The Trickster and the Paranormal

by George P. Hansen

  The career of J. B. Rhine at Duke University and his Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man (FRNM) illuminates the paranormal in regard to institutionalization and anti-structure. Duke was established in 1924, building upon the small, denominational Trinity College, which was already in existence. Duke’s president, William Preston Few, hired William McDougall to establish the new department of psychology. McDougall brought in J. B. Rhine who began his work there in 1927. Science historians, Seymour Mauskopf and Michael McVaugh, covered this early period in their book The Elusive Science (1980). They were alert to the factors that allowed Rhine to obtain his post and stated: “There was surely no other university in the United States where he could have been given a position in the psychology department and been allowed to devote himself to psychical research.” They went on to specifically comment: “The institutional fluidity inevitable in the establishment of a new school may have helped to make this possible” (emphasis added).

  Duke received enormous publicity following publication of Rhine’s book Extra-Sensory Perception in 1934. Waldemar Kaempffert, the recognized dean of newspaper science writers, gave it extensive, favorable comment in The New York Times. His writings and those of others generated a huge popular interest in Rhine’s work. Considerable funds were raised, and in the early years Rhine had almost four times as much money for research as all rest of the psychology professors put together. Not surprisingly the Duke psychologists developed some hostility toward him.

  Rhine encountered the problem of trickery early on (this is rarely noted by parapsychologists). The very first issue of the Journal of Parapsychology reported positive results from a woman who had been caught cheating, a fact not mentioned in the published paper. There were some rumors about others cheating, and Rhine addressed them.15

  After the flurry of publicity in the mid-1930s, the fortunes of the laboratory fluctuated; there were times of modest growth, but in other periods the laboratory nearly closed. For its first years, Rhine’s laboratory was nominally part of the psychology department, but in 1947 the connection was officially severed. The Parapsychology Laboratory was made an independent center and placed outside the traditional academic structure. Though the laboratory was still on the Duke campus and Rhine maintained his faculty rank, the last graduate degree for work in parapsychology at Duke was awarded in 1948.

  In 1965 Rhine retired, and shortly thereafter the laboratory moved across the street from the Duke campus to the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man (FRNM), which Rhine had established earlier.17 The break with the university occurred at a time of growing popular interest in the paranormal, and a large number of young researchers were then entering the field. Some were later to be among the fields’ most prominent scientists of the 1970s and 1980s. During the mid-1960s, Rhine’s laboratories at Duke and the FRNM produced a number of successful experiments. It was a time of excitement and growth, but in September 1967, tensions came to a head, and many of the young researchers walked out, thus manifesting the anti-structural pattern.

  Popular interest in the paranormal continued, and the early 1970s saw a further intensification. There were new books, TV shows, and magazines devoted to occult matters. Another wave of young researchers entered parapsychology. The issue of trickery became salient, and magic performers Kreskin and Uri Geller attracted much attention, blurring the distinctions between real and simulated psi in the public mind. The problem irrupted in the laboratory as well. The FRNM “confirmed” the psychic abilities of Bill Delmore, who later admitted to being adept at card manipulation. More serious, the director of research, Walter J. Levy, M.D., was caught faking results in 1974. Shortly thereafter, the laboratory began to decline, and when I arrived in 1980, the building was in disrepair. Many carpets were worn literally all the way to the flooring, and large holes had been knocked in walls with the gypsum from the sheetrock crumbling about. The building was infested by rats (not escaped experimental animals), and occasionally they would scurry about the offices. The director laughed about the rats, and he seemed at home with them and with the building’s condition generally.

  Maimonides Medical center And PRL

  Another active laboratory of the 1970s was the Division of Parapsychology and Psychophysics at Maimonides Medical center in Brooklyn, New York. It was run under the aegis of psychiatrist Montague Ullman, with the research directed by Stanley Krippner. It was one of the more successful centers in eliciting psi, and it produced

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  numerous publications, yet it was forced to close in 1979. A full history of the laboratory has not been written, but a glimpse behind the scenes of that earlier time can be found in the October 1993 issue of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research JASPR), which was devoted to reminiscences on Charles Honorton. Honorton had left Rhine’s lab, where he had been an instigator of the discord in 1967, and at age 21 he began working at Maimonides, becoming the most active researcher in the lab. Most of the Maimonides parapsychology researchers were young, and many volunteered their time without pay. Even Stanley Krippner was forced to work at three other part-time jobs to make ends meet. Internal tensions were acute, and there was an unusually high turnover of personnel. Even a decade and a half after the lab closed, the intensity of emotion remained for some of the workers. The October 1993 JASPR included embittered attacks on the deceased Honorton by Keith Harary and Michael Smith, which must be among the most virulent ever published in a professional journal.

  When the Maimonides laboratory closed in 1979, some of the staff moved to New Jersey and established Psychophysical Research Laboratories (PRL) which had no affiliation with any institution. It was led by Charles Honorton and supported by the James S. McDonnell Foundation, and it also achieved a reputation for successfully eliciting psi. There were internal conflicts in this laboratory also. Ephraim Schechter gave an extensive and dispassionate overview in the March 1993 Journal of Parapsychology, but his short piece in the October 1993 JASPR issue seethed with veiled hostility. Honorton did not have a Ph.D.; in fact he held no degree at all. Schechter, who was his subordinate, obviously chafed at that.

