FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT PARAPSYCHOLOGY

Dean Radin,
Director, Consciousness Research Laboratory,
Harry Reid Center University, Las Vegas
Member of the Scientific and Medical Network

Version 1.4: June 21, 1995
Uploaded on 2 July 95, with the permission of the author
Copyright 1995 Dean Radin. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents
   1.Who compiled this FAQ?
   2.Who is the intended audience?
  Technical note: Audience
   3.What is parapsychology?
   4.What is not parapsychology?
   5.What do parapsychologists study?
  Technical note: Basic terms
   6.Why is parapsychology interesting?
  Technical note: Implications
   7.What are some practical applications of psi?
   8.What are the major research approaches?
   9.What are the major psi experiments today?
  PK on random number generators
  PK on living systems
  ESP in the ganzfeld
  Remote viewing
  Technical note: Methodology
  10.What are common criticisms and responses about parapsychology?

  Criticism 1
  Criticism 2
  Criticism 3
  11.Why is parapsychology controversial?
  12.What is the state-of-the-evidence for psi?
  13.What is the state-of-the-theory for psi?
  14.Where can I get more information?
  15.Questions about popular phenomena
  Are ghosts real?
  Are poltergeists real?
  If psi is real, how come casinos make so much money?
  Is channeling real?
  Are large-scale PK effects, like levitation, real?
  16.What is the history of parapsychology?
  17.Are there any psi research experiments accessible over the
Web?
  18.Where are the active psi research facilities?
  19.Major contributors to this FAQ

1 WHO COMPILED THIS FAQ?

This FAQ was compiled by an ad-hoc group of scientists and scholars
interested in parapsychology, the study of what is popularly called
"psychic" phenomena. The disciplines represented in this group
include physics, psychology, philosophy, statistics, mathematics,
computer science, chemistry, anthropology, and history. The major
contributors and their affiliations are listed at the end of this
document.

The majority of this group are members of the Parapsychological
Association (PA). The PA is an international professional society
founded in 1957 and elected an affiliate of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science in 1969. While this FAQ
is not an official publication of the PA, the contributors do
include several past- Presidents of the PA, including the current
(1995) President, and past and present members of the Board of
Directors of the PA. The authors' actual laboratory and field
research experience with parapsychology is estimated at over 400
years.

The group aimed for consensus on each FAQ item, but as in many
intellectual pursuits, especially in young, multidisciplinary
domains, there were some sharp disagreements. In spite of these
disagreements, the authors believe that because of burgeoning
public interest in parapsychology, the relative lack of reliable
information, and the many myths and distortions associated with
this field, it was important to put some basic information on the
World Wide Web sooner rather than later.


2 WHO IS THE INTENDED AUDIENCE?
 This was written as a general introduction to parapsychology for
individuals ranging from advanced high-school students to
professionals with little or no background in parapsychology.
Writing for such a broad audience is a challenge, because gaining
an appreciation of parapsychology today requires at least a passing
knowledge of a wide range of topics, including statistics,
experimental design, quantum mechanical theory, the sociology and
philosophy of science, history of parapsychology, and the
scientific literature on parapsychology.

Because our expected audience is so broad, we have touched only
briefly on many technical issues that underlie interesting issues
and debates within the field. Therefore, the approach in this FAQ
is to clarify the complex topic of parapsychology without glossing
over important points and without "dumbing down" the basic content.
For a few particularly tricky issues that we do wish to cover here,
we've included sections labelled Technical Note.

We eventually plan to provide (mainly through links to other
sources on the Web) a comprehensive source of information on
parapsychology, including details on the major topics of debate,
the prevailing theories, discussions of empirical evidence, links
to journal papers, reference sources, mission statements and other
items from the major parapsychological research centers, individual
researchers' home pages, and home pages for relevant scientific and
scholarly societies.

2.1 TECHNICAL NOTE: AUDIENCE
The content and style of this FAQ sparked a vigorous debate among
the authors. At least five potential audiences were identified:
physical scientists, social and behavioral scientists, hardened
skeptics, New-Age enthusiasts, and readers with little or no
background in any of the conventional sciences or in
parapsychology.
For physical scientists, we felt it was important to discuss
methodology and terminology, and comment on some of the usual
criticisms of parapsychology. For social and behavioral scientists,
we added some implications of the observation that people
throughout history and across all cultures have reported psychic
experiences.

For hardened skeptics, or people whose knowledge of parapsychology
is based solely upon the skeptical literature, we felt it was
important to address the fact that there is substantial,
scientifically persuasive empirical data available. For people with
New-Age interests, enthusiasms, or assumptions, we felt that at
least part of the purpose here would be to indicate the limits of
what claims the scientific data actually justify.

For readers who know little or nothing about the topic, or about
science or scientific methods, we've applied a broad-brush approach
to cover as much of the field as possible in a single document.
Hyperlinks will be added in future editions to help flesh out this
FAQ.

3 WHAT IS PARAPSYCHOLOGY?
Parapsychology is the scientific and scholarly study of certain
unusual events associated with human experience.

A long-held, common-sense assumption is that the worlds of the
subjective and objective are completely distinct, with no overlap.
Subjective is "here, in the head," and objective is "there, out in
the world." Parapsychology is the study of phenomena suggesting
that the strict subjective/objective dichotomy may instead be part
of a spectrum, with some phenomena occasionally falling between
purely subjective and purely objective. We call such phenomena
"anomalous" because they are difficult to explain within current
scientific models.

