PARAPSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY.

A New Horizons Research Foundation Paper.

October 1987.

ml

m INTRODUCTION.

i f

This paper i s written as an introduction to a Conference to be held at New Horizons Research Foundation i n November 1987. As has been stated before i n other papers the science of parapsychology covers many d i s c i p l i n e s , such as physics, psychology, philosophy, r e l i g i o n , and sociology. Sociology

* i i s defined as "The science that treats of the o r i g i n and evolution of human society and s o c i a l phenomena, the progress of c i v i l i s a t i o n , and the laws con t r o l l i n g human i n s t i t u t i o n s

tgi and functions". (Standard Dictionary, C o l l i e r ) . This, of course, covers a very wide area and many aspects of the study of sociology are not i n any way related to parapsychology. But the body of knowledge upon which the study of parapsychology i s based comes from the individual experiences of people of a l l races and throughout history. I t i s a part of the evolution of human society, and so properly belongs

mt under the heading of sociology.

Throughout history people have been r e l a t i n g accounts of ^ events that have happened i n t h e i r l i v e s f o r which they can

f i n d no l o g i c a l or reasonable explanation. These occurrences have been generally lumped under the heading of parapsychology,

^ and dealt with accordingly.

In the beginning years of parapsychological research these stories told by people of strange events were accepted,

mi and they formed the basis of much of the research that was done at that time. Later researchers became more sceptical, and they began to want more proof, more evidence, of the

jg' r e a l i t y of these experiences, and above a l l they wanted to be able to produce the effects i n a laboratory setting. People's own p e r s o n a l stories were labelled "anecdotal", and relegated to the back pages of the journals and magazines; parapsychology became a science, experiments had to be done i n laboratory settings, and they had to be reproducable, to gain c r e d i b i l i t y . The very word "anecdotal" downgraded

mt the experience, and has done much to take away c r e d i b i l i t y from the subject as a whole.

.^i Now the wheel has turned f u l l c i r c l e , and researchers and experimenters are turning again to those "anecdotal" stories, and r e a l i s i n g that they have, f o r many years, ignored a r i c h source of knowledge that may help them to understand the whole subject of psychical research.

Perhaps a sta r t should be made by using a d i f f e r e n t word Mil f o r personal experiences than "anecdotal". Perhaps that

word should be reserved f o r the f o l k l o r e type of incident,

mt

and the words "direct experience" should he used f o r those accounts that are personal. The Forteans coined the phrase 'friend of friends' (f.o.f.s) to use f o r what we would c a l l true anecdotal and f o l k l o r e material. This kind of story cannot, usually, he traced "back to i t s origins; i t can very occasionally be traced back to an o r i g i n a l story that has been 'claimed* by many people subsequently. This kind of story i s usually told to the l i s t e : ner as having happened to a friend, or a friend of a friend, or a distant r e l a t i v e . I f the l i s t e n e r p e r s i s t s i n trying to trace i t s o r i g i n he finds that the friend got i t from another friend, and that friend heard i t from someone else, and the o r i g i n can rarely be found. However the story i s always told as a personal one. Readers of our previous paper Strange and Anomalous Phenomena (January 1985) w i l l remember that we wrote a chapter on Modern Urban Lege -.nds and Rumours, when we described t h i s phenomenon of modern f o l k l o r e . C h a r a c t e r i s t i c a l l y one cannot pinpoint the exact date and place where the events happened, nor can one i d e n t i f y the actual person to whom they happened.

But true parapsychological phenomena are in a d i f f e r e n t category. There are thousands of people in the world today who have had parapsychological experiences, who are quite w i l l i n g to t e s t i f y personally as to what happened, they can give dates and places, and there are frequently witnesses to the events. This experiences should, i n our opinion, be lab e l l e d "direct experiences" and not confused with "anecdotal" material of f o l k l o r e .

As we have said, of recent years researchers have begun turning once again to a l l the d i r e c t experiences that people claim to have had i n t h i s f i e l d .

Lawrence Le Shan, in his Book The Science of the Paranormal, The Last Frontier, Acquarian Press" 1987) > puts i t t h i s way "a quiet and l i t t l e noticed process has been gaining momentum in western science. This was the movement away from the idea that only one model of the universe was necessary to explain a l l of r e a l i t y towards the concept that d i f f e r e n t models were necessary to deal with d i f f e r e n t aspects (realms) of experience. I t started with Max Planck's demonstration in 1900 that the metaphysical system necessary to explain the microcosm (the world of things too small f o r the senses to observe, even theoretically) and to make i t s data meaningful ( i . e . t<j» f i n d the laws r e l a t i n g to the data) was a d i f f e r e n t one from the system necessary and v a l i d f o r the realm of experience of things accessible to the senses. In h i s words, we l i v e i n a : two-tracked universe". As the p h y s i c i s t Erwin Schrodinger put i t :

'As our mental eye penetrates into smaller and smaller distances and shorter and shorter times, we f i n d nature behaving so e n t i r e l y d i f f e r e n t l y from what we observe i n v i s i b l e and palpable bodies of our surrounding, that no model shaped afte r our large-scale experiences can ever be true'

A few years l a t e r , Einstein showed that a t h i r d system, a t h i r d model, was necessary f o r that realm of experience which included things too large, or going by too fast, to be accessible to the senses. None of these explanatory systems contradict each other. They are compatible. None of them i s more or less v a l i d than the others: i t i s simply accessible to a realm of experience. In Goethe's words, 'Nature has neither kernel nor s h e l l 1 . This means that f o r the f i r s t time data can be examined without preconceptions; we can examine data on t h e i r own terms and follow them to whatever laws they lead us."

Our view of society i s coloured very much by our b e l i e f s . The way we behave i n society i s very much affected by our b e l i e f s . B e l i e f systems can be personal or general, that i s pertaining to society as a whole. Personal b e l i e f s are often based on one's own personal experience, whereas general b e l i e f s are based on the experience of society as a whole. For instance, a person who has experienced more than t h e i r f a i r share of personal violence may conclude that we l i v e i n a vi o l e n t society, and take precautions accordingly, whereas s t a t i s t i c s may prove that the society we l i v e i n i s not i n f a c t more violent than i n previous ages, and so there i s no need to be overly cautious. How does society i n general deal with those people whose personal experiences lead them to d i f f e r from the general b e l i e f s of society i t s e l f ?

Sometimes we have the impression that c r e d i b i l i t y i s measured on a ' s l i d i n g scale'. Both as individuals and as a society as a whole we have ' l i m i t s ' of b e l i e f . While we can 'stretch' our b e l i e f to certain points, we w i l l say, there are certain things we cannot believe. These l i m i t s can vary both with individuals and with the whole of society.

The lack of b e l i e f i n certain p o s s i b i l i t i e s has, of course, hindered progress throughout the ages. How many sentences could one not write beginning "For many years i t was not believed possible that u n t i l " A good example was the four-minute mile. U n t i l Bannister proved that a man could run a mile i n four minutes i t had been believed impossible; since then i t has become commonplace fo r athletes to run a mile i n four minutes.

What are the factors that l i m i t one's b e l i e f s , either personally, or as a member of society as a whole? There are many factors involved of course, and we w i l l not be able to l i s t them here, but perhaps we can touch upon some that are most relevant to the subject under discussion. Fear of the unknown i s of course a l i m i t i n g factor; we cannot bring ourselves to believe i n something that we do not understand or cannot comprehend. Fear i s a prime fact o r i n the l i m i t a t i o n of b e l i e f . As individuals, and as a society, we do not, generally speaking, l i k e change. I f b e l i e f in a hitherto unaccepted idea w i l l e f f e c t r a d i c a l changes i n our l i v e s , we would prefer not to believe i t . We do not l i k e to believe that some members of our society might have powers, g i f t s , or a b i l i t i e s , d i f f e r e n t from the rest of us. We prefer to believe that we are a l l b a s i c a l l y very much a l i k e . But above a l l we f i n d i t d i f f i c u l t to believe anything that d i r e c t l y contradicts the known laws of science and the universe as we know them today. At any given point i n time, society as a whole, seems to believe that i f i t hasn't the answers to a l l problems, at l e a s t the problems are known and the methods of solving them are at hand. I t seems d i f f i c u l t to believe that there are areas yet t o t a l l y unexplored, problems not yet even f a i n t l y recognized, and answers quite out of range, that w i l l face future generations of humankind. I think i t was Frances Bacon who remarked i n the seventeenth century that everything was now discovered, there was nothing l e f t to dot However, hi s t o r y has shown in the enormous progress that has been made, and continues to be made, that there are ever 'fresh f i e l d s to conquer'. History has also shown that, generally speaking, the people who are i n the vanguard of discovery, those who are pointing the way to the next area of experimentation, those who are looking round the next bend, are generally derided, and they are not believed. This has c e r t a i n l y been true f o r parapsychologists, as i t has f o r many other s c i e n t i s t s .

So i n the l i g h t of these remarks, l e t us look at what experiences some people are having, and see i f they can give an indic a t i o n of where the science of parapsychology should be leading us.

Frequency of Direct Experiences.

From time to time researchers i n parapsychology have attempted to ascertain what proportion of the general population experiences paranormal events, and also which type of phenomenon i s most commonly encountered.

The f i r s t survey undertaken i n t h i s regard was the one undertaken i n the very early days of the hi s t o r y of the Society of Psychical Research and conducted by i t s founders. I t became known afterwards as the Census of Hallucinations, and the material received from t h i s survey formed tne oasis of many investigative reports i n the years that followed. The survey was undertaken i n the years 1889-1892. The main question read as follows:

"Have you ever, when believing yourself to be completely awake, had a v i v i d impression of seeing, or being touched by a l i v i n g being or inanimate object, or of hearing a voice; which impression as fa r as you could discover was not due to any external cause?"

I t should, be noted that the early psychical researchers were primarily interested i n proof of survival, and much of t h e i r research was directed to obtaining such proof. For instance, they s p e c i f i c a l l y excluded any attempt to record instances of telepathy, which they regarded as outside the scope of th i s p a r t i c u l a r enquiry.

