parapsychology n : phenomena that appear to contradict physical laws and suggest the possibility of causation by mental processes [syn: psychic phenomena, psychic phenomenon]

English

Etymology

From the sc=Grek + psychology, since psychology loosely is the study of what is know and therefore, that which is unknown is the opposite or parapsychology.

Pronunciation

• a Canada /ˌpɛrəˌsaɪˈkɑlədʒi/

Noun

1. The study of that which cannot yet be explained; psychic or occult phenomena, such as telepathy and ghosts.

Translations

Related terms

• metaphysics
• paranormal

Parapsychology (from the Greek: παρά para, "alongside" + psychology) is the study of ostensibly paranormal events including extrasensory perception, psychokinesis, and survival of consciousness after death. Parapsychologists call these processes psi, a term intended to be descriptive without implying a mechanism. Parapsychology is a fringe science because it involves research that does not fit within standard theoretical models accepted by mainstream science.

Parapsychological research involves a variety of methodologies including laboratory research and fieldwork, which is conducted at privately funded laboratories and some universities around the world though there are fewer universities actively sponsoring parapsychological research today than in years past. Such research is published in specialized parapsychological publications, though a smaller number of articles on parapsychological research have also appeared in more mainstream journals. Experiments conducted by parapsychologists have included the use of random number generators to test for evidence of psychokinesis, sensory-deprivation Ganzfeld experiments to test for extrasensory perception, and research trials conducted under contract to the United States government to investigate the possibility of remote viewing.

Scientists such as Ray Hyman, Stanley Krippner, and James Alcock, among others, are critical of both the methodology used and the results obtained in parapsychology. Skeptical researchers suggest that methodological flaws provide the best explanation for apparent experimental successes, rather than the anomalistic explanations offered by many parapsychologists. To date, no evidence has been accepted by the scientific community as establishing the existence of the paranormal. Active parapsychologists have admitted difficulty in getting scientists to accept their research, and science educators and scientists have called the subject pseudoscience.

History

The term parapsychology was coined in or before 1889 by psychologist Max Dessoir. It was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research, to indicate a significant shift toward laboratory methodologies in their work.

Early psychical research

The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was founded in London in 1882. The formation of the SPR was the first systematic effort to organize scientists and scholars for a critical and sustained investigation of paranormal phenomena. The early membership of the SPR included philosophers, scholars, scientists, educators and politicians, such as Henry Sidgwick, Arthur Balfour, William Crookes, and Charles Richet.

The SPR classified its subjects of study into several areas: telepathy, hypnotism, Reichenbach's phenomena, apparitions, haunts, and the physical aspects of Spiritualism such as table-tilting and the appearance of matter from unknown sources, otherwise known as materialization. One of the first collaborative efforts of the SPR was its Census of Hallucinations, which researched apparitional experiences and hallucinations in the sane. The census was the Society's first attempt at a statistical evaluation of paranormal phenomena, and the resulting publication in 1886, Phantasms of the Living is still widely referenced in parapsychological literature today. The SPR became the model for similar societies in other European countries and the United States during the late 19th century. Largely due to the support of psychologist William James, the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) opened its doors in New York City in 1885. Today, the SPR and ASPR continue the investigation of psi phenomena. The SPR's purpose is stated in every issue of its Journal—being "to examine without prejudice or prepossession and in a scientific spirit those faculties of man, real or supposed, which appear to be inexplicable on any generally recognized hypothesis."

Rhine era

In 1911, Stanford University became the first academic institution in the United States to study extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (PK) in a laboratory setting. The effort was headed by psychologist John Edgar Coover. In 1930, Duke University became the second major U.S. academic institution to engage in the critical study of ESP and psychokinesis in the laboratory. Under the guidance of psychologist William McDougall, and with the help of others in the department—including psychologists Karl Zener, Joseph B. Rhine, and Louisa E. Rhine—laboratory ESP experiments using volunteer subjects from the undergraduate student body began. As opposed to the approaches of psychical research, which generally sought qualitative evidence for paranormal phenomena, the experiments at Duke University proffered a quantitative, statistical approach using cards and dice. As a consequence of the ESP experiments at Duke, standard laboratory procedures for the testing of ESP developed and came to be adopted by interested researchers throughout the world.