These anomalies fall into three general categories: ESP (terms are
defined below), PK, and phenomena suggestive of survival after
bodily death, including near-death experiences, apparitions, and
reincarnation. Most parapsychologists today expect that further
research will eventually explain these anomalies in scientific
terms, although it is not clear whether they can be fully
understood without significant (some might say revolutionary)
expansions of the current state of scientific knowledge. Other
researchers take the stance that existing scientific models of
perception and memory are adequate to explain some or all
parapsychological phenomena.

4 WHAT IS NOT PARAPSYCHOLOGY?
In spite of what the media often imply, parapsychology is not the
study of "anything paranormal" or bizarre. Nor is parapsychology
concerned with astrology, UFOs, searching for Bigfoot, paganism,
vampires, alchemy, or witchcraft.

Many scientists view parapsychology with great suspicion because
the term has come to be associated with a huge variety of
mysterious phenomena, fringe topics, and pseudoscience.
Parapsychology is also often linked, again inappropriately, with a
broad range of "psychic" entertainers, magicians, and so-called
"paranormal investigators." In addition, some self-proclaimed
"psychic practitioners" call themselves parapsychologists, but that
is not what we do, as this FAQ will help to clarify.

5 WHAT DO PARAPSYCHOLOGISTS STUDY?
 Many feel that the strangest, and most interesting, aspect of
parapsychological phenomena is that they do not appear to be
limited by the known boundaries of space or time. In addition, they
blur the sharp distinction usually made between mind and matter. In
popular usage, the basic parapsychological phenomena are
categorized as follows:

 Telepathy : Direct mind-to-mind communication.
 Precognition: Also called premonition. Obtaining information about
future events, where  the information could not be inferred through
normal means. Many people report dreams  that appear to be
precognitive.
 Clairvoyance : Sometimes called remote viewing; obtaining
information about events at  remote locations, beyond the reach of
the normal senses.
 ESP: Extra-sensory perception; a general term for obtaining
information about events  beyond the reach of the normal senses.
This term subsumes telepathy, clairvoyance, and  precognition.
 Psychokinesis : Also called PK; direct mental interaction with
physical objects, animate or  inanimate.
 Bio-PK : Direct mental interactions with living systems.
 NDE : Near death experience; an experience reported by those who
were revived from  nearly dying. Often refers to a core experience
that includes feelings of peace, OBE, seeing  lights and other
phenomena.
 OBE : Out-of-body experience; the experience of feeling separated
from the body, often  accompanied by visual perceptions as though
from above the body.
 Reincarnation: Reports, typically from children, of apparent
recollections of previous  lives.
 Haunting : Recurrent phenomena reported to occur in particular
locations that include  apparitions, sounds, movement of objects,
and other effects.
 Poltergeist: Large-scale PK phenomena often attributed to spirits,
but which are now  thought to be due to a living person, frequently
an adolescent.
 Psi : A neutral term for parapsychological phenomena. Psi,
psychic, and psychical are  synonyms.

5.1 TECHNICAL NOTE: BASIC TERMS
The above terms are representative of common usage, but
parapsychologists usually define psi phenomena in more neutral or
operational terms. This is because labels often carry strong but
unstated connotations that can lead to misinterpretations.  For
example, telepathy is commonly thought of as mind-reading. However,
in practice, and certainly in laboratory research, experiences of
telepathy rarely involve perception of actual thoughts, and the
experience itself often does not logically require communication
between two minds, but can also be "explained" as clairvoyance or
precognition. Keep in mind that the names and concepts used to
describe psi actually say more about the situations in which the
phenomena are observed, than about any fundamental properties of
the phenomena themselves. That two events are classified the same
does not mean they are actually the same.

In addition, in scientific practice many of the basic terms used
above are accompanied by qualifiers such as "apparent," "putative,"
and "ostensible." This is because many claims supposedly involving
psi may not be due to psi, but to normal psychological or
misinterpreted physical reasons.

6 WHY IS PARAPSYCHOLOGY INTERESTING?
 Parapsychology is interesting mainly because of the implications.
To list a few examples, psi phenomena suggest (a) that what science
knows about the nature of universe is incomplete;
(b) that the presumed capabilities and limitations of human
potential have been underestimated;
(c) that fundamental assumptions and philosophical beliefs about
the separation of mind and body may be incorrect;
(d) that religious assumptions about the divine nature of
"miracles" may have been mistaken.

As an aside, we should note that many scientific parapsychologists
today, including most of the authors of this FAQ, take an
empirical, data-oriented approach to psi phenomena, and
specifically avoid discussing speculative implications that are not
supported by data. However, some researchers regard the current
findings of parapsychology as having a wide variety of important
implications, including implications about the spiritual nature of
humankind. Thus, in deference to the broad readership expected of
this document, we present in the following Technical Note some of
the possible implications of psi, acknowledging that this section
is, of course, speculative.

6.1 TECHNICAL NOTE: IMPLICATIONS
 In general, physicists tend to be interested in parapsychology
because of the implication that we have a gross misunderstanding
about space and time and the transmission of energy and
information. Biologists are interested because psi implies the
existence of additional, unexplained methods of sensing the world.
Psychologists are interested for what psi implies about the nature
of perception and memory. Philosophers are interested because psi
phenomena specifically address many age-old philosophical problems,
including the role of the mind in the physical world, and the
nature of the objective vs. the subjective.

Theologians and the general public tend to be interested because
personal psi experiences are often accompanied by feelings of
profound, ineffable meaning. As a result, psi is thought by some to
have "spiritual" implications.

