BOOM TIMES ON THE PSYCHIC FRONTIER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00787R000700030001-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 23, 2000
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: March 4, 1974
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

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 App roygtf grt1gijvgg@oZPAQMMc7a;pKIAd pbf91j-40
points among writers, editors, correspondents and reporter-research-
ers-one that ultimately serves to balance and enhance the finished
story. Such was the case in dealing with the complex and contro-
versial subject of psychic phenomena. Los Angeles Correspondent
Richard Duncan was particularly open in his approach. One day at
U.C.L.A., Duncan submitted himself to Kirlian photography, a pro-
cess for measuring psychic energy, Although there were too few ex-
posures to prove or disprove anything to his satisfaction. Duncan
was interested to see that the developed film of his fingertips showed
blotchy, whorled or spiky "coronas" that corresponded to his dif-
fering emotional states.
Senior Editor Leon Jaroff, on the other hand, brought rigorous sci-
entific standards to his judgments on the story, and an admitted pre-
disposition to skepticism. "Belief in these matters," he feels, "is less a
function of intelligence than of psychological need." Although he firm-
ly believes that even such
widespread phenomena as
dejk vu and precognitive
dreams will eventually yield
to rational analysis, he can-
not rationally explain why,
three times in a row last
week, his clock-radio failed
to go off, making him late
for work.
Even more bizarre was
the mysterious force that
glitched TIME'S complex,
computerized copy-process-
ing system on closing night
-at almost the precise mo-
ment that our psychic-
phenomena story was fed
into it. Against astronomi-
cal odds, both of the ma-
chines that print out TIME'S
copy stopped working simultaneously. No sooner were the spirits ex-
orcised and the machines back in operation than the IBM computer
in effect swallowed the entire cover story; it developed a flaw in its pro-
gramming that sent the copy circling endlessly through memory loops
from which it could not be retrieved, Thirteen hours and a second ex-
pert exorcism later, the IBM 370/135 snapped out of its trance and
grudgingly returned the finished story to us.
Associate Editor Stefan Kanfer. who wrote the cover story, man-
aged to remain free of psychic interruption last week. "I got into this
topic," he says, "through the back door-some would say front door
-of magic and mentalism. There are many tricks with which one
can duplicate paranormal phenomena." Indeed, Amateur Magician
Kanfer astounded numerous TIME staffers last week by seeming to
guess correctly, over the telephone, cards that had been pulled from
a deck in Jaroffs office-which is one floor below Kanfer's.
/) n
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Behavior
65
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Books
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62
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People 40
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Religion 50
Science 74
World 25
The Cover: Graft color illustration by Howard Sochurek,
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 Boom Times on the Psychic Frontier
Glendower: I can call spirits from the
vasty deep.
Hotspur: Why, so can 1. or so can
any man;
But will they come when you do call
for them ?
-Henry IV
For all the enormous achievements
of science in posting the universe that
man inhabits, odd things keep slipping
past the sentries. The tap on the shoul-
der may be fleeting, the brush across the
cheek gone sooner than it is felt, but
the momentary effect is unmistakable:
an unwilling suspension of belief in the
and memory? Could there be a para-
normal world exempt from known nat-
ural law?
Both in America and abroad, those
questions are being asked by increasing
numbers of laymen and scientists hun-
gry for answers. The diverse manifes-
tations of interest in so-called psychic
phenomena are everywhere:
- In the U.S., The Secret Life of
Plants becomes a bestseller by offering
an astonishing and heretical thesis:
greenery can feel the thoughts of
humans.
- At Maimonides Medical Center in
New York City, the image of a paint-
spoons and keys apparently with the
force of his thoughts.
- In the Philippines, Tennis Star
Tony Roche is relieved of painful "ten-
nis elbow" when an incision is made and
three blood clots are apparently re-
moved by the touch of a psychic healer.
who knows nothing of surgery or of mod-
ern sanitation.
- In the U.S., the number of col-
leges offering courses in parapsychology
increases to more than 100.
- In the U.S.S.R., researchers file
reports on blindfolded women who can
"see" colors with their hands.
- In California, ex-Astronaut Edgar
DEVICE SET UP TO RECORD OUT-OF-BODY TRIP AT AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Questionable procedures costumed in the prim gown of laboratory respectability.
rational. An old friend suddenly remem- ing is transmitted by ESP, and seems to Mitchell, who while on the Apollo 14
bered, and as suddenly the telephone enter the dreams of a laboratory sub- moon mission conducted telepathy ex-
rings and the friend is on the line. A ject sleeping in another room. periments with friends on earth, founds
vivid dream that becomes the morning - In England, a poll of its readers the Institute of Noetic Sciences. His new
reality. The sense of bumping into one's by the New Scientist indicates that near- mission: investigate occurrences that
self around a corner of time, of having ly 70% of the respondents (mainly sci- will not yield to rational explanation.
