Extra-Sensory Perception

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But, turning to the P.T. phase, we have a more difficult problem. In order to get free from possible clairvoyance, we avoid the use of cards or objective record of any kind, except that made after the call is given. The agent chooses, without objective aid, what symbols to visualize in imagination.

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One may well ask, then, if it is not possible that two persons, agent and percipient, may naturally and accidentally fall into the same routine order? "Circle, plus, rectangle, star, waves", for instance, as seems to come most easily to some people. Or, what would be equally antagonistic to the E.S.P. hypothesis, the percipient may try to infer what order the agent would likely follow, if the order is followed that comes most easily to her.

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We decided that the best way to avoid trouble on this score was to have the agent choose not just one figure at a time, but a series of 5. The order of the five would be determined upon and would be followed out, concentrating imaginal attention upon each one as its turn came. After these five were used, another five would be mentally selected, usually some variation of the first five. The same five symbols as are used on the Zener cards are used throughout the P.T. work. The degree of repetition and variation is measured roughly by the range one gets from the average pack, and the percipient is told to expect that. Thus a system is followed by the agent, yet a system that varies continually, and thus avoids

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stereotyped order that might be inferred or fallen into by accident. A study of the agents’ records shows no detectable order, except the orderly avoidance of order. The percipient was not told by the agent of his success until the end of the run of 25. Thus he had no basis for inference as he went. Here, again, the rational attitude is destructive, as in P.C. work. And here, too, we may dismiss the Hypothesis of Rational Inference. At its best, no one could suppose it capable of explaining the brilliant long runs, the 25 straight successes, under both P.C. and P.T. conditions.

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The hypotheses discussed here are the main ones that conflict or compete with the E.S.P. hypothesis. They have been, one by one, eliminated and, since they have no special strength in combination, we may conclude that E.S.P. stands without a serious opposing hypothesis. The evidence for the elimination of these opposing hypotheses was such that it eliminated each one completely, not leaving a partial support for any one of them. On this ground, too, then, we may omit discussion of combinations of the opposing hypotheses. For those, then, who can accept proof before explanation is arrived at (i.e., for the scientifically mature) E.S.P. is a natural fact and principle, puzzling as its explanation may be. We can turn now to the facts that tend to throw light upon its nature and functioning.

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Footnotes

112:1 And to this we can now add the excellent distance-P.C. results of Pearce, mentioned at the close of Chapters 3 and 7.

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CHAPTER 10
Physical Conditions in the Functioning of E.S.P.

If one is reasonably sure that he is dealing with a process of reality that is not explainable by the commoner hypotheses of chance, fraud or error, he naturally must seek the explanation in some newer direction.

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It may be that the route to explanation will lead in a round-about way to old and known principles, as is the more common type of scientific advance, i.e., explaining the new in terms of the old. On the other hand, it may be that quite new principles of reality will have to be found before these new phenomena can be explained. In any case one must be guided by the new facts, of course, and not by the present limits of knowledge. Some of these new facts have already appeared and are still appearing in these data, and many more will have to be sought through longer periods of study.

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The facts of interest in the explanation of E.S.P. may roughly be grouped as: physical, physiological, psychological, "psychical" (parapsychological) and, more generally, biological. On some of these I have but few facts to offer but it is better, even so, thus to keep them clearly separate. Because of their relative simplicity I will first discuss the physical aspects.

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It is so customary to think of physics as the best developed of the natural sciences that one is prone to use it as an ideal and standard background for his psychological thinking. It is difficult therefore, to think of physics as probably very far from complete in its grasp of world processes. Yet that is the very point that is indicated or strongly suggested by the facts of this chapter. What are the facts and the logic behind such a statement?

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By "physical", here, is meant the "demonstrably energetic" (though not necessarily demonstrable on a particular instrument of measurement); and by " energetic", that which "does work" or "effects changes". Again, the changes need not yet have been measured in ergs or in any other official unit. If they systematically and demonstrably lead up to the vocal behavior producing given, experimentally selected sound vibration patterns we call words, such as "circle, rectangle, star, etc.", in a pre-arranged order, we infer, as is done in all physics, a chain of energetic causation extending back through the prior history of the event to any arbitrary point one may choose. This causal capacity to "do work" (to effect changes) is " physical" in the professional use of the term, even though the profession has as yet no theory of the nature of the particular kind of energy process at certain points in the causal chain.

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Of first importance, perhaps, are the facts pointing to the absence of any yet known energy principle in E.S.P. All the senses in sensory perception function by the interception of some appropriate form of energy by the sense organ concerned—light rays, molecular vibration, chemical energy, etc. This interception of energy by the sensory endings is a

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necessary link between the nervous system and the outer world, for all perception occurring through sensation. The energetic causation involved is seen clearly when one looks at the face of a card and perceives it to be a "circle". Between the card and the eye there have been light-energy connections. Human experience and science expect, therefore, some energetic causal connection between the card and the act of perception. When, in E.S.P., the subject perceives the card, what energy is involved? Sound waves are barred out; it cannot be pressure or contact; the chemical energies are inapplicable. Visible light energy is excluded by the screen, by the D.T. conditions, by distance and even by the B.T.

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condition. No light gets in to the face of the card and the cards are of heavy opaque cardboard, somewhat opaque even to X-rays. Of the possible forms of energy known only extremely short rays would be capable of penetrating such cardboard, especially in D.T., when they are 25 cards deep.

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THE RADIATION THEORY

The only hypothesis that modern physical theory could at present offer, so far as I can judge, would be a wave theory, a radiation of extremely short and very penetrative waves. The radiation theory is an old one and has been frequently discussed in connection with telepathy and clairvoyance, particularly with the former. Even the mediumistic jargon often includes "getting into the vibration". This hypothesis was set forth by William Crookes and may possibly have antedated him. (See Chapter 2.) Brain waves were supposed to be emitted by the agent and intercepted by the brain of the percipient. But, to cover our phenomena of P.C. and P.T., both in the same subjects, in like degree, roughly speaking, there would have to be rays originating not only in the agent's brain but in the cards used in P.C. work as well; either that, or else originating outside them and selectively absorbed by them.