From the materialistic perspective, which is one of the foundations
of the scientific worldview, human consciousness is nothing but an
emergent product of the functioning of Brain, Body, and Nervous
System (BBNS). That is, no matter how different mind may seem from
solid stuff like bodies, it is generated solely by the
electrochemical functioning of the BBNS, and so it is absolutely
dependent on it. When the BBNS dies, so does consciousness. From
this perspective, claims of survival of bodily death, or ghosts, or
apparitions, must be due to wishful thinking. Furthermore, the
limits of material functioning automatically determine the ultimate
limits of mental functioning, thus ESP and PK appear to be
impossible, given our current understanding about how the world
works.

And yet, psi phenomena have occurred in all cultures throughout
history, they continue to occur, and some of the reported phenomena
have been persuasively verified using scientific methods. Because
psi seems to transcend the assumed limits of material functioning,
and therefore the BBNS, some interpret psi as supporting the idea
that there is something more to mind than just the BBNS, that there
is some sort of "soul," or the like. This "non-physical" aspect, an
aspect that does not seem to be as tightly bounded by space or
time as present scientific models require, might survive bodily
death. If so, there may be important truths contained in some
spiritual ideas and practices. Of course, parapsychology is a very
long way from being able to say that "the data shows that X"
(insert your favorite religious group here) are specifically right
about religious doctrines A, B, and C but dead wrong about dogmas
P, Q and R.

We must emphasize that there is a big difference between simply
noting that the findings of parapsychology may have implications
for spiritual concepts, versus the idea that parapsychologists are
driven by some hidden spiritual agenda. Some critics of
parapsychology seem to believe that all parapsychologists have
hidden religious motives, and that they are really out to prove the
existence of the soul. This is no more true than claiming that all
chemists really harbor secret ambitions about alchemy, and thus
their real agenda is to transmute mercury into gold. The reasons
why serious investigators are drawn to any discipline are as
diverse as their backgrounds.

 7 WHAT ARE SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF PSI?
 Studies of direct mental interaction with living systems suggest
that traditional mental healing techniques, such as prayer, may be
based on genuine psi-mediated effects. In the future it may be
possible to develop enhanced methods of healing based on these
phenomena.

Psi may be involved in Murphy's Law: "If anything can go wrong, it
will." That is, modern machines based upon sensitive electronic
circuits, such as copiers and computers, may at times directly
interact with human intention, and as a result, inexplicably fail
at inopportune times. Of course, the converse may also be true.
That is, the possibility exists to repair, or to control sensitive
machines solely by mental means. Such technologies would
significantly benefit handicapped persons.

Other potential applications include improved methods of making
decisions, of locating missing persons or valuables, and of
describing events at locations we cannot go to because of distance,
time, or accessibility. This includes the possibility of psi-based
historians and forecasters.

Highly developed psi abilities may benefit psychotherapy and other
forms of counseling. Psi may be used to provide a statistical edge
in the financial markets and in locating archeological treasures.

Part 2 , Version 1.4: June 21, 1995

8 WHAT ARE THE MAJOR RESEARCH APPROACHES?
 As in any multidisciplinary domain, there are many ways of
conducting research. The five main methods used in parapsychology
are:

(1) Scholarly research, including discussion of philosophical
issues and historical surveys.
(2) Analytical research, including statistical analysis of large
databases.
(3) Case studies, including in-depth studies of personal psi
experiences, field investigations, and comparisons of
cross-cultural beliefs and practices related to psi.
(4) Theoretical research, including mathematical, descriptive and
phenomenological models of psi.
(5) Experimental research, including laboratory studies of psi
effects.

Although all five of these approaches contribute to the field,
today the primary source of "hard evidence" in parapsychology is
controlled laboratory experiments. By applying the exacting
standards of scientific method, researchers over the past six
decades have developed an increasingly persuasive database for
certain types of psi phenomena.

Several major experimental designs have been developed during this
time, and a select few experiments have now been repeated hundreds
of times by dozens of researchers, world-wide. Sometimes these
experiments are conducted as strict replications, but more often
they are conceptually similar experiments that add controls or
extend the range of questions addressed.



9 WHAT ARE THE MAJOR PSI EXPERIMENTS TODAY?
 Through popular books and portrayals of parapsychology in movies
like "Ghostbusters," many people assume that psi experimenters
today primarily use "ESP cards." This is a deck of 25 cards, with
five repetitions of five cards showing symbols of a square, circle,
wavy line, cross, or star. Such cards were developed and used
extensively in early psi experiments primarily by J. B. Rhine and
his colleagues from the 1930's through the 1960's. ESP cards
provided persuasive evidence for ESP, but today they are rarely
used by professionals. Four of the most prolific and persuasive of
the current experiments are the following:

9.1 PK ON RANDOM NUMBER GENERATORS
The advent of electronic and computer technologies has allowed
researchers to develop highly automated experiments studying the
interaction between mind and matter. In one such experiment, a
Random Number Generator (RNG) based on electronic or radioactive
noise produces a data stream that is recorded and analysed by
computer software.

In the typical RNG experiment, a subject attempts to mentally
change the distribution of the random numbers, usually in an
experimental design that is functionally equivalent to getting more
"heads" than "tails" while flipping a coin. Of course the
electronic, computerized experiment has many advantages over
earlier research using, e.g., tossed coins or dice. In the RNG
experiment, great flexibility is combined with careful scientific
control and a high rate of data acquisition.