done and said just this, in this place, entists and technicians) believe in the - In London, Arthur Koestler ex-
once before in precisely this fashion. A possibility of extrasensory perception. amines psychic research with the zeal
stab of anguish for a distant loved one. - At the University of California, of the believer. Koestler, one of the fore-
and next day, the telegram. Psychologist Charles Tart reports that most explicators of Establishment sci-
Hardly a person lives who can deny his subjects showed a marked increase ence (The Sleepwalkers, The Act of Cre-
some such experience, some such seem- in EsI scores after working with his new ation), speaks of "synchronized" events
ing visitation from across the psychic teaching machine. that lie outside the expectations of prob-
frontier. For most of man's history, those - In Los Angeles, a leaf is cut in ability. In anecdotes of foresight and ex-
intrusions were mainsprings of action, half, then photographed by a special trasensory perception, in the repetition
the very life of Greek epic and biblical process. The picture miraculously shows of events and the strange behavior of
saga, of medieval tale and Eastern the "aura" or outline of the whole leaf random samplings, Koestler spots what
chronicle. Modern science and psychol- - In Washington, the Defense De- he calls the roots of coincidence. In his
ogy have learned to explain much of partment's Advanced Research Projects unforgettable metaphor, modern scien-
what was once inexplicable, but mys- Agency assigns a team to investigate tists are "Peeping Toms at the keyhole
teries remain. The workings of the mind seemingly authentic psychic phenome- of eternity." That keyhole is stuffed with
still resist rational analysis; reports of na at the Stanford Research Institute. ancient biases toward the materialistic
psychic phenomena persist. Are they all - On both sides of the Atlantic, Uri and rational explication and, conse-
accident, illusion? Or are there other Geller, a young Israeli psychic, astounds quently, away from the emerging field
planes and AIg cP 1ie 4ea- ?O1O&a?ts OMMP96-~ G"7bft50bt+lban-
TIME, MARCH 4, 1974 65
 ADDroved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787ROO0700030001-3
BEHAVIOR
don those prejudices, says Koestler, they
will be free to explore fresh concepts and
new categories.
That exploration is already being
conducted by a number of serious para-
normalists in a wide range of disciplines.
In his Foundation for the Research on
the Nature of Man, in Durham, N.C.,
the grand old man of paranormal stud-
ies. J.B. Rhine (see box page 70), still
keeps watch on test animals for precog-
nitive powers. At the nearby Psychical
Research Foundation, William Roll and
a research staff investigates "survival af-
ter bodily death." In studies with a "sen-
sitive" and his pet cat, Roll finds ev-
idence for a human ability "to leave"
RUSSIAN FINGER-READING TEST
Basically show biz.
the body and "visit" the animal. At the
University of Virginia Medical School,
Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson also studies
the plausibilities of reincarnation.
At the Division of Parapsychology
and Psychophysics of the Maimonides
Medical Center, Dr. Montague Ullman
directs tests in which message senders
"think" images into the brains of sleep-
ing subjects. "If we had adequate fund-
ing," says Ullman, "we could have a
major breakthrough in this decade." In
Connecticut, Businessman Robert Nel-
son directs the Central Premonitions
Registry, meticulously recording the
prop
that
milted to finding phenomena. And few
are aware of the controls necessary in a
field in which deception, conscious or
unconscious, is all too familiar."
Daniel Cohen, former managing ed-
itor of Science Digest and author of the
debunking volume Myths of the Space
Age, remains unpersuaded by what he
sees through the Koestlerian keyhole.
"After decades of research and exper-
iments," Cohen observes, "the parapsy-
chologists are not one step closer to ac-
ceptable scientific proof of psychic
phenomena. Examining the slipshod
work of the modern researchers, one be-
gins to wonder if any proof exists."
The criticism that psychics find
hardest to counter comes not from sci-
entists but from conjurers. Theoretically,
magicians have no place in serious sci-
ence. But they are entertainers whose
business it is to deceive; thus they feel
that they are better qualified to spot chi-
canery than scientists, who can be woe-
fully naive about the gimmicks and tech-
niques that charlatans may use for
mystical effects. James Randi, who ap-
pears on television as the Amazing
Randi," duplicates many of Uri Geller's
achievements with a combination of
sleight of hand, misdirected attention
and patented paraphernalia, then calls
them feats of clay. -Scientists who fall
for the paranormal go through the most
devious reasoning," Randi says. "For-
tunes are squandered annually in pur-
suit of mystical forces that are actually
the result of clever deceits. The money
would be better spent investigating the
tooth fairy or Santa Claus. There is more
evidence for their reality."
Pure Deception. Charles Reyn-
olds, editor and member of the Psychic
Investigating Committee of the Amer-
ican Society of Magicians, agrees.
