Long John Nebel

by Way Out World

“Worth seeing? yes; but

  not worth going to see.”—Samuel Johnson

  SEATED AROUND the table were five of my “regulars.” We had been on the air for about half an hour and an experiment in Extra Sensory Perception was under way. It was one of many that had been conducted during the time I had been doing the all-night, every-night show. “The Amazing Randi,” world-famous escapologist and magician; Sam Vandivert, well-known photographer; Sergeant Morris .Paley, police officer; and the famous character actor Khigh Dheigh were discussing the “conditions” I should impose on the test.

  “John, a couple of years ago I did a bit with a strong box,” recalled Randi. “Do you remember just how that experiment was arranged?”

  “Yes, I bring it to mind quite clearly,” I replied. “You brought a locked metal box up here to the studio. No one had any idea what was in it, including yours truly, L. J. We merely told the people out in radioland—with apologies to Jean Shepard—that a strong box was sitting on the table, and that there was ‘an object’ in it.”

  “Right,” agreed Randi. “Then I said I would concentrate on the object inside the metal box for a period of three full minutes. You had everyone remain absolutely silent.”

  “And during the dead air the listeners were supposed to attempt to guess or psychically receive an impression of what was inside the container,” I explained to the other guests.

  “What were the results?” asked Sgt. Paley.

  “Kind of wild, as a matter of fact. I received about six hundred cards and letters on that one as I recall, and not one even came close. That is, only one came faintly close.”

  “It seems to me that about twenty percent, remembering that I specialized in escapes, thought that the box contained handcuffs,” remarked Amazing. (We sometimes call him by his second name.)

  “What was the mysterious object?” asked Vandivert.

  “A folded silk American flag, in a manila envelope,” I revealed.

  “And,” began Khigh Dheigh, just a little sceptically, “what was the ‘almost’ answer you received out of the six hundred replies?”

  “The word ‘Stars.’ Nothing else. Just that one word on a card. “But John,” he continued, that’s very good. Didn’t it make you wonder at all?”

  “Yes, I’ll give you a square count. It did. Until about a day later when I remembered something. A month or so before the experiment took place I had been doing a commercial on a book for younger people on astronomy. To simplify matters for the listeners who wished to purchase the volume by mail, I had told them just to put the one word “astronomy” on a postal card, with their names and addresses, and the book would be sent to them. Unfortunately, what had happened was that this particular gentleman had forgotten and written the word “stars” instead of the word “astronomy.” And that pretty well killed that experiment.”

  But to return to the ESP test we were trying to conduct that night. It was decided that a test pattern would be drawn by the panel with each person contributing one, or no more than two, lines to the diagram. The result would then be left on the table for a minute or two so we could all concentrate on it. During this, time, any listeners who wished to participate could sketch the design at home. These attempts at reading our collective thoughts could then be mailed in and we would compare them against the “original test pattern.”

  On this occasion, even more replies came in than was usual for this kind of on-the-air experiment—about eleven hundred, I believe. The, results from a psychic point of view, however, were much less encouraging. Only one letter in the entire response bore any resemblance to the test design at all, and this similarity was so vague that even the most open-minded people I showed it to had to admit that it was a totally negative result. But, of course, you can’t always have them turn out like the William Daut bit.

  I remember one night the prominent physicist Dr. Wallace Minto was my guest, along with the great doubter and cyberneticist Ben Isquith. Back and forth they battled for and against Extra Sensory Perception. At one point in the exchange, Minto suggested that he hypnotize a young lady, one of his regular hypno-psychic subjects, whom he had brought along with him that morning. While in the trance state, he challenged Ben, she would be able to demonstrate some parapsychological ability.

  “Why does she have to be put in trance?” Isquith wanted to know.

  “Very well,” agreed Minto. “We’ll do it without hypnosis, but I won’t guarantee the results. Is that all right with you, Renée?”