A meta-analysis of the database, published in 1989, examined 800
experiments by more than 60 researchers over the preceding 30
years. The effect size was found to be very small, but remarkably
consistent, resulting in an overall statistical deviation of
approximately 15 standard errors from a chance effect. The
probability that the observed effect was actually zero (i.e., no
psi) was less than one part in a trillion, verifying that human
consciousness can indeed affect the behavior of a random physical
system. Furthermore, while experimental quality had significantly
increased over time, this was uncorrelated with the effect size, in
contradiction to a frequent, but apparently unfounded skeptical
criticism.

9.2 PK ON LIVING SYSTEMS
 This has also been called bio-PK, and more recently some
researchers refer to it as Direct Mental Interactions with Living
Systems (DMILS). The ability to monitor internal functions of the
body, including nervous system activity using EEG and biofeedback
technologies, has provided an opportunity to ask whether biological
systems may also be affected by intention in a manner similar to PK
on RNGs.

A DMILS experiment that has been particularly successful is one
that looks at the commonly reported "feeling of being stared at."
The "starer" and the "staree" are isolated in different locations,
and the starer is periodically asked to simply gaze at the staree
via closed circuit video links. Meanwhile the staree's nervous
system activity is automatically and continuously monitored. The
cumulative database on this and similar DMILS experiments provides
strong evidence that one person's attention directed towards a
remote, isolated person, can significantly activate or calm that
person's nervous system, according to the instructions given to the
starer.

9.3 ESP IN THE GANZFELD
 One theory about how perceptual psi works is that the psi
"signals" are often present in the brain, but they are difficult to
attend to because of the noise of normal sensory input. The
ganzfeld ("whole field") technique was developed to quiet this
external noise by providing a mild, unpatterned sensory field to
mask the noise of the outside world. In the typical ganzfeld
experiment, the telepathic "sender" and "receiver" are isolated,
the receiver is put into the ganzfeld state, and the sender is
shown a video clip or still picture and asked to mentally send that
image to the receiver.

The receiver, while in the ganzfeld, is asked to continuously
report aloud all mental processes, including images, thoughts,
feelings. At the end of the sending period, typically about 20 to
40 minutes in length, the receiver is taken out of the ganzfeld,
and shown four images or videos, one of which is the true target
and three are non-target decoys. The receiver attempts to select
the true target, using perceptions experienced during the ganzfeld
state as clues to what the mentally "sent" image might have been.
With no telepathy, chance expectation allows us to predict that the
correct target would be selected about 1 in 4 times, for a 25% "hit
rate." After scores of such experiments, presently totalling about
700 individual sessions conducted by about two dozen investigators,
world-wide, the results show that the target image is selected on
average 34% of the time. This is a highly significant result,
suggesting that telepathy, at least as operationally defined in
this experiment, exists.

9.4 REMOTE VIEWING
 The ganzfeld technique indicates that information can be exchanged
mentally after the receiver is placed in an altered state of
consciousness (the ganzfeld). The remote viewing experiment, in one
of its many forms, investigates whether information can be gained
without requiring a special altered state, and without a sender.
For example, in one type of remote viewing experiment, a pool of
several hundred photographs are created. One of these is randomly
selected by a third party to be the target, and it is set aside in
a remote location. The experimental participant then attempts to
sketch or otherwise describe that remote target photo. This is
repeated for a total of say, 7 different targets. Many ways of
evaluating the results of this test have been developed, including
some highly sophisticated methods. One common (and easy) method is
to take the group of seven target photos and responses, randomly
shuffle the targets and responses, and then ask independent judges
to rank order or match the correct targets with the participant's
actual responses. If there was real transfer of information, the
responses should correspond more closely to the correct targets
than to the mismatched targets.

Several thousand such trials have been conducted by dozens of
investigators over the past 25 years, involving hundreds of
participants. The cumulative database strongly indicates that
information about remote photos, actual scenes, and events can be
perceived. Some of these experiments have also been used to
successfully study precognition by having a participant describe a
photo that would be randomly selected in the future.

9.5 TECHNICAL NOTE: METHODOLOGY
 Parapsychology uses methods commonly employed in other scientific
disciplines. Laboratory studies use research methods from
psychology, biology and physics. Field research uses methods from
sociology and anthropology. There are plenty of textbooks on
research methods in these fields, and we won't attempt to summarize
them here.

What's special about parapsychology is the need to pay very close
attention to "conventional" explanations. This is because we've
defined psi phenomena as exchanges of information that do not
involve currently known (i.e., conventional) processes. For
instance, we talk about "ESP" when people know about things going
on in their environment without getting the information by seeing,
hearing, touching, smelling, or through any other known sensory
input, or without being able to figure out the "target"
information. We talk about "PK" when physical systems appear to
react to people's intentions and there's no known physical contact
between the person and the "target." Words like "without," and
phrases like "no known," show up a great deal in descriptions of
psi phenomena.

Therefore, an important part of parapsychological research is
eliminating known contact methods from laboratory setups and
thinking carefully about them when evaluating reports of people's
experiences. In ESP research, this requires knowing about the
psychology of sensation, perception, memory, thinking, and
communication, and about the biology and physics of sensation and
movement. In PK studies, it is important to know about the physical
characteristics of the "target," how it works, and what might
affect it. In field studies, and in most laboratory studies, it's
important to know about the ways in which people can interact with
each other. Of course, in field studies it is much more difficult
to eliminate conventional explanations than it is in the laboratory
because you can't set things up beforehand to eliminate
conventional contact between the people and the "targets."

