such events rather routinely. Incidentally, the Bible is an excel-
lent catalog of psychic phenomena; virtually every category that
is identified today is illustrated there in one form or another.
Medieval writing abounds with supernatural allusion, and
even in the renaissance period it is still difficult to separate psy-
chic interest from religious dogma, although it was then trans-
cribed into more organized forms in art and literature. In this
country, colonial hysteria over witchcraft probably is indicative
of more than simple religious paranoia, and a variety of more
sanitary parlor exercises seem to have persisted throughout
American history. Even Mary Todd Lincoln was in the habit of
having seances in the White House during the 1860s.
Despite these millennia of human concern with the para-
normal, the scholarly search for an understanding of psychic
phenomena began only a century ago, with the establishment in
London, in 1882, of the Society for Psychical Research, in
whose proceedings appeared the first formal publications of con-
trolled experiments in telepathy and clairvoyance. 7-10 Three
years later the counterpart organization in this country, the
American Society for Psychical Research, was founded in Bos-
ton by several distinguished scientists and philosophers, includ-
ing William James. Over the period 1912-18, Thomas W. Stan-
ford, brother of the founder of Stanford University, gave and be-
queathed well over $500,000 specifically to endow the study of
psychic research,'1 and to this day Stanford has a "Psychic Re-
search Fellow." Modest research programs were also undertaken
at Harvard and a few European universities at about this
time. 12-14
In 1930, Professor William McDougall came from Oxford,
via Harvard, to chair the psychology department at Duke Univer-
sity and there, along with two postdoctoral students, J. B. Rhine
and Louisa Rhine, made Duke the center of academic research
into psychic phenomena. In 1937 they began publication of the
Journal of Parapsychology, which remains a leading journal in
the field today. A professional organization calling itself the
Parapsychological Association was formed in 1957, and was
subsequently recognized by the American Association for the
Advancement of Science. There are now seven English-
language, professional journals in the field,15 many magazines
and newsletters, and an increasing number of scholarly books
published each year.
At Princeton, the history of psychic research is rather thin, but
not entirely void. In the 1930s, Upton Sinclair, whose wife ap-
pears to have been a gifted psychic, wrote on her abilities in
clairvoyance and telepathy, including a rather famous book
called Mental Radio," and engaged in some dialogues with Al-
bert Einstein on the credibility of psychic process. In 1937 our re-
nowned Professor of Statistics Samuel Wilks found himself in-
volved in a controversy over the validity of the statistical proce-
dures of early psychic researchers, and published his own rec-
ommendations for methods that could be applied to telepathy ex-
periments.17 In the 1950s, Hadley Cantril, then chairman of the
Psychology Department, displayed some interest in parapsy-
chology, especially in poltergeist phenomena, but apparently did
not publish anything of substance in the field. At the present
time, I am aware of some eight to ten faculty members in as
many disciplines who have a substantial interest in psychic proc-
ess, and there are many students who have expressed a desire to
study and experiment in various aspects of it. -R.G.J.
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scene; most of the things that are on the right side of my sketch ap-
pear on the left of hers. Note also the comment on the right center of
Carol's sketch indicating that at the beginning of the period she
sensed I was facing up the hill toward the tower, but that five min-
utes later I turned around toward the building behind me. Although I
had not thought to note it in my sketch, I had indeed done precisely
that.
We were excited by this first attempt, and shortly thereafter we
tried the process in reverse. On this occasion, I was in Pompano
Beach, Florida, while Carol was in Princeton, and I attempted to be
the percipient and she the outbound target. The scene I perceived,
sketched in Figure 3, centered on Carol riding a horse. (That is a
horse in the middle; it really has only four legs.) Details include
some tall trees, a fence, a small road, and a strange object in the
foreground I identified as a woodpile, old car, or shed. I noted that
Carol dismounted eight minutes after the start of the period, and
then walked the horse around holding the bridle.
Comparing this with Carol's sketch, shown in Figure 4, we find
that she was indeed with a horse, not in a field of grass as I had it,
but in an outdoor show ring. The fence was not the split-rail type I
had drawn, but the typical show ring of white boards. The strange
object in the foreground that I could not identify turns out to be the
announcer's stand. Once again, we have a curious inversion: Carol
noted that she spent ten minutes sitting under the shelter and then
five minutes riding the horse, whereas I had perceived her dismount-
ing at roughly that time.
We have tried this type of experiment many other times with
many other people. Almost always there is some correlation be-
tween the sketches, ranging from rough impressions of the central
features to virtually complete identification of the full scene. Rarely
are there total failures, but occasionally we experience quasi-failures
that are at least as interesting as the more successful results. For
example, there was the instance when, at the appointed time, I
found myself jammed in a noisy room with twelve other people in a
suburban home in northern New Jersey. Although I suspected this
was an unattractive target for Carol, I dutifully sketched the interior
details. I was disappointed when I saw Carol's sketch to find she had
drawn an outside scene, until I noticed that it was an accurate repre-
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sentation of the yar u mg t e ouse in w tc was seated.
real-time
That is
the
erci
i
t
On another occasion our random target-selection process directed
me to the vestibule of the Stanford University Chapel, which on this
day was a very damp, cold, dark, unpleasant place. Carol, confined in
an office at SRI, again sketched an outdoor scene: the front of the
chapel, complete with its arches, the correct number and disposition
of steps leading up to it, and the identification of the patio as having
gray and pink stones, precisely three feet square. This "near-miss"
effect also appeared when we reversed roles: on our next attempt,
Carol, as outbound experimenter, was directed by the same random
protocol to a local "Holiday Inn" and there stood inside at the
swimming pool near a pleasant flower garden. Back at the SRI labo-
ratory, I sketched an accurate simulation of the entrance of the inn,
complete with its large eucalyptus trees, a circular turn-around for
the cars, the embankment of the highway, and other details.
