The Trickster and the Paranormal

by George P. Hansen

  Gardner’s views on the paranormal are intricately linked to his ideas about miracles, prayer and God. When he says that we should not test God, he in effect invokes the primitive taboos against illicit contact with the supernatural. In our rationalized world, most people do not consciously recognize the taboos, but if they do, they are dismissed from serious intellectual consideration. Yet the taboos still exist, and in his own way, Gardner is an agent for maintaining them.

  Gardner serves as a border guard to keep the paranormal out of science and academe. He belittles parapsychological researchers in order to ensure their marginal status. By emotional attacks and biting sarcasm he warns others to stay clear of the realm. He portrays the paranormal as unsavory, “unclean,” and unsuited to be part of elite culture. His writings, actions, and life constitute an important case study of how taboo continues to be enforced.

  As such, Gardner’s social position merits analysis. He serves as a buffer, protecting the rationalized world, but in directly grappling with paranormal claims, he is tainted by them. This is reflected by his position in society. For most of his life he remained largely outside the usual bureaucratic structures of employment found in government, industry, and academe. Though for many years he wrote a column for Scientific American, he was primarily a free-lance writer. Though widely read and cited by scholars, he never held an academic appointment; he doesn’t even have an advanced degree. His reputation was made through his individual efforts, rather than by establishing a group or leading an organization. Thus Gardner can be considered an interstitial or anti-structural character. This is fitting for someone who directly engages the paranormal. That activity is unsuitable for a person firmly emplaced within an established bureaucratic organization. Gardner’s social position is thus compatible with his function.

  I grew up reading his Scientific American column and learned much from him. Despite his biases, he has a great many insights about religion and the paranormal, and when he writes about them, few equal his clarity or incisiveness. He has an ability to creatively combine ideas from unexpectedly diverse areas, and the paranormal is frequently part of the mix. His efforts give psychic phenomena a certain visibility and prominence they might otherwise lack. He has untiringly pointed out the frequent association of deception and psi, which many parapsychologists choose to ignore. His writings brought repeated examples to my attention, and he was an important influence in my thinking about parapsychology (especially after learning the subject sufficiently to recognize what had been left out of his accounts!). He has thought about dangers of the paranormal, which many are reluctant to confront. It is his intelligence, breadth of knowledge, sophistication, and intensity of feeling that make him such a fascinating and important character.

  Above all, he is paradoxical, and the issue of paradox involves more than just his mathematical interests. It and other trickster manifestations are seen in both his philosophy and his life. A believer in prayer and a personal god, he allies himself with atheists. Though an aggressive debunker of the paranormal, Gardner promoted mentalist Stanley Jaks as having genuine psychic abilities. A superb writer on issues of probability, his criticisms of statistics in parapsychology might be charitably described as undistinguished. Describing himself as a Platonic mystic, much of his writing is grounded in Aristotelian logic. These paradoxical aspects involve the core of his being.

  Reflexivity Summary

  By now the reader may have lost the threads of my exposition. With the long biographical sketch and the diversity of topics from meditation to mathematical logic, this chapter may seem a hodgepodge collection. I will try to summarize the guiding ideas and again bring the issues of liminality and the trickster into view.

  Reflexivity reveals the limits to logic, objectivity, knowledge, communication, representation, and a host of others. The problem of limits also applies to reflexivity itself. There are limits as to what can be said about it in any straightforward manner. The reader may have noticed that I talked more “around” reflexivity than addressing it directly. That was necessary because to learn about it one must observe the vicinity in which it is applied.

  Anti-structure (a.k.a. liminality) involves a leveling or inversion of social status. This is also found in applications of ethnomethodology and the sociology of scientific knowledge. Scientists are extremely leery of these, for if science is applied reflexively (using science to study science), scientists face a lowering of their status, power, and prestige.

  In science, reflexivity is found in the margins (where the trickster resides). Ethnomethodology and SSK provoke strong hostile reactions from the establishment. Ethnomethodology was eviscerated after its real challenges were recognized, and that is now conveniently forgotten. Currently many scientists loath SSK, ridicule it, and pray for its demise. The antagonism toward Bruno Latour is but one example. In psychology, reflexivity revealed experimenter effects. Researchers played with them for a few years, and then largely abandoned that effort; there was no substantial follow-up. The general pattern is unmistakable; after the initial intense interest and furious disputes, virtually all scientists pull away from reflexive disciplines, and the fundamental questions are left on the margins.

  Reflexivity leads scientists to recognize that they are part of experiments; they “participate” in them. This poses problems, particularly in replication. When personal qualities of an experimenter influence a result, the outcome is not fully objective. The results are marked by instability. Accusations of nonreplicability have been lodged against studies involving reflexivity. The same charge is made against parapsychology.

  Academics have avoided reflexivity, and some of the most astute have issued warnings. Trevor Pinch said “in terms of actually doing concrete research it’s debilitating to actually think about problems of reflexivity,” and Malcolm Ashmore indicated that “to advocate a self-reflexive stance is … merely a way of making trouble for oneself.”8 Reflexivity courts disruption, a trickster quality.