Even when known contact methods are well controlled or eliminated,
there is always the possibility that what we observe could have
occurred by chance. That is, a person's apparent ESP knowledge
about some distant event might be a random guess that just happens
to resemble the target. Or, what looks like a PK effect on a
physical system might be a random change in that system that just
happens to occur at the right time. So it's important to know the
statistical methods used to measure how likely it is that the event
could have occurred by chance, and how to decide when that's so
unlikely that it makes more sense to think there really was some
kind of psi contact.

Sometimes field research is not concerned with whether the
experiences people report were really psi phenomena, but instead
asks questions like, "What do people report about experiences they
think were psi?", "How does having these experiences affect their
lives?", and "Do people's psychological or cultural characteristics
influence how likely they are to interpret experiences as psi?"
This is straightforward anthropological, sociological, or
psychological research and does not require the same kind of strict
attention to eliminating conventional explanations. The value of
field research methods is that they investigate the experiences
that people actually report. These include experiences such as
precognitive dreams, out-of-body experiences, telepathic
impressions, auras, memories of previous lives, hauntings and
poltergeists and apparitions. Research on these issues results in
information about incidence, phenomenology, demographic and
psychological correlates of the experiences.

While field or spontaneous case research is less technical, and
often more exciting to read, it is wise to avoid jumping to
conclusions about the nature of psi from individual cases. Such
studies examine how people report or think about their experiences,
not what those experiences actually are. However, because
spontaneous case studies concentrate on the "raw experience," they
offer a valuable view of psi that is often missing in controlled
laboratory experiments. Case studies provide a chance to discover
the personal meanings and the psychodynamics underlying the
experiences, which in turn may provide important hints as to
possible mechanisms of psi.

An important goal of laboratory research is to determine the degree
to which experiences reported in field and spontaneous-case
research can be verified using current scientific methods. If they
prove to be verifiable in the lab, the major intent of the lab work
usually shifts from "proof-oriented" research to
"process-oriented," in which the goal is to discover the
psychological, physiological, and physical mechanisms of each
phenomenon.

10 WHAT ARE COMMON CRITICISMS AND RESPONSES ABOUT PARAPSYCHOLOGY?
Constructive criticism is essential in science and is welcomed by
the majority of active psi researchers. Strong skepticism is
expected, and many parapsychologists are far more skeptical about
psi than most "outside" scientists realize.

However, it is not generally appreciated that some of the more
vocal criticisms about psi are actually "pseudo-criticisms." That
is, the more barbed, belligerent criticisms occasionally asserted
by some skeptics are often issued from such strongly held,
prejudicial positions that the criticisms are not offered as
constructive suggestions, but as authoritarian proofs of the
impossibility of psi.

It is commonly supposed by non-scientists that skeptical debates
over the merits of psi research follow the standards of scholarly
discussions. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.
Disparaging rhetoric and ad hominem attacks arise too often in
debates about psi. The social science of parapsychology, and the
way that science treats anomalies in general, is a fascinating
topic that starkly illuminates the very human side of how science
really works. A more complete description of this topic is beyond
the scope of this FAQ.

10.1 CRITICISM 1
 Criticism: Apparently successful experimental results are actually
due to sloppy procedures, poorly trained researchers,
methodological flaws, selective reporting, and statistics problems.
There is therefore not a shred of scientific evidence for psi
phenomena.

Response: These issues have been addressed in detail by
meta-analytic reviews of the experimental literature . The results
unambiguously demonstrate that successful experiments cannot be
explained away by these criticisms. In fact, research by Harvard
University specialists in scientific methods showed that the best
experimental psi research today is not only conducted according to
proper scientific standards, but usually adheres to more rigorous
protocols than are found in contemporary research in both the
social and physical sciences. In addition, over the years there
have been a number of very effective rebuttals of criticisms of
individual studies, and within the past decade, experimental
procedures have been developed that address virtually all
methodological criticisms, even the possibility of fraud and
collusion, by including skeptics in the experimental procedures.

10.2 CRITICISM 2
 Criticism: Psi phenomena violate basic limiting principles of
science, and are therefore impossible.

Response: Twenty years ago, this criticism was a fairly common
retort to claims of psi phenomena. Today, with advancements in many
scientific disciplines, the scientific worldview is rapidly
changing, and the basic limiting principles are constantly being
redefined. In addition, the substantial empirical database in
parapsychology now presents anomalies that simply won't "go away,"
thus this criticism is no longer persuasive and is slowly
disappearing. Given the rate of change in science today, assigning
psi to the realm of the impossible now seems imprudent at best,
foolish at worst.

10.3 CRITICISM 3
 Criticism: Parapsychology does not have a "repeatable" experiment.

Response: When many people talk about a repeatable psi experiment,
they usually have in mind an experiment like those conducted in
elementary physics classes to demonstrate the acceleration of
gravity, or simple chemical reactions. In such experiments, where
there are relatively few, well-known and well-controllable
variables, the experiments can be performed by practically anyone,
anytime, and they will work. But insisting on this level of
repeatability is inappropriate for parapsychology, or for that
matter, for most social or behavioral science experiments. Psi
experiments usually involve many variables, some of which are
poorly understood and difficult or impossible to directly control.
Under these circumstances, scientists use statistical arguments to
demonstrate "repeatability" instead of the common, but restrictive
view that "If it's real, I should be able to do it whenever I
want."