The investigators received 17,000 answers to th e i r questionnaire, a very good response, p a r t i c u l a r l y at that time. Of the 17,000 answers 2272 were i n the affirmative, but on rigorously s c r u t i n i z i n g the answers and excluding those not f u l l y and c l e a r l y dealing with a l l the attendant questions, the investigators were l e f t with 353 cases which they f e l t were t o t a l l y affirmative. As a matter of interest we might note that they excluded answers that dealt with hallucinations occuring duing i l l n e s s e s of a kind i n which delirium i s known to occur; dream images and nightmares (even when p e r s i s t i n g into the waking state; voices rousing the percipient from sleep; visions of object seen with closed eyes; and a number of other similar catego I t should be noted that t h i s investigation was carried out on a personal basis - the members of the SPR (and some of th e i r friends) collected the information, and most of the people r e l a t i n g t h e i r experiences told them personally to the questioners. Some stories were incomplete because the

person concerned had forgotten some of the d e t a i l s and so t h e i r experience was not included in the f i n a l count. As i n a l l such investigations the anonymity of the informant was respected. As we have said the re s u l t s of the Census gave r i s e to many a r t i c l e s and hooks "being written, and was a source of material f o r many years.

We ourselves are not aware of a similar widespread investigation being conducted u n t i l we ourselves attempted a s i m i l a r feat i n 1978. This was conducted d i f f e r e n t l y from the o r i g i n a l Census of Hallucinations by the S.P.R. We arranged f o r a questionnaire to be printed i n a weekly newspaper which had a wide c i r c u l a t i o n i n North America, The National Enquirer. The questionnaire was accompanied by an a r t i c l e explaining the research nature of the project and i n v i t i n g r e p l i e s which would be treated i n the s t r i c t e s t confidence. The questions were wide-ranging, covering a variety of paranormal phenomena, and the informants were asked to d e t a i l t h e i r experiences on a separate piece of paper i n th e i r own words. The questions were as follows!

1. Have you ever seen, heard, smelled, f e l t , or tasted anything that was not due to any physical cause?

2. Have you ever had a dream or v i s i o n which came true?

3 . Have you ever bent or moved an object solely by using the power of your mind?

4. Have you ever had the experience of f l o a t i n g away from your body?

5. Have you ever sent messages to someone else or received messages using only the power of your mind?

6. Have you ever acawately made a prediction about an important event prior to i t s actual occurrence?

7. Did you ever get the strong f e e l i n g an event was actually taking place at that exact moment and then found out l a t e r i t did i n fact happen?

8. Have you ever healed an injury, or successfully treated an i l l n e s s or ailment of someone else using mind power?

9. Have you ever seen objects move by themselves, or seen ghostlike figures, or heard unexplained sounds?

10. Have you ever had experiences or memories of a previous l i f e ?

11. Have you ever experienced, any other strange, unexplained phenomenon?

As we have noted the range of th i s questionnaire f a r exceeded that of the o r i g i n a l Census of Hallucinations. We received in reply a t o t a l of 3,3̂ -0 l e t t e r s d e t a i l i n g 19,607 experiences altogether. (It should "be noted that whereas the o r i g i n a l Census of the S.P.R. engendered 17,000 answers, only 2,272 related affirmative experiences, whereas our own questionnaire e l i c i t e d i n fa c t 19,607 t o t a l experiences). Most of the returned questionnaire forms wen? accompanied by l e t t e r s explaining i n d e t a i l the writer's experiences. As w i l l be seen,a large number of the respondents were able to answer in the affirmative to more than one question. The answers were distributed among the questions roughly i n the proportion we have ourselves come to expect i n the population at large. The figures were as follows:

For question No 1. 2480 people replied i n the affirmative; 2. 2599 -3. 366 4. 1721 •• 5. 2071 .. 6. 17̂ 3 •• 7. 1886 .. 8. 837 •• 9. 2104

10. I k k 5 -• 11. 2355

Total 19607

Generally speaking we were not able to folbw up more than a f r a c t i o n of these stories for further confirmation or amplification,' and i n fact have not had the opportunity or time to publish much i n the way of any r e f l e c t i o n on these r e s u l t s . Approximately one quarter of the r e p l i e s came from men (686) as opposed to 2,619 from women, some people did not disclose t h e i r sex when replying. I think i t f a i r to say we were surprised by the number of people answering af f i r m a t i v e l y to No. 3" "the P.K. question, as well as by the number of people who claimed to have successfuly made a prediction of the future. Question number 11 was a 'catch-all' question, and included many reported UFO sightings. Other factors which surprised us were the number of people who reported seeing l i g h t s - b a l l s of l i g h t , sparks of l i g h t , - i n polt e r g e i s t situations, a phenomenon with which we were only then becoming fa m i l i a r , and also the number of people reporting teleportation

experiences althqmgh we had not s p e c i f i c a l l y mentioned t h i s phenomenon. We s h a l l return to some of the actual s t o r i e s l a t e r i n thi s paper.

F i n a l l y , very recently, on Sunday October 11th I987, i n fact, Tom Harpur,. the re l i g i o u s editor of the Star newspaper writes as follows;

" M i l l i o n s of North Americans now say they undergo mystical or psychic experiences, according to p r i e s t - s o c i o l o g i s t Rev. Andrew Greeley.

These range from ESP (67 per cent of a l l adults) to some form of contact with the dead (42 per cent, up 24 per cent from h i s 1975 p o l l ) . My own recent informal p o l l i n g of readers supports these figures. In a column on July 5 I asked people to write saying whether or not they believe i n l i f e a f t e r death,

As well, I asked, "Have you ever experienced anything that amo unts to s o l i d evidence ajs f a r as you yourself are concerned?" The response was almost overwhelming. Only about 5 per cent said they thought such b e l i e f was nonsense or wishful thinking. Nearly 200 l e t t e r s affirmed the deep conviction that t h i s hope corresponds to an eternal r e a l i t y . Of these, more than 50 per cent witnessed to an encounter with dead loved ones. Some were more convincing or inexplicable than others. But what struck me most f o r c i b l y was the way the majority began with some form of the following! "I have never told this to anyone before; i t seemed too private or e l s e l thought others would think I was crazy. I am only t e l l i n g i t now because you asked. Please respect my anonymity". "

Again, Harpur's questionnaire limited i t s e l f to proof of survival of death, and the c r i t i c i s m might also be l e v e l l e d that his readership could quite well be biased i n favour of b e l i e f i n survival, but hi s readers provided him with what they f e l t was evidence, not just testimony to th e i r b e l i e f .

I t i s absolutely t y p i c a l of the majority of these correspondents that they do not wish t h e i r i d e n t i t y to be revealed; they are not seeking pu b l i c i t y ? they have a genuine fear of being thought crazy, and i n the majority of cases they are seeking some l o g i c a l and reasonable explanation f o r the events they have experienced.

Some magazines and journals, i n p a r t i c u l a r FATE magazine, published monthly i n Highland Park, I l l i n o i s , 60035, feature

a regular column d e t a i l i n g readers' experiences with the paranormal. The journals of the societies, (the S.P.R. and the A.S.P.R.) carry similar accounts from time to time, while the more s t r i k i n g happenings, such as violent p o l t e r g e s i t outbreaks may make the pages of the national Press. Yet, strangely, while the public generally w i l l believe most of what i t sees i n print, s t o r i e s of paranormal events are lar g e l y ignored. Those who have had such experiences believe what they read about others' experiences', those who have not had a personal experience tend to either exclude them from t h e i r thinking or subject them to outright r i d i c u l e . I t seems certain that acceptance of paranormal events i s bound up i n one's personal b e l i e f systems, thus i n some way relegating them to the area of r e l i g i o n rather than science. And yet these are not just matters of f a i t h , i n fa c t they frequently have nothing to do with personal f a i t h , they are matters of r e a l i t y and actual experience.

Stories of Personal Experiences.

People's personal experiences range, as we have said e a r l i e r , over a wide var i e t y of types of experience. They also range i n degree. By t h i s we mean that some people may only have one or two experiences i n a li f e t i m e , whereas others may have had many many experiences. I t has been our own personal experience that when addressing an audience of some 30 people or more one asks the question "Have you ever had an experience you cannot explain by normal means?" at le a s t % or 3 people w i l l reply i n the affirmative, and the events w i l l range from the apparently t r i v i a l to events which have chamged t h e i r whole l i v e s .

Over the years we have ourselves been told some hundreds of accounts of strange things that have happened to people, and the l i t e r a t u r e of parapsychology contains many hundreds more, most of them well attested, and many of them having been thoroughly investigated. We w i l l relate a few of the more t y p i c a l ones i n the following pages.

Perhaps the most commonly related experience i s that of seeing a ghost, or apparition, and of course many of these are subjective experiences. A t y p i c a l story i s the following, which appeared i n the SPR Newsletter, January 1987. E n t i t l e d The Glid i n g Grey Lady, i t reads as follows:

"In the late autumn of 1973 when I was 19 years old, I returned one evening to the London Hospital, Whitechapel, where I was tr a i n i n g to be a nurse. I was walking down Houndsditch towards Mdgate from Bishopsgate. I t was almost dark, just a f t e r n i g h t f a l l , and the street was well l i t with street lamps. I was f a i r l y a l e r t —necessary when walking through London streets

alone at night. I t was a Sunday evening and there were a few other people around. As I walked along I saw a woman walking towards me. She wore a crinol i n e dress very f u l l and elaborate l i k e her hai r s t y l e , with i t s r i n g l e t s and curls dressed high on her head. I thought she must be on her way to a fancy dress party but i t seemed strange that she was on her own. As she approached and passed me I noticed several more things that made me wonder i f she were 'real'. F i r s t l y , no one else i n the road looked at her. Secondly, she had a very serious deadpan expression, which would have been unusual i f she were 'dressed up'; t h i r d l y , she made no eye contact with me at a l l - just looked straight ahead (I would have expected her to be s l i g h t l y embarrassed to meet someone as she was looking so strange). Fourthly she appeared to be grey a l l over. Under sodium l i g h t s colours a l t e r I know, but her appearance was very d i f f e r e n t from others I had passed during my walk. Her colouring was altogether paler, and her hair, skin and clothes were a l l the same shade. F i n a l l y , the strangest thing I noticed was that she had no gait at a l l . She looked as i f she had skates on under her voluminous s k i r t s and was r o l l i n g along. She went by as noiselessly as i f she were g l i d i n g .

Once she had passed me I was quite taken aback trying to f i t a l l the images together. I should have turned around to look at her but I think a mixture of shock and fear plus not wanting to appear c h i l d i s h for staring made me walk very quickly ahead. I did glance around a few minutes l a t e r but could see no sign of her, only other pedestrians, a l l normal-looking.

I hope I have retold my experience accurately and without embellishment. I have told very few people of my experience because I cannot put i t under the heading of 'ghost'. However, I have not experienced anything l i k e i t before or since.

I have pondered on the mystery f o r 13 years and s t i l l cannot decide i n my own mind i f she was a r e a l person or not. I wish I had had the presence of mind to reach out and touch her; t h i s might have settled the issue."