To compound the mystery of remote viewing, we have further
convinced ourselves that it is not necessary to perform the process in
.
,
p
p
en
can acquire his information about
the target site hours, or even days, before the outbound experi-
menter reaches, or for that matter selects, the target'26
Attempts are currently being made to refine remote viewing tech-
niques to permit transmission of information in terms of binary
choices: regardless of the details of the scene, can the percipient
identify, for example, whether it is dark or light, wet or dry, cold or
hot, inside or outside, basically man-made or natural, etc.?27 If
questions could be found which can be answered routinely with rea-
sonable accuracy, it would be possible to transfer quite a bit of quan-
titative information this way.
We encourage you to try this remote viewing experiment for
yourself: you may be surprised by what you can achieve. It seems to
require little more than an open mind and a devil-may-care attitude
to succeed, at least to a degree. For us it has been not so much a
main interest as a credibility exercise and fascinating diversion, but
it has encouraged us to try something considerably more ambitious.
The Geometry and Geography of Psychic Research
IN A FIELD as poorly comprehended and controversial as this
one, it is rather difficult to construct any tidy organizational
chart, but in the table below we have tried one possible outline
using the prevailing nomenclature. The two dominant subdivi-
sions of psychic phenomena (psi [`Y]) are extrasensory per-
ception (ESP) and psychokinesis (PK). Extrasensory perception
refers generally to the acquisition of information from sources
blocked from ordinary perception. Under this category are the
subdivisions of telepathy, which refers to detection of another
person's thoughts; clairvoyance, which refers to contemporary
perception of physical objects or events; precognition and re-
trocognition, which refer to perception of future events and
events in the past not accessible by normal recollection; and ani-.
mal ESP, which encompasses a variety of seemingly inexplica-
ble capabilities, such as homing, psi-trailing, collective con-
sciousness, communication, etc.
Psychokinesis (alternatively termed telekinesis, or psychoen-
ergetics) refers not to perception, but rather to a palpable disturb-
ance of, or interaction with, a physical or biological system. The
interaction may be deliberate or spontaneous, and the energy
transfer involved may range from microscopic disturbance of
atomic-level processes, through macroscopic distortion or levita-
tion of objects, up to some very drastic and dramatic "polter-
geist" effects. Psychic healing and man-plant interactions would
be two examples of psychokinesis in biological systems.
For completeness, our table also lists other domains of psychic
research not discussed in this report, such as life-after-death or
so-called "survival research," and the family of "out-of-body
experiences," which includes astral projection, autoscopy, and
bilocation.
Categories of Psychic Phenomena
I. Extrasensory Perception (ESP)
A. Telepathy
B. Clairvoyance
C. Precognition/Retrocognition
D. Animal ESP
II. Psychokinesis (PK)
A. Physical Systems
1. deliberate
2. spontaneous
B. Biological Systems
1. psychic healing
2. plant PK
III. Survival
A. Reincarnation
B. Apparitions
C. Mediumship
IV. Out-of-Body Experiences (OBE)
Approve
THE LIST below, by no means complete, shows locations at
which psychic research is being done in the western world, in-
cluding universities where one or more members of the faculty
are, or recently have been, involved in the field to some degree;
research institutes, some of which are solely concerned with psy-
chic experimentation, and others of which are components of
much larger enterprises; and two U.S. industrial corporations
which have authorized publication in this field.'8-'9
We have made little attempt to survey foreign work, although
there is significant research in England, France, Germany, the
Netherlands, Scandinavia, and a major effort in the Soviet Union
and other eastern bloc countries .10-24 Nor have we made any ef-
fort to cover Far-Eastern psychic activities, such as the tradi-
tional mysticisms of India and the Orient.
Psychic Research in the Western World
I. Colleges and Universities
Chicago U.C./Los Angeles
Colorado U.C./Santa Barbara
Columbia Virginia
CUNY Wisconsin
Drexel Yale
Duke Foreign
Harvard Cambridge
John F. Kennedy Edinburgh
Kent State London
Mundelein Oxford
New School for McGill
Social Reseach Paris
Pittsburgh Freiburg
St. John's Tel Aviv
St. Joseph's Amsterdam
U.C./Berkeley Utrecht
U.C./Davis Lund
II. Research Institutes and Centers
American Society for Psychical Research, New York
Ballistic Research Laboratories, Aberdeen, Maryland
Center for Parapsychological Research, Austin, Texas
Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man, Institute for
Parapsychology, Durham, North Carolina
Menninger Foundation, Topeka, Kansas
Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York
Mind Science Foundation, San Antonio, Texas
Psychical Research Foundation, Durham, North Carolina
Science Unlimited Research Foundation, San Antonio, Texas
SRI, International, Menlo Park, California
Forschungsinstitut fur Psychotronik, West Berlin
III. Corporations
Airesearch Company of California
Boeing Scientific Research Laboratories
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11
T THIS POINT Carol made a second suggestion - one with
which I disagreed at the time - namely, that for our own
studies we should concentrate on psychokinesis. I felt that
the difficulty of this type of experiment, as I understood it, probably
exceeded our abilities and that we would spend our time futilely try-
ing to generate effects. As has been the case on more than one occa-
sion in this project with her, I was wrong,
Why psychokinesis? Well, if the effects could be produced, as
engineers we would enjoy a number of comparative advantages in
their study. First, in contrast to other areas of psychic research, PK
involves interaction with physical systems, and we are more at home
with them than with biological or psychological processes. That same
feature makes it possible to deal with a little harder form of data, and
to quantify results a bit more precisely than when dealing with psy-
chological or biological phenomena. Also, in this area our heritage of
diagnostic and experimental equipment, data processing techniques,
and analytical methods should serve us well. More specifically, the
PK experiments, and the models we use to represent them, frequently
involve the confluence of several basic sciences, and we are accus-
tomed to that situation in more conventional engineering tasks.