  The girl nodded and I had a chair brought over to the table for her. A neck mike was put on her, and I asked her how she would like to begin.

  “If I may have something belonging to Mr. Isquith. A ring, a lucky piece, watch, photograph…”

  “Here’s my watch,” offered Ben.

  She sat back, with her eyes closed. About thirty seconds passed, and then she spoke.

  “I sense that you have recently been in lower Manhattan, in Greenwich Village. I see you walking along Eighth Street. You are with a young lady…a lady…and you are going into a pottery shop. You are looking for something. Wandering through the store. You are looking at one piece, then another. Now you have made your choice—a bean-type pot. You are purchasing it. That is, actually you are charging it. It is a gift.”

  “Do you sense anything else?” I asked.

  “Only one thing. It is a holiday. Just before East…No! Christmas. It is the day before Christmas, and he had bought a pot as a holiday gift. That’s all. Nothing more.”

  That was about it, except for the fact that Ben Isquith had to admit that the psychometric reading was accurate in every degree. I hasten to add that, like old L.J., he doesn’t buy the smallest bit of the psychic bit. But he did concede that Renée was correct in all she said.

  Of course, although I’ve conducted many such experiments on my radio show, or had other people on to conduct them, I have to be the first to admit that these efforts haven’t been run under very severe test conditions. Also, I certainly wouldn’t make any claim at being an investigator myself; but several people who have appeared on the program certainly have a right to such a title. Some of these would be Stewart Robb, Dr. Wallace Minto, and most of all Dr. J. B. Rhine.

  For a great number of years, Rhine has been the top name among the psychic researchers. It’s been the strong pitch he’s made for ESP that’s been largely responsible for the general public’s becoming parapsychology conscious.

  Unfortunately, the terms ESP, parapsychology, psychic power, or whatever other label you prefer, include an awful lot of things. To a real kook, they might mean anything from a table tap to a full-blown ghost. To legitimate researchers, to men like J. B. Rhine, they mean telepathy, clairvoyance, psycho-or telekinesis, and maybe just a little more. Often these conflicts of definition lead to considerable confusion.

  One night a couple of years ago, I had invited a fairly well-known “legitimate” type ESP investigator on as my guest. To participate in the questioning, I had brought in a couple of complete sceptics; and, to support the guest, a man who called himself a “serious psychic researcher.” I assumed that this would mean a sort of two for and two against setup, but almost before the show began this kind of exchange took place:

  Legitimate Researcher #1: “Now, as we all know, and at least I’m sure my investigator friend will agree, the true psychic, that is the genuine master of ESP, has great mystical powers not found in other persons.”

  Legitimate Researcher #2: “Well, let’s not put it quite that way. I think that we might say that they have extra normal responses. I don’t think that I would use the word ‘mystical.’”

  L. R. #1: “What I mean by ‘mystical’ is that the power of, say, telepathy is essentially spiritual in nature.”

  L. R. #2: “I would have thought maybe that phrase ‘electro-magnetic,’ or something like that, might have been better.”

  L. R. #1: “We must remember the light that guides the psychic will. We shouldn’t forget the watchers o
f the other planes.”

  L. R. #2: “The light that does what? The whichers on the other wheres?”

  L. R. #7: “The spirit guides, of course,”

  L. R. #2: “What has that nonsense got to do with parapsychology?”

  L. R. #1: “Why, everything. I’m afraid you don’t know very much about ESP.”

  L. R. #2: “You, sir, obviously know nothing—about ESP or anything else.”

  L. R. #1: “Well, I can tell you this. If I’d known you were going to be on this program. I’d have known enough not to show up.”

  L. R. #2: “That—I believe!”

  And so ended the collaboration of those two gentlemen for the morning. But I must admit that the three-sided kookery turned out to be a better show than a regular two-on-each-side debate-type bit would have been. However, this sort of confusion is pretty common in the offbeat fields.