  When reflexivity is applied, some aspect of the paranormal is often found in the vicinity. Godel had his interest in demons, and Garfinkel was had by Castaneda. Harry Collins, Trevor Pinch, and Robert Rosenthal got involved with parapsychology, and Martin Gardner has battled it for half a century. These may all seem incidental, but that’s unlikely. Reflexive blurring of subject and object allows connections undreamt of by Western rationality. So does psi.

  Martin Gardner is found on the margins of science. He is not part of it, but only a commentator. He freely mixes mathematics, religion, and the paranormal—ignoring the traditional academic boundaries. He also exemplifies paradox. He extolls the scientific method, except when it comes to religion and the paranormal. With all these qualities, and with his exceptional contributions to conjuring, he must be considered a trickster.

  Reflexivity also brings religious issues to the fore. Those feature prominently in Gardner’s writing. To a much lesser extent Kurt Godel, Bruno Latour, and Rudy Rucker have alluded to them. Meditation, typically a reflexive practice, is a universal part of esoteric religions.

  The topics associated with reflexivity are varied, and even this summary may seem scattered, and not quite coherent. The commonalities of the topics are found at an abstract level, and they are not always easy to recognize. Reflexivity courts the ineffable; it exposes foundational assumptions that are usually banished from conscious awareness.

  The victims of ethnomethodological breaching experiments were often unable to explain their discomfiture.

  At the risk of being repetitious, I want to briefly list again some of the links between the trickster (and liminality) and reflexivity. The trickster blurs the distinction between subject and object, and so does reflexivity; both thereby subvert objectivity. The trickster is a paradoxical creature, and reflexivity generates paradox. The paranormal has trickster qualities, and it is found in the vicinity of applications of reflexivity. The trickster has deep religious implications, and reflexivity evokes religious issues; both are
pertinent to the numinous. Manifestations of reflexivity generate ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty; they provoke feelings of unease, worry, and even paranoia. The trickster does too. The issue of limits is fundamental to the trickster, and reflexivity reveals limits.

  All these issues can be grasped with further attention to order, structure, boundaries, classification, foundations, and limits. The following chapters continue this exploration.

  In closing, I can only quote Hugh Mehan and Houston Wood

  who concluded: “Reflexivity will exhaust us long before we exhaust it.”82

  CHAPTER 21

  Laboratory Research on Psi

  Experimental parapsychology is included in a section covering reflexivity, the primitive mind, and literary theory, and readers may think that odd. A brief explanation is in order. Reflexivity begets paradox; it blurs the distinction between subject and object. Psychic phenomena do also. Primitive notions of magic and divination are compatible with parapsychology, and some psi experiments have been modeled on those practices. Psi can be seen as communication, and literary theory deals with information and communication in a more fundamental way than do the sciences. In particular, semiotics and structuralism can provide new views on psi as communication. These few sentences are, of course, much too brief, and given the topics, it is almost impossible for them not to seem disjointed, if not incoherent.

  Throughout this book I have returned to the themes of structure, stasis, boundaries, and stability and counterposed them to antistructure, transition, boundary blurring, and instability. It is helpful to keep all these in mind while reading this chapter. The primary issue here is the limits of psi. ESP (extrasensory perception) and PK (psychokinesis) transcend the usual barriers of distance and time. They overcome boundaries. Clairvoyance can operate over thousands of miles, and accurate premonitions have occurred days and weeks before events. Even so, psi doesn’t happen all the time; in fact it seems rather rare. Some experiments work; others don’t. Psychics are neither omniscient nor omnipotent, and many factors restrain their abilities. Psi obviously has limits, but they cannot yet be specified.

  The issues are difficult to explain to those who have little background in parapsychology. In order to overcome this potential problem, I will describe some laboratory studies and discuss their rationales in the context of limits. These concrete examples should help illustrate the conceptual ambiguities. I realize that it is probably foolhardy to try to introduce experimental parapsychology in the context of its most advanced theoretical issues, and I don’t know of anyone who has made such an attempt. Yet I am going to try, and ultimately I hope to stimulate the reader to pursue some of the field’s technical material.

  Many people are surprised at the extent and variety of parapsychological research. This is odd, because with television programs and movies, there is a wide awareness of psychic phenomena, yet the vast bulk of the scientific work remains unknown to the general public. Many have an interest in psychic phenomena but few have read anything substantial about them. Several factors contribute to this state of affairs. Much of the research is buried in professional journals that are not easily available, and only a small amount of it has been reported in popular books. Of the popular accounts, a fair number are unreliable, and most of the so-called skeptical literature is particularly naive, and frequently misrepresents the research. Prominent skeptical scientists, with no familiarity with the paranormal, have felt compelled to publicly comment on parapsychology, further confusing the lay public.