As a further advantage, there has been much less controlled work in
psychokinesis than in many other areas of psychic research, and of them suffered some debilitating ailment, usually of an emotional/
therefore the experiments can be relatively simple at this point. In neurological variety, most commonly epilepsy, although other dis-
fact, those we have tried have all been assembled with off-the-shelf eases were also found. Often a precipitating event could be iden-
equipment available in our engineering laboratories. Finally, there is tified which seemed to initiate the activity. The general pattern in-
the intriguing possibility that PK may have some relevance to the volved a period of relatively mild precursor events, a sequence of
general understanding of energy conversion, a topic of prime con- major disturbances, and a period of "after shocks," extending as
temporary engineering concern. much as several weeks after the main events.
As mentioned in the box on "Geometry" (page 4), it is helpful to A typical case, reported at the 1977 annual meeting of the Para-
divide the field of psychokinesis according to the magnitude of en- psychological Association, occurred in the town of Pearisburg, Vir-
ergy transferred. For example, there are the so-called macroscopic ginia, in December 1976. The precipitating individual was a nine-
PK effects, such as the spoon-bending exercises of Uri Geller, 27, 28 year-old foster boy who had been made a ward of the court because
the salt-shaker levitations of the Russian woman, Kalagina'20 and of his parents' alcoholism problems, and was living with a widow.
the self-levitations of the Frenchman, Girard.29 These have been Two weeks of precursors were experienced, such as flower pots fall-
very highly publicized, but to the best of our knowledge have ing off shelves at random intervals. During the major sequence
evaded well-controlled, systematic experimentation. (when the boy was in bed) pieces of fruit tumbled off a window
Then there are PK experiments which involve much smaller ledge; the Christmas tree in the living room fell over; several of the
amounts of energy transfer, where the effects are made evident by an kitchen cabinets turned onto the floor; an old Singer sewing machine
inherently high gain in the experimental design itself. For example, was completely inverted; a rocking chair tumbled over backwards;
magnetometers normally used for the detection of weak magnetic and a carton of soda bottles was transported several feet.
fields are very sensitive to slight displacement of their spools;27 cer- The widow called in succession her neighbor, her son who lived
tain types of torsional pendula can transcribe infinitesimal forces several miles away, and the local police - who in turn contacted a
into measurable deflection of a light beam;30 electronic strain gauges team of researchers from the University of Virginia Medical School
routinely used for measuring propagation of elastic and plastic who were on call for such poltergeist events. (Their report formed
waves in solids can be used to detect very small disturbances of solid the basis of.the paper presented at the meeting.)32 To conclude the
objects.28 Most of the experiments we have tried fall in this class and story briefly, the widow was sufficiently distraught that she eventu-
are described below in a bit more detail. ally left the house. She returned a week later with the boy to try to
Next, there is the so-called microscopic PK domain, where one is collect some belongings, and shortly after re-entering the house,
attempting to intervene at the atomic or nuclear scale of a physical similar activity began again. They quickly returned to her son's
system: to influence a radioactive decay process, for example, or the house, and there, on Christmas Eve, experienced another set of dis-
emission of an optical photon, or the atomic collision processes in a turbances. With that, the boy was placed in another foster home,
gas discharge.31 These are the sorts of processes involved in most of and no further record has been presented.
the random generator devices, one version of which Carol designed The point of including all of this is simply to note that while most
and built for her independent work, as also described below. psychokinetic investigations are straining for very small amounts of
energy transfer - the disturbance of a photon, of an atomic nucleus,
Poltergeist Phenomena at best of a very sensitive magnetometer - here we find energy
transfer of a very large magnitude. To invert the sewing machine,
Finally, there are the very rare and spectacular poltergeist effects, for example, would have required much greater physical strength
more technically termed "recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis than this boy could have exerted deliberately. Sooner or later, this
(RSPK)." For years these phenomena were naively attributed to must be dealt with in whatever models are proposed for psycho-
manifestations of the spirit world, or return of the dead to "haunted" kinesis.
houses, and inspired countless horror movies and pulp-magazine ar- Obviously, one would like to have a captive poltergeist agent - a
ticles. Recently, some order has been brought to this bizarre busi- person capable of precipitating this sort of activity on demand - but
ness by systematic surveys of documented poltergeist cases by J. G. that is not likely to happen. Such agents seem unaware that they are
Pratt,32 W. G. Roll '33, a9 and others.',' involved in the process; to them the event is more like an epileptic
In one of these surveys, for example, 116 cases of poltergeist ac- seizure than anything they can consciously control. Further, the med-
tivity, ranging back to the year 1612, were re-examined. Of these, ical situation clearly must take precedence over the PK research in
92 were found to be associated with particular individuals living in these cases, given the degree of emotional distress normally prevail-
the house, the mean age of whom was only 15 y ars. Th ing,,
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Psychokinesis Experiments positive bits and indicates the total. One question the device may help
clarify is this: when one interferes with such a system, is it with the
F OR THE MANY reasons cited, we have confined our first at- random source, with the logic circuitry, or with the display, or is this
tempts at PK experiments to the microscopic and low-level even a meaningful question? At present, we have only some baseline
macroscopic domains. For example, as part of her junior in- data and a few isolated PK results. For her senior project, Carol is
dependent project, Carol worked on the design, construction, and refining the equipment using micro-processor technology, whereby
operation of a random-event generator. She has had a certain amount data may be much more rapidly accumulated and processed.
of experience with equipment of this sort; in fact, she has been able to We have also set up a few experiments of the high-gain variety,
influence similar devices at SRI, at Schmidt's laboratory in San An- each characterized by a simple physical system which has an inher-
tonio,31 and at Morris's laboratory at the University of California, ently large response to a very small disturbance. Such systems can
Santa Barbara.36 readily be conceived and implemented in a variety of domains:
Experimental data from a random-event generator, an electronic de-
vice that simulates a rapid succession of "coin flips." The plot displays
a significant excess of "heads" during a PK effort (the first 1,700 flips),
after which the subject relaxed her attention, and the results reverted
to normal, random behavior.