The l e t t e r i s signed with the writer's name and address i n th i s case. In t h i s p a r t i c u l a r case i t should be noted that the percipient herself i s doubtful as to whether what she saw was a 'ghost' or not, but i n view of the behaviour of the other people on the street, and the ov e r a l l 'grey' colour of the apparition, i t seems l i k e l y that i t was no real person that she saw on the street. I t i s not at a l l uncommon fo r people to have only one such experience, with no apparent reason why they should see a ghost at that p a r t i c u l a r time.

I t i s important also to r e a l i s e that the greater number of ghosts or apparitions that people see are not of the dramatic va r i e t y we are led to believe when reading f i c t i o n , but are more frequently taken to be 'real' people i n normal surroundings, u n t i l something about t h e i r appearance, or the circumstances, leads the viewer to r e a l i s e that they are not l i v i n g human beings. Also, although ghosts tend to appear at times of stress, or i l l n e s s on the part of the viewer, i t sometimes happens that there i s no apparent reason, as in the case mentioned above, f o r the person to see a ghost.

Poltergeist outbreaks are much more common than i s generally r e a l i s e d . I t i s only the prolonged and v i o l e n t type of happening that reaches the pages of the d a i l y newspaper; th i s kind of phenomenon i s d i f f i c u l t to conceal, but most people who experience minor outbreaks w i l l go to almost any length to hide from t h e i r neighbours and friends what i s happening to them. The people who suffer such an outbreak are usually frightened, uncomfortable, bewildered, and they only want to know 'how to make i t go away'. Sometimes we have had as many as three or four people a week seeking our help and advice i n a poltergeist case. They come to us because they r e a l i s e we understand what i s happening, and we w i l l not disbelieve them, or t e l l them they are crazyj Because th i s has been a special area of study with us we have been the recipients of a large number of varied st o r i e s . As the reader w i l l know from our previous writings i n a l l the cases which we have studied over the years some form of s t r e s s f u l s i t u a t i o n surrounding the people concerned i s present.

The inte r e s t i n g thing about polte r g e i s t r y i s that i t can take so many forms; sometimes a number of the various phenomena w i l l be present, at others only one of many possible phenomena occurs. We have l i s t e d in other places the many things that can happen i n a pol t e r g e i s t situation, noises, sounds of footsteps, objects moving, b e l l s ringing, voices heard, l i g h t s flashing on and off, b a l l s of l i g h t appearing, objects appearing and disappearing, and so on. I t i s hard to choose examples, but one of the early accounts that was given to me was t y p i c a l . I was at the time working as a counsellor with a group of divorced women who were needing help i n dealing with t h e i r children's response to the divorce. One of these women came to me one day (she did not at that time know of my inter e s t i n parapsychology, and indeed he r s e l f knew nothing of the subject). She related the following event. She and her husband had had a v i o l e n t argu?ment two days previously, i n front of t h e i r teenage daughter, who was very upset over the parents' impending separation.

The husband l e f t the house i n a rage, followed shortly afterwards by h i s wife, leaving the daughter s i t t i n g alone at the breakfast table. When the mother returned l a t e r she told me she found the g i r l , 'as white as a sheet' waiting outside the house. When questioned she stated that a f t e r the parents had l e f t a l l the doors i n the house opened and slammed shut with a loud noise, although there was no wind. She then said that her mother's bag ffif k n i tting, which had been s i t t i n g on a chair in the dining room, slowly rose and floated through the open hatch into the kitchen and rested upon the top of the garbage container. When the mother went into the house th i s was indeed where she found i t . The mother's reaction was that the g i r l had become mentally i l l , and needed psychiatric treatment. She was quite surprised when I took the matter very calmly, and explained about p o l t e r g e i s t r y . I advised that i f the s i t u a t i o n of stress within the family was resolved, then there wwould l i k e l y be no more trouble; t h i s was indeed the case. As a r e s u l t of t h i s episode I was asked to give a talk to t h i s p a r t i c u l a r group about p o l t e r g e i s t phenomena, and the r e l a t i o n of stress to these outbreaks. I t was interesting to discover that quite a number of the members had had p o l t e r g e i s t experiences of one sort or another at the times when the stress of t h e i r situation was at i t s worst. Commonly they reported things such as l i g h t switches going on and o f f as they passed, noises heard, such as furniture being dragged, or f o o t f a l l s , and objects being moved.

The above i s a very t y p i c a l example of po l t e r g e i s t r y i n a sit u a t i o n where the people concerned have never been e s p e c i a l l y interested i n the subject; indeed i n this case they did not even know the word, and they were t o t a l l y unable to understand what was happening. Such cases are happening a l l the time.

An interesting feature of many modern polt e r g e i s t cases i s the fa c t that modern e l e c t r i c a l apparatus i s often put out of commission; we have been f a m i l i a r f o r some time with tape recorders malfunctioning i n the presence of a pol t e r g e i s t person, and we are aware that strange things happen at times with cameras. More recently we have had reports of computers malfunctioning during a pol t e r g e i s t episode. Several people wrote of th i s phenomenon i n answer to our questionnaire. The following case i s worth quoting i n f u l l ; i t was published i n July 1987 in the SPR Newsletter.

"Most of the following events took place i n an o f f i c e measuring about 14 foot by 9 foot with one door and p a r t i a l glass p a r t i t i o n i n g . They happened only when a young man in

h i s "twenties (hereafter referred to as "X") was in or near the o f f i c e . Similar events occurred i n another adjoining o f f i c e when "X" was present'.' (There follows a description of the arrangements of the o f f i c e , accompanied by a sketch). "The f i r s t PK event was while I was s i t t i n g at my desk. Suddenly the p l a s t i c cap of a soap dispenser flew past me apparently from the d i r e c t i o n of the doorway, f a l l i n g on the f l o o r behind me. As someone happened to be passing along the corridor outside at the time I assumed he had done i t f o r a joke; but when questioned he vehemently denied i t . The cap proved to have come from the t o i l e t behind the cupboards. (Note: these cupboards were behind the writer's desk, and opposite the door.) From then on f o r about two weeks there was a continuous shower of small a r t i c l e s including coins, most of which were of the value of 2p and of date p r i o r to that of the events. I eventually had quite a c o l l e c t i o n of these a r t i c l e s which I kept i n my drawer. Along the corridor just beyond the lavatories was a drinks dispenser f o r which 2p coins were required.

Three events I remember most v i v i d l y :

(1) I was s i t t i n g at the table i n the o f f i c e when before my eyes about two feet away a piece of wood materialised out of th i n a i r , and floated s i l e n t l y to the ground. I picked ip up and found i t to be a p e r f e c t l y normal piece of wood. What I noticed p a r t i c u l a r l y was that i t f e l l at constant v e l o c i t y , not accelerating as an object normally does under gravity.

(2) I was s i t t i n g at my desk when there was a tremendous crack l i k e a r i f l e shot, and a 2p coin f e l l to the f l o o r . The noise unnerved me and I jumped up from my desk and moved to the doorway. There followed two more loud "cracks" and two more 2p coins appeared on the f l o o r , behind my desk. I was quite frightened because I thought the coins were h i t t i n g the glass p a r t i t i o n and I was a f r a i d the glass would shatter. However, whilst standing i n the doorway there was another loud crack and I was fortunate to actually see a coin materialise out of thin a i r and slowly drop to the ground. I then re a l i s e d that the noise I had heard was not that Of coins h i t t i n g the glass but that of the coins materialising.

(3) The following incident was perhaps the most spectacular of a l l . A senior colleague of mine came into the o f f i c e . I was s i t t i n g at my desk and X was at the other end. I t was time f o r me to go to lunch so I rose from my chair and moved through the doorway into the corridor leaving my colleague i n the o f f i c e . At the moment when I had almost closed the door and was standing i n the corridor there was a tremendous crack. I opened the door and I immediately noticed a t e r r i b l e smell

of rotten eggs; and l y i n g on the f l o o r was a staple remover which c e r t a i n l y had not been there a few moments before. I went to my desk, which was locked, opened the drawer where I kept my staple remover and found i t was no longer there. I am sure the one on the f l o o r was mine as i t had certain damage to i t which would be unlikely to be duplicated on another. My colleague picked ib up and reported i t was at normal temperature.

A feature of the phenomena was that whenever X used the computer terminal i n my o f f i c e i t would eventually "crash" a f t e r a short time. My colleague reported that once in hi s own o f f i c e he was talking on the telephone when X came i n . As he did so interference noise started in the earpiece and the nearer X appraached the louder i t became u n t i l i t was impossible to hear the person at the other end of the l i n e .

I o f f e r no explanation of the above phenomena, but merely record what I saw and heard. Needless to say*there were many who refused to believe any of the events could actually have happened?

and I count myself fortunate that the major event occurred while I was outside the o f f i c e and i n the presence of my senior colleague who was an i n i t i a l unbeliever.

To my layman's mind i t seems that during PK a c t i v i t y when an object materialises the process, whatever i t may be, produces a loud noise similar I suppose to the sonic boom. So f a r as I am aware no objects dematerialised.

All the phenomena ceased completely when X l e f t the Company."

I quoted the above account as an i l l u s t r a t i o n of interference with computers and telephones during a p o l t e r g e i s t outbreak, but of course, the reader w i l l have been aware that another phenomenon was especially to the fore i n t h i s p a r t i c u l a r case, that of teleportation.

On a c r e d i b i l i t y scale teleportation i s perhaps the most d i f f i c u l t phenomenon to believe. The most experienced parapsychologists f i n d i t a d i f f i c u l t p i l l to swallow, and i t has been largely ignored as a phenomenon for much of the time. But i t i s d i f f i c u l t to ignore. Accounts of teleportations occur continually, right through the l i t e r a t u r e and, as i n the case quoted aoove ;in modern situations. Moreover i t seems to happen i n i s o l a t i o n , i n much the same way as many people report just one isolated p o l t e r g e i s t e f f e c t . In this paper for the sake of c l a r i t y I w i l l use the word teleportation to cover both the inexplicable appearance, as well as disappearance of objects; these objects are generally referred to as 'apports*.