"When evaluating the research, we have
found that the researcher's will to be-
lieve is all powerful. Its a will that has
nothing to do with religion: there are
Marxists, atheists, agnostics who cling
stubbornly to the ancient faith in
black magic. Only now it's called the
paranormal.' "
That faith is nowhere more evident
than in the U.S.S.R., which has been
beset in recent years with controversial
sensitives. One, Ninel Kulagina, was ap-
praised as capable of causing objects to
float in mid-air. As Martin Gardner
notes. "She is a pretty, plump, dark-
eyed little charlatan who took the stage
name of Ninel because it is Lenin spelled
backward. She is no more a sensitive
than Kreskin, and like that amiable
American television humbug. she is
basically show biz." Indeed, Ninel
has been caught cheating more than
U.C.L.A. Psychologist Thelma Moss ex-
plores the mysteries of Kirlian photog-
raphy-pictures believed by some to
show the "aura" of living things. Insert:
~txrq~
)ogr& I6a 2 t i ~C t~sc' s"arc'1(d 87R f~~~ ~ xal~lbow (left) and
Th e e rs, l s same el Jow w I e e periencing mild
All of these researchers believe to without exception, are emotionally com- electrical shock.
some extent in the existence of some
form of paranormal psychic powers. But
the forms are open to wide debate. Says
Psychologist Gardner Murphy, profes-
sor at the District of Columbia's George
Washington University and a dean of
psychic researchers, It may well turn
out that parapsychology will be a mul-
tidisciplinary thing, owing much to psy-
chiatry, neurology ... medicine, bio-
chemistry, social sciences." One of
parapsychology's most famous propo-
nents, in fact, is an anthropologist: Mar-
garet Mead. It was her passionate ad-
vocacy that helped give the Parapsycho-
logical Association its greatest claim to
legitimacy. After several vain attempts
to enter the eminent American Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Science,
the P.A. won membership in 1969-af-
ter a speech by Mead. Her argument:
"The whole history of scientific advance
is full of scientists investigating phenom-
ena that the Establishment did not be-
lieve were there. I submit that we vote
in favor of this association's work." The
final vote: 6 to I in favor of admission.
Immense Claims. As parapsychol-
ogy gains new respectability, so do its
terms gain wide currency: "psi" for any
psychic phenomenon; "clairvoyance"
for the awareness of events and objects
that lie outside the perimeters of the five
senses; "out-of-body" experience for
seeming to journey to a place that may
be miles from the body; "psychokinesis"
for the mental ability to influence phys-
ical objects; "precognition" for the
foreknowledge of events, from the fall
of dice to the prediction of political as-
sassinations; and the wide-ranging term
ESP for extrasensory perception.
For all its articulate spokesmen and
scientific terminology, however, the new
world of psi still has a serious credibil-
ity problem. One reason is that like any
growth industry or pop phenomenon, it
has attracted a fair share of hustlers. In-
deed, the psychic-phenomena boom
may contain more charlatans and con-
jurers, more naffs and gullibles than can
be found on the stage and in the au-
dience of ten Ringling Brothers circus-
es. The situation is not helped at all by
the "proofs" that fail to satisfy tradition-
al canons of scientific investigations. De-
spite the published discoveries, despite
the indefatigable explorations of the
psychic researchers, no one has yet been
able to document experiments suffi-
ciently to convince the infidel. For
many, doubt grows larger with each ex-
travagant claim.
To Science and Mathematics Ana-
lyst Martin Gardner (Relativity for the
Million, Ambidextrous Universe), an-
nouncements of psychic phenomena be-
long not to the march of science but to
the pageant of publicity. "Uri Geller,
The Secret Life of Plants, telepathy, ESP,
the incomplete conclusions of Koestler
thusiasm for pseudo science," says Gard-
 Approved For Release 2000/0
CLOCKWISE. FROM LEFT: At Durham's Psychical Re- Medical Center in New York City: Artist and Psychic Ingo
search Foundation. Robert Morris displays test in which Swann with painting completed after his out of body" ad-
subject outside of room "influences" movement of a cai: venture in outer space: gerbil in tests for precognitive pow-
sensory-isolation and telepathy experiment at Maimonides ers at The Institute for Parapsychology in Durham. N.C.
Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000700030001-3
 CLOCKWISApp em friReIeaSw,2QQQtQa!O7?Th9A`nlaRgPR?ATO9T?7, a9 WI?99,14,9,99d' O d
the Menninger Foundation prepares a biofeedback test for a who duplicates psychic feats with a combination of sleight-
yogi on bed of nails: Ex-.Astronaut Edgar Mitchell. who of-hand. psychology and theatrical gimmicks checks set of
experienced "altered state of consciousness" in outer space. "ESP" cards: Trinidadian "sensitive" performing card Clair-
at his Institute for Noetic Sciences in Palo Alto. Cal.: voyance experiment at The Institute for Parapsychology.