A record of one such experiment is shown in Figure 5.
The device involved here is based upon a radioactive
decay process, and essentially makes random binary
choices - i.e., flips a coin - very rapidly. Actually, it
makes 100 "flips" in a split second, and then displays
how many of these turn out "heads." If the device were
governed purely by chance, the cumulative total of many
hundreds of flips should progress somewhere near the
center horizontal line on the figure. Departures from
chance would drive the cumulative data away from this
"50-50" line. The parabolic lines sketched on the figure
correspond to envelopes of departure by two standard
deviations in the "heads" and "tails" direction. The ac-
tual results are plotted as the jagged line. As you can
see, at the start of the experiment, these departed in a
drastic, almost linear fashion from the random-chance
line. In fact, of the first 18 groups of 100 flips, 17 yielded
greater than 50 "heads." At that point, Carol ceased her
effort, and the data abruptly transposed to a stochastic
horizontal trace characteristic of normal chance.
Carol's current project is an attempt to repeat this sort
of experiment with equipment she is building herself,
with certain modifications which we think will be help-
ful 37 In particular, she has modularized the device to see
if we can determine which section is the most vulnerable
to PK interference. Her machine consists of a random
noise source; some logic circuitry which takes this ran-
dom signal, samples it appropriately, and converts it to a
binary signal; Anppa dis yFor>Relea a wunt all o i11/
A rov d or a ease /
mechanical, thermodynamic, fluid dynamic, electrical., optical,
chemical, nuclear, etc. For our first attempt, we chose to replicate an
experiment using thermistors that was performed by Gertrude
Schmeidler and the psychic Ingo Swann at the City University of
New York a few years ago.38 Two of these very sensitive ther-
mometric devices - each in its own vacuum bottle and surrounding
insulation - are tied into a precisely balanced electrical bridge, and
we observe the differential output. In other words, the two thermis-
tors are bucking each other, and when this system is properly bal-
anced, it yields a null signal if both are at the same temperature. The
task of the subject is to attempt to make one of them increase or de-
crease its reading with respect to the other.
Again with the warning that this is a preliminary experiment, Fig-
ure 6 shows one set of data we obtained. On the chart record, time
progresses vertically and the temperature differential horizontally.
The best we could do at this particular time in balancing this very
delicate bridge was to get a baseline signal like the three bottom
traces, in which the indicated temperature difference wandered
slowly to one side or the other, in this case to the left. Here our PK
effort was to reverse the drift, and as you see, the top trace indeed
progressed to the right for some time until we "relaxed," and then it
resumed its leftward course. We have seen similar departures, in-
dicative of an apparent change in the temperature of one of the
thermistors by a few thousandths of a degree, on several other occa-
sions; these changes are not particularly reproducible in magnitude
or in sign, but hardly ignorable, either. Obviously, we would like to
have a more stable baseline to work from, which is the goal of our
current efforts with this experiment. Figure 7 shows a more recent
result, less drastic than that in Figure 6, but with much better
baseline stability.
Two chart records of the dual-thermistor experiments: In
an early trial (Figure 6), the natural tendency of the bridge
signal to drift to the left (lower three traces) was reversed
by a PK effort (top trace). In a later run (Figure 7), a much
more stable circuit responded with a change in signal
character and a permanent displacement of the baseline
to the left.
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S-6 ? Princeton Alumni Weekly
 BASE
CALIBRATION
PK
CALIBRATION
BASE
CALIBRATION
maximum excursion to the right, and returns. After this calibration,
Another experiment takes advantage of a very high precision in-
we begin the PK effort and are rewarded by a transition from central
terferometer, a so-called "Fabry-Perot" device, which provides
dark to almost full bright - something like four-tenths of a fringe
very sharp and attractive circular optical fringes. Figure 8 shows a
which corresponds to some 10-5 cm displacement of the
schematic of this instrument (photographed in Figure 9), the central change,
element of which is a pair of circular glass plates with highly reflec-
plates.
We again tune the instrument, run another fringe calibration, and
tive coatings on the two inner-facing surfaces. Light from the source
then leave the device undisturbed to get a second baseline. Another
on the left reflects between these mirrors several times and emerges
retune and calibration are followed by a second PK effort, this yield-
in a state of interference with itself, producing a set of circular opti
cal fringes on the screen. A small aperture in the middle of the
ing slightly less displacement than the first, and a final tuning, cali-
,
screen permits the intensity of the central fringe to be detected by the bration, and baseline check. Very similar sequences of responses,
with the PK segments contrasting sharply with the baselines, have
whose signal is displayed on a chart recorder.
on several occasions, but by no means have we been
From a PK standpoint, the sensitive element of this device should been obtained
presumably be the optical plates. If they are separated slightly, the successful
on all such attempts.
Beyond the incomplete reproducibility of this experiment, it also
fringes propagate radially outward, and the central fringe changes
from dark to light to dark in succession. Displacement of the plates
suffers from some possible ambiguity in the details of the interaction
of less than one millionth of a centimeter can be readily detected as a
- e.g., one might conceivably claim that the influence is not on the
plates, but on the index of refraction of the air between the plates, or
change in brightness or position of a given fringe. We normally set a
even on the wavelength of the light source. It is our hope eventually
black central fringe, as shown in Figure 10, and attempt to force the
to implement independent determinations of the plate separation and
plates apart to produce a bright fringe in the center, as shown in Fig
ure 11. When that happens, the photomultiplier shows a correspond light frequency to resolve
ve such questions.