Teleporation i s d i f f e r e n t from the movement of objects that occurs i n pol t e r g e i s t situations, although frequently both types of phenomenon are present. A teleported object may vanish, never to reappear, or by contrast an object t o t a l l y unfamiliar to the recipient may suddenly appear before h i s or her astonished eyes, as i n the case related above. We have had some very puzzling cases reported to us over the years by people whose honesty i n reporting i s impossible to doubt. A s t r i k i n g case was that of a lady i n a small town in England some twenty years ago who told us that she had bought a new suit to attend a wedding, and hung i t i n her wardrobe a few weeks before the wedding. On the day she went to her wardrobe, only to f i n d the s u i t had gone. She searched high and low, to no a v a i l . The apparent theft was reported to the police, although nothing else was taken, and they had not been aware of a break-in. Some months l a t e r the family moved,: and the wardrobe was to go with the furni t u r e . I t was emptied, and the clothes packed separately? the wardrobe was too large to be transported down the s t a i r s in one piece, so i t was dismantled, and reassembled i n the new home. When the lady opened the door in her new home to replace her clothes, to her astonishment there was her new wedding suit, hanging alone i n the wardrobe. Of course the moving men declared i t was empty when they had reassembled the wardrobe i n i t s new situation. A neighbour of ours here in Toronto, who has no p a r t i c u l a r interest i n parapsychology, l o s t a costume i n similar circumstances some three years ago. She had bought i t f o r a special occasion, and when she went to put i t on on the night i n question i t had disappeared from her closet. Again there was no evidence that i t might have been stolen. That p a r t i c u l a r costume has not yet reappeared. Dr. Brunvand, the President of the American Folklore Society t e l l s us of one of his correspondents who wrote to him of a mysterious appearance of some clothing. This p a r t i c u l a r lady was nursing her t o t a l l y bedridden mother in her home i n a remote country area. On the afternoon i n question, a f t e r s e t t l i n g her mother down fo r a sleep, she sat at her desk, which overlooked the one lane which led to the house to do some writing. She had been wishing as she tended her mother that she could go into town and buy her mother some new dressing gowns, her current bedclothing was getting rather worn. During the course of the afternoon she heard a r a t t l i n g i n her mother's room, but i t was a small sound and she didn't investigate. Later, when her mother was awake she went in, and i n the course of attending to her mother she opened the closet door, only to f i n d several new and be a u t i f u l nightgowns hanging on the r a i l . She realized that the small sound she had heard was l i k e to the noise a hanger might make on the r a i l s . Her mother was t o t a l l y bedridden, and nobody to her certain knowledge had approached the house that afternoon.

I t happens that these three stories relate to the disappearance and appearance of clothing, but any object can be the focus of such phenomena. We a l l know how easy i t i s to misplace keys, and perhaps we might tend to d i s c r e d t i t a story about the loss and reappearance of keys, but we were struck by one account given us. The lady i n question kept the keys to her o f f i c e and her car keys on the same ri n g . On t h i s p a r t i c u l a r day she had driven to her o f f i c e , locked her car, and used the keys to go into the o f f i c e (she worked alone). On leaving f o r the day she could not find the keys i n order to lock the o f f i c e and return homej f i n a l l y she wandered over to her car, wondering i f by chance she had at l e a s t l e f t i t unlocked and could go home, only to see on the seat of the car, which was locked, the bunch of missing keys. She could not have locked the car, or opened the o f f i c e without the keys, and yet there they were inside the locked car, i n p l a i n view on the seat. When she f i n a l l y got the car undone, and arrived home she said "on the kitchen table, i n a heap, were a number of objects which had gone missing over the past few months. Most of them I had not bothered about, believing they would turn up again sometime, they had been misplaced, and together with them were a number of objects I had not realised were missing, and some I did not recognise at a l l " . I t was as i f some agency had gathered up a bunch of transported objects and returned them i n a heap. This i s another c h a r a c t i s t i c of teleportation; frequently missing a r t i c l e s are returned in a bunch, altogether, as i f they had been gathered i n some kind of 'storeeoom! in another dimension.

In most cases the objects appear or disappear without the act being seen by the people around, but that i s not always the case. I wonder whether i t i s more disconcerting to see something vanish, or to see something suddenly appear before your eyes? I remember the t o t a l astonishment i n the voice of a person who related to me of an occasion when he was using a small penknife to cut the root of a plant, when suddenly the knife vanished from h i s hand, and the t o t a l i n c r e d u l i t y i n the account given by a lady who was replacing a l i g h t bulb, when suddenly the l i g h t bulb was no longer i n her hand - i t had 'dematerialised'. When things reappear they usually seem to drop gently from the c e i l i n g , not acting as i f they are thrown, but people describe them as gently f l o a t i n g to the ground. Some people, l i k e the man i n the e a r l i e r story who saw the 2p pieces materialise have ac t u a l l y seen the objects appearing. Generally they appear completely, but we have a l e t t e r from one lady who said she saw a book gradually appear - cover f i r s t . She said the book had been missed and had been searched for. This rather reminds one

of the Cheshire Cat i n A l i c e i n Wonderland whose face gradual ly vanished u n t i l only the g r i n was l e f t . Lewis C a r r o l l , author of A l i c e was of course interested i n psychic research, and a member of the Society for Psych ica l Research.

DISCUSSION.

While one could e a s i l y discount the odd i n d i v i d u a l story as being the exaggeration of a f a n c i f u l mind, or an embroidered vers ion of a simpler t r u t h , i t i s impossible to dismiss a l l the accounts that have been given of a l l these phenomena. Together they make up a body of evidence which cannot be discounted. Simply because we f i n d i t d i f f i c u l t to encompass these s tor ie s i n our present b e l i e f system we cannot af ford to ignore them. They are a part of our cu l ture , our society , our s o c i o l o g i c a l pattern, whether we l i k e i t or not . Whether we l i k e i t or not a large part o f our society has experiences that are not current ly accepted by the s c i e n t i f i c community, or by some others .

As regards the " s c i e n t i f i c community" or to put i t more broadly "the corpus of o f f i c i a l knowledge" we have to be f a i r . Modern science i n England and France had i t s b i r t h i n a per iod characterised by two fr ighten ing things, on the one hand was a host of superst i t ions leading to witchcraft persecutions, torture and death, on the other r e l i g i o u s intolerance leading to persecutions for heresy* torture and death, and furthermore to atrocious wars of r e l i g i o n . These horrors ceased i n t o t a l i t y less than three centuries ago. An i m p a r t i a l person can therefore sympathize to an appreciable degree with the u l t r a s c i e n t i f i c at t i tude that bans even the mere d iscuss ion of the paranormal.

One may also sympathize to some extent with C h r i s t i a n c lergy i n most countries who (with a very few honourable exceptions i n North America and B r i t a i n ) t o t a l l y ignore the whole f i e l d of the paranormal. Now, instead of being top dogs, as they were not so long ago, they have, i n t e l l e c t u a l l y , to keep a low p r o f i l e . Otherwise past excesses of r e l i g i o u s zea l , super pa tr io t i sm, and the dismal record of dogmatism, persecution, and into lerance , might be thrown i n t h e i r face .

One could say that, however i t might be amongst laymen, i n the profess iona l c lasses i n regard to poss ib le things beyond our present mortal ken, an unenterpris ing caution re igns . Because the world i s inhabited by actual people and not by standard textbooks, strange r e a l i t i e s perpetual ly keep breaking i n whatever the B r i t i s h Medical Journa l . The Journal o f Psych ia try ,

The Church Times,or the Vat ican might say. The p l i g h t of t h © s e persons who experience paranormal phenomena which are not of psychopathological o r i g i n i s often a very miserable one. Often t h e i r medical advisers are quite unhelpful whether i t be a case of mental impressions or o f a p o l t e r g e i s t outbreak. The l o c a l c lergy are, on the whole, even more blank and i n d i f f e r e n t than the family doctors or p s y c h i a t r i s t s . I t should be sa id that i n Toronto at l eas t there i s a commendable leavening of physic ians who w i l l take the trouble to l i s t e n to t h e i r pat ients and who can recognise a paranormal event when i t i s described to themi Even they are few i n number.

S i m i l a r l y as regards to the c lergy , nothing i n our experience over near ly two decades encourages us to suppose that more than a handful o f minis ters i n t h i s metropolis have the s l i g h t e s t i n k l i n g as to what the subject i s about. In fa i rness one might ask whether or not a b e l i e f i n the paranormal i s not i n fac t harder for a c l e r i c than f o r a lay s c i e n t i s t ? This may seem a strange question to ask. However i t may become i n t e l l i g i b l e i f we r e f l e c t that these good people may fear parapsychology as a c r i t i q u e of r e l i g i o n . The methods o f our science, f or such i t i s , e n t a i l the minute examination of the a l leged processes of reve la t ion , v i s i o n , and mirac les . Orthodox science mainly lays o f f th i s kind of c r i t i c i s m on account of a kind o f t a c i t treaty between science and formal Western r e l i g i o n entered into by about 1900 A.D. But parapsychology, (quite innocently and without meaning to) by i t s very nature and type of analys i s cuts nearer to the bone. I t t reats r e l i g i o u s h i s t o r y as being on a par with any other form of h i s t o r y , a l b e i t that i t appl ies a calculus more ample and powerful than the usual secular h i s t o r i a n — one comprising psychology and parapsychological experience.

There i s another poss ible reason why C h r i s t i a n c lergy tend to shun parapsychological knowledge. Any dispassionate study of paranormal phenomena which extends over the secular f i e l d , the area o f C h r i s t i a n r e l i g i o n , and other r e l i g i o n s i s , we f e e l , l i k e l y to a r r i v e at the conclusion that strange but strangely s i m i l a r happenings occur both i n the secular sphere and i n the spheres of not one but many r e l i g i o n s (New Horizons Review, Stigmata and Phys io log i ca l and other Phenomena of Myst ic i sm, March 1987). Thus parapsychology may embarrass those who bel ieve i n the uniqueness of t h e i r r e l i g i o n , whatever i t might be, Judaic , C h r i s t i a n , or Is lamic; i n t h i s connection i t could f a i r l y be said that some o r i e n t a l r e l i g i o n s are in t ere s t ing i n being less dogmatic.

However i t i s f a i r to say that a l l the foregoing speculations may he al together too high-flown and c l e r i c a l t i m i d i t y i n t h i s f i e l d i s e n t i r e l y due to the lack of teaching about the paranormal given i n Colleges i n r e l a t i o n e i t h e r to theology or to pas tora l care.

CONCLUSION.

But to revert to the main theme o f t h i s paper — people's raw experiences.

What do these s tor i e s t e l l us i n s o c i o l o g i c a l terms? Are we moving towards a culture that accepts that despite technologica l advances i n communication we can s t i l l communicate personal ly and on a one-to-one bas is by means of telepathy? Are we evolving into a society that i s s p l i t between the technological and s c i e n t i f i c world that we regard as ' r e a l ' and that 'other' world where we can communicate t e l e p a t h i c a l l y , move objects , heal the s ick , and see into the future?

