The Trickster and the Paranormal

by George P. Hansen

  Retroactive PK

  Precognition is one of the greatest impediments to incorporating psi into conventional scientific theories. Violating the time barrier subverts the usual notion of cause and effect (i.e., causes precede effects). That poses real problems. Identical questions are raised by some PK experiments on pre-recorded targets conducted by Helmut Schmidt. He found that PK could work backward in time, and this was dubbed retroactive PK.

  Schmidt used an electronic random number generator (RNG) to control the rate of clicking sounds produced by an electronic device. These were played through headphones. In preliminary experiments Schmidt showed that humans could increase the rate of clicks by using PK to influence the RNG. He carried this further, and instead of playing the clicks directly for subjects, he recorded them onto audiotape. In addition, a second record was made on paper punch tape. For the experiment, half of the tape-recorded sequences of clicks were played to subjects, and the remaining half served as controls. The experimental and control sequences were selected by using a deterministic random process (finding the square roots of a succession of primes, taking the twelfth digits, and then using their parity [even or odd] to designate target or control). The subjects listened to the tapes through headphones and tried to increase the rate of the clicks. Schmidt set the sound level very low so that they needed to stay alert while listening. The test runs had significantly more clicks than the controls. The PK effect on pre-recorded trials was about the same magnitude as the realtime PK efforts.

  Schmidt’s experiment directly challenges the notion of cause and effect. Even though the experiment was conducted a quarter century ago, few people are aware of it, and when I tell people about it, they often think that they misunderstood what I said. The outcome assaults common sense.

  Retroactive PK experiments allow very strong controls against cheating. Schmidt analyzed his results by using the paper tape. Since that tape was not available to the subjects, even if they somehow managed to alter the magnetic tape, it would have made no difference.

  The method can be extended to protect against fraud by a single experimenter. one experimenter can record the sequences to be influenced (e.g., zeroes and ones on a tape or disk or other media), make a duplicate copy of them, and then give the copy to a second experimenter. A third experimenter, who does not have a copy of the tape, could randomly select segments to serve as target and control runs. The third experimenter can give a copy of his selections to the first or second experimenter. Then the tapes may be given directly to subjects to take home. Even if a subject had electronic and computer skills and changed a tape, it would make no difference. Results are evaluated with the copies held by experimenters. Further, experimenter fraud requires collusion by two experimenters.

  In the March 1986 issue of the Journal of Parapsychology Schmidt published an ingenious experiment along with Robert Morris and Luther Rudolph. Schmidt was at Mind Science Foundation in San Antonio, Texas and the other two were at Syracuse University in New York. Their procedure was similar to that described above though rather more involved, and the reader is urged to examine the original report, which was one of the most tightly controlled parapsychology experiments ever conducted. It was a success, and later experiments continued this line.

  Elmar Gruber, a young German researcher, carried out an intriguing extension of this kind of experiment. Instead of using an RNG to produce target sequences, he used a photoelectric device to monitor people walking into a supermarket. When they passed the device, it recorded a click on a magnetic tape. The taped sequence of clicks was divided into experimental and control periods (by using shuffled black and white cards), and the experimental portions were later played to subjects, who did not know that the clicks had been pre-recorded. As in Schmidt’s experiments, subjects listened to the clicks through headphones and tried to increase the click rate. Gruber did a second series of experiments, but instead of recording passers-by in a supermarket, his device monitored cars driving through a tunnel. In both series of experiments, Gruber found the rate of clicks in the experimental periods significantly exceeded that of the control periods. It appeared as though his subjects could affect the past. At least there was a correlation between the subjects’ intentions and the movement of shoppers and automobile traffic.

  Theoretical Issues

  The situation is perplexing. With experimenter effects, non-intentional psi, and retroactive PK, one worries just how far a person’s

  psychic influence can go. Indeed, some may wonder whether any scientific progress can be made at all! How can anyone know who caused a psi effect in an experiment? It seems that subjects, experimenters, checkers, and outside observers might all influence the outcome. Could skeptics inhibit positive results by using their abilities unconsciously? Doesn’t all this invalidate parapsychology?

  The problems are real but not too severe. After all, a similar situation is found in psychology. When psychologists try to explain human behavior, they consider a multitude of factors including: personality traits, upbringing, birth order, physiology, brain structure, beliefs, cultural background, and literally hundreds of other variables. These all interact and interfere with each other. No one factor or specifiable group of them absolutely predicts human action. Yet psychologists continue to carry out studies, and they make some progress.

  Likewise, progress is made in parapsychology. In many real-world cases there is little hesitation in attributing an effect to a specific individual. In mediumship and poltergeist cases, paranormal events typically occur only when a certain person is present. If a psychic has consistent results in healing, again there is little dispute in saying that the healer is the primary cause. Or if a person describes a distant, unknown location in considerable, accurate detail, there would be no problem in saying that that individual had a psychic experience. In such cases, it makes sense to attribute the psychic effects to the obvious source.