 elease 2000/08/07
 BEHAVIOR
once by v' y~ n~gp ?~ S~gu efQl b9l ~'~ ~t00 7R8~I8~Q031 tc$he in-
Anot~ 'a i i?y, R' a KI)T - 7f $.R'1. s ests were in eed conducted vestigators from S.R.L, he confesses that
ova, can "read" with her fingertips while with what University of Oregon Profes- outer-space intelligence directs his
securely blindfolded. James Randi, an- sor Ray Hyman calls "incredible slop- work. But the S.R.I. scientists are not
alyzing photographs of Kuleshova, piness," then other disturbing questions taken aback. One, Russell Targ, plac-
promptly announced that her act was may be raised. Assigned by the Depart- idly remarks, "The things you arc tell-
"a fraud." To prove his point, he invit- ment of Defense to report on the won- ing us agree very well with things that
ed testers to blindfold hirn with pizza drous happenings at S.R.I., Hyman, ac- Hal IS.R.I. Colleague Harold Puthofl7
dough, a mask and a hood. Then he pro- companied by George Lawrence, DOD and I believe but we can't prove." Adds
ceeded to drive a car in traffic. "I won't projects manager for the Advanced Re- Astronaut Ed Mitchell: "Uri, you're not
tell you how I did it," he says. "But it search Projects Agency, caught Geller saying anything to us we don't in some
was not parapsychologically. It was pure in some outright deceptions. way already sense or understand." The
deception, just as hers was." Such rev- Unhappily for Geller, his powers text raises some troubling questions. Is
elations have not deterred the parapsy- have a tendency to vanish in the pres- Puharich indeed in touch with what he
chologists in the U.S.S.R. or elsewhere. ence of sleight-of-hand men. On the To- calls "my editor in the sky"? Is his ac-
They freely concede that many of their night Show, where Johnny Carson in- count of the S.R.I. meeting as true as
subjects do sometimes cheat, but still stituted airtight controls at Randi's his reasonably accurate report of Uri's
may have paranormal powers. suggestion, nothing that Geller attempt- meeting a year ago with the editors of
In and out of the laboratory, many ed (during an embarrassing 20 minutes) TIME? If it is, why have the S.R.I. sci-
paranormalist investigators conduct ex- seemed to work. After a group of Eng- entists failed to mention Uri Geller's
periments that mock rigorous and log- lish magicians made plans to catch him contacts with outer space? Are they
ical procedure. Claims are made, and BILL EPPRIDGE properly fearful of that most
the burden of proof is shifted to the - '" irrefutable antidote to non-
doubter. Ground rules are laid down by sense: laughter? Or were
the psychic subject and are all too they, as they now claim,
eagerly accepted by his examiner. If the merely "humoring" their
venture proves unsuccessful, a wide subject?
range of excuses are proffered: an un- Almost as impressive as
believer provided hostile vibrations: the Geller's rise to fame is the
subject was not receiving well; negative phenomenal success of The
influences were present: testing rules Secret Life of Plants (Har-
were too restrictive. It is all reminiscent per & Row; $8.95), a vol-
of the laws in Through the Looking- ume that is unaccountably
Glass, where people approach objects by l r placed on the nonfiction
walking away from them. And it cre- shelves of bookstores. The
ates an atmosphere in which even a gen- ?R work of two occult journal-
uine paranormal subject might have a ists, Secret Life is an anthol-
hard time certifying his abilities. ogy of the absurd, costumed
No one has contributed more to the in the prim gown of labo-
paranormal explosion than Uri Geller,
~?~ ~y~,~;r.w ~?, ratory respectability. In it
the handsome, 26-year-old Israeli for- are researchers like Cleve
mer nightclub magician who seems Backster, a lie-detector ex-
equally adept at telepathy, psychokine-
~r. pert who attached the ter-
sis and precognition. "I don't want to ?. ~.,. l minals of his machines to
spend my whole life in laboratories," . plants. Behold! The vegeta-
Geller recently told TIME London Cor-
respondent Lawrence Malkin. "I've justt tion reacted to his thoughts.
J Most scientists have greeted
done a whole year at Stanford Research r r-" the experiments with open
Institute [TIME, March 121. Now I'll go skepticism-with good rea-
on to other countries, and let them see .' son. After his plants would
if they know what it is I've got." not respond for a visiting
D
h Th
eat
reats. At the Stanford PSYCHOLOGIST TART WORKING ESP MACHINE Canadian plant physiolo-
Research Institute Geller successfully Searching for a wider kind of self. gist, for example, Backster
worked most of his repertoire of mir- offered an interesting hy-
acles. In a film made by S.R.I., Geller in the act during a British tour, Geller pothesis: the plants "fainted" because
picks the can containing an object from abruptly canceled out, citing mysterious they sensed that she routinely inciner-
a group of identical empty cans, influ- "death threats." ated her own plants and then weighed
ences laboratory scales, reproduces In the long run, however, Geller's the ashes after her experiments.