When we look at what some people are experiencing we see a soc iety that regards i t s e l f as more c lo se -kn i t and more i n communication than we would have be l ieved. Although we have moved away from many conventional r e l i g i o n s , i t would seem there i s a basic b e l i e f that i s almost a un iversa l r e l i g i o n to which we a l l subscribe and t h i s i s manifested often i n paranormal phenomena.

Sociology i s the study of the evolut ion of human soc iety , and i t s progress. Are paranormal phenomena an i n d i c a t i o n of soc ie ty ' s progress, or do they const i tute a r e l i c of what we once were, but are now no more?

New Horizons Research Foundation Paper 28 The original copy deposited at the University of Manitoba Department of Archives and Special Collections contains more pages than this digital copy. Due to the time that would be involved in seeking usage permissions, the pages listed below have been omitted from this digital copy which is being made freely available for research and educational purposes.

Page(s) 20-24 Andrew MacKenzie, “Parapsychology Today: How Common are

Psychic Experiences?,” Fate (November 1987), pp. 42-50.

2$

P.A.Convention Edinburgh, August 1987 Invited Address

Extreme Phenomena and the Problem of C r e d i b i l i t y by

John B e l o f f

Department of P s y c h o l o g y U n i v e r s i t y of E d i n b u r g h George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ

Extreme Phenomena and the Problem of C r e d i b i l i t y John B e l o f f

I cannot define what I mean by 'extreme phenomena' I can only offer examples. Yet I am confident that a l l of you who are familiar with the literature of psychical research w i l l understand what i t i s that I am talking about. From time to time we come across certain claims about which one can say only that they take one's breath away. They seem to go so far beyond anything in our own experience and to make such a mockery of a l l our presumptions as to the kind of world i t i s we l i v e i n that words f a i l us, and yet we can see no easy way of dismissing them as sheer fantasy.. Our

sorcery ancestors called them 'miracles' or, i f they resented them, m»g»u or witch­c r a f t ; we would do best to adopt a neutral term so I am c a l l i n g them 'ex­treme phenomena'.

The problem of c r e d i b i l i t y i s best understood as the attempt to provide an answer to the age-old question: what ought a rational person to believe ? In one sense, of course, this question i s decidedly odd. For, in any given situation at any given time, either one believes a certain proposition or one does not, one does not inquire whether i t i s one's duty to believe or to disbelieve. On the other hand a wise person w i l l try to formulate certain general principles or guidelines so as to anticipate a particular contingency and make i t easier to reach a satisfactory decision when confronted by some contentious issue. This problem of specifying what i s credible or incredible has exercised philosophers since antiquity. The Greek skeptics were greatly preoccupied with i t although mainly in the negative sense of finding reasons to doubt everything. As with a number of the perennial problems of philosophy - e.g. the problem of causation or the problem of personal identity - i t i s i n the writings of David Hume that we find i t s classic expression and Hume, moreover, brought i t to bear directly on the question of extreme phenomena. So allow me to remind you what Hume has to say on this topic i n his justly celebrated essay on miracles. There he lays i t down quite simply that i n no circumstances i s one ever j u s t i f i e d in believing that a miracle has occurred, i f by 'miracle' we mean some sing­ular violation of the known laws of nature, i f only because those same laws are constantly being confirmed in our experience whereas the miracle i s , by definition, a one-off event.

Hume was not being dogmatic in speaking so categorically. He was not denying that miracles might occur, indeed i t was he who pointed out that we can have no proof that the laws of nature w i l l hold from one day to the next. What he does i n s i s t on i s that we can never bej-justified in accepting a miracle unless^we could be sure that i t would be an even greater miracle i f the person te s t i f y i n g to miracle were t e l l i n g a l i e .

But, given the f a l l i b i l i t y of human beings, such could never be the case. To

drive home his point he imagines what would happen i f a l l the competent

authorit ies agreed that Queen Elizabeth of England, a month after her

burial,came back to l i f e , ascended the throne and reigned for a further

three years. Would he, as an his tor ian - and in his day, I may say, he

was esteemed more as an his tor ian than as a philosopher - have to concur

with th is consensus of experts and admit that here at least was a genuine

miracle ? By no means, "I would s t i l l reply" he says "that the knavery and

f o l l y of men are such common phenomena, that I should rather believe the

most extraordinary events to ar ise from their concurrence, than admit so

s ignal a v io la t ion of the laws of nature". Although Hume's essay did not

go unanswered by philosophers and c r i t i c s who seized upon various weakness­

es and inconsistencies in his argument, by and large most se l f - s ty led r a t i o n ­

a l i s t s since then, up to and including members of CSICOP, have been content

to follow Hume's l i n e . Tom Paine, the 250th anniversary of whose b ir th we

celebrate this year, put i t a l l in a nutshell when he asks, r h e t o r i c a l l y ,

whether i t i s more l i k e l y that nature should go out of her way than that a

man should t e l l a l i e ?

In what follows I shal l try to show, f i r s t , that Hume, however much we

may revere him in th is c i t y , was mistaken and that i t i s not necessarily more

rat ional to disbelieve than to believe in a given extreme phenomenon. I sha l l

then consider whether, in fact , there are any instances of extreme phenomena

to which one i s rat ional ly j u s t i f i e d in giving credence and I w i l l discuss

in this connection some notable h i s t o r i c a l cases that have so far resisted

demolition. F ina l ly I want to discuss some possible consequences of taking

such cases on board with us as part of our i n t e l l e c t u a l baggage.

Let us s tar t , then, with the Humean pos i t ion . Obviously to acknowledge

a claim that runs counter to so much that we normally take for granted i s a

much r i s k i e r proposition than to dismiss i t from our thoughts without more

ado. At the same time i f the facts demand that we acknowledge i t , i t would

be sheer in t e l l e c tua l cowardice or evasiveness to refuse to do so. Now Hume

argued, for the reasons we have mentioned, that the facts are never such as

to make assent obl igatory. To do just ice to Hume's argument would require

a paper on i t s own. Here I w i l l confine myself to what I regard as i t s most

serious defect. It i s an argument that cannot carry any weight with someone

who has actual ly witnessed an extreme phenomenon - i f , indeed, there are any

such. Needless to say I am not one of these and I expect that goes for most

of you. Nevertheless, i t would not be d i f f i c u l t for any of us to think up

a scenario in which we not only witnessed such a phenomenon but were in a

posit ion to satisfy ourselves to our heart's content that we were not the

28

3/

victim of any kind of t r i ck or i l l u s i o n . As an empir ic is t , Hume would have

to agree that we are right to trust to the evidence of our senses. Hence,

since he did not deny that miracles might occur and, hence, that people

might have direct experience of them, he would have to argue that such

people must be disbelieved, whatever their previous reputation or credentials .

But, i f a rule i s val id i t ought to be val id in a l l circumstances real or

hypothetical . It should not lead to opposite conclusions depending on whether

our knowledge of a given event i s at f i r s t or at second hand. Hume's rule

leads to a kind of epistemological solipsism whereby only our own experience

i s allowed to count. This , I submit, cannot be regarded as a rat ional

prescr ipt ion .

Recently, some parapsychologists, notably John Palmer, have sought to

circumvent the Humean objection by arguing that the question of bel ief need

never ar i se . Instead of dividing people into sheep and goats, believers and

disbel ievers , Palmer suggests that we dist inguish between 'conventional

theoris ts ' i . e . those who try to explain an ostensible anomaly along con­

ventional l ines , that i s try to explain i t away, and 'paranormal theorists '

who try to introduce some novel type of explanation. In this way, he suggests,

we can a l l keep an open minded about everything and need waste no further time

on f r u i t l e s s controversy. It i s an ingenious formula and I appreciate the

diplomatic sentiment behind i t . I do not think, however, that i t provides

an answer to the problem of c r e d i b i l i t y . However open-minded one t r i e s to

be one i s bound to veer more to one interpretat ion of the facts rather than

another depending on one's bias. Furthermore th is w i l l influence our

assessment of what the facts are that have to be explained. Bel ief may

always be a matter of degree but i t i s neither possible nor desirable to

forego ent ire ly having any be l i e f s . In the case of extreme phenomena the

question of be l ie f i s bound to loom very large.

Before we proceed to discuss some actual examples of extreme phenomena

I want to make a few general points about how one might deal with them.

There are, I want to suggest, three pertinent questions that we can always

ask about them, one after another: (1) Could there be some normal explanation

for what i s alleged to have happened ? If the answer to this f i r s t question

i s no, then (2) could the witnesses be deceived or mistaken about what they

thought they had observed ? If the answer to this question i s s t i l l no,

then (3) could the witnesses themselves or those who report their testimony

be ly ing ? F i n a l l y , i f the answer i s s t i l l no then we have reached what I

would c a l l a ' c r e d i b i l i t y impassel The only escape from this impasse i s to

suggest that the evidence i s incomplete and that, i f we had a l l the facts ,

the s i tuat ion would appear in a very different l i g h t . The plea of ignorance

4/

can always be used to sustain any position which appears to c 6 n t £ a d i c t the

known facts but i t should be recognized for what i t i s , a desperate expedient.

So far I have been concerned only to argue that i | _ we had good evidence

for an extreme phenomenon we would not need to discount that evidence on.

any a p r i o r i grounds be they Humean or otherwise. It i s now time to turn

to the more excit ing question as to whether history has supplied us with

any examples of extreme phenomena which bring us to a c r e d i b i l i t y impasse.

Like a good philosopher Hume did not try to make things easy for himself

by dwelling on those miracles that were p la in ly r i s i b l e , as an in f er ior

polemicist might have been tempted to do. He was aware, for example, that,

only shortly before the time he was wri t ing , a whole clutch of miracles,

mostly having to do with healing, had been taking place i n , of a l l places,

Par i s , then the undisputed cu l tura l capi ta l of Europe. They were a l l

connected with the tomb of Francois Par i s , a revered and saint ly Jansenist

priest who was buried in the cemetry of Saint Medard. The fact that Paris

had been a Jansenist and thus a heretic in the eyes of the Church made this

a test case since the c i v i c authori t ies , egged on by the Jesu i t s , did every­

thing in their power to suppress and discredi t these claims and eventually o

they closed down the cemetry, thereby provking Volta ire s witty observation

that i t was a case of no miracles by order I. We must remember, therefore,

that those who t e s t i f i ed to such miracles were r i sk ing persecution. In

spite of that scores of people came forward to add their testimony. No

wonder Hume was driven to exclaim: "Where s h a l l we f ind such a number of

circumstances agreeing to the corroboration of one fact ? And what have

we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses ?". But then, immediately, Hume

answers his own rhetor ica l question in the way we have learnt to expect.

