Possible applications of psychokinesis: a cartoonist’s view
Reflections
W
here does
all this leave us? At the start we promised a
complex fabric of many implausible threads, and I think
that has been
fulfilled. Also sustained
is our promise to
advocate nothing, save possibly that we keep our eyes and minds
and hearts open to this very new, yet very old, field. Certainly, the
experiments are no more than suggestive, the models only vaguely
promising, the applications and implications highly speculative. Ul-
timately, of course, the choice— and in a field such as this,
it has to
be a personal choice — must be between the assignment of all the
inexplicable to mere chance, which is somehow bedazzling hyper-
romantic minds
to delusion of order where there
is none,
or the
acknowledgment of a legitimate,
potentially coherent and
useful,
albeit very elusive, phenomenological domain.
Some 45 years ago, Albert Einstein confessed this same dilemma
in his preface to Upton Sinclair’s book, Mental Radio:
.
. The results of the telepathic experiments carefully and plainly set forth
in this book stand surely
far beyond those which a mature investigator
holds to be thinkable. On the other hand,
it is out of the question in the
case of so conscientious an observer and writer as Upton Sinclair that he is
carrying on a conscious deception of the reading world; his good faith and
dependability are not to be questioned.
.
.
, 16
One might turn to historical analogies for insight, for there are
certainly many
examples
of
originally
inexplicable phenomena
gradually congealing into an established science and then into a use-
ful technology. Take the
field of electricity and magnetism men-
tioned earlier. At the same time the Greeks were consulting their
Delphic Oracle, they were also rubbing amber to get static electrical
effects, using lodestones to navigate their boats, and observing an
occasional lightning bolt in the sky. They had no Maxwell’s equa-
tions, not even a Coulomb’s law, let alone television sets or hydro-
electric generators. Those came much later.
Again
at Princeton,
the physicist Joseph Henry was repeatedly
criticized by his peers for undertaking experiments that violated es-
tablished scientific principles and common sense, yet we now live
by many implementations of those same unreasonable ideas.
The choice between assignment of the mysterious to thoughtless
chance, or to a more purposeful higher order, has occupied many
thinkers and authors through the ages. One of my favorite opinions
on the subject is voiced by Schiller’s epic hero Wallenstein
at the
time of his impending tragic death:
Es gibt keinen Zufall; und was uns blindes Ohngefahr nur diinkt, gerade
das steigt aus den tiefsten Quellen. (“There
is no such thing as chance;
and that which seems to us blind accident, actually stems from the deepest
source of all.”)56
Some day in the future the question may be prosed whether
it
is
proper and productive for a university such as Princeton to involve
itself to any significant^^p^^g^ sPEBelR^effi®ea2O02^1ct/al 8
field as psychic research, and there will doubtless be many opinions
on this. My own is not at all fully formed, but there has hung on my
wall for the past six years a statement which may have some rele-
vance at that time:
In the long history of civilization there are always strong pressures in favor
of low-level sorts of conformity — pressures against unorthodoxy,
indi-
viduality, and self-won responsibility
. And
all the while from
left and
from right aggressive voices proclaim that truth and virtue are theirs alone.
But there is one place above all where it is (or should be) possible for men
to think and act as their own reasoned judgment and best conscience dic-
tate — namely, a university. Here
it is that the willingness to think other-
wise, to dream, to question, and to dare should flourish.
If an utter stranger to our civilization should ask: “Where in your soci-
ety can a person disagree with impunity with accepted practices, dogmas
and doctrines?” the answer should be, “The universities. That is part of
their being. Their role is to conserve the best of the past and to look for-
ward from
it. On both counts they are committed to freedom for the indi-
vidual,
the dignity of the human person, and tolerance toward dissent
within broad and agreed upon limits. ”
This
is
signed by
the U.S.
Ambassador
to
India and president
emeritus of Princeton University, the Honorable Robert F. Goheen
’40. 60
At the very least, Carol and I do hope that you have enjoyed shar-
ing our own brief exposure to the psychic tapestry; that the colors
have not been too garish for your taste, or the pattern too bizarre;
and that some of you may now care to hold the cloth in your own
hands, and attempt your own interpretation of its message.
Robert G. Jahn ’51, *55 has been dean of Princeton' s School
ofEngineering and Applied Science since 1971
. At the invita-
tion of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he visited several re-
search centers in the U.S.S.R. this past fall to lecture on his
principalfield: pulsed, high-power plasma discharges, which
are of interest for deep-space propulsion, plasmadynamic
lasers,
basic studies
in arc phenomena,
materials
testing,
and other industrial processes. He is a member of the Univer-
sity Research Board and serves as chairman of the Council
on Environmental Studies, chairman of the Committee on
Athletics, and faculty adviser to the football program. His
extra-Princeton assignments include heading the Executive
Committee of the Board of Trustees of Associated Univer-
sities,
Inc.
(the oversight and policy-making body for the
Brookhaven National Laboratory and National Radio As-
tronomy facilities), as well as membership on a number of
committees of nasa and the National Academy of Sciences.
:lciA-RDP96-00787R00050038000<M
December 4, 1978
•
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Approved For Release 2002/11/18
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000500380004-4
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