  Now, getting back to Dr. Rhine and the really legit investigators. As early as 1930, J. B. Rhine, Professor of Psychology at Duke University, was conducting experiments with ESP cards. He used a deck of twenty-five bridge-size cards marked with five different symbols: a square, a circle, a star, a plus sign, and wavy lines. Five symbols, five cards each, twenty-five cards in all. When you had the deck, you had to dig up a couple of participants: one dealer and one clairvoyant. Sometimes they would sit at the same table with a high partition between them so they couldn’t see each other; on other occasions they sat in different rooms, different houses, and in a few cases even different cities or states. Then, when everything was all arranged, the dealer would start turning the cards over one by one, with maybe a second or two interval. The receiver, the number two man on the psychic relay team, would then attempt to guess each card as it went by. If they were operating on a one-second schedule, the receiver would mark down one of the symbols on a piece of paper every second until the entire twenty-five had been guessed.

  If the sender looked at the cards, concentrating, and tried to convey an impression of the right symbol to his partner, that was supposed to be a test in telepathy (although it could also indicate clairvoyant overtones). If the cards were gone through “blind” by the top man of the team—that is, if he went through the deck without looking at the cards—then that was considered a test in clairvoyance. If that seems a little confusing, for once it really isn’t. Telepathy is the ability to send or receive mental impressions. Clairvoyance is the ability to see mentally beyond the normal range of physical vision.

  Now, since there are only twenty-five cards and only five symbols, it’s easy to see that the laws of probability would indicate that the average result would be five cards (or symbols) correctly guessed per “run.” Naturally, no one expected the deck to revolve in exact mathematical rotation. On some tests, the normal ups and downs might give a reader only four, or three, or two correct; on others the score might jump to ten; but over the long pull—say, possibly, five thousand runs—the odds said that the results would tend to pretty well average out to five correct guesses per run.

  Of course, a slight variation couldn’t very well be considered a great example of psychic phenomena. However, if, in a run of five thousand, the results were far off-base, then the researcher would have something to shout about. Say in a run like that, which would mean one hundred and twenty-five thousand cards had been guessed, the total score was fifty thousand correct. That would be hard to explain. The average for that number being twenty-five thousand, or twenty percent, what would be the answer if someone ran up a fifty thousand, or forty percent response? Well, neighbors, I can tell you that it would be pretty unlikely. And according to a man like Rhine, I imagine it would rank as pretty conclusive proof that there was something to the ESP bit. At least the results he has gotten have completely convinced him that such powers are scientific fact.

  Today, more than thirty years later, Dr. Rhine has enormously expanded his investigations, since he considers telepathy and clairvoyance established truths. His more recent experiments have dealt with psycho-or telekinesis—the ability to move physical matter with the mind. Today, as he has been for a long time, J. B. Rhine is still the top man in the ESP department—that is, the investigating end.

  At this point let me take a moment to give my personal opinions about Dr. Rhine. Having met this man, and having corresponded with him a few times, and having met dozens of people who know him much better than I do, and having the opportunity of knowing their opinions of Dr. Rhine, I’ve come to the conclusion that he is one of the most sincere men in the field of psychic research, and an extremely bright man. And although I do not buy ESP myself, I have a sneaky suspicion that there may be something to it; and the man who will be responsible for discovering this unknown phenomenon will certainly be Dr. J. B. Rhine.

  To get an even half-way clear picture of this tremendously complicated field, it’s a good idea to become familiar with some of the terms employed. The following is far from a complete offbeat vocabulary, but it explains some of the more important terms—words which will give you a general idea of the major areas covered by this kind of investigation.

  TELEPATHY —the transference of thought from one mind to another.

  MENTAL TELEGRAPHY—an old phrase which was supplanted by the word “telepathy.”

  CLAIRVOYANCE—seeing mentally beyond the natural limitations of physical vision. This is its proper definition. Today it has come to be generalized to include many areas of psychic phenomena

  CLAIRAUDIENCE—hearing mentally beyond the natural limitations of the auditory system.