"The miraculous nature of such claims" he asserts " i s suff ic ient reason

to dismiss them" since "where men are heated by zeal and enthusiasm, there

i s no degree of human testimony so strong as may not be procured for the

greatest absurdity".

So long as we are content to s t i ck , l i k e Hume, to general i t ies we may

think we are secure enough. Let us focus, however, on one spec i f ic case -

not one, inc identa l ly , which Hume mentions in his essay - and l e t us see

whether i t , too, can be dismissed as the product of an overheated imagin­

at ion . The case in point i s that of M i l e . Louise C o i r i n . Her story, as

i t has come down to us i s , br ie f ly as follows:

Louise Co ir in l ived with her widowed mother at Nanterre outside Par i s .

Her two brothers, l i k e their father before them, were of f icers in the Royal

Household. In 1716, at the age of 31, she developed a cancer of her l e f t

breast which gradually destroyed the fle^sh and the nipple and l e f t her

5/

with a suppurating wound whose odour rendered her well nigh unapproachable. In 1718, to add to her misery, she became completely paralysed on her l e f t side. The following year two l o c a l surgeons recommended a mastectomy, as the one hope of saving her l i f e , but she declined. By 1731 - she was now 47 - she had reached the brink of death and had already received the l a s t sacraments on several occasions. I t was only then, on August 9th to be precise, that she decided to seek supernatural a i d . She was far too i l l herself to make the pilgrimage to St Me'dard but she persuade a pious woman of the neighbourhood to undertake the mission for her. The woman was to bring back a clod of earth from around the tomb and a garment, which she gave her after i t had touched the tomb. The next day, a f t e r annointing herself with the clod of earth and putting on the chemise that had been treated, her recovery began. Before the end of the month she had re­gained perfect health and, more to the point, her breast was whole again.

The J e s u i t s l o s t no time i n putting out rumours to the e f f e c t that a relapse had occurred and that her cancer and her para l y s i s had returned. Stung by these slanders Mile C o i r i n went i n person to Pa r i s to make a deposition before a notary s t a t i n g the f u l l facts of her case. More important i s the fact that one of the royal surgeons, r i s k i n g the d i s ­pleasure of the court, went himself to the same notary to t e s t i f y that no trace of the cancer remained and he l a i d s p e c i a l stress on the fact that her l e f t nipple was now perfectly formed and indistinguishable from her r i g h t nipple.

Let us now apply our three questions to t h i s case. Could the phenom­enon have a normal explanation ? Spontaneous remissions i n case of cancer are, a f t e r a l l , not unknown to the medical l i t e r a t u r e . Indeed they have complicated the evaluation of some of the Lourdes cases. However, though I speak as a layman, I would suppose that the complete regeneration of a breast and i t s nipple i s unique. So could the witnesses, who include a number of medical men who are mentioned by name, have been mistaken about what they saw ? The only p o s s i b i l i t y that I can see i s i f some other woman, some l o o k - a l i k e , had impersonated Louise C o i r i n during these examinations but the fact that she then resumed her normal l i f e among her family and friends makes such a far-fetched hypothesis quite untenable. There remains, therefore, only one p o s s i b i l i t y , namely that the ent i r e story was a f a b r i c a t i o n on the part of the writer on whose authority the case has become known to us. This i s by far the most a t t r a c t i v e hypothesis from the standpoint of a skeptic since, as far as I know, there i s only one extant source for t h i s story, as there i s for so many other St Me'dard cases, «s Carre de Montgeron's three volume work e n t i t l e d 'La Verite de Miracles

operes par 1'intercession de M. de P a r i s ' (I am indebted to Ian Stevenson for procuring for me the relevant pages of t h i s obscure work from the Bibliotheque Nationale). Who, then, was t h i s Montgeron ?

Even Hume had to admit that Montgeron was no ignorant fanatic but a man of substance and repute. He was, i n f a c t , a nobleman, a magistrate and a member of the Paris Parliament. P r i o r to his encounter with these events he had the reputation of being something of a skeptic i n matters of r e l i g i o n . But what, i n the end, makes i t so extremely u n l i k e l y that he was l y i n g was that he had nothing to gain from i t . On the contrary he had to pay dearly for h i s audacity i n publishing h i s book, despite the precaution he took of dedicating i t to the king (Louis XV), for he was promptly interned i n the B a s t i l l e , although even t h i s did not teach him a lesson because he s t i l l managed to bring out two further volumes while i n prison.

For our next exhibit we go back another century to a case that must surely rank as among the most remarkable of a l l time. I allude to the case of the l e v i t a t i n g f r i a r , Joseph of Copertino. The l a t e E r i c Dingwall wrote a chapter on him i n his Human Oddities (1947) on which I have f r e e l y drawn and, quite recently, Stephen Braude has again drawn attention to t h i s case i n his new book The Limits of Influence (1986). Here are the main incidents of his l i f e as far as we know them:

Giuseppe Desa was born i n 1603 to an impoverished family. By the age of 17 he had decided to devote his l i f e to r e l i g i o n but he was too ignorant and too simple-minded to q u a l i f y as a parish p r i e s t . He was, however, accepted into the Capuchin Order i n 1620 and then, i n 1625, i n t o the Order of St Francis. As a monk he was notorious for h i s extreme asceticism and the rather gruesome m o r i t i f i c a t i o n s that he would i n f l i c t on himself. What alone makes him memorable, however, was h i s habit of going into a rapture and then l e v i t a t i n g , sometimes to a considerable height and sometimes remaining suspended j u s t above the ground for a considerable period of time. Such l e v i t a t i o n s took place i n broad daylight, sometimes i n the open a i r . There i s even a story that, on one occasion he carried up a fellow monk with him into the r a f t e r s of a church but that may be an

them hi s f i t s of giddiness. I s h a l l mention one p a r t i c u l a r incident which s t r i k e s one as more e v i d e n t i a l than most because i t occurred during h i s f i n a l i l l n e s s when two doctors were assigned to him. A Dr P i e r p a o l i was i n the process of c a u t e r i z i n g Joseph's rig h t leg when he noticed that he had gone into a trance and was s i t t i n g a few inches above the seat of h i s c h a i r . To make absolutely sure of t h i s both doctors present went down on t h e i r knees to get a better look. After t h i s had gone on f o r

exaggeration. Joseph apologized for h i s l e v i t a t i o n s c a l l i n g

about f i f teen minutes, Joseph's superior, F r . Evangelista, entered the room

and brought him back to his senses, and to terra firma. by c a l l i n g out his

name.

Joseph died in 1663 at the age of 60. Within three years of his death

an o f f i c i a l inquiry was inst i tuted with the aim of establishing the true

facts of his career and, more especia l ly , obtaining depositions from those

who had actually witnessed his l ev i ta t ions . On th i s basis a biography was

eventually published by one, Domenico Bernino, in 1722. Thi s , in turn, led

to Joseph becoming a candidate for beat i f icat ion and a Process was set in

t ra in by the Congregation of Rites who are responsible for adjudicating

such matters. It i s noteworthy, from our point of view, that the key

figure in charge of this was Cardinal Prospero Lambertini, a man of advanced

views - at one time he even corresponded amicably with Vol ta ire ! - and the whose function was to play dev i l s advocate

author of the standard work on canonization. Lambertini^does not seem to

have raised any serious doubts about the lev i tat ions but he was perturbed

by the somewhat outrageous aspects of Joseph's l i f e - s t y l e and he d i s l iked

such extreme asceticism. Nevertheless, in 1753, by which time Lambertini

had become Pope Benedict XIV, beat i f icat ion was duly decreed. Canonizat­

ion followed in 1767 - just over a century after Joseph's death - and thus

i t was that Giuseppe Desa became,for a l l the world, St Joseph of Copertino.

Le us now ourselves play dev i l ' s advocate and see whether, from our

sophisticated vantage point,we can puncture this pious ta le . What must

s t r ike us, after more than three centuries have elapsed, i s that nothing

remotely l i k e this has ever happened again I Inevitably there have been

claims in every generation that someone at some time had l ev i ta ted . Some

of the best known physical mediums are supposed to have levitated at one

time or another, one thinks especial ly of Daniel Home, but, s t i l l , nothing

on th is scale . Perhaps one's f i r s t inc l inat ion i s to regard this as an

example of the natural human tendency to exaggerate. I am reminded of the

stories that used to c irculate about the dancer, Ni j insky. It was said that

he must have possessed supernormal powers to land so gently on the stage

after one of his prodigious leaps. Perhaps Joesph was given to leaping

up and down when he got excited and the legend took off from there and got

out of hand. I am a fra id , however, that such speculations w i l l not get us

very f a r . There would have had to be a massive col lus ion to have produced

this amount of documentary evidence. More promising, from the standpoint of

the skeptic would be the idea that Joseph was the stooge or puppet in a

fiendish counter-reformation plot to bring heretics back into the one true

church. This , at any rate , might help to explain what happened to the

Duke of Brunswik, a Lutheran, now only remembered as the patron of the

8/

philosopher, Le ibn i tz . The Duke v i s i ted Ass i s i in 1651 and while there

expressed a wish to meet Joseph. With two of his companions he was con­

ducted to a chapel where, without his being aware that he was being ob­

served, Joseph was saying mass. After a while he uttered a loud cry and

was seen by the three onlookers to r i se into the a i r in a kneeling posi t ­

ion . The Duke was so intrigued that he begged to be allowed to go again

next day. On this occasion Joseph was seen to r i s e a few inches and remain

f loat ing above the a l tar steps for about quarter of an hour. This was too

much for the good Duke who there and then decided to become a Cathol ic .

Had he been ensnared by some adroit piece of conjuring ? Contrary to

what many people imagine, the Catholic Church has always been exceedingly

wary of exploit ing miracles produced by l i v i n g ind iv idua l s . The treatment

accorded to the late Padre Pio would be a case in point. So far from

taking advantage of his l ev i ta t ions , much less putting him up to i t by

using some fraudulent device, Joseph was a l l his l i f e an embarrassment to

his superiors. On no less than three occasions he was summoned before the

Inquis i t ion and for much of his l i f e he was under s t r i c t instructions to

remain in his c e l l where he could least attract attent ion. Of course we

are heavily dependent on his biographer, Bernino, for our knowledge of his

career - Dingwall r e l i e s mainly on this source - but Bernino names so many

eminent persons that there was a l i m i t to what he would have been able to

invent or embroider. For example, he c i tes three cardinals each of whom

was w i l l i n g to test i fy to having seen Joseph l ev i ta t e . Then there i s the

famous incident where the Father General of the Order of St Francis arranged

for Joseph to kiss the feet of the then Pope, Urban VII . As so often happened

when Joseph got too excited^ he rose into the a i r and there, apparently, he

remained suspended i n tfee * * r u n t i l the Father General recal led him to his

senses, to the amazement of the Pope. How easy would i t be to invent an

incident involving a named Pope ? A l l things considered I am incl ined to

agree with Dingwall when he says: "For my part I do not find i t easy to

believe that Cardinals , Bishops, Superiors, monastic physicians and lay

v i s i t o r s were a l l ly ing or engaged in a system of deceit for the apparent

purpose of bolstering up the reputation of a fraudulent f r i a r or the Order

to which he was attached".