Under the assumption that there is no such thing as psi, we would
expect that about 5% of well-conducted psi experiments would be
declared "successful" (i.e., statistically significant) by pure
chance. But suppose that in a series of 100 actual psi experiments
we consistently observed that 20 were successful. This is extremely
unlikely to occur by chance, suggesting that psi was present in
some of those studies. However, it also means that in any
particular experiment, there is an 80% probability of "failure."
Thus, if a critic set out to repeat a psi experiment to see if the
phenomenon was "real," and the experiment failed, it would
obviously be incorrect to claim on the basis of that single
experiment that psi is not real because it is not repeatable.

A widely accepted method of assessing repeatability in experiments
is called meta-analysis. This quantitative technique is heavily
used in the social, behavioral and medical sciences to integrate
research results of numerous independent experiments. Starting
around 1985, meta-analyses have been conducted on numerous types of
psi experiments. In many of these analyses, results indicate that
the outcomes were not due to chance, or methodological flaws, or
selective reporting practices, or any other plausible "normal"
explanations. What remains is psi, and in several experimental
realms, it has clearly been replicated by independent
investigators.

11 WHY IS PARAPSYCHOLOGY CONTROVERSIAL?
Parapsychology remains controversial today, even with substantial,
persuasive, and scientifically palatable results, for two main
reasons: First, the media and much of the public often confuse
parapsychology with sensational, unscientific beliefs and stories
about "the paranormal." This widespread confusion has led many
scientists to instantly dismiss the field as being unworthy of
serious study, and thus they are unaware of the existing evidence.

Second, even if someone wanted to study the evidence, much of the
persuasive work is published in limited circulation professional
journals. These can be found in most large university libraries,
but in many cases, scholars must request reprints and technical
reports from authors. This FAQ was produced partially to alleviate
the problem, and to provide references to various resources. (See
Where can I get more information?)

12 WHAT IS THE STATE-OF-THE-EVIDENCE FOR PSI?
 To be precise, when we say that "X exists," we mean that the
presently available, cumulative statistical database for
experiments studying X, provides strong, scientifically credible
evidence for repeatable, anomalous, X-like effects.

With this in mind, ESP exists, precognition exists, telepathy
exists, and PK exists. ESP is statistically robust, meaning it can
be reliably demonstrated through repeated trials, but it tends to
be weak when simple geometric symbols are used as targets.
Photographic or video targets often produce effects many times
larger, and there is some evidence that ESP on natural locations
(as opposed to photos of them), and in natural contexts, may be
stronger yet.

Some PK effects have also been shown to exist. When individuals
focus their intention on mechanical or electronic devices that
fluctuate randomly, the fluctuations change in ways that conform to
their mental intention. Under control conditions, when individuals
direct their attention elsewhere, the fluctuations are in
accordance with chance.

Note that we are using the terms ESP, telepathy and PK in the
technical sense, not in the popular sense. See What do
parapsychologists study?

13 WHAT IS THE STATE-OF-THE-THEORY FOR PSI?
 Opinions about mechanisms of psi are wide ranging. Because the
field is multidisciplinary, there are physical theories,
psychological theories, psychophysical theories, sociological
theories, and combinations of these.

On one end of the spectrum, the "physicalists" tend to believe that
the "psi sensing capacity" is like any other human sensory system,
and as such it will most likely be explained by known principles
from biophysics, chemistry, and cognitive science. For these
theorists, psi is expected to be accommodated into the existing
scientific structure, with perhaps some modifications or
extensions.

On the other end of the spectrum, the "mentalists" assert that
reality would not exist if it were not for human consciousness. For
these theorists, the nature of the universe is much more
effervescent, thus accommodating psi into existing scientific
models will require significant modification of science as we know
it. Strong theoretical debates are common in parapsychology in part
because spirit, religion, the meaning of life, and other
philosophical conundrums comingle with quantum mechanics,
probability theory, and neurons.

Some theorists have attempted to link psi phenomena with similar-
sounding concepts from quantum mechanics, including non-locality,
instantaneous correlations at a distance, and other anomalies. Such
suggestions always spark vigorous debates, and at some point it
seems the critics are inevitably accused of not properly
understanding quantum mechanics. (This is why we do not discuss
quantum mechanical theories of psi here. See, however, the
Mind-Matter Unification Project at Cambridge University.)

14 WHERE CAN I GET MORE INFORMATION?
 The major international societies interested in parapsychology as
a science are the following:

 Parapsychological Association
 Society for Scientific Exploration
 SPR (Society for Psychical Research, London, UK)
 American Society for Psychical Research, New York, NY, USA
 The major, peer-reviewed parapsychological journals today are the
following:

 European Journal of Parapsychology
 Journal of Parapsychology
 Journal of the American Society of Psychic Research
 Journal of the Society of Psychical Research
 Journal of Scientific Exploration
 Zeitschrift fuer Psychologische Grenzgebiete

Other journals that have published parapsychological articles
include:

 Foundations of Physics
 Proceedings of the IEEE
 Psychological Bulletin
 Statistical Science
 Subtle Energies
 Science
 Nature

15 QUESTIONS ABOUT POPULAR PHENOMENA
15.1 ARE GHOSTS REAL?
 The prevailing view today is that the mysterious physical effects
historically attributed to ghosts (disembodied spirits), such as
movement of objects, strange sounds, enigmatic odors, and failure
of electrical equipment, are actually poltergeist phenomena (see
below). Apparitions that occur without accompanying physical
effects are thought to be either normal psychological effects
(i.e., hallucinations), or possibly genuine information mediated by
psi.