  By studying such seemingly gifted individuals, or even ordinary people, common patterns can be found. Of course, one must be cautious in interpreting results from only one experimenter (who may have certain expectations that may cause bias), but when a variety of investigators find a similar pattern, the potential for experimenter influence recedes. In such cases, results can be reasonably attributed to subjects.

  In fact, a number of psychological factors have been found to influence ESP performance. I have already mentioned that altered states of consciousness facilitate it. Extroverts tend to do better than introverts, and those who believe in ESP tend to get higher scores than those who don’t. Being spontaneous in guessing helps also. There is an enormous amount of research on these topics, and it is far too vast to summarize here. John Palmer published a 185-page overview article on ESP research findings in Volume 2 of the series Advances in Parapsychological Research edited by Stanley Krippner. That is a good starting point for anyone wishing to become more familiar with the scientific research on psychological variables that influence ESP.

  As mentioned earlier, experimental work consumed most of the resources of the field, and much of the empirical research has been dominated by a psychological approach typical of that found in psychology departments at American universities. It proved effective in identifying variables that affected psi performance, but it was limited. It was reductionistic; it focussed on individuals, and it did not lend itself to useful integration. There was a need for a broader understanding.

  Three Models

  Between 1970 and 1980 three important theoretical developments were introduced in parapsychology. These were the quantum mechanical theory of Evan Harris Walker, the conformance behavior model proposed by Rex Stanford, and the concepts of lability and inertia advanced by William Braud. There were other, related formulations presented during the same period, but these three were among the most influential. These models are particularly valuable because their inventors were involved with ongoing laboratory research. Both Stanford and Braud were active experimentalists, and Walker mainta
ined close contact with researchers in laboratories, and their models guided a variety of experimental research. The field was long afflicted with philosophers and others who offered opinions, ideas and speculations, but had little contact with data. The work of Walker, Stanford, and Braud was a refreshing change.

  Evan Harris Walker’s Quantum Mechanical Theory

  Evan Harris Walker is a physicist who worked for the U.S. Army at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland. He is now retired. His relevant papers began appearing in 1970, and since then he has published a number of them describing models of quantum mechanics (QM), consciousness, and psi. His work prompted others to propose alternatives, but his theory was by far the most developed, and it stimulated much discussion and experimentation. Within parapsychology, his work falls under the rubric of “observational theories,” which typically have some direct or tangential relation to QM. The label “observational theory” is loosely used and one not preferred by Walker.

  Since its beginning, QM has had unresolved conceptual difficulties that fostered many rival interpretations. It violates common sense;

  it poses paradoxes; it overturns notions of cause and effect. An initial glance suggests that it may be relevant to understanding precognition and retroactive PK. Furthermore, in some interpretations of QM, consciousness plays a role, allowing a possible influence by a human observer.

  For decades, speculations on QM and psi have appeared in scientific, philosophical, and popular literature. In 1956 Indian philosopher C. T. K. Chari published an article titled “Quantum Physics and Parapsychology” in the Journal of Parapsychology. In 1960 the eminent physicist Pascual Jordan commented on the possible relationship in the International Journal of Parapsychology, and in the 1970s the connection was more widely popularized by such books as The Roots of Coincidence (1972) by Arthur Koestler.

  The significant scientific development began in the 1970s with the theoretical work of Walker and Helmut Schmidt. As described earlier, Schmidt pioneered the use of electronic random number generators (RNGs) in psi testing; he also proposed theoretical models, but the bulk of his contributions were in experimental research. Walker concentrated on theoretical problems, and he produced the more encompassing body of theory, with connections to a variety of areas.

  Within QM there is a controversy about what causes “state vector collapse,” in other words, what constitutes a “measurement” or an “observation.” Though the concept of measurement is a central issue, the problem is not satisfactorily resolved among physicists. There are competing interpretations. For instance, some suggest that a measurement is complete when a meter records the outcome of a QM process, but not everyone agrees that is sufficient. Some argue that something else, perhaps human consciousness, is required. The matter has been debated for decades, and Walker addressed the problem in a long paper, “The Nature of Consciousness,” in the journal Mathematical Biosciences in 1970, and the following year he participated in a debate in the pages of Physics Today with his paper “consciousness as a Hidden Variable.”

  Walker noted that quantum processes could occur in the brain. Synapses, the junctions of neurons where nervous impulses are transmitted, include a tiny gap between cells called the synaptic cleft. Walker calculated that the synaptic cleft was small enough to allow electrons to cross it via quantum tunneling, a process subject to random quantum uncertainty.29 Walker extended his ideas, and estimating the number of synapses in the brain, their firing rates, and electron tunneling rates; he computed information rates for the unconscious,

  consciousness, and also the will, which he suggested was responsible for collapse of the state vector. He thereby incorporated brain processes, QM, and consciousness in an attractive formulation.

  Walker went on to apply his ideas to psi, and at the 1972 meeting of the Parapsychological Association he gave a paper entitled “Application of the Quantum Theory of Consciousness to the Problem of Psi Phenomena.” He argued that psi is caused by the will, thereby tieing it to his theory of consciousness and the collapse of the state vector. His model focussed on measures of information, and he conceived both ESP and PK not as energetic processes, where energy is transmitted, but rather as informational ones.