One other experiment, which has just been put into a form where
increase in output from its minimum to its maximum signal.
we trust the baseline operation, involves the spontaneous decay of a
Figure 12 is a representation of one of our photomultiplier re
cords. Time increases upward on the chart, and the initial segment phosphorescent surface. Luminous phosphors,
similar to those on
wristwatch dials and television tubes, have a variety of decay times.
of the trace shows the baseline black central fringe. Using remote
Some of them glow for hours, some for minutes, some for seconds
controls, we first separate the plates mechanically so that the central
fringe progresses through successive dark and bright illuminations, or fractions of seconds, depending on the particular substance. The
and. the recorders *BB ~8V6s8oMpg YY4igtds lff ~ fii'FlI iisC1Ar1J6g6bofd ~,6bW6$ j 64E iment emerges from a
The Fabry-Perot Interferometer, shown schematically (Figure 8) and
photographically (Figure 9), produces a pattern of concentric optical
fringes, the geometry of which is dependent upon the degree of sep-
aration of its two reflective plates. As the distance between the plates
increases, the annular rings progress outward and the central fringe
alternates steadily between dark (Figure 10) and light (Figure 11). The
chart recording (Figure 12) shows variations in the intensity of the cen-
tral fringe through a succession of instrument calibrations, baseline de-
terminations, and PK efforts to increase the separation of the plates.
 forbidden transition of an atomic electronic configuration from a
metastable triplet to a singlet state.39 Its decay time is about five
minutes.
As indicated in Figure 13, the phosphor is initially illuminated by
a germicidal lamp. We then observe the spontaneous decay of the
phosphorescence with a photomultiplier, which yields the roughly
exponential response shown in Figure 14. (This is an overlay of five
such events, so we have some confidence in its reproducibility.) Our
next task will be to attempt PK interference that causes the decay
process to speed up or slow down, on demand.
We have several other ideas for high-gain PK experiments that
have not yet been implemented. These involve delicately resonant
mechanical devices, finely tuned electrical circuits, microwave
resonators, transition of a fluid dynamic jet from laminar to turbu-
lent flow, chemical reactions of very precise inception times, atomic
"clocks," nuclear resonances, and others. By studying many of
these, we hope not only to be able to select the most stable, repro-
ducible, and effective devices for PK demonstration, but also to
identify common aspects of the interactions that may help in the
general comprehension of the process.
The results we have in hand are typical of the experience of others
in this field: i.e., we find suggestive anecdotal effects on isolated oc-
casions, but routine reproducibility has not been achieved. Experi-
ments that work well on one day work less well, or fail to respond at
all, on the next, under apparently identical conditions. By the stand-
ard criterion of scientific reproducibility, therefore, the effects ap-
The luminous decay experiment, sketched schematically in Figure 13,
yields photocell records like that shown in Figure 14. The task of the
subject is to increase or decrease the rate of decay of the luminosity
on command.
pear spurious; yet in the context of a given experimental protocol,
they are classically inexplicable.
At about this point in any of our presentations, the questions inevi-
tably arise: What is the ambiance of a successful PK experiment?
What is the strategy of the experimenter? How does it feel to influence
the device? Regrettably, there seem to be no simple or general an-
swers. The experimenter's interaction with a physical system is a
highly personal, subjective, delicate, and elusive experience that de-
fies articulation in straightforward terms.
The closest analogy I can find - and it is an imperfect one - is
with the biofeedback process, wherein the patient is led to a degree
of control over certain physiological functions via a monitoring sys-
tem that displays his success, or lack of it, in the desired effort. So in
PK, the behavior of the display unit - whether it be a set of illumi-
nated numbers, the needle on a chart recorder, the position of optical
fringes, or any other indicator - leads the experimenter to select out
of his conscious and subconscious repertoire of attitudes those
which happen to be productive at the time for the task at hand.
Many of the gifted psychics we have met, far more effective than
we at PK, speak in abstract terms of "resonance with the sys-
tem," "becoming an element in the system," "holistic attitudes,"
"global views," and "protoplasmic levels" - none of which ac-
quires meaning short of the subjective experience of a given experi-
menter in a specific task. The problem of instructing a person in PK,
I suspect, is akin to that of instructing him how to create a work of
art.
Theoretical Models of Psychic Phenomena
BEYOND THE introduction of more sophisticated measuring
and data-handling techniques, the second recent develop-
ment which holds some hope of leading psychic research out
of the dark ages is the growing interest of a number of theoretical
and applied physicists in formulating models of the processes. We
would need an entire article to represent any one of these models
adequately, and the cursory listing that follows can do little more
than indicate their existence, and the breadth of the various ap-
proaches.
One of the earliest physical models to be proposed invokes very-
low-frequency electromagnetic waves, of the order of 10 hertz (10
cycles per second), as the carrier of psychic information.40? 41 In this
approach, classical electricity and magnetism and information
theories are combit p orovOVor'ke base"' ~r jYIAIRs: CIA %6P96-00787R000500380004-4
S-8 ? Princeton Alumni Weekly
fer attainable in this mode. The low-frequency range is reflective of
certain biological frequencies - e.g., electrical potentials across the
hunian heart, and many of the brain potentials, which could provide
the mechanisms for launching and receiving these waves in the
human physiology. In principle, this model should be experimen-
tally testable, but in practice that is difficult because at these extraor-
dinarily large wavelengths such effects as decay of the signal with
propagation distance, diffraction and interference patterns, or at-
tenuation in solid and liquid materials require almost global dimen-
sions before becoming detectable. Identification of a speed of prop-
agation of psychic information consistent with electromagnetic
wave theory would be supportive of this model, but no experiments
have yet established any definite velocity of propagation for psychic
 Approved For Release 2002/11/18 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500380004-4
Somewhat similar wave propagation models have been proposed
wherein various environmental media support the psychic com-
munication.42 For example, infrasonic waves (sound waves of the
same low frequencies) may carry information through the atmos-
phere, or signals may be modulated onto the static electric fields in
the earth, the piezo-static fields arising from geoseismic activity, or
the cloud-to-earth electric fields like those that develop in lightning
storms. Similarly, magnetic anomalies of the earth may provide a
base for such communication, a process studied in the context of the
homing capabilities of birds .13
Models based on the concepts of statistical thermodynamics have
been attempted, with particular attention to the property called "en-
tropy. "30 In essense, entropy is an index of the information content
or, equivalently, of the degree of order of a physical system. For
example, a large box containing many black marbles, all of which
are to the left of its center, and many white marbles, all of which are
to the right of its center, is a system of relatively low entropy: the
arrangement of marbles is highly ordered, and one may with cer-
tainty extract a black marble by reaching into the left side of the box.