The administration of Duke grew less sympathetic to parapsychology, and after Rhine's retirement in 1965 parapsychological links with the university were broken. Rhine later established the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man (FRNM) and the Institute for Parapsychology as a successor to the Duke laboratory.

Establishment of the Parapsychological Association

The Parapsychological Association (PA) was created in Durham, North Carolina, on June 19, 1957. Its formation was proposed by J. B. Rhine at a workshop on parapsychology which was held at the Parapsychology Laboratory of Duke University. Rhine proposed that the group form itself into the nucleus of an international professional society in parapsychology. The aim of the organization, as stated in its Constitution, became "to advance parapsychology as a science, to disseminate knowledge of the field, and to integrate the findings with those of other branches of science".

Under the direction of anthropologist Margaret Mead, the Parapsychological Association took a large step in advancing the field of parapsychology in 1969 when it became affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the largest general scientific society in the world. In 1979, physicist John A. Wheeler argued that parapsychology is pseudoscientific, and that the affiliation of the PA to the AAAS needed to be reconsidered. His challenge to parapsychology's AAAS affiliation was unsuccessful. The annual AAAS convention provides a forum where parapsychologists can present their research to scientists from other fields and advance parapsychology in the context of the AAAS's lobbying on national science policy.

The surge in paranormal research continued throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s. By the end of the 1980s, the Parapsychological Association reported members working in more than 30 countries. Additionally, research not affiliated with the PA was being carried out in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Two universities in the United States still have academic parapsychology laboratories: the Division of Perceptual Studies, a unit at the University of Virginia's Department of Psychiatric Medicine, studies the possibility of survival of consciousness after bodily death; the University of Arizona's Veritas Laboratory conducts laboratory investigations of mediums. Several private institutions, including the Institute of Noetic Sciences, conduct and promote parapsychological research. Britain leads parapsychological study in Europe, with privately funded laboratories at the universities of Edinburgh, Northampton, and Liverpool Hope, among others. The receiver is put into the ganzfeld state, and the sender is shown a video clip or still picture and asked to mentally send that image to the receiver. The receiver, while in the ganzfeld, is asked to continuously speak aloud all mental processes, including images, thoughts, and feelings. At the end of the sending period, typically about 20 to 40 minutes in length, the receiver is taken out of the ganzfeld and shown four images or videos, one of which is the true target and three are non-target decoys. The receiver attempts to select the true target, using perceptions experienced during the ganzfeld state as clues to what the mentally "sent" image might have been.

According to parapsychologists such as Dean Radin, Charles Honorton, and Daryl Bem, the results of ganzfeld experiments—collectively gathered from over 3,000 individual sessions conducted by about two dozen investigators worldwide—indicate that, on average, the target image is selected by the receiver more often than would be expected by chance alone. Because these meta analyses of ganzfeld results are said to be statistically significant, they have sparked debates within mainstream academic psychology journals over how to properly interpret the data.

Remote viewing

Remote viewing experiments test the ability to gather information on a remote target consisting of an object, place, or person that is hidden from the physical perception of the viewer and typically separated from the viewer at some distance. In one type of remote viewing experiment, a pool of several hundred photographs are created. One of these is randomly selected by a third party to be the target. It is then set aside in a remote location. The remote viewer attempts to sketch or otherwise describe that remote target photo. This procedure is repeated for a number of different targets. Many ways of analytically evaluating the results of this sort of experiment have been developed. One common method is to take the group of seven target photos and responses, randomly shuffle the targets and responses, and then ask independent judges to rank or match the correct targets with the participant's actual responses. This method assumes that if there were an anomalous transfer of information, the responses should correspond more closely to the correct targets than to the mismatched targets.

Psychokinesis on random number generators

The advent of powerful and inexpensive electronic and computer technologies has allowed the development of fully automated experiments studying possible interactions between mind and matter. In the most common experiment of this type, a random number generator (RNG), based on electronic or radioactive noise, produces a data stream that is recorded and analyzed by computer software. A subject attempts to mentally alter the distribution of the random numbers, usually in an experimental design that is functionally equivalent to getting more "heads" than "tails" while flipping a coin. In the RNG experiment, design flexibility can be combined with rigorous controls, while collecting a large amount of data in very short period of time. This technique has been used both to test individuals for psychokinesis and to test the possible influence on RNGs of large groups of people.