drawings sealed in opaque envelopes, friends may well be more damaging to Backster is the essence of conserva-
deflects a magnetometer and correctly his cause than are his detractors. This tism compared with the book's more ad-
calls the upper face of a die in a closed spring the reputable old firm of Dou- venturous researchers. A New Jersey
box-eight times in eight tries. If Gel- bleday will publish a book entitled Uri electronics buff, Pierre Paul Sauvin, at-
ler's prowess with dice is indeed Para- by Dr. Andrija Puharich, who brought tached a Rube Goldbergian machine to
normal, it raises serious and disturbing Geller to the U.S. from Israel. In a crude his plants, and then spent the weekend
mishmash of Mission: Impossible, 2001 with his girl friend at a place 80 miles
and the James Bond series, Puharich away. He found that even at that dis-
CLOCKWISE FROM UPPER LEFT: (author of a previous volume on the psy- tance the plants had responded to his
Psychic Uri Geller, whose reputed abil- chedelic effects of mushrooms) soberly sexual relations with the girl. The tone
ity to bend objects with his mind has describes his adventures with Geller. oscillators went "right off the top," he
stirred sharp debate; ESP test at the From outer space, highly intelligent says, at the moment of orgasm.
American Society for Psychical Re- computers called SPECTRA communi- In Japan, Ken Hashimoto, another
search; Lie Detector Expert Cleve Back- cate through taped messages, which dis- polygraph expert, discovered that his
ster with plant that he believes can appear. "We can only talk to you cactus could count and add up to 20.
"read" his thoughts; in psychokinesis through Uri's power," says the mystical George De La Warr, a British engineer,
test, subject tries to influence sequence voice. "It is a shame that for such a bril- insisted that young plants grew better if
in which bulbs Approved For Relea a 2000%08%07 of CIA chDuP d6 M0656 ~uo6Nd_0qI- ?ni-
COLOR SPREAD (TOP) DON SNYDER-HORIZON, HENRY GROSKINSKY, ELDA HARTLEY, BILL EPPRIDAE; (BOTTOM) HENRY GROSKINSKY. OPPOSITE PAGE: (TOP LEFT) BEN MARTIN, GROSKINSKY 69
 ca y, the au~t~h~orrs d no dQress tth,,er3~ }~ 1 s ar urd Professor
s p~~cl sirwe, f 6o6t00 s"l hasY~l n'rltbf }s'iYliai 7' i17i i~5 "1'illr 1 dagbilfusiast of the
botany. Plants do respond physiological- tographs and done more experimental paranormal, is more assured about the
ly to certain sound waves. Talking to a work with them than anyone outside technical cause of Kirlian phenomena
plant may indeed make it healthier, be- Russia. on film. "What we're looking at." he
cause it thrives on the carbon dioxide ex- Moss, a former Broadway actress, maintains, "is cold electron discharge."
haled by the speaker. found her interest in parapsychological Sickly Tissue. Says L. Jerome Stan-
Many psychics and their followers phenomena kindled after LSD therapy. ton, author of a forthcoming book on
believe that paranormal powers may be "From the first," she recalls, "I intend- auras and Kirlian photography: "Per-
dependent on mysterious auras or "en- ed to specialize in parapsychology be- haps some day the technique will be a
ergy flows," phenomena that they say cause of the glimpses of psychic phe- valuable diagnostic tool. Maybe sick
can be recorded, by Kirlian photogra- nomena I experienced during the LSD people do have different 'auras.' But as
phy. The technique, developed in the treatments. But I certainly don't feel the of now, there is no assurance that it is at
late 1930s by Russian Electronics Ex- need to use drugs any more ... When all useful." Though not accusing Kirlian
pert Semyon Kirlian and his wife Va- you've gotten the message, you hang up researchers of faking effects, Stanton
lentina, involves introducing a small the phone." For Moss, the message is notes that the famous "phantom leaf' is
amount of high-voltage, high-frequency that Kirlian photography clearly dem- easy to duplicate by double-exposing the
current into the subject and recording onstrates a human aura. "We have done film, first with the whole leaf, again af-
the subsequent discharge on photo- work with acupuncturists and [psychic] ter a portion has been removed. and that
graphic film. The result is a photograph healers," she says, "and we find that the different voltages and conditions can
showing an "energy body"-a weird corona of the healer becomes intense be- change the picture in incalculable ways.
aura-around the plant. animal or hu- fore healing, and then afterward is more "Working with advanced equipment."
man part being photographed. relaxed and less strong. We think we're he says, "I could produce Kirlian effects
Soon, Kirlians claimed that photo- looking at a transfer of energy from the that would astound the unsophisticated,
graphing a portion of a leaf, for exam- healer to the injured person." and that includes a lot of scientists and
ple, would produce the aura of the en- Others are less certain. Writing in physicists. Remember, electronics and
tire leaf on film. Some psychics claim the Photographic Society of America photography are two very complicated
that in time the aura of a missing limb journal. Bill Zalud concluded, "All spec-
might be discernible with Kirlian pho- ulation hinges on obtaining photographs
tography. Today the process is an in- of normal tissue patterns for compar-
tegral part of paranormal exploration. ative purposes and, so far, no one has
In the U.S. the leading proponent of the really determined what a normal Kir-
A Long History of Hoaxes
The first professional organization to
study paranormal phenomena was the
British Society for Psychical Research,
founded in 1882. Among its membership
were prominent scholars and scientists
-men of unimpeachable credentials
and high moral character. They soon
discovered and enthusiastically reported
on the telepathic abilities of five little
girls, daughters of the Rev. A.M. Creery.