If the box is steadily shaken, however, the black and white marbles
will intermix and eventually achieve a random distribution. Now the
operator has less information about the system: he cannot tell which
color marble he will extract, no matter where in the box he reaches;
the system now has higher entropy. Furthermore, its arrangement is
highly irreversible, i.e., no amount of shaking is likely to return the
marbles to their original, separated configuration.
The concept of entropy is by no means restricted to such me-
chanical situations. The unfortunate fate of Humpty Dumpty is an
example of a drastic entropy rise of quite a different system. His de-
mise from a highly organized whole egg to one that was completely
scrambled was also highly irreversible. In living systems, the process
of death and subsequent decay could be represented as a similarly
irreversible process of entropy increase.
This natural tendency of complex systems towards states of disor-
der, which is formalized in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, is
theoretically troublesome and esthetically unappealing in that it
lacks a specifiable inverse process. That is, no mechanism for spon-
taneous reduction of entropy of an isolated system has been iden-
tified. Yet many manifestations of psychokinesis involve just such
entropy reduction - a random generator which is caused to display
an excess of high numbers, a torsional pendulum that changes from
jiggling motion to a periodic oscillation, or the establishment of a
temperature differential between two previously isothermal thermis-
tors - all are proceeding toward more highly ordered states. Many
of the Biblical miracles display similar characteristics: the parting of
the Red Sea, the remote healing of the Centurion's servant, the raising
of the dead, and, indeed, the creation of the universe itself are impres-
sive examples of "spontaneous" entropy reduction. Question: what
is the influence that drives such processes? Is it lurking somewhere in
our established thermodynamic formalisms, or can an appropriate
new ingredient be assimilated by them?
In a more mathematical vein, the general aspects of symmetry of
our established physical theories are being re-examined in a search
for previously rejected information.44, 45 We have been in the habit
of taking only one class of solutions out of the differential equations
of physics. The classical wave equation, for instance, yields both a
retarded wave and an advanced wave solution, and we normally dis-
card the advanced wave because "it does not conform to experi-
ence. " This may be short-sighted; perhaps, for example, we could
represent precognition in terms of advanced waves.
There are also several "hyperspace" theories which contend that
our usual presumption of using only four coordinates to describe na-
ture, three spatial and one temporal, limits our deductive capacity.4e
If we start all over again with five or six or seven, we may still ex-
tract the information needed for our traditional four-dimensional
world, while in addition representing phenomena that would be re-
garded as paranormal on the basis of a strictly four-dimensional
analysis.
Some of the most interesting attempts to model psychic phe-
nomena make use of the formalisms of quantum mechanics47 0 -
the first class of scientj d{dV t Rs-1a Ptc/lI/8
deterministic representation of cause and effect in the physical
world. In contrast to classical mechanics, quantum mechanics deals
with "probability densities" and "expectation values," which are in
turn expressed in terms of wave functions or matrices rather than
individual explicit quantities. One of the problems with which quan-
tum mechanics has labored for years is that of experimental observa-
tion. It turns out not to be possible to observe any physical quantity
or process without disturbing it in some way; the system inevitably
reacts to any attempt to measure it. (Stated more formally, the quan-
tum mechanical state vector of a system is not specified until a suita-
ble measurement is made upon it.) This in turn leads to certain
paradoxes, as epitomized in various famous examples, such as that
of "Schrodinger's Cat," or "Wigner's Friend," or the "Einstein-
Poldosky-Rosen Paradox." (The Wigner referred to is Princeton's
Nobel Laureate and Professor of Physics Emeritus Eugene
P.Wigner.)
"Every phenomenon is
unexpected and most
unlikely until it has
been discovered-
and some of them
remain unreasonable
for a long time
after they have
been discovered."
-Eugene P. Wigner,
Symmetries and
Reflections (1967)
After one concedes that the person conducting an experiment
exerts an unavoidable influence on it, and in this sense becomes an
integral part of it, the step to allowing a person to interfere in a de-
liberate way with a physical system is not quite so unpalatable. A
number of attempts have been made to represent psychokinesis in
this way. Some have invoked previously neglected "hidden vari-
ables" in the quantum theory to specify the human component.
Others have made analogy of the synaptic transitions in the brain to
quantum mechanical "tunnelling" processes, such as the escape of
beta particles from radioactive nuclei.49 All of this clearly involves a
daring extension of mathematical physics to cover human charac-
teristics.
In still another approach, it is claimed that psychic process can
largely be assigned to inadequate comprehension of random physi-
cal processes.51 The central point here is that a truly random process
is unattainable; all sources and all receivers in nature, because they
are finite in dimension and finite in time, must show some departure
from the truly random. That is, if enough correlations are examined,
biases will prevail in those sources and receivers. The proposition,
then, is that so-called paranormal communication is simply the res-
onant tuning of those very slightly biased sources and receivers. Left
unexplained is the specific mechanism of the resonance, thus defer-
ring the propagation problem to some other model.
Less analytical models propose empirical postulates for psychic
functioning. For example, there is the proposition of "conformance
behavior," which assigns to living systems the ability to influence
the physical world to their own advantage.52 Some experiments have
addressed this concept, employing human subjects, monkeys, gold-
fish, cockroaches, and even seeds.S3 Again, the details of the influ-
ence are not specified.