15.2 ARE POLTERGEISTS REAL?
Poltergeists (from the German, "noisy ghosts") usually manifest as
strange electrical effects and unexplained movement of objects. At
one time, these phenomena were thought to be due to ghosts, but
after decades of investigations by researchers, notably by William
G. Roll, the evidence now suggests that poltergeists are PK effects
produced by one or more individuals, usually troubled adolescents.
The term "RSPK," meaning "Recurrent Spontaneous PK," was coined to
describe this concept.

15.3 IF PSI IS REAL, WHY DO CASINOS MAKE SO MUCH MONEY?
 The house "take" of the typical casino, i.e. the average
percentage of the bet that the casino keeps, is so large that a
person would have to be able to apply consistently strong psi, at
will, to make any notable difference in long-term casino profits.
For example, the theoretical house take for table games ranges from
about 5% to 10%, depending on the game. In practice, the house take
is more like 25%, because most players do not consistently play
well. That means that on average, for every $100 gambled at the
table, the gambler takes home about $75.

Thus, in spite of the fact that the daily house take can fluctuate
between say, 100% (lots of losers) and -100% (lots of winners),
over the long term casino profits are quite predictable and stable.
This suggests that most people cannot consistently apply strong psi
at will. However, given that some psi effects are known to be
genuine, in principle a good, consistent psychic could make some
money by gambling. In addition, many people applying weak psi may
cause notable fluctuations in casino profits, but testing this
possibility would require analyzing an enormous amount of casino
data, and such data has been difficult to obtain.

15.4 IS CHANNELING REAL?
Channeling is the claim that a departed spirit, or other
non-physical entity, can speak or act through a sensitive person.
In the late 1800s, this was called mediumship; similar claims of
communicating with departed spirits can be found throughout history
and across most cultures. Some researchers believe that cases of
exceptional prodigies, like Mozart in music, or Ramanujan in
mathematics, provide evidence of genuine channeling.

While some of the material supposedly channeled by departed
spirits, or other-worldly beings, is clearly nonsense, other works
have inspired large numbers of people and serve as continuing
sources of illumination. Revealed religions, and some visionary
experiences, for example, are versions of channelled information.
However, whether the information came from a genuinely paranormal
source, or from the channeller's unconscious, is a perennial topic
of debate.

15.5 ARE LARGE-SCALE PK EFFECTS, LIKE
LEVITATION, REAL?
Throughout history there have been many reports of spectacular
events, such as individuals levitating, holy people materializing
objects out of thin air, and people who are able to move, bend or
break objects without touching them. Unfortunately, in most cases
individuals who make such claims hope to capitalize on their
"abilities." Because the potential for fraud is high, and it is
relatively easy to create convincing effects that closely mimic
paranormal ones (with conjuring techniques), trustworthy evidence
for such large-scale effects is very poor. There are a few cases of
apparently genuine movement of small objects, but in general the
existence of large-scale, or macro-PK, is still open to serious
question.

16 WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF PARAPSYCHOLOGY?
 Note: This history is limited to an outline of a subset of
English-language developments in parapsychology. As an ancient,
cross-cultural phenomenon, psi has been studied by many groups, and
in many ways, throughout history.

1880
Parapsychology, as practiced in the Western world, grew out of a
serious, scientific interest in Spiritualism in the late 1800s in
Great Britain and the United States. The (British) Society for
Psychical Research (SPR), founded in 1882, and the American Society
for Psychical Research, founded in 1885, were created by leading
scientists of the day to study mediums who claimed they could
contact the dead or produce other psychic effects. Much of the
early evidence was descriptive and anecdotal, including reports of
precognitive dreams, descriptions of table levitations, accounts of
ghost sightings, and so on. Some members of the Societies for
Psychical Research attempted to test the phenomena claimed by
physical mediums using special instruments they designed. Some of
the case studies and books published by members of these societies,
most notably the work by Frederic Myers in the UK, and William
James in the USA, are enduring classics.

1900 to 1960s
 In 1917, J. E. Coover, a psychologist at Stanford University, was
one of the first investigators to apply experimental techniques to
study psi abilities in the laboratory. But it was not until 1927
that a new era for psi research was established by biologist J. B.
Rhine. Rhine and his colleagues developed original experimental
techniques and helped popularize the terms "ESP" and
"parapsychology." Rhine's lab at Duke University (Durham, North
Carolina), initially part of the Psychology Department, developed a
world-wide reputation for pioneering and scientifically sound psi
research. In 1935, Rhine created the first academically-based,
independent parapsychology laboratory at Duke University. His
best-known research involved ESP testing using special cards and PK
tests using dice. In 1965, Rhine retired from Duke and moved his
lab off-campus. Today, Rhine's legacy, the Rhine Research Center's
Institute for Parapsychology actively conducts psi research with
Richard Broughton at the helm.

1960s
 Interest in parapsychology exploded in the 1960s, resulting in the
establishment of the following programs: William G. Roll founded
the Psychical Research Foundation in North Carolina, USA. Roll is
best known for his studies on poltergeist and haunting phenomena.
Roll is currently active in psi research in Georgia.

Ian Stevenson began a Division of Parapsychology as part of the
Department of Psychiatry of the University of Virginia Medical
School. Stevenson emphasized research on spontaneous cases,
including precognitive dreams and telepathic impressions, and is
best known for pioneering work in survival-related phenomena,
primary reincarnation- type cases in children from countries like
India, Burma and Thailand. The Division is now called the Division
of Personality Studies, and Stevenson is actively engaged in
research.

