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Copyright 1983 Information Access Co., a division of Ziff Communications Co.;
Copyright American Association for the Advancement of Science
Science
December 2, 1983
SECTION: Vol. 222 ; Pg. 997; ISSN: 0036-8075
LENGTH: 555 words
HEADLINE: Parapsychology update.
BYLINE: Holden, Constance.
BODY:
Parapsychology Update
At least one member of Congress, Senator Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.), has
publicly expressed an interest in parapsychology, but apparently there are quite
a few others sufficiently curious to ask the congressional Research service
(CRS) to report on the status of such research.* (CRS does not reveal names of
requesters.)
* "Research into "psi' Phenomena: Current Status and Trends of Congressional
Concern.'
The report, completed last summer, carries on at some length about the
potential educational, military, anticrime, and health applications if psychic
phenomena are ever understood well enough to be replicable.
Currently, says the report, a paltry $ 500,000 a year is going into psi
research in the United States, almost all from private sources. In contrast,
research is more or less thriving in the Soviet Union where speculation puts the
funding at tens of millions of dollars. However, the only recognized application
is dowsing, which is taught to mineralogists and geologists at the Omsk
Polytechnical Institute. The People's Republic of China is said to have
developed a fairly recent interest in parapsychology, including psychic healing.
In the United States, the field has been chiefly explored by psychologists,
but physicists have become increasingly involved and are employing the latest
technologies in an effort to detect the slightest effects of mind on matter.
most research is devoted either to extrasensory perception (ESP) or
telekinesis--the ability to move objects. Currently, extensive efforts are being
made to correlate psychic ability with personality variables or with particular
altered states of consciousness, according to the report. The prime location for
this, says the report's author Christopher Dodge, is the Maimonides Medical
Center in New York.
Another major thrust has been the use of random number generators to seek
statistically significant psi-induced deviations. Robert Jahn, dean of
Engineering at Princeton University, has been doing this for some years, and
claims weak but persistent positive results. Jahn and several other engineers
are increasingly interested in possible psi interactions with computers,
examining, for example, the possible disturbance of the memory functions of
single microelectronic chips.
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Science, December 2, 1983 PAGE 61
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So far, the most striking results appear to be coming from remote viewing
experiments. At Stanford Research Institute physicist Harold Puthoff is
conducting double-blind experiments where a person is sent out to engage in an
activity and the subject is asked to visualize where the person is. The
investigators are claiming a 70 percent success rate.
The report notes that there is "no conclusive physical theory of psi'
phenomena, but tat is not for lack of trying. Theoreticians have found
explanations based on electromagnetic or sound waves inadequate and are looking
for more "holistic, paradigms. An extension of quantum mechanics to cover the
laws of consciousness is one idea; another extends the concept of hyperspace to
postulate an added dimension in human experience.
The report concludes with a glowing catalog of all the fields of human
endeavor that could be enhanced by the harnessing of psi abilities. It makes no
:mention of the appalling social disruption such powers could also bring.
IAC-NUMBER: IAC 03039561
IAC-CLASS: Health; Magazine
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE-MDC: July 29, 1994
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