We shall make no attempt to review the many neurophysiological
and psychological models that have been offered, first because we
(~~~n}> [g~~~s jlp tal~f}t ~v3~~~ c4second because we
 Approved For Release 2002/11/18
have not seen any that help much with the physical side of the prob-
lem. Perhaps worth noting, however, are the long-recognized left-
brain and right-brain perception capabilities. The left brain deals
with the more analytic affairs of life; it is the part that deduces, in-
terprets, counts, and reasons. The right brain, on the other hand,
handles the more esthetic perceptions and sensations. Interestingly
enough, those people who seem most adept at performing psychic
feats tend to be right-brained; they are highly aesthetic and im-
pressionistic in their thinking and articulation. The people needed to
make sense out of it, however, are the analytical types who have the
more highly developed left brain. Unfortunately, there is some evi-
dence that each of these talents can interfere with the other. Those
who are predominantly analytic seem less adept at psychic demon-
stration. For example, Targ and Puthoff have reported that people
who have photographic memories are totally incapable of doing
their remote-viewing experiments.27
Applications and Implications
F RESEARCH like that outlined above is eventually successful in
I advancing our understanding of psychic phenomena from simply
bemused observation to some capability for more regular and
controlled practice, then a wide range of applications can be seri-
ously considered, involving an equally wide range of personal and
social impact. For example, one can readily extrapolate from the
present abilities of gifted psychics who can perceive remote scenes
with remarkable precision, identify equipment and documents in
sealed rooms, describe geographical features of a location given
merely its map coordinates, and even now are called upon by police
and rescue units to locate lost persons or objects. The extent and ef-
fectiveness of such applications clearly depends on the number and
competence of people who can be found or trained to perform such
tasks, which again raises the fundamental issue of what degree of
psychic capability is latent in the human race, and susceptible to or-
derly development.
With regard to applications of psychokinesis in particular, the
prognosis is even more clouded, pending more definitive basic ex-
periments and serviceable theoretical models. Disturbing negative
applications, such as interference with delicate technological
equipment, jump to mind - and have concerned various public and
private agencies.58 More profound and significant, however, is the
spectrum of potential personal applications whereby individuals
might advantageously modify their immediate environment, and
themselves, by this capacity. Already there is a small group of
psycho-physiologists who feel that the early cognitive processes of
control of body function - muscles, vision, blood flow, etc. - in-
volve a significant component of trial-and-error self-PK, which by
maturity has long since become routine and imperceptible. The prac-
tical distinction between this view and the more conventional models
of infantile learning may not be of major consequence, but in matters
of rehabilitation, some useful techniques might evolve.
Rather than belabor the unavoidably speculative applications per
se, it might be better to turn to more general musing about the impli-
cations of psi, i.e., the effect on the individual, and on society, of
such talents if they could be more broadly and routinely developed.
From this point of view, there seem to be at least five levels of chal-
lenge:
First, there are the phenomena themselves, which, if valid, pose a
very serious question, namely: are we facing a basic modification of
our physical laws, or are we simply looking to identify new forces
and new energy transfer processes to insert in the established physi-
cal. formalisms?
Second, there is the level of personal discipline with which one
must approach the field. One has to be critical enough to insist on
rigorous fact, but not so stubborn that information is rejected be-
cause it does not conform to previous conceptions. One must distin-
guish between high vision and naive delusion; between open-
mindedness and gullibility.
Third, there is the level of the philosophy of the science, if indeed
CIA-RDP96-00787R000500380004-4
It should also be emphasized that the absence of good neuro-
physiological and psychological models of psychic process does not
in any sense imply that this component of the problem is unimpor-
tant. On the contrary, it underscores the difficulty of the entire mod-
eling effort. As Laurence Veysey puts it: "The elusiveness of psy-
chic phenomena is simply the elusiveness of the ordinary human
mind. "54
Finally, there seems to be a growing suspicion that psychic phe-
nomena may defy representation by any model drawn solely from a
single domain of established science. In other words, psychic proc-
ess may be fundamentally holistic, and any attempt to separate out
the physical, biological, or psychological aspects, either in the exper-
iments or in the theories, will inevitably obscure the phenomena.
Should this indeed be the case, the analytical tasks become even
more formidable, but this type of approach seems to be of growing
importance in many other fields of scholarship as well.ss
tion as such. How do you handle a "scientific" field which seems
basically irreproducible, sensitive to the observer, evasive of close
scrutiny, strongly goal-oriented, and heavily interactive with do-
mains like theology and philosophy? In many respects psychic proc-
ess seems as much akin to art, and music, and creative process in
general as it is to analytical and replicable science. It has one foot in
the esthetic and one foot in the analytic. It occupies an interface re-
gion like those Willis Harman has identified as the most urgent for
society to develop if it is to extract itself from its present socio-
technological predicament.57
The fourth level, once again personal in nature, concerns the in-
dividual "world-view" that derives. This was expressed rather well
by our ex-astronaut, Edgar Mitchell, who has been for some time an
advocate of this field, and who carried out psychic experiments on
board his Apollo mission:
The profundity of the issue lies in the implications to our system of
thought about the nature of man, the universe, and reality. In spite of the
relative rarity of these events, the question must be asked, "Could it be
that we, each one of us, everyday, by our thoughts are subtly influencing
our environment, our reality, our Universe, without consciously knowing
it, or is this type control strictly the province of a few rare individuals who
possess this unique capability?"58
Finally, there are the personal and collective reactions of others
- the people to whom you try to explain all this, on an airplane, in a
corporate meeting, in a sponsor's office, or in a report like this.
What has been your reaction to this article? How much of a threat,
or a challenge, has it been to you? Out of the sum of such reactions
comes the sociological and political acceptance or rejection of the
field. At present I suspect that the major portion of society still finds
the business somewhat incredible, and hopes that it will quietly go
away. But there is a minor fraction, possibly a growing fraction,
which has a zest for this as a new frontier, and for whom the search
for links between the mundane and sublime experiences of life have
a numenistic appeal.