Major meta-analyses of the RNG database have been published every few years since appearing in the journal Foundations of Physics in 1986. The meta-analysis was composed of 380 studies, which some researchers say has produced an overall effect size that was very small but statistically significant.

Direct mental interactions with living systems

Formerly called bio-PK, "direct mental interactions with living systems" (DMILS) studies the effects of one person's intentions on a distant person's psychophysiological state.

Near death experiences

A near-death experience (NDE) is an experience reported by a person who nearly died, or who experienced clinical death and then revived. NDEs include one or more of the following experiences: a sense of being dead; an out-of-body experience; a sensation of floating above one's body and seeing the surrounding area; a sense of overwhelming love and peace; a sensation of moving upwards through a tunnel or narrow passageway; meeting deceased relatives or spiritual figures; encountering a being of light, or a light; experiencing a life review; reaching a border or boundary; and a feeling of being returned to the body, often accompanied by reluctance.

Interest in the NDE was originally spurred by the research of psychiatrists Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, George Ritchie, and Raymond Moody Jr. In 1998, Moody was appointed chair in "consciousness studies" at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The International Association for Near-death Studies (IANDS) was founded in 1978 to meet the needs of early researchers and experiencers within this field of research. Later researchers, such as psychiatrist Bruce Greyson, psychologist Kenneth Ring, and cardiologist Michael Sabom, introduced the study of near-death experiences to the academic setting. Many analysts of parapsychology hold that the entire body of evidence to date is of poor quality and not adequately controlled. In their view, the entire field of parapsychology has produced no conclusive results whatsoever. They cite instances of fraud, flawed studies, a psychological need for mysticism, and cognitive bias as ways to explain parapsychological results. Skeptics have also contended that people's desire to believe in paranormal phenomena is often stronger than the evidence that it does not exist.

The reality of parapsychological phenomena and the scientific validity of parapsychological research is a matter of continued dispute. The methods of parapsychologists are regarded by some critics, including science educators at the California State Board of Education, Some of the more specific criticisms state that parapsychology does not have a clearly defined subject matter, an easily repeatable experiment that can demonstrate a psi effect on demand, nor an underlying theory to explain the paranormal transfer of information. and as a whole is not justified in being labeled "scientific".

Fraud

There have been instances of fraud in the history of parapsychology research. The Soal-Goldney experiments of 1941–43 (suggesting precognitive ability in subjects) were long regarded as some of the best in the field because they relied upon independent checking and witnesses to prevent fraud. However, many years later, suspicions of fraud were confirmed when statistical evidence, uncovered and published by other parapsychologists in the field, indicated that Dr. Soal had cheated by altering the raw data.

Walter J. Levy, director of the Institute for Parapsychology, reported on a series of successful ESP experiments involving computer-controlled manipulation of non-human subjects, including eggs and rats. His experiments showed very high positive results. Because the subjects were non-human, and because the experimental environment was mostly automated, his successful experiments avoided criticism concerning experimenter effects, and removed the question of the subject's belief as an influence on the outcome. However, Levy's fellow researchers became suspicious about his methods. They found that Levy interfered with data-recording equipment, manually creating fraudulent strings of positive results. Rhine fired Levy and reported the fraud in a number of articles.

Many spiritualist mediums used fraud, and some were exposed by early psychical researchers such as Richard Hodgson and Harry Price. Despite this, these magician authenticated the mediums Piper and Gladys Osborne Leonard, who never were caught in cheat. In the 1920s, magician and escapologist Harry Houdini said that researchers and observers had not created experimental procedures which absolutely preclude fraud. In 1979, magician and debunker James Randi perpetrated a hoax, now referred to as Project Alpha. Randi trained two young magicians and sent them under cover to Washington University's McDonnell Laboratory with the specific aim of exposing poor experimental methods and the credulity thought to be common in parapsychology. Although no formal statements or publications from the McDonnell laboratory supported the likelihood that the effects demonstrated by the two magicians were genuine, both of Randi's trainees reportedly deceived experimenters over a period of four years with demonstrations of supposedly telekinetic metal bending. Such methodological failures have been cited as evidence that most, if not all, extraordinary results in parapsychology derive from error or fraud.