Karlis Osis became the Chester Carlson Research Fellow at the
American Society for Psychical Research, in New York City. Osis
conducted research on OBEs, survey research on beliefs and
attitudes, case studies of apparitions, and is perhaps best known
for his original work on deathbed visions. Osis is now retired.

Parapsychological research began in the Psychology Department at
the University of Edinburgh by John Beloff. In 1985 the Koestler
Chair of Parapsychology was established in the department, from a
bequest from the author, Arthur Koestler, and his wife, Cynthia.
Prof. Robert L. Morris is the first holder of this chair. Morris,
his research team and postgraduate students are actively pursuing
an approach to parapsychology that emphasizes the understanding and
facilitation of psi interactions. For more information, see
Koestler Parapsychology Unit.

A major research program was established by Montague Ullman and
Stanley Krippner at the Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, New York,
USA. This team, which later included Charles Honorton, is best
known for their work in dream telepathy. As the Maimonides program
wound down in 1979, Charles Honorton opened a new lab, called the
Psychophysical Research Laboratories, in Princeton, New Jersey,
USA. Honorton's lab, which continued operating until 1989, was best
known for research on telepathy in the ganzfeld, micro-PK tests,
and meta-analytic work. Krippner is currently engaged in active
research at the Saybrook Institute, San Francisco, CA. Honorton
tragically died in 1993 while pursuing a PhD in parapsychology at
the University of Edinburgh.

Charles Tart, a professor of psychology best known for his
pioneering work on altered states of consciousness, taught and
conducted parapsychological research at the University of
California, Davis. He is retired from the University now, and
conducts teaching and research at, among other places, the
Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, in Palo Alto, CA.

1970s
 In 1972, a major psi research effort began at the California
think-tank, SRI International, in Menlo Park, California, USA
(formerly called Stanford Research Institute). The program was
established by physicists Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ; later
physicist Edwin May joined the team. The SRI program concentrated
on remote viewing research (and coined the term). May took over the
program in 1985 when Puthoff left for another position. When May
left SRI International in 1989, he reestablished a similar program
in the Palo Alto-based Cognitive Sciences Laboratory of Science
Applications International Corporation (SAIC). That program is
still engaged in research and is best known for using sophisticated
technologies, like magnetoencephalographs to study brain function
while individuals perform psi tasks. The Laboratory also develops
theoretical models of micro-PK and approaches remote viewing
research primarily from the "physicalist" perspective.

Also in 1979, another psi research program began in Princeton, New
Jersey, within the School of Engineering at Princeton University.
This was founded by Robert Jahn, then the Dean of the School of
Engineering. The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR
Laboratory) lab is still conducting research, and is best known for
its massive databases on micro-PK tests, PK tests involving other
physical systems, its "precognitive remote perception" experiments,
and its theoretical work attempting to link metaphors of quantum
mechanics to psi functioning.

1990s
 In late 1993, Dean Radin established the Consciousness Research
Laboratory, a psi research program within the Harry Reid Center for
Environmental Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The
lab conducts basic and applied research on psi effects.

In 1995, Richard Wiseman began a psi research program began at the
Department of Psychology, University of Hertfordshire, UK, and
Susan Blackmore began a similar program at the Department of
Psychology, the University of West England, in Bristol, UK.

 17 ARE THERE ANY PSI RESEARCH EXPERIMENTS ACCESSIBLE OVER THE NET?

Yes. Psi experiments on the Web are currently running at the
University of Amsterdam, see Anomalous Cognition. Others
experiments will be running soon from the Consciousness Research
Laboratory, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the Cognitive
Sciences Laboratory, SAIC.

18 WHERE ARE THE ACTIVE PSI RESEARCH FACILITIES?
 Anomalous Cognition Program, University of Amsterdam, The
Netherlands:
Cognitive Sciences Laboratory, SAIC, Palo Alto, CA
 Consciousness Research Laboratory , University of Nevada, Las
Vegas, NV, USA
Department of Psychology, University of Hertfordshire, UK
  Eotvos Lorand University of Budapest, Hungary
 Institute for Parapsychology, Rhine Research Center, Durham, NC,
USA
 Mind-Matter Unification Project, Cambridge University, UK
 Koestler Parapsychology Unit, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
 PEAR Laboratory, Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research
Laboratory, Princeton
 University, Princeton, NJ, USA

19 WHO ARE THE MAJOR
CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS FAQ?
 Editor, Dean Radin, Ph.D., Consciousness Research Laboratory,
University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, USA
 Carlos Alvarado, MS., University of Edinburgh, Scotland
 Dick Bierman, Ph.D., Anomalous Cognition, University of Amsterdam
 Topher Cooper, MS., Voice Processing Corporation, Waltham, MA, USA

 Edwin May, Ph.D., SAIC, Palo Alto, CA, USA
 Roger Nelson, Ph.D., PEAR Laboratory, Princeton University,
Princeton, NJ, USA
 Ephraim Schechter, Ph.D., University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

 James Spottiswoode, BSc., James Spottiswoode & Assoc., CA
 Charles Tart, Ph.D., University of California, Davis (Emeritus),
CA, USA

General Disclaimer: All contributions to this FAQ are personal
opinions and do not reflect or imply official positions of any
organizations, companies, or universities.

Send comments or queries to Dean Radin
Version 1.4: June 21, 1995
To submit questions to the FAQ, send email to
Dean Radin  (dradin@nevada.edu )
Part 3,  Version 1.4: June 21, 1995
Copyright 1995 Dean Radin, all rights reserved.