The mentalist millennium was at hand.
Six years later, the girls were caught
cheating and shamefacedly admitted
that they had fooled the investigators.
They were the first in a long series of de-
ceivers of scientists.
The society's next major project was
an investigation of two "sensitives" from
Brighton, G.A. Smith and Douglas
Blackburn. Smith would allow himself
to be blindfolded, his ears to be plugged,
his body to be thoroughly blanketed; yet
somehow the thoughts of Blackburn
reached him. This time, it seemed, the
S.P.R. had really justified its existence.
When Smith left the S.P.R. in 1892,
no other comparable sensitive could be
found. Still, the members had seen the
telepathy performed with their own
eyes; the evidence was held acceptable.
It was not until 1908 that Blackburn ad-
mitted deceit. "The whole of these al-
leged experiments were bogus," he later
wrote. The remainder of his statement
has echoed to this day: "[Our hoax] orig-
inated in the honest desire of two youths
to show how easily men of scientific
mind and training could be deceived
when seeking for evidence in support of
a theory they were wishful to establish."
The American Society for Psychical
Research, organized with the help of
Philosopher William James in 1885. suf-
fered similar embarrassments. Yet it
pursued its quarry with vigor. As James
had noted, "To upset the conclusion that
all crows are black, there is no need to
seek demonstration that no crow is
black; it is sufficient to produce one
white crow." But after 25 years of read-
ing psychic literature and witnessing
phenomena, James admitted that he was
"theoretically no further than I was at
the beginning, and I confess that at times
I have been tempted to believe that the
Creator has eternally intended this de-
parture of nature to remain baffling."
Other researchers had not been
humble or uncertain. Late in the cen-
tury, a self-styled sensitive named Henry
Slade toured the U.S. and Europe mak-
ing objects vanish and swinging com-
pass needles without the aid of a mag-
net. He was so convincing that a
German scientist published a book,
Transcendental Physics, devoted to
Slade's accomplishments. Again, the
psychic millennium seemed imminent.
But in his biography. A Magician Among
the Spirits, Harry Houdini-reported that
the conjurer was simply a fraud with
a dazzling technique: Slade later con-
fessed that it was indeed all an act.
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 fields. a ARA l ~hR6Sorb`rr"lt 0
will Tema d"ti on11
The most irresponsible and odious
niche in the world of the paranormal is
occupied by the psychic healers, who
cannot operate legally in the U.S. but
lure unfortunate Americans overseas
with claims of spectacular cures. Diag-
nosing illnesses and locating diseased or-
gans by purely psychic means, they per-
form operations by plunging their hands
through what appear to be deep inci-
sions to grasp and remove sickly tissue.
In the Philippines, currently the center
for psychic surgery, a number of con-
jurers use sleight of hand and buckets
of blood and animal parts to work their
wonders. Surrounded by adherents who
have been "cured," the ill-educated and
often filthy surgeons perform "opera-
tions"-slashes of the epidermis, knives
in the eye cavity, fingers in the abdomen
-sometimes painlessly and always with
great flourish.
As one witness to such "surgery" de-
scribes it: "The healer pulled some tis-
sue from the area of the 'operation' ...
Perhaps parapsychology's most gul-
lible proponent was Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle, creator of the superrationalist
detective Sherlock Holmes. Doyle re-
mains the greatest proof that intelli-
gence and scruple cannot compete with
naivete and the desire to accept the par-
anormal as demonstrable fact. After the
death of his son in the Great War, he
turned to spiritualism for solace. This
led, in time, to investigations of spirits,
and eventually to little winged creatures
in the bottoms of gardens. In his 1922
volume The Coming of the Fairies, Doyle
reproduced photographs of a tiny gob-
lin and elves caught by a child's cam-
era. The pictures were manifestly staged:
the entire project made all but the blind-
Tt? n o hav oaurg im that ~v was t in his
1 tests performed on it. The fatal car accident in 1971: "There was no
ted in Seattle, showed that pain. He left his body before the crash."