Criticism of experimental results

Although some critical analysts feel that parapsychological study is scientific, they are not satisfied with its experimental results. Skeptical reviewers contend that apparently successful experimental results in psi research are more likely due to sloppy procedures, poorly trained researchers, or methodological flaws than to genuine psi effects. For example, the data from the PEAR laboratory has been criticized by researchers such as statistics professor Jessica Utts and psychologist Ray Hyman. Utts has stated that these experiments suffered numerous problems with regard to randomization, statistical baselines and the application of statistical models, and that the significance values quoted in the experiments were meaningless due to defects in experimental and statistical procedures of the studies.

Because psi is a negatively defined concept, a typical measure of the evidence for such phenomena in parapsychological experiments is statistical deviation from chance expectation. However, critics point out that statistical deviation from chance is, strictly speaking, only evidence of a statistical anomaly, or that some unknown variable was causing the deviation from chance. Hyman contends that even if experiments could be made to reproduce the findings of certain parapsychological studies under specific conditions, this would be a far cry from concluding that psychic functioning has been demonstrated. It has also been stated that assuming psi exists is affirming the consequent or begging the question. Reasoning that (1) if a person is psychic, then that individual will do better than chance in experiments, and (2) since that person does better than chance, then, (3) that person must be psychic, would be considered the fallacy of affirming the consequent.

Selection bias and meta-analysis

Selective reporting has been offered by critics as an explanation for the positive results reported by parapsychologists. Selective reporting is sometimes referred to as a "file drawer" problem, which arises when only positive study results are made public, while studies with negative or null results are not made public. Critics have said that parapsychologists misuse meta-analysis to create the incorrect impression that statistically significant results have been obtained which indicate the existence psi phenomena.

Researcher J. E. Kennedy has argued that concerns over the use of meta-analysis in science and medicine apply as well to problems present in parapsychological meta-analysis. As a post-hoc analysis, critics emphasize the opportunity the method presents to produce biased outcomes via the selection of cases chosen for study, methods employed, and other key criteria. Critics claim analogous problems with meta-analysis have been documented in medicine, where it has been shown different investigators performing meta-analyses of the same set of studies have reached contradictory conclusions.

Organizations and publications

The lack of acceptance by mainstream science has led to a decline in academic ties to parapsychological research. the Parapsychology Research Group at Liverpool Hope University; the VERITAS Research Program at the University of Arizona; the Consciousness and Transpersonal Psychology Research Unit of Liverpool John Moores University; the Center for the Study of Anomalous Psychological Processes at the University of Northampton; and the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths University of London. The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research, a well-known laboratory that conducted psychokinesis experiments, closed in February 2007.

Research organizations include the Parapsychological Association; the Society for Psychical Research, publisher of the Journal of Society for Psychical Research; the American Society for Psychical Research, publisher of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research; the Rhine Research Center and Institute for Parapsychology, publisher of the Journal of Parapsychology; the Parapsychology Foundation, publisher of the International Journal of Parapsychology; and the Australian Institute of Parapsychological Research, publisher of the Australian Journal of Parapsychology. The European Journal of Parapsychology is independently published.

Organizations that encourage a critical examination of parapsychology and parapsychological research include the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, publisher of the Skeptical Inquirer; and the James Randi Educational Foundation, founded by magician and skeptic James Randi.

References

Further reading

• Parapsychology

• Hauntings and Poltergeists: Multidisciplinary Perspectives

• An Introduction to Parapsychology

• Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology

• Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality

• Holzer, Hans Ph.D. Parapsychologist, Author: The Supernatural: Explaining the Unexplained Publisher: Franklin Lakes, NJ: New Page Books, ©2003.

External links

• Parapsychology FAQ Frequently asked questions, by the Parapsychological Association, a professional organization of scientists and scholars engaged in the study of psychic phenomena, affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1969.
• FindArticles.com Index Large number of articles about parapsychology, from publications such as the Journal of Parapsychology and the Skeptical Inquirer.
• Committee for Skeptical Inquiry Organization formed in 1976 to promote scientific skepticism and encourage the critical investigation of paranormal claims and parapsychology.

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