As from the middle of the 19th century, the S p i r i t u a l i s t movement

provided the new power-house for generating paranormal phenomena. My

remaining three exhibits have a l l been drawn from the careers of physical

mediums who flourished during the present century. Each, as i t happens,has

been made the subject of a recent biographical study. Now, physical mediums,

unlike saints, have a murky reputation and, to the unin i t ia ted , this alone

3 4

9/

must seem s u f f i c i e n t reason for dismissing, or at l e a s t , playing down any claims that are made on t h e i r behfuajf. At the same time, one could argue, with more logic,that the more suspicious the medium, the more v i g i l a n t w i l l be the i n v e s t i g a t o r s . No one, a f t e r a l l , wants to be taken for a r i d e . But, fortunately, the argument i s i r r e l e v a n t because the c r i t i c a l question i n these matters i s never/the i n d i v i d u a l involved would cheat, given the chance, but, always, whether he or she could have cheated i n the conditions s p e c i f i e d .

These remarks are pertinent because my next e x h i b i t concerns a medium who was, surely, one of the most tempestuous and controversial characters i n the whole stormy history of psychical research, namely, Mrs Mina Crandon, nle Stinson, known to a l l the world as 'Margery'. There can be few mediums who caused quite so much havoc i n the course of t h e i r career. As you know, the American S.P.R. s p l i t i n two on her account causing W.F.Prince to set up a r i v a l organization, the Boston S.P.R. J.B.Rhine was so quickly d i s ­i l l u s i o n e d with her, a f t e r a single s i t t i n g , that he never wanted to have anything further to do with mediums i n h i s l i f e (unless, l i k e Mrs Garrett, they were w i l l i n g to play his. game) so one could say that Margery had a hand i n launching modern laboratory-based experimental parapsychology. But, i n f a i r n e s s , and despite the revulsion that many people f e l t towards her, i t must be said that she submitted p a t i e n t l y and indefatigably to the stren­uous tests that were demanded of her, perhaps, even, at the cost of her sanity. Ostensibly, she did a l l t h i s as the passive vehicle for her deceased brother, Walter, but whatever was going on she undoubtedly produced phenomena that s t i l l remain b a f f l i n g . Perhaps we s h a l l begin to understand her a l i t t l e better when Mrs Marian Nester has completed the biography she has been working on. She, a f t e r a l l , as the daughter of Dr Mark Richardson, one of the leading figures i n the i n v e s t i g a t i o n , l i v e d through i t a l l when she was a young woman. I s h a l l here confine myself to a single episode i n Margery's multifarious mediumship, namely her r i n g s .

A seamless linkage of s o l i d r i n g s , which i s a topological miracle, i s one of the rarest of extreme phenomena. Yet, during the 1930s, Margery produced a whole series of such linkages. None of them, alas, has survived so you may f e e l that I am wasting your time discussing them but we s t i l l have to t r y and make sense of the documentary and photographic evidence. If even one such object had survived, parapsychology, I reckon, would be ina very d i f f e r e n t position today. For the beauty about a permanent para­normal object or 'PPO', as I l i k e to c a l l i t , i s that i t i s independent of the i n d i v i d u a l who was responsible for i t or of the conditions i n which i t originated. I f one i s going to deny i t s paranormality one has got to explain, or, better s t i l l , demonstrate, how i t might have been normally con-

10/

structed. In other words, the onus, for once, would be on the doubter

rather than on the bel iever. With a l l the other extreme phenomena, one

can always say, as I have heard David Berglas say when he was challenged

to explain some h i s t o r i c a l case of mediumship, 'I wasn't there' I Even

i f we have a f i lm recording of what went on at a seance, we have to

prove that the f i lm was not faked. But a PPO stands as a permanent challenge

to the skeptic .

The components used in these experiments consisted of substantial

wooden r ings , some of these have survived and I have been able to see them.

Care was taken to use pairs where each r ing was made from a different timber

so as to preclude the poss ib i l i ty that the linkage could have been carved

from a single bl'aock. We have accounts of some of the s i t t ings at which

'Walter' engineered the linkage which would suggest that a certain amount

of dematerialization and rematerial ization was involved. We also have the

photograph of one intact linkage which i s said to have been on display at

one time at the headquarters of the American S.P.R. We even have the text

of a l e t t er from an outside expert affirming that the linkage had been

X-rayed and that "nothing resembling an a r t i f i c i a l l y concealed cut or break"

could be detected/ Unfortunately, with that perversity which i s so typ ica l (but paranormailv) _

of extreme phenomena, the linkages regularly/became unlinked. It i s as i f

Margery (or was i t Walter')could only get as far as creating a semi-permanent

paranormal object. The whole a f f a i r , as you see, b r i s t l e s with absurdities

but who are we, after a l l , to say that r e a l i t y cannot, at times, resemble

a theatre of the absurd !

At a l l events, my next exhibit w i l l probably s tr ike you as even more

absurd. It i s certa inly far more obscure. For , in this case, the protag­

onist , far from being world-famous or world-infamous, was someone whose

very name was unknown to me u n t i l a few months ago and i s , probably, equally

unknown to a l l of you, unless, that i s , you happen to be an Icelander.

[ continue on p.11 ]

n / 3 6

you happen to be an Icelander. I n d r i d i Indridason was rescued from obscurity when, at the i n s t i g a t i o n of Erlendur Haraldsson, Loftur Gissurarson, a student at the University of Iceland, decided to write h i s Thesis on t h i s medium of yesteryear. The SPR are planning to publish t h i s monograph as an issue of Proceedings so i t i s to be hoped that Indridason may become better known i n future.

Indridason who, I gather, i s the only physical medium which that country has produced, died prematurely from tuberculosis i n 1912 at the early age of

early 29. His mediumship f i r s t manifested/in 1905 - there had been no previous mediums i n Iceland - so the events we are t a l k i n g of occupy roughly the f i r s t decade of t h i s century. By then, of course, physical mediumship was widespread both i n Europe and i n America. Indridason never l e f t Iceland and thus never came to the attention of those with experience i n dealing with physical mediums. In some respects the i n v e s t i g a t i o n of h i s mediumship compares unfavourably with/best work of i t s kind being done i n Europe. For example, except on rare occasions h i s s i t t i n g s were conducted i n the dark apart from the occasional s t r i k i n g of matches. Moreover no attempt was made to use f l a s h l i g h t photography as i t was i n the cases of Palladino, Kathleen Goligher or Marthe Beraud. We are further hampered i n assessing t h i s case by the fact that a l l the contemporary seance notes kept by the Experimental Society, so c a l l e d , have since been l o s t . On the other hand, the case has some very d e f i n i t e pluses i n i t s favour. In p a r t i c u l a r , the group who undertook the i n v e s t i g a t i o n was made up of persons of good stand­ing i n the community. They were not s p i r i t u a l i s t s and were not looking for evidence to support t h e i r preconceptions, they were thus able to focus on the one e s s e n t i a l question, namely whether what they observed was some­thing r e a l and mysterious or j u s t part of an elaborate hoax. The most distinguished member of the group who, a f t e r 1908, took charge of the inv e s t i g a t i o n was Gudmundur Hannesson who became Professor of Medicine at the University of Iceland from 1911 to h i s death i n 1946. He was also twice president of the un i v e r s i t y and for a time a member of p a r l i a ­ment. Gissurarson and Haraldsson say of him that he "had a greater reput­ation as a s c i e n t i s t i n Iceland than any of h i s contemporaries and was known for his i n t e g r i t y and i m p a r t i a l i t y " ( p . 8 4 ) . Most of the s i t t i n g s took place i n a l i t t l e building which the Society had b u i l t s p e c i a l l y for t h i s purpose but some of the s i t t i n g s were held i n Hannesson's own house and the medium was obliged to wear Hannesson's own clothes. In the end,

a l l the investigators, not least Hannesson himself, came round to the view that they had witnessed phenomena that were t r u l y i n e x p l i c a b l e .

The p a r t i c u l a r incident that I have singled out for discussion i s not by any means one of the best attested - i t pertains to the period before Hannesson took over - but i t i s , perhaps, the most unusual and i t s bizarre and f a r c i c a l aspects raise the problem of c r e d i b i l i t y i n an acute form. I t involves nothing less than the temporary disappearance of Indridason's l e f t arm I I t happened for the f i r s t time on the 19th December 1905 and then again on two subsequent occasions during that winter. On the t h i r d occasion we are informed no less than seven witnesses were present each of whom afterwards signed a document s t a t i n g that they had not been able to f e e l or to f i n d Indridason's l e f t arm and were ready to c e r t i f y t h i s under oath. We are further informed that at one point Indridason stood i n f u l l l i g h t and s t i l l no arm was v i s i b l e although hal^an hour l a t e r i t reappeared as normal. The^rfason for t h i s strange happening, as provided by Indridason's s p i r i t control*speaking through the medium, was that the powers on the other side were getting ready to bring about, through the medium,full-form m a t e r i a l i z a t i o n s . This was, i n f a c t , a feature of h i s l a t e r seances.

What are we to make of t h i s story ? One obviously suspicious fact i s that the investigators were never permitted to undress the medium. We can not even be sure from the published account whether the medium wore hi s jacket throughout or was i n his s h i r t s l e e v e s . A l l the same, i t i s not easy to fathom how anyone could conceal an arm from seven i n q u i s i t i v e i n d i v i d u a l s whose only aim was to f i n d i t I No doubt d i s c i p l e s of Batcheldor w i l l see t h i s as a confirmation of the Batcheldorian doctrine that unless some element of ambiguity i s allowed i n the s i t u a t i o n nothing paranormal can tran s p i r e .

