Extra-Sensory Perception

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The hardest fact for the Radiation Hypothesis to face is that in Pearce-Pratt distance P.C. series not only does Pearce select the right card from 25 lying on the table 100 to 250 yards away, with hundreds of similar cards (radiating?) in adjoining rooms even nearer the percipient than the one to be called, but the cards to be called all lie flat on the table. That means that a radiation picture would show only a straight line, alike for a circle, a star or any of the card figures. I can see no hope for a radiation theory of E.S.P.

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And now we turn to the point of the need for a larger concept of physics, if physics is to follow the phenomena of the energetic world. In these tests from Durham to Lake Junaluska, Miss Ownbey regulated—controlled to a degree—the organism of Miss Turner, guiding her to make a certain set of marks. Had this been done by wireless telegraphy, we would not think of it as anything but physical. It is a physical axiom obviously deducible from the Law of the Conservation of Energy that energetic processes cannot be guided or regulated, except by the expenditure of energy; however little it may require, it takes energy to change the direction of energy. Hence, we may say, it is a clear-cut problem for physics to explain through what energetic means Miss Ownbey changed the organism of

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Miss Turner from its "chance" or unregulated behavior to that designed by Miss Ownbey in Durham. What is the connecting energetic link between these cards and the E.S.P. subject's energetic responses? If he sees the card-faces, we say it is light energy that connects. If he does not, cannot, see the faces—if all known sensory reception of energy is excluded—what energetic link is still there, for nothing yet known can guide his energy system but energy itself? That is, if anything were known that could change one's responses that was not one of the known energies, it would promptly be declared another kind of energy, because it "does work" and "effects change". This would have to be done to save the coherence, unity and comprehensibility of our basic physics. At this point we are, then, it seems, faced with the need of another order of energy, not radiant.

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If this seems especially bold as a conclusion, it is quickly, I think, reduced to modesty by the reminder that all conscious process is in pretty much the same need, though possibly this comes closer to the range of present working theories. Yet whatever is found out in either field, in E.S.P. or mind in general, as to ultimate energetic nature, will probably help us to understand the other. It seems quite possible that the long untouched mystery of the physics of conscious process may yet be first peeped into from the odd corners of these more bizarre mental phenomena. Pierre Janet has very well said: "Attention is first drawn to a particular force by its exceptional manifestation."

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As an appendix to this chapter, it seems worth while to give some data on D.T. curves that looked for a time very much as if we were to have an interesting physical law revealed in them. The facts that this first appearance was misleading and that the results are more psychologically interpretable as "effects of anticipation" do not rob the point of interest. The negative effect is itself of value.

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The D.T. data of Pearce, Stuart, Cooper and Linzmayer had all strongly favored the hypothesis that it was "physically" harder to get at the center of the solid pack. Their data showed more hits by percentage in the first five cards of the pack and in the last five at the bottom, with the lowest rate of scoring in the central fifteen. This fact, combined with the fact that their D.T. scores were, on the whole, lower than B.T. scores (cards taken off the pack as called), made it appear that there was some difficulty in penetration (or in radiation) as the center was approached. Of course, there is no known basis for such a principle. On any kind of radiation theory it would not be that way. The deeper down the card, presumably the more difficult, if there were any difference at all. But in an unknown field it is well to regard even poor hypotheses. On the other hand, it

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seemed somewhat probable that mere convenience in keeping the order straight might be a determining factor, perhaps. On this hypothesis, the percipient might be abler to keep the two ends of the series of 25 calls more correctly in order, because he could work in from either end as a guide-point. In the center he was farthest away from the easier measuring points and might be more easily lost. Also he might merely expect this to be true and he might not try so hard in calling the central 15. There were, then, one physical and two psychological hypotheses.

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But Miss Ownbey put an end to the physical speculation on this point by giving us a D.T. curve that goes very definitely in the opposite direction. Her scoring is highest for the central five and lowest for the top and bottom fives. The curve obtained by plotting scoring against order of fives down through the pack in D.T. gives an inverted U-shaped even more regular than the upright U-shaped curve given by the four others. This work was done by Miss Ownbey without, of course, any notion of how the other work came out and free from any knowledge of my interest in the curves produced. The importance of these curves to psychological relations will be taken up in Chapter 12; it is clear that no conclusion could be drawn favorable to a difference in penetrability with position of the card on the pack. Rather does the evidence add strength to the non-radiation

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side of the theorizing on the nature of E.S.P. It will be recalled that we found there were no radiation effects from the cards on the sensitive plate and no differential absorption by them with X-rays. Now we go right to the sensitive organisms themselves, the only system receptive to the causal energetic principle involved in E.S.P. And these sensitives in one case get more in the first five, in others most in the last five at the bottom. In the one case of Miss Ownbey, most in the central five. These differences are striking evidence of the physical non-essentiality of position in the pack, quite as the long-distance P.T. and P.C. evidence the non-essentiality of position in space in general.

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Logically, then, need we not say that, if space is not important or essential in these processes, its absence of function means, for these functions, non-existence, since it is "function" that makes "existence"? If so, then, E.S.P. is a spaceless function and its relationships must be sought in terms of such a physics. Of course, such hypotheses must be regarded conservatively but the facts seem to compel us rather in that direction.

The D.T. curves under discussion may be seen in Graph No. 1.

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Graph No. 1. This shows the success in scoring in D.T. as distributed over the average run (of 25), indicated for each 5 cards down through the pack. Curve A represents 3,350 trials in D.T. by Miss Ownbey. Curve B represents 4,225 trials in D.T. by Pearce, Stuart, Cooper, and Linzmayer.

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 Curve B is that obtained by combining the scores for the D.T. work of Pearce, Cooper, Linzmayer and Stuart, and taking the joint results in scoring for each five cards down through the pack, giving the scores in 5 divisions. These are then divided by the mean chance expectation (rip) to put all on a relative basis, and plotted as the ratio of success to mean chance expectation for each 5 cards in the pack (of 25). The curve is a pretty fair U-shape. Curve A is the expression of Miss Ownbey's D.T. work

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given in the same way. Her curve is obviously of the opposite type. This curve is typical for her, as is shown by the fact that if her work is divided and plotted, it gives two curves of this form, almost identical. The individuals whose results are drawn up in Curve A do not all have the same rate of scoring. They differ quite widely. Also they have different low points. But they all agree in being higher in the top and bottom fives, and lowest in the middle fifteen. Graph No. 2 will show their individual curves.

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Graph No. 2. Same as Graph No. 1 in principle, with curves as follows: Curve 1 represents 1,500 trials by Pearce; Curve 2, 1,200 by Cooper; Curve 3, 1,000 by Linzmayer; Curve 4, 1,000 by Stuart.

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CHAPTER 11
Some Physiological Conditions Affecting E.S.P.

If it is correct to assume some energetic causal relationship between the percipient and the agent or card, as, I think, our scientific logic requires, then the percipient is somehow intercepting energy of some kind in E.S.P., clear as we may feel that E.S.P. is not simply a phenomenon of shortwave transmission. But what is the receptor system by which this is done? Is it an organ of the body or a non-material system? Is the nervous system definitely involved in the primary act of reception? Is E.S.P. a function of the integrated organism or a passive reception depending upon dissociation? Does it require physical orientation (i.e., any turning toward) of any sort? Is the reception-system given or developed? Can it be injured or destroyed? These are some of the questions one wishes to have answered in terms that are physiological in some measure. The work so far has not gone far to answer them but it does offer something.