  The few scientists who actually carry out psi experiments generally give a higher priority to scientific publication than to popularizing. Most have little inclination to spend time explaining their work to a larger public. This is particularly true with advanced, theory-based research, which is especially difficult to communicate because the results don’t fit within current frameworks of understanding.

  Many popular books leave the reader with the impression that ESP is something like mental radio. The term “telepathy” helps foster this idea, and while this is a useful way to initially present and comprehend the data, it is misleading. ESP and PK can be conceptualized in terms of information, but it is a mistake to think of them as energy being transmitted. I will try to clarify why that is.

  In the 1970s several models were developed that grappled with psi in a new way. Notable were Evan Harris Walker’s quantum mechanical theory, Rex Stanford’s conformance behavior model, and William Braud’s concepts of lability and inertia. These helped clarify some crucial aspects of psi. They were informational models, and as will be described in the following chapters, they have some commonality with structuralist thought. As with structuralism, I will accent information—instead of energy, force, or power. I will focus on correspondences, correlations, and patterns—instead of causes. This way of thinking is unusual, and readers should not become alarmed if they do not immediately grasp it.

  Psi and Boundaries

  The limits of psi are problematic. ESP and PK transcend the usual barriers of time and distance; thus they conflict with conventional views of how the world works. This is nothing new. A half century ago, C. D. Broad, an eminent Cambridge philosopher and former president of the Society for Psychical Research, acknowledged that psi violates what he called basic limiting principles. He explained that: “There are certain limiting principles which we unhesitatingly take for granted as the framework within which all our practical activities and our scientific theories are confined. Some of these seem self-evident. others are so overwhelmingly supported by all the empirical facts which fall within the range of ordinary experience and the scientific elaborations of it … that it hardly enters our heads to question them.”

  Briefly and crudely summarized, these include: an event cannot precede its cause; a person’s mind cannot directly affect the material world except the nervous system; mental life depends upon the brain; we obtain knowledge of the world only through the senses. These give the general idea of Broad’s points though he described them more elaborately and included a few qualifications. in any event, parapsychologists and their critics agree that psychic phenomena violate commonsense expectations about what is possible. it is this that makes psi so controversial; however, as I will explain, the problem of limits is even more subtle and pervasive than this suggests.

  The Definition Problem

  The very definition of psi reflects the problem of limits, and one of the occasionally voiced, though invalid, objections to parapsychology is that psi is negatively defined. True, psi is defined in terms of what it is not. The Parapsychological Association’s position paper “Terms and Methods in Parapsychological Research” states: “When an event is classified as a psi phenomenon, it is claimed that all known channels for the apparent interaction have been eliminated.”

  This definition requires psi to circumvent known boundaries. It specifies that all normal alternative causes be ruled out before psi can be deemed to have occurred. Thus psi is defined by what is excluded. Difficulty is built into the definition, but it suffices until the phenomena are better understood. The definition’s advantage is that it emphasizes the matter of limits. Psi is placed in opposition to other causes known to science. Despite its drawbacks, the definition reflects the current state of knowledge, and it guides researchers. Before psi is inferred to have occurred in an experiment, normal modes of influence and communication must be excluded. Much of the effort in formal research is devoted to that task. Anyone making a scientific claim for a psi occurrence shoulders a similar burden.

  The Role of the Laboratory

  Lay persons who are sympathetic to parapsychology, in principle, often do not appreciate research. It seems too distant from real-life events to have much meaning for them. There is some truth in this complaint. The laboratory is artificial, but necessarily so. Special training is required to understand the research, and much of it must be translated for the wider public. Indeed, in the last 30 years parapsychology has become more technical and pr
obably lost a base of support from members of the general public because of it. In addition, the advanced theoretical development has been unappealing to available funding sources. Psychic spying, research on healing and life after death attract more support. Yet the theoretical research will likely prove much more important for fundamental understanding. There has been considerable progress, but it is almost completely unappreciated.

  Regarding the laboratory, there is a crucial point for our concern here. The essence of any laboratory, be it for physics, chemistry, biology, or parapsychology, is to limit and constrain phenomena. It is under controlled conditions that limits are investigated most effectively.

  John Pierce, a researcher at Bell Laboratories, spoke to this in his book Symbols, Signals and Noise (1961). He pointed out that much scientific progress has come from studying phenomena in artificial, man-made environments. Humans learned more about fire by observing it in furnaces than they did by watching forest fires. Physics progressed much more rapidly by studying electricity in wires, capacitors and resistors than by observing lightning. Hydraulics advanced more from studying water flowing in pipes than by watching ocean waves. Small effects under controlled artificial conditions often reveal more than large phenomena in natural settings. This is also true in parapsychology. Field studies and case collections emphasize the dramatic manifestations of psi. Seemingly trivial and mundane examples tend to be discounted, but those hide profound clues. Indeed, the laboratory has revealed important but subtle psi effects that would have been otherwise overlooked.