[ continue on p.13 ]

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A l l paranormal phenomena are, by d e f i n i t i o n , 'impossible' but some, one might say, are more impossible than others I Nothing, I think, i n a l l the l i t e r a t u r e of psychical research stretches our c r e d u l i t y more severely than the phantoms of the seance chamber. At one moment we have creatures that, i n a l l respects, resemble l i v i n g , t a l k i n g human beings, at the next they have ceased to e x i s t I For my l a s t e x h i b i t , therefore, i t i s f i t t i n g that we take a look at t h i s ultimate extreme and the example I want to discuss i s taken from the case of the S c o t t i s h medium, Helen Duncan, who died i n 1956 at the age of 58. The choice may s t r i k e you as perversely foolhardy on my part - that i s i f you know anything about Mrs Duncan. For there i s no disguising the fact that she had an unsavoury reputation. I f miracles were the prerogative of persons of s a i n t l y charact­er, or even of moderate refinement, Helen Duncan would be nowhere i n the running. To be blunt, she was an uneducated woman of gross appearance and her manners and her language was anything but l a d y l i k e . More to the point, both she and her husband-manager were deeply implicated i n fraud. Never­theless, she has two advantages from my point of view. F i r s t , whereas we can no longer interrogate those who witnessed Joseph's l e v i t a t i o n s , Mrs Duncan's phenomena are close enough to us i n time for me to have met a f a i r number of those who did witness them. Secondly, my f r i e n d , Manfred Cassirer has done h i s homework on Helen Duncan and has produced a hefty monograph on her (he has c a l l e d i t 'Witchcraft at Portsmouth') which he has lodged with the S.P.R. I f there were others l i k e her at the present time we would not now have to bother with such an unsatisfactory case but, a l a s , as with a l l my e x h i b i t s , there i s nothing comparable today.

The witnesses with whom I have spoken or corresponded and whose sanity I have no reason to doubt - two of them, I may say, are good friends of mine and distinguished members of the S.P.R. - a l l t e l l roughly the same story. They speak of seeing figures emerge from the cabinet or take shape from the amorphous ectoplasm, sometimes these are said to correspond to deceased i n d i v i d u a l s whom the s i t t e r knew i n l i f e , and then, a f t e r a b r i e f i n t e r v a l , during which they may converse with^fe&ati^tf&y disappear again by slowly sinking through the s o l i d f l o o r . On t h i s l a s t point there i s v i r t u a l unanimity as Cassirer points out. These spectaculjfr phenomena however, were reserved for c l i e n t s who attended her seances. When she performed for psychical researchers, such as Harry Price or Mrs Goldney, the phenomena she produced were not nearly as impressive

copious mainly of^quantities of ectoplasm whose paranormal o r i g i n remained prob­lematic.

Eventually, Mrs Duncan made l e g a l history by becoming the l a s t person

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ever to be charged under the 'Witchcraft Act'. This was an archaic s t a t u t e , introduced i n the reign of George II,which stated that: "anyone pretending to exercise or use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration could be committed to prison for one year". Her t r i a l at the Old Bailey, i n March 1944, became something of a cause ce'lebre i n wartime London. I t lasted seven days, capturing the headlines i n the d a i l y press, at the end of which the j u r y , seven men and one woman, with l i t t l e h e s i t a t i o n , found her g u i l t y and she was duly sentenced to 9 months i n prison. Her defence counsel, during the t r i a l , made a bold o f f e r to hold a seance for the benefit of the jury, none of whom knew anything about such matters. The judge consented to permit t h i s option but the jury turned i t down. That, too, might have made l e g a l h i s t ­ory but i t was not to be. No doubt the jury reckoned that i t would be less confusing to condemn the wretched woman without f i r s t seeing what she was claiming to be able to do !

The defence d i d , however, produce a long s t r i n g of witnesses. One who made a p a r t i c u l a r l y good impression on the court, as being a sensible, l e v e l headed sort of woman was Jane Rust, a r e t i r e d municipal midwife and a widow who described at some legnth her experiences at a s i t t i n g i n Portsmouth on January 17, 1944. She t o l d the court how she had met and embraced her deceased husband and how she had f e l t the knobbly knuckles on h i s rheumatic hands, how she was able to i d e n t i f y her deceased mother by two moles, the one i n the hollow of her chin, the other above her l e f t eyebrow and how her Aunt Mary appeared and spoke to her i n Spanish with a G i b r a l t a r i a n accent saying that "I would have come sooner but they did not understand".

Was t h i s a l l a pack of l i e s ? But why should a professional woman of unblemished character perjure herself to no purpose ? Was she then deeply hallucinated during that seance ? That i s more plasuible and yet the only way I know whereby one can induce such s p e c i f i c h a l l u c i n a t i o n s i s f i r s t to hypnotize the subject and then make the appropriate verbal suggestions. I f Mrs Duncan was able to induce such h a l l u c i n a t i o n s just by s i t t i n g there i n her cabinet, that i n i t s e l f would suggest a paranormal faculty a l b e i t not a physical one. Of one thing, only, we can be c e r t a i n . I t was not the r e s u l t of Mrs Duncan regurgitating cheesecloth I

These, then, are my s e l e c t i o n of extreme phenomena. To r e c a p i t u l a t e , we have M i l e . C o i r i n with her new breast, St Joseph of Copertino s i t t i n g on h i s cushion of a i r , Margery's impossible object, Indridason's missing arm and, l a s t l y , Helen Duncan with her troupe of phantoms. There are endless such examples to choose from and you may enjoy t r y i n g to compile your own favourite l i s t . The common factor i n a l l these cases i s that the act as i n t e l l e c t u a l i r r i t a n t s . They contrive to make us f e e l uneasy

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but we see no way of getting r i d of them. Some of you may be disappointed thatjJ- did not select any more t o p i c a l example. I can only plead that, look­ing around at the world today, I could see no obvious candidates. Ted Serios has long been i n a c t i v e . U r i Geller has taken a t e r r i b l e battering and the minigel l e r s have become ever scarcer. The SORRAT group i n Missouri have never won the confidence of the parapsychological community. Batcheldor's

i s set-up i n Exeter sounds great fun for the part i c i p a n t s but i t does not e a s i l y translated into the public domain and Batcheldor himself now says that he makes no firm claims. There i s , of course, Sai Baba i n India. He has h i s admirers and I am looking forward eagerly to reading Haraldsson's new book about him but, at the same time, we cannot ignore the fa c t that he has never l e t Haraldsson, or anyone else, test him. I f I had to choose a contemporary example I would plump for the Chinese ch i l d r e n . They are credited with clairvoyant a b i l i t y far surpassing anything we have known i n the West. I have now read three separate accounts of t h e i r phenomena, each written by a Western s c i e n t i s t of Chinese extraction who knows the language. Each, while v i s i t i n g China, was allowed access to one or more such c h i l d r e n . Each was given carte blanch to devise h i s own targets, pictures or inscjlpotions, and to administer the test i n h i s own preferred way. In each case the r e s u l t s were phenomenally successful and yet i n each case the s c i e n t i s t went back to the West convinced that the children could not have t r i c k e d him. But, of course, t h i s i s only a beginning and much more rigorous evidence i s needed before we are brought to a c r e d i b i l i t y impasse.

F i n a l l y , what lessons do I want you to takeaway from a l l that I have been saying ? I hope no one w i l l regard t h i s t a l k as an i n v i t a t i o n to members of the P.A. to throw caution to the winds and abandon t h e i r customary and commendable s c i e n t i f i c r e s t r a i n t . I want, further, to say that although I am indeed fascinated by extreme phenomena I do not want to gloat about them. On the contrary, I am f e a r f u l of what might happen i f such phenomena ever become more widespread or more widely credited. For the irony of my s i t u a t i o n i s that, i d e a l o g i c a l l y speaking, I am on the side of David Hume. I consider that excessive c r e d u l i t y does f a r more harm than excessive i n c r e d u l i t y . The greatest menace that confronts us today i s s t i l l , as i t was for David Hume, su p e r s t i t i o n , i r r a t i o n a l i t y and fanaticism. The recent resurgence of funda­mentalist r e l i g i o n p a i n f u l l y underscores my point.

However, i f extreme phenomena e x i s t i t would be i n t e l l e c t u a l l y dishonest as w e l l as cowardly to discount them. And a f t e r a l l , to be a r a t i o n a l i s t does not mean that one has got to believe that everything i n the end w i l l be susceptible to r a t i o n a l a n a l y s i s , there may be some things we s h a l l never understand. A r a t i o n a l 'rationalist' i s one who merely denies that there i s

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any a l t e r n a t i v e short-cut to t r u t h , whether we c a l l i t f a i t h , i n t u i t i o n or whatever and who therefore refuses to abandon reason.

S u r v i v a l i s t s w i l l no doubt f i n d i n many of these extreme phenomena a vin d i c a t i o n of t h e i r position and, of course, they have every r i g h t to do so. For my part, however, i t puzzles me why those on the other side who have the power to communicate with us should choose to do so i n such a bizarre and unseemly fashion. And yet, I must confess, that I f i n d i t no less implausible to a t t r i b u t e such cataclysmic disturbances to the medium's private unconscious. Perhaps some transpersonal or cosmic force i s somehow being harnessed i n these s i t u a t i o n s ?

One consequence of taking aboard these phenomena, so i t seems to me, i s that i t jeopardizes what I l i k e to c a l l the ' a s s i m i l a t i o n i s t program'. At almost every gathering of parapsychologists that I have attended there has been someone who gets up and declares, often with an evangelical f e r ­vour, that we need only one more turn of the s c i e n t i f i c s p i r a l , one more paradigm s h i f t , and we w i l l be able to take our r i g h t f u l place alongside the established sciences. I have always been doubtful about t h i s scenario. The idea, so widely canvassed, that we might somehow get i n on the coat-t a i l s , as i t were, of quantum theory never struck me as being very plausible However, as long as parapsychology could be seen as confined to a certain w e l l defined set of s t a t i s t i c a l anomalies - as many of our c r i t i c s s t i l l imagine i t to be - there was something going for such an idea. Once we admit extreme phenomena, on the other hand, t h i s prospect looks increasingly

f o r l o r n . They are just too anarchic. What, then, i s the a l t e r n a t i v e ? At f i r s t blush they may appear to take

us r i g h t away from the orderly world of science and plunge us back into the dark chaotic world of magic. But, on further r e f l e c t i o n , the s i t u a t i o n may not be quite so bleak. I f , l i k e me, you believe that parapsychology, alone among the sciences, studies the influence of mind on matter, i s i t r e a l l y so s u r p r i s i n g that, every once i n a while, we meet with a case where mind over-reaches i t s e l f with the r e s u l t s that we have been discussing.