  I was employed at PRL from 1984 until it closed in 1989 and was able to observe the anti-structural aspects of the lab. During its existence, a total of 14 full-time employees worked there for periods longer than six months. Only one of the 14 was married when he came to the laboratory and remained so during his entire employment. In a brief comment, which was not elaborated upon, Honorton hinted that he did not believe that happily married people were the most suitable employees for psi research. In many ways, Honorton lived an anti-structural existence himself. Often he did not produce the written reports requested by funders, and when they were completed, they were invariably late. He told me that it was his experience that when a laboratory’s future became uncertain, stronger experimental results were seen. It was only a few months before the closing of PRL that a ganzfeld study with Juilliard students was conducted, which was one of the most successful of the PRL ganzfeld sequences. Honorton lived for his work; everything else was secondary for him. There were a number of amusing anti-structural aspects to his life, which I may someday relate.

  ASPR

  The historical tribulations of the American Society for Psychical

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  Research have been well documented by others. But it is worth summarizing them because they exemplify the problems faced by psychic research organizations. The society was started in 1885 under the impetus of British physicist William F. Barrett. It published a few issues of its Proceedings in the 1880s, but because of insufficient financial support, in December 1889 it requested to become part of the Society for Psychical Research in England. James H. Hyslop, who had taught philosophy at Columbia University, revived the ASPR as a separate organization in 1907. Hyslop was supremely dedicated and wrote thousands of pages for books and journals, but he lacked diplomacy. The organization only hobbled along, and by 1914 it had only

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  about 600 members. Many blamed Hyslop for the lack of growth because his irascibility alienated many supporters. Yet he succeeded in establishing the ASPR as a scientific organization, something his more “diplomatic” (and ineffectual) colleagues were unable to accomplish.

  Hyslop died in 1920, and within a few years the ASPR was taken over by partisans of the notorious medium Margery. The capable scientists including William McDougall and Walter Franklin Prince left the ASPR and established the Boston Society for Psychic Research.

  Meanwhile, the ASPR shifted to a more popular orientation, and it maintained little intellectual integrity. In 1941 there was a “palace revolution” lead by the eminent psychologist Gardner Murphy and George H. Hyslop, son of James. Murphy revived interest in serious research in the 1940s and 1950s, but the budget was limited. In fact by 1950 the total annual expenditures were only $14,000; by 1960 they were $25,000, and that included publication of the Journal. It was indeed a small operation.

  During the 1960s and 1970s, the ASPR had an active research program under the direction of Karlis Osis. He and his assistants published a number of scientific papers. Subsequently, there was a decline in the research output. In his reminiscences, Osis noted that it seemed to parallel the failing health and ultimate demise of Gardner Murphy, who died in 1979.27 Murphy had protected and promoted research, but other members of the board of directors of the ASPR seemed hostile to it. During the mid-1980s there were still persons on the staff who conducted and published original research, notably Michaeleen Maher and James Matlock, though both were employed as librarians. Political infighting was particularly intense at the Society during that time, and Matlock and Maher were deemed unnecessary. Eventually, Patrice Keane, who had never published a scientific paper in a refereed journal, was promoted to position of Executive Director with a salary several times that which had been paid to the active researchers, and today the ASPR has no scientific research program.

  The ASPR published the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research continuously from 1907 to 1997. For year 1989 the total paid circulation was 1747.28

  Funding

  The funding sources for psychical research reflect the antistructural nature of psi. The greatest support for open (i.e., nonclassi-fled) research has come from wealthy individuals such as James S. McDonnell, Thomas Welton Stanford, charles Ozanne, Frances Bolton, Thomas Baker Slick, Jr., John E. Fetzer, George W. Church, Jr., W. Clement Stone, Arthur C. Twitchell, Jr., Marie Higbee, William Perry Bentley, James Kidd, Arthur Koestler, Chester F. Carlson, and Robert Bigelow. Overall, large philanthropic institutions have made comparatively modest contributions. Some of the people listed above established foundations to support parapsychology, but after their deaths, professional philanthropists took control, changed the focus of

  the foundations, and eliminated support for parapsychology. Unlike other areas of science, it is not institutions (e.g., corporations, government agencies, philanthropic foundations), but rather individuals, who have provided the primary financial backing for psychical research.

  This is simply another manifestation of anti-structure and the anti, r . 29 30

  institutional nature of psi.

  There is one important exception to the trend described above, and that is the government-sponsored work related to psychic spying. Between 1972 and 1995 a parapsychological research program was conducted at SRI International and then at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). The work was carried out within prestigious institutions, was government-supported for more than two decades, and produced successful psi experiments. News reports indicate that $20 million was spent during that period, and that made it by far the most heavily-financed research group in the history of para-

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  psychology.