  TELEKINESIS—the movement of objects without physical contact.

  PARAKINESS—the movement of objects without sufficient contact to explain the motion.

  PSYCHOKINESIS—the movement of objects through non-physical, mental (psychic) force.

  LEVITATION—the raising of objects, or individuals, into the air with no physical aid or explanation.

  TELEPORTATION—the instantaneous transmission of an object, or individual, from one point to another—usually over a considerable distance—regardless of intervening physical matter.

  ASTRAL PROJECTION —the sometimes-instantaneous, sometimes apparently not, transmission of a human consciousness—or psyche, or “spirit”—from one point to another, regardless of intervening physical matter. Also the ability to sustain the projection of this second self, or astral body, over a period of time, before it returns to become one again with the physical being.

  PRECOGNITION—the power of prophecy

  RADIESTHESIA (or RHABDOMANCY)—the power to operate a divining rod.

  CRYSTALLOSCOPY (or CRYSTAL GAZING)—the use of a crystal ball to aid in clairvoyant concentration

  PSYCHOMETRY—the sensing of remaining vibrations from an object so as to perceive information about a present or former owner of same.

  APPORT—foreign object made to suddenly appear in physical form, in the séance room, through the powers of a medium or collective mediumistic force.

  MATERIALIZATION—the producing of ectoplasmic matter by a mediumistic force.

  ECTOPLASM—a smoky or misty visible intangible, usually, produced from some orifice of the medium, or occasionally simply appearing from thin air, or on other occasions materializing out of a “cabinet,” which concentrates itself into a portion of a human body—a hand or a face, and on extremely rare occasions into a head, bust or torso, or even an entire figure. In most cases where the ectoplasm emanates from the medium’s body it’s claimed that it has a specific weight, and that the medium becomes lighter during the time the ectoplasm is abroad, and that the medium regains the lost weight when the ectoplasm dissipates back into him or her.

  DEMATERIALIZATION—the ability of a medium to reduce the cellular or atomic structure of some portion of his body so that it’s no longer physical in nature. It was claimed by Conan Doyle that the great escape artist Houdini was able to reduce the physical aspect of some portions of his body, permitting him to perform extraordinary escapes from handcuffs, ce
lls, chains, and what-have-you.

  SPIRIT WRITING —the writing or messages left during a séance, presumably evidence of the presence of spirit personalities during a séance.

  AUTOMATIC WRITING—as the name implies, it’s the unconscious, automatic writing by a medium while in trance, when his or her subconscious mind and physical hand is controlled by another personality—usually someone long since dead.

  OUIJA BOARD—is a board of letters and numbers, upon which is placed a planchette—which is a triangle on three little metal legs. Several people sitting around the table place their fingers lightly upon this planchette; and in theory it moves about, stopping at one letter and another until it spells out an entire message.

  VOICE MEDIUM—one who is able to produce the voices of persons not present physically—almost invariably persons who have died. These voices usually are in some way related to someone sitting in the séance. However, frequently they may be of famous historical personalities who have come back to visit with people they never knew nor heard of.

  METAGNOMY—a term sometimes used in places of “clairvoyance,” and in combination with other words used to cover most of the areas of psychic phenomena. It’s a phrase which is preferred by some scientific investigators.

  And one could go on indefinitely, describing various other forms of phenomena that are supposed to take place, frequently or rarely, in the field of parapsychology. There are those who divide the entire study into four or five slots. There are those who feel there are nine or ten major categories. Most investigators would accept that there were at least twenty-five or thirty possible manifestations of psychic power—or, I should say, so-called manifestations of so-called psychic power. Others would claim that this number would more properly be fifty or sixty. Essentially this depends upon just what you “include in” and what you “include out.” And there are a number of things we haven’t even mentioned. Poltergeist, ghosts, disappearing villages, the return of people who’ve lived forever—these are some of the stories you hear. But only a few.