  In 1974 he presented one of his most important articles, “Foundations of Paraphysical and Parapsychological Phenomena,” at a Parapsychology Foundation symposium on quantum mechanics. In that paper Walker reanalyzed data of Haakon Forwald. Forwald was a Norwegian-born engineer who became a naturalized citizen of Sweden and who obtained over 500 patents. He had conducted PK experiments with cubes of different sizes and materials in order to study physical parameters. He began in 1949, and through the 1950s and 1960s Forwald’s work appeared in refereed professional journals, and he collaborated with a number of researchers during that time. His data were especially valuable because they quantitatively measured the operation of psi in relation to physical variables.

  Forwald’s equipment dropped cubes mechanically; they tumbled down a ramp and came to rest on a flat surface marked with a grid. A subject wished for the to cubes fall to one side or the other of the grid’s centerline, depending upon the designated target side for a trial. These were referred to as placement studies. After the cubes came to rest, their distances from the centerline were measured and tallied. Forwald discovered that the material of the cubes affected the net deviation from the centerline (taking into account both the hitting and missing cubes, i.e., whether a cube fell on the specified target side for a trial). He surmised that the psi influence on the cubes was related to the materials’ nuclear properties, and he developed some equations of mechanical forces to describe the results.

  Walker took a different perspective; instead of analyzing classical forces, he used quantum mechanics. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that as the position of a particle becomes more precisely known its momentum becomes more uncertain, and Walker calculated the quantum uncertainty for cubes. One of the implications of those calculations is that for a sufficient number of bounces, the final position, i.e., the upward face, is in principle indeterminate. That is, even knowing the initial position and all forces acting on a die, the upward face of the final resting position cannot be calculated. It is, in principle, random. Extending such computations and incorporating his model of consciousness, he analyzed Forwald’s placement studies. Walker calculated the amount of deviation expected by his theory and found startlingly good agreement with the Forwald data.

  Walker’s work attracted considerable attention, including that of critics. In the December 1984 issue of the Journal of Parapsychology he published a long response and further explained his theory. One of the critics was Martin Gardner, godfather of the skeptical movement, who was discussed extensively in the last chapter. In a 1981 article, Gardner had objected to Walker’s use of the Forwald data because Forwald often served as both experimenter and subject.30 Walker answered, noting that there had been some replication of Forwald’s findings, and more importantly, the data had been collected and published years before Walker developed his theory. As such, it is unlikely that the close fit of theory and data would be due to any bias of Forwald.

  Gardner’s critique had its problems, and he may not have fully understood the debates among physicists, a point Walker illustrated in his reply. For instance, Gardner stated that “In QM it is not the human observer who collapses wave packets but the observing instru-ments,”31 a view disputed by a number of Nobel laureates. In a footnote he acknowledged Eugene Wigner’s position contradicted his own, and Gardner may not have been aware that Wigner allowed the possibility that idea Gardner vehemently disputed in his attack on Walker.32 Wigner had made the statement in a 1962 article “Remarks on the Mind-Body Question,” and the following year he won the Nobel Prize. More recently Gardner has given QM additional attention, and he has further criticized Wigner, saying “I never liked his approach to quantum mechanics … From Wigner’s point of view there is a sense in which even the entire Universe is not ‘ou
t there’ unless there are humans to ob serve it.” 33

  In any event, Gardner was forced to admit that if Walker’s assumptions were correct “a scaffolding exists on which to hang a theory of ESP and PK.” In addition Gardner begrudgingly admitted that “Walker’s theory also accounts for the embarrassing fact that parapsychologists have been unable to detect a PK effect on a delicately balanced needle … assuming the subject is not a superpsychic.”35

  Coming from such a committed debunker, these remarks can only be seen as high praise.

  Despite Gardner’s typical patronizing tone and disparaging remarks, he brought into focus crucial underlying philosophical assumptions. Though Walker largely refuted Gardner, Gardner’s critique was useful for its exposition, and several people told me that they were more impressed with Walker’s theory after reading Gardner’s presentation of it.

  As an aside, Gardner’s point about a delicately balanced needle raises the issue of macro-PK, a topic I have so far neglected in this chapter. Nearly all formal parapsychological research concentrates on statistically based experiments (i.e., those incorporating a source of randomness, as in card-guessing ESP tests and PK studies with dice). The reader may wonder how these esoteric experiments and theories apply to poltergeist phenomena or other macro-PK effects, such as levitation of tables. Richard Mattuck, a physicist at the University of Copenhagen, extended Walker’s theory in this regard. In 1976 he presented a paper “Random Fluctuation Theory of Psychokinesis: Thermal Noise Model,” and later he and Walker collaborated on further refinements. They suggested that the mind may reorganize energy already available in the environment, for example, random movement of molecules due to heat. In their model, human consciousness imposes coherence (order or information) on random noise. Useful energy is the product of that. The Walker-Mattuck model allowed the levitation of an object of only about 10 grams, but they did point a way that larger forces might be accommodated with further revisions of the theory.