  Despite first-glance impressions, closer inspection shows that this program encountered the anti-structural tendencies found with other psi research organizations. First of all, the funding may sound substantial, and for parapsychology it was. The director of the program from 1985 until its close was physicist Edwin C. May. He told me that the SRI funding from 1972 to 1989 averaged $750,000 per year, but there were huge variations.33 For extended periods they had no support at all, and the program often faced an uncertain future. The $750,000 figure should be put in perspective. In the 1980s my brother-in-law worked as a research chemist at a major chemical company. His personal budget for himself and one technician was on the order of $300,000 per year. Assuming rough equivalence, the SRI budget would support 2.5 scientists and 2.5 technicians a year.

  The funding came from the U.S. government, primarily the CIA, DIA, and other intelligence agencies. Those are unquestionably heavily bureaucratized (i.e., structured). This seems to contradict my claim that funding for parapsychology is primarily from individuals; however, those agencies have important differences from other parts of government. They overtly deal in secrets, and they are the only part in which deception is formally institutionalized. Their support for para-psychological research far exceeded that of other agencies. This is yet another confirmation of the affinity of psi and deception, and it is altogether compatible with trickster theory.

  The ultimate demise of the program is also instructive, and Ed May described it in a 1996 article in the Journal of Parapsychology.

  Though the program successfully demonstrated psi, had well-satisfied clients, and had a number of supporters in the U.S. Congress, during its final years it could not find a sponsorship home within the intelligence community. Rather, the funding came from a Defense Appropriations bill passed by Congress. No intelligence agency wanted the program as part of its budget.

  Eventually Congress asked the CIA to take over the program. But the CIA didn’t want it, so they commissioned a study. They selected the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to prepare a report. It was released to the public in late 1995 and concluded that remote viewing was not useful for intelligence operations. It turned out that the president of AIR was one David Goslin, who had previously been the administrator in charge of an earlier study of parapsychology for the National Research Council (NRC). Serious charges of bias and unethical activity were raised against that report, and the charges were never answered. The NRC administrators had requested an independent evaluation of parapsychology by the eminent Harvard psychologist Robert Rosenthal. When he returned with a positive assessment, they tried to get him to drop it. Rosenthal and his colleagues at Harvard were shocked, and he refused to go along with the cover-up. That didn’t faze the NRC because when they issued their final report, they not only ignored Rosenthal’s findings but didn’t even mention them. This was a blatant suppression of data.35 Goslin was thus an ideal choice for the CIA because he was well acquainted with the administrative tactics for keeping unwanted information out of reports, and assuring the conclusions desired by his sponsors.

  It is clear that the CIA preordained the conclusion. But Ed May pointed out that they seemed to have very good reasons for not wanting the program, reasons that had nothing to do with the effectiveness of remote viewing. The SAIC program was linked with an operational remote-viewing team at Fort Meade, and that had been micromanaged by a staffer from the Senate Appropriations Committee. That resulted in very low morale, and everyone admitted the weaknesses in the operational program in its last years. May also noted that the CIA likely did not want to be saddled with a program that might cause it future embarrassment, because it had endured some recent public relations debacles with the exposure of Aldrich Ames, a CIA employee who sold U.S. secrets to foreign agents.

  All this ultimately contributed to the demise of the program, and despite the good intentions of individuals in Congress and elsewhere, the bureaucracy finally ejected remote-viewing research.

  Parapsychology Since 1970

  The above overview of parapsychology covered more than a century, but a more focused inquiry is also illuminating. A review of the last 30 years shows many of the same anti-structural
patterns. One of the reasons I wrote this book was to explain what happened to parapsychology, a field that seemed to have so much promise in the 1970s and 1980s.

  To explain what transpired, I need to describe the social and cultural trends that affected the field. In order to make the task manageable, I will limit coverage to the United States, and my approach here will be rather impressionistic. I was employed professionally in parapsychology from 1981 to 1989, and I have some first-hand knowledge of activities behind the scenes. That is helpful for interpreting the field, but my biases undoubtedly creep in.

  I am here specifically concerned with direct attempts to elicit the phenomena in the laboratory or observe them firsthand in the field such as in poltergeist and haunting investigations. There are other approaches to parapsychology; for instance, some conduct surveys of paranormal belief. Others investigate events after the fact, such as by interviewing people who have had near-death experiences or who claim to remember previous lives. The field also attracts quite a number of commentators, theorists, and philosophers. While those all make contributions, they keep the phenomena at a distance; interviewer-researchers and commentators do not directly engage them.

  Unless one closely follows the research by reading the journals and attending professional conventions, one is unlikely to have any idea of the size and scope of the field of parapsychology. This is even true for most scientists and critics. John Wheeler, a Nobel laureate in physics, provided an amusing example. In 1979 he attacked the field in an emotional speech and urged the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to withdraw the membership of the Parapsychological Association (PA). He estimated that there were as many as 200 workers in parapsychology, each being supported at $100,000 annually, for a total expenditure of perhaps as high as $20,000,000 per year.36 Wheeler’s attack revealed his complete ignorance of the field, including its size and level of funding. At a conference the year before, Charles Tart, a former president of the PA, had presented a survey of parapsychology research centers and found total research funding to be $552,000 annually. The actual support was less than 3% of what Wheeler had guessed.