as 'consistent with origin No amount of demonstrable fraudu-
animal ... there is no ev- lence, no exposure of the fake, the ma-
y of this tissue to suggest nipulator, the unscrupulous, ever seems
resents metastatic carcino- capable of dissuading the true believer
e breast of the patient.' " in paranormality. James Fadiman, of
ne, author of a book on per- the Stanford School of Engineering, be-
known of the psychic sur- lieves that "most (but not all) para-
Agpaoa, documents the ex- psychologist demonstrators are also
Mrs. Raymond Steinberg frauds," then gives the classic rationale:
s, Wis. Tony "made a ma- "Look at it this way. You think you have
n" of removing a piece of powers of clairvoyance, and finally you
veral screws that had been become a celebrity because of it. You're
ced in her hip after an au- on the stage or in an experimental sit-
ident. X rays later showed uation and sometimes your powers fail
had removed nothing. you. They do very often for most of these
liever. But the psychics, guys. So what do they do? They cheat.""
o profit from them, remain Robert Benchley once separated
n a few months, the respect- people into two categories: those who
ing firm of Thomas Y. separate people into two categories and
publish the story of yet an- those who do not. Parapsychologist Ger-
healer, the late great Bra- trude Schmeidler of New York's City
Surgeon of the Rusty Knife. College is in the first category. Her stud-
ohn Fuller, whose pro-fly- ies show that on the issue of para-
oks Incident at Exeter and psychology her subjects divide into be-
ed Journey were big sellers lieving sheep and doubting goats. The
Fo craze of the 1960s. The sheep almost invariably score higher
written by Geller Biogra- in tests of paranormal powers. Will
h, who in Uri incidentally the sheep ever convince the ruminating
est believers wince. One who did not
was a young American botanist named
J.B. Rhine. After an inspiring Doyle
lecture on spiritualism, Rhine and his
wife Louisa immersed themselves in lit-
erature published by the Society for
Psychical Research. When Rhine later
joined the faculty of Duke University,
he began a lifelong devotion to psychic
research. It was he who coined the
terms extrasensory perception and psi
(for psychic phenomena): it was he
who gave his specialty an academic
imprimatur by compiling mountains of
statistics about psychic subjects who
could "read"" cards that they could
not see.
From the start, Rhine was criticized
for juggling numbers. (Subsequent re-
searchers have also used questionable
procedures, citing "negative ESP" when
the number of correct guesses fall be-
low average and "displacement" when
subjects call the card before or after the
one they are trying to guess.) H.L. Menc-
ken summarized the early views of the
dubious when he wrote, "In plain lan-
guage, Professor Rhine segregates all
those persons who, in guessing the cards,
enjoy noteworthy runs of luck. and then
adduces those noteworthy runs of luck
as proof that they must possess myste-
rious powers." Rhine tightened his lab-
oratory conditions in the 1930s, and
much of the criticism withered-but so
did his ESP stars.
In the 1960s a psychic superstar
came along in the person of Ted Serios,
a hard-drinking, onetime bellhop from
Chicago. Serios' gift was definitely off-
beat: he produced pictures inside a Po-
laroid camera using nothing but his
mind and a little hollow tube he called
his "gismo." Reporters Charles Reyn-
olds and David Eisendrath, who ob-
served Serios at work in Denver, had
little trouble constructing a device that
could be secreted inside a gismo to pro-
duce all of Serios' effects. The instru-
ment contained a minuscule lens at one
end and a photographic transparency at
the other. When the device was pointed
at the camera lens and the shutter was
clicked, an image was recorded on film,
The Reynolds-Eisendrath story was
printed in Popular Photography and
many of Serios' followers were shattered.
Again the millennium was deferred.
TIME,MARCH~,pproved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000700030001-3 71
valid medics
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 BEHAVIOR
goats? Will the goats ever undermine faith; they must
4l r[C1Cd,C LUUYverVis arcfiers
Just a few years ago what smug
Western rationalist would have accred-
ited acupuncture? Yet the ethnocentric
prejudice seemed to disappear almost at
a stroke when the Western world
learned of James Reston's appendix op-
eration. The New York Times columnist
submitted to acupuncture after surgery
on a trip to China in 1971: thereafter,
the unorthodox method was examined
throughout the U.S. Today acupuncture
is under intense study at several med-
ical centers. Although some of the ben-
eficial effects of "paranormal" medicine
have been acknowledged by Western
scientists, they are still at
a loss to explain it. It was
not long ago that most
Americans attributed the
feats of Eastern yogis to
clever fakery. Yet the new
Western experimentation
with biofeedback* has
shown skeptics that the
mind can indeed control
what are normally invol-
untary bodily functions.
The Menninger Founda-
tion in Topeka, Kans.,
reports incontrovertible
proof that subjects trained
by biofeedback can con-
trol their blood circulation
and lower the temperature
of the parts of their bod-
ies at will; migraine head-
aches can be literally
wished away. The ancient
yogic mythic skills sud-
denly seem within the
grasp of everyone.