The present majority opinion does inhibit establishment of care-
ful, disciplined research that could settle the issues of validity rather
directly. As a consequence, the scholars and investigators tend to be
a rather defensive and hunted group, in some cases actually perse-
cuted by their peers for association with a field which admittedly has
had more than its share of tawdry and fraudulent exploitation. For
the same reason, the financial support of psychic research is minus-
cule; there is less spent on it per year in this country than the cost of
one modern tank or one fighter aircraft. I had occasion to discuss
this issue recently with a well-placed officer of the Department of
Energy. Let me quote two sentences from a letter he sent me: The
first says, ". . . As I have mentioned on several occasions to you and
your staff, this subject is a personal interest to me . . . " and later in
the letter, "... but the national energy problem is an urgent one,
and this type of activity may be construed by some to be a dilution of
this is a science at al AIVO- v 1aFWnR&*V*&s2i0?e2fS Z : CI R P9 $7RO00500380004-4
 Reflections
HERE DOES all this leave us? At the start we promised a
complex fabric of many implausible threads, and I think
that has been fulfilled. Also sustained is our promise to
advocate nothing, save possibly that we keep our eyes and minds
and hearts open to this very new, yet very old, field. Certainly, the
experiments are no more than suggestive, the models only vaguely
promising, the applications and implications highly speculative. Ul-
timately, of course, the choice - and in a field such as this, it has to
be a personal choice - must be between the assignment of all the
inexplicable to mere chance, which is somehow bedazzling hyper-
romantic minds to delusion of order where there is none, or the
acknowledgment of a legitimate, potentially coherent and useful,
albeit very elusive, phenomenological domain.
Some 45 years ago, Albert Einstein confessed this same dilemma
in his preface to Upton Sinclair's book, Mental Radio:
... The results of the telepathic experiments carefully and plainly set forth
in this book stand surely far beyond those which a mature investigator
holds to be thinkable. On the other hand, it is out of the question in the
case of so conscientious an observer and writer as Upton Sinclair that he is
carrying on a conscious deception of the reading world; his good faith and
dependability are not to be questioned...."
One might turn to historical analogies for insight, for there are
certainly many examples of originally inexplicable phenomena
gradually congealing into an established science and then into a use-
ful technology. Take the field of electricity and magnetism men-
tioned earlier. At the same time the Greeks were consulting their
Delphic Oracle, they were also rubbing amber to get static electrical
effects, using lodestones to navigate their boats, and observing an
occasional lightning bolt in the sky. They had no Maxwell's equa-
tions, not even a Coulomb's law, let alone television sets or hydro-
electric generators. Those came much later.
Again at Princeton, the physicist Joseph Henry was repeatedly
criticized by his peers for undertaking experiments that violated es-
tablished scientific principles and common sense, yet we now live
by many implementations of those same unreasonable ideas.
The choice between assignment of the mysterious to thoughtless
chance, or to a more purposeful higher order, has occupied many
thinkers and authors through the ages. One of my favorite opinions
on the subject is voiced by Schiller's epic hero Wallenstein at the
time of his impending tragic death:
Es gibs keinen Zufall; und was uns blindes Ohngefahr nur diinkt, gerade
das steigt aus den tiefsten Quellen. ("There is no such thing as chance;
and that which seems to us blind accident, actually stems from the deepest.
source of all.")ae
Some day in the future the question may be posed whether it is
proper and productive for a university such as Princeton to involve
itself to any significant( ived sFimeVe sea202lb4c4/4 8
field as psychic research, and there will doubtless be many opinions
on this. My own is not at all fully formed, but there has hung on my
wall for the past six years a statement which may have some rele-
vance at that time:
In the long history of civilization there are always strong pressures in favor
of low-level sorts of conformity - pressures against unorthodoxy, indi-
viduality, and self-won responsibility. And all the while from left and
from right aggressive voices proclaim that truth and virtue are theirs alone.
But there is one place above all where it is (or should be) possible for men
to think and act as their own reasoned judgment and best conscience dic-
tate - namely, a university. Here it is that the willingness to think other-
wise, to dream, to question, and to dare should flourish.
If an utter stranger to our civilization should ask: "Where in your soci-
ety can a person disagree with impunity with accepted practices, dogmas
and doctrines?" the answer should be, "The universities. That is part of
their being. Their role is to conserve the best of the past and to look for-
ward from it. On both counts they are committed to freedom for the indi-
vidual, the dignity of the human person, and tolerance toward dissent
within broad and agreed upon limits."
This is signed by the U.S. Ambassador to India and president
emeritus of Princeton University, the Honorable Robert F. Goheen
'40.60
At the very least, Carol and I do hope that you have enjoyed shar-
ing our own brief exposure to the psychic tapestry; that the colors
have not been too garish for your taste, or the pattern too bizarre;
and that some of you may now care to hold the cloth in your own
hands, and attempt your own interpretation of its message. ^
Robert G. Jahn '51, *55 has been dean of Princeton's School
of Engineering and Applied Science since 1971. At the invita-
tion of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he visited several re-
search centers in the U.S.S.R. this past fall to lecture on his
principal field: pulsed, high-power plasma discharges, which
are of interest for deep-space propulsion, plasmadynamic
lasers, basic studies in arc phenomena, materials testing,
and other industrial processes. He is a member of the Univer-
sity Research Board and serves as chairman of the Council
on Environmental Studies, chairman of the Committee on
Athletics, and faculty adviser to the football program. His
extra-Princeton assignments include heading the Executive
Committee of the Board of Trustees of Associated Univer-
sities, Inc. (the oversight and policy-making body for the
Brookhaven National Laboratory and National Radio As-
tronomy facilities), as well as membership on a number of
committees of NASA and the National Academy of Sciences.
 Approved For Release 2002/11/18 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500380004-4
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S-12 ? Princeton Alumni Weekly