PARAPSYCHOLOGY ABSTRACTS INTERNATIONAL, BRAZIL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00792R000700350007-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 2, 2001
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: December 1, 1989
• Content Type: OPEN

Approved For Release 2001/04/02: CIA-RDP96-
Parapsychology Abstracts International
or behavioral experiments. The data suggest that even the
results of physical experiments may not be cumulative in
the absolute sense by statistical criteria. It is argued that
the study of the actual cumulativeness found in physical
data could inform social scientists about what to expect
from replicated experiments under good conditions. - DA
lira Anthropology, 1989 (May), 4(2), 182-193. 25 refs
If it has become commonplace in some corners of
anthropology to read rituals as texts, the inverse of this
proposition, that anthropological texts are rituals of a sort,
is perhaps less obvious and less well explored. To treat
texts as rituals and rituals as texts is to collapse both
categories under a broader realm of ideology and to ex-
plore how the structures of the anthropologist's text repeat
those of the interpreted ritual. As a result, this kind of
ethnographic writing and reading involves rethinking the
hierarchy of observer and observed by looking for points
where the discourse of the other affects one's own dis-
course.
This article explores the relations between text and
ritual, observing discourse and observed discourse, by ar-
ticulating Geertz's position (1973:448) that culture and
ritual can be interpreted as texts with Jonathan Culler's
argument that "critical disputes about a text [read `ritual,'
'religious system'] can frequently be identified as a dis-
placed reenactment of conflicts dramatized in the text
[ritual, religious system]" (1982:215). The case st
d
u
y
adopted for analysis here involves disobsession
(disobsession), a type of exorcism ritual found among the
Spiritists of Brazil, and the various mappings of the
Brazilian religious system. It examines critical disputes
among sociologists and anthropologists regarding the disob-
session ritual and the position of Spiritism in the Brazilian
religious system, and it traces these disputes back to con-
flicts dramatized both within the ritual and among the dif-
ferent actors in the religious system (see section 4).
Within the ritual, Spiritist mediums receive errant spirits
that represent non-Spiritist social categories and discourses;
for example, Spiritists frequently "disobsess" spirits that rep-
resent the Catholic or Afro-Brazilian religions. Likewise,
followers of Spiritism, Catholicism, or the Afro-Brazilian
religions all have implicit maps of the Brazilian religious
system, and these conflicting maps play themselves out in
the conflicting interpretations of sociologists and
anthropologists. - DA
03752. Hill, Theodore P. Random-number guessing
and the first digit phenomenon. Psychological Reports,
1988 (Jun), 62(3), 967-971. 12 refs; 1 table
To what extent do individuals "absorb" the empirical
regularities of their environment and reflect them in be-
havior? A widely-accepted empirical observation called
the First Digit Phenomenon or Benford's Law says that in
collections of miscellaneous tables of data (such as physical
constants, almanacs, newspaper articles, etc.), the first sig-
nificant digit is much more likely to be a low number
than a high number. In this study, an analysis of the fre-
quencies of the first and second digits of "random" six-digit
numbers guessed by people suggests that people's responses
share some of the properties of Benford's Law; first digit 1
occurs much more frequently than expected; first digit 8 or
9 occurs much less frequently; and the second digits are
much more uniformly distributed than the first. - DA
03753. Kihlstrom, John F. The cognitive unconscious.
Science, 1987 (Sep), 2.37(484), 1445-1452. 44 refs
Vol. 7, No. 2 December 1989
Contemporary research in cognitive psychology reveals
the impact of nonconscious mental structures and processes
on the individual's conscious experience, thought, and ac-
tion. Research on perceptual-cognitive and motoric skills
indicates that they are automatized through experience, and
thus rendered unconscious, In addition, research on sub-
liminal perception, implicit memory, and hypnosis indicates
that events can affect mental functions even though they
cannot be consciously perceived or remembered. These
findings suggest a tripartite division of the cognitive uncon-
scious into truly unconscious mental processes operating on
knowledge structures that may themselves be preconscious
or subconscious. - DA
03754. Kukla, Andre. Nonempirical issues in psychol-
ogy. American Psychologist, 1989 (May), 44(5), 785-794.
54 refs
The general decline of radical empiricism has led to
a renewed appreciation of the role of nonempirical con-
tributions to the advancement of science. In psychology;
this has meant the development of a theoretical wing com-
parable to the well-established theoretical traditions that
exist in other scientific disciplines. Theoretical psychology
is no longer the collection of vague generalities that once
made up the traditional "systems and theories" course. It
is an active subdiscipline with a well-articulated research
program and a growing corpus of special methods and
results. This article surveys the types of issues dealt with
by theoretical psychologists and discusses the relation be-
tween their work and empirical research. - DA
03755. Leary, David E. Telling likely stories: The
rhetoric of the new psychology, 1880-1920. Journal of
the History. of the Behavioral Sciences, 1987 (Oct), 23,
315-331. 43 refs
+ This is a story about the New Psychologists who
strove at the turn of the century to institutionalize a new
science and to create a new set of professional roles.
More particularly, it is about the rhetorical fabric they
wove around the nascent science of psychology. The ar-
ticle focuses, one by one, on different strands of this
fabric--on (1) what persuaded the first generation of
American psychologists to take an interest in the New
Psychology; (2) the arguments these aspiring psychologists
presented to presidents and trustees to insure that they
could pursue their interest within particular institutional
settings; (3) the arguments they put forth against the rights
of other persons to engage in similar, competing pursuits;
(4) the arguments they laid before various administrators,
officials, interest groups, and the general public to
guarantee continued and even increased support; and (5)
the arguments they presented in the form of theories and
practices developed between approximately 1880 and 1920.
in this way, it attempts to construct a likely story about
the establishment of the New Psychology in America. - DA
03756. Nardi, Peter M. Toward a social psychology of
entertainment magic (conjuring). Symbolic Interaction,
1984, 7(1), 25-42. 1 chart; 18 refs
The dynamics of everyday social interactions can of-
ten be clarified by studying the social organization of un-
usual realms of activity. One such activity is conjuring--
magic performed as entertainment. This article discusses
various sociological and social psychological dimensions in
the performance of magic. It focuses on the similarities
between a magic act and the social interactions of
everyday life. It also discusses the dialectic between magic
reasoning and mundane reasoning--between the audience's
expectations built from the organization of everyday life
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Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000700350007-6