Is it not possible that
thoughts-like TV pro-
grams-can be transmit-
ted from one brain to an-
other? And if enough
energy can be generated
by the brain, why should
it not influence the roll of
be convincingly dem- in the U.S., at the University of Virgin-
strations have not been made. emies or foundations would encourage
Any close examiner of psychic in- more chairs, or promote further psychic
vestigators and reporters will find a new investigations.
meaning for Koestler's roots of coinci- In a way, it is rather a pity that the
dence. A loose confederacy of parapsy- sheep cannot get together with the goats.
chologists parodies the notion of the sci- At the very least, the paranormal es-
entific method. Harold Puthoff, one of tablishment has questioned the dogma,
the two S.R.I. investigators of Uri Gel- emphasized the ignorance and under-
ler, is singled out in The Secret Life of lined the arrogance of modern medicine
Plants as a reputable scientist who has and science. Indeed, modern doctors
been experimenting with the response have scarcely breached the frontiers of
of one chicken egg to the breaking of an- the mind. Science has all too frequently
other. He is also a promoter of the bi- destroyed the layman's sense of wonder
zarre and controversial cult of Scientol- by seeking materialistic explanations for
ogy, which Ingo Swann, another psychic all phenomena.
PSYCHIC SURGEON OPERATING IN PHILIPPINES
Sometimes painlessly, always with flourish.
dice? Or make a plant respond?
In an epoch when the new physics
posits black holes in the universe and
particles that travel faster than the speed
of light, and has already confirmed the
existence of such bizarre things as neu-
trinos that have no mass or charge, an-
timatter and quasars, why should any
phenomenon be assumed impossible?
What is wrong with Physicist Sir James
Jeans' attempt to give coherence to an
unruly cosmos: "The universe begins to
look more and more like a great thought
than a great machine"?
The psychic adherent's reply is sim-
ple: anything is possible. But simply say-
ing that it is so and then supporting the
contention with shoddy or downright
fraudulent evidence, is not enough. Psy-
chic phenomena cannot be accepted on
?A process by which one can learn to control in-
voluntary bodily functions (such as heartbeat)
through the visual or aural monitoring of physi-
ological data.
tested by S.R.I., also practices. William
Targ, a Putnam executive, recently con-
tracted to publish Astronaut Ed Mitch-
ell's forthcoming book, Psychic Explo-
ration, A Challenge for Science. At the
signing, Targ stated that "the real race
now between the Russians and us is in
the area of sciences like Esp." Mitch-
ell's Institute of Noetic Sciences helped
to fund S.R.I.'s Geller research, which
was conducted largely by Puthoff and
Russell Targ, who happens to be Editor
Targ's son.
The questionable connections of
many psychic researchers, in addition
to the paucity of objectively verifiable re-
sults in their work, has made it difficult
to raise funds for research; parapsychol-
ogists barely squeak by with money from
a few foundations and gifts and encour-
agement from occasional philanthro-
pists like Stewart Mott and Manhattan
Realtor John Tishman. There is only
one academic chair on parapsychology
As C.P. Snow says: "Scientists re-
gard it as a major intellectual virtue to
know what not to think about." Com-
plains one S.R.I. spokesman: "The so-
ciety we live in doesn't give you per-
mission to have psychic abilities. That
is one reason that so much talent is sup-
pressed." As Martin Gardner believes.
"Modern science should indeed arouse
in all of us a humility before the im-
mensity of the unexplored and a toler-
ance for crazy hypotheses."
As for the parapsychologists who
make many of those hypotheses. they
could learn the most valuable weapon
in the arsenal of the truth seeker: doubt.
One hundred and fifty years ago Charles
Lamb observed that credulity was the
child's strength but the adult's weakness.
That observation is even more valid to-
day, when shoddy or ignorant research
is used to lend legitimacy to the most
extravagant tenets of the psychic
movement.
That is not to say that parapsychol-
ogy ought to be excluded from serious
scrutiny. Some first-rate minds have
been attracted to it: Freud, Einstein,
Jung, Edison. The paranormal may ex-
ist, against logic, against reason, against
present evidence and beyond the stan-
dard criteria of empirical proof. Perhaps
there are reasons why the roll of the dice
and turn of the cards sometimes appear
to obey the bettor's will. Perhaps the
laws of probability are often suspended.
Perhaps Geller and other magicians can
indeed force metal to bend merely be-
cause they will it. Perhaps photographs
can be projected by the mind. Perhaps
plants think.
Perhaps not.
There is only one way to tell: by a
thorough examination of the phenom-
ena by those who do not express an a
priori belief. By those for whom proba-
bility is not a mystique but a compre-
hensible code. By those who have noth-
ing to lose but their skepticism. Until
such examiners are allowed to play the
psychic game, it is unlikely that the
paranormal will escape the ambiguous
utterance against it in Leviticus: "Do not
turn to mediums or wizards: do not seek
them out, to be defiled by them..." And
that most wondrous and mysterious of
entities, the human mind, will remain
an underdeveloped country.
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