TOfttatTS:
THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS*
INTRODUCTION
Deborah
Delanoy
(1988)
examined
the
observations
from
some
tree-response
literature on what makes a good GESP target,
Despite the flaws and contradictory
findings seen
in
this
literature,
it was
possible
to make a few general statements
about what experimenters believe constitutes a good GESP target.
This paper can
be seen as forming the second half of our observations and thoughts about targets in
parapsychological research.
Delanoy described what
is currently believed about the
characteristics
of
successful
GESP
targets,
concentrating
on
relatively
formal
free-response
experiments
in
parapsychology.
In
contrast
this
paper
describes
theoretical suggestions as to what might be expected to make good targets, roaming
more widely (and consequently with less depth) over some varied literature which has
something relevant to say on this question.
As
stressed by Delanoy, our combined
efforts
are
far from
comprehensive,
being
primarily aimed
at getting some idea of what kind of targets we should use
in our
research
in
Edinburgh.
To do
this, we
looked
through some
parapsychological
journals (JASPR,
JP, JSPR,
EJP,
UP),
parapsychological
abstracts, PA and PF
convention proceedings, RIP, Parapsychology Review, certain "relevant" books held
in the Koestler Chair library, and
I have also examined some psychological research
which
I consider relevant to the target question.
Particular attention was given
to
cases where authors made specific comments about the characteristics of successful
GESP targets.
Firstly,
this paper
briefly
considers
so-called
"Airport
Project"
books [named
after
some research by Professor Robert Morris and his students using the kind of "how to
be
psychic"
books
which
can
be
found
in
airport
bookshops
(Morris,
1977)].
Secondly, the paper examines (again
briefly) the
kind
of "target" information which
seems to be transmitted in people’s spontaneous psychic expc riences.
Thirdly, this
paper considers some theoretical suggestions by parapsychologists as to what might
be expected to make a good GESP target.
Then
I make some suggestions of my
own on possible characteristics of a successful GESP target, Derived from some of
the
psychological
literature on
human-environment
interactions,
curiosity,
attention,
and attributions of causality. The paper ends with a summary and conclusions.
I would like to thank Prof. Jim Crandall, Dr. Deborah Delanoy, Dr. Julie Milton, Prof.
Robert Morris and Mr. Robin Taylor for their valuable criticisms of and contributions to
this paper.
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1. "AIRPORT PROJECT" BOOKS
A skim through the 21
"how to be psychic" books which form part
of the Koestler
Chair
library, 'and which
I
felt might have some comments
to make about targets,
found only 6 authors who made recommendations on what might make a good target
when training psychic powers.
Even then, the authors invariably failed to define their
terms or write more than a sentence on the subject.
These recommendations should
therefore be treated
with
caution, as they do
not represent the
findings
of careful
scientific experimentation.
On the other hand, they may have something to suggest
about popular ideas
of what makes a good GESP
target, and these ideas may be
based on some grain of truth.
Boswell (1969) recommended the use of "mentally stimulating" targets.
Also, he
felt
that
physical
sensation and
especially
emotion
were
easily
transmitted, and
that
colour was picked up better than black and white.
Edwards (no date) suggests that
faces and pictures make good targets.
Denning &
Phillips (1981) recommend trying
to transmit a message of emotional significance to the receiver.
Likewise, Sherman
(1960) says that
it is crucial to have some emotional content to the target.
A related
area of interest is psychometry, where an object
is used to provide further information
about
its owner.
Powell (1979) recommends using as a token object metal or leather
which has been close to the skin for a long time and therefore has had a chance to
build up some personal association with the owner.
Finally, Bums (1981) feels the
following make good
practice
targets
for developing GESP:
pictures
(rather than
words); something experienced
vividly by
the
agent;
flavours; body
position
of the
agent, or whether the agent
is
sitting
in the
light or dark; and sizes and weights of
objects.
There do seem to be some common themes
in these authors’ suggestions, though
the small sample covered here means that any patterns could be illusory:
emotional
impact seems
to
be
important
(though
little
is
said
about
whether
the
specific
emotions
should be
positive
or
negative
ones); and
targets conveying
information
about events happening to humans seem popular.
2. SPONTANEOUS CASES
There
is a considerable
literature
concerning
the
sort
of
information conveyed
in
spontaneous cases of ESP, and so as a necessary constraint this section
is limited to
observations
from
Sybo
Schouten’s
(1979b,
1982)
examination
of
two
great
collections
of spontaneous cases
- Phantasms of the Living and the Louisa Rhine
collection.
Schouten made a
quantitative
analysis
of these
collections
with a view
to
finding
patterns and relationships which might stimulate further experimental research.
As he
pointed
out, the two collections covered quite
different cultures and eras, and were
gathered for different purposes.
The collectors of the "Phantasms" cases took great
pains
to
investigate and
verify
their cases, and had a special
interest
in
receiving
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In contrast, the Rhine collection took cases more or less at face value, with
the idea that inaccuracies would cancel each other out over a large number of cases,
and
the
reports
were
gathered
with
the
aim
of
providing
suggestions
for
future
laboratory research (Schouten, 1986).
j
Excluding
150
of the cases
(for reasons
outlined
in
Schouten
1979b),
Schouten
analysed
the
remaining
"Phantasms"
cases
according
to
previously-defined
categories (Schouten, 1979a) and found that about 75% of the bases involved death,
illness or injury to the target person, though a tendency to remember serious events
for longer than trivial events accounted for some of this pattern.
Only 1.4% of cases
conveyed Information about positive experiences of the target person.
Table
1 (from Schouten, 1979b, p.432)
Situation of target person at time of experience
death
66.7%
serious illness
12.5%
slight injuries
8.7%
serious material
.5%
slight material
.2%
trivial
10.0%
positive
1.4%
It
is
interesting
to
note
that
slight personal
injuries were more
often
the
topic
of
spontaneous
experiences
(8.7%)
than
serious
material damage
(for
example,
a
building
on
fire,
considerable
financial
loss)
(0.5%).
This
suggests
that
negative
events related to humans are particularly strong targets in spontaneous cases.
Similar patterns
are observed
in Schouten’s
(1982)
study
of the
Rhine
collection,
where he analysed a
representative
sarrtple (15%)
of cases
(excluding PK). About
75%
of the sample concerned
negative events such as death,
injury and accident
while almost no cases concerned material damage.
As with the Phantasms study, a
tendency to remember and report serious events more often than non-serious events
accounts for some of this pattern.
However, the distribution of negative events in the
Rhine collection differs from the Phantasms collection, with the former having fewer
cases involving death of the target person (37.7% compared with 66.7%), but more
cases involving serious accidents and slight injuries.
As Schoutam points out, part of
this
difference may be due
to
the Phantasms
collectors’ preference
for apparition
cases.
In
summary,
Schouten’s
analyses
of
spontaneous
case
collections
suggest
that
negative events related to humans feature predominantly as "targets", although this
observation may be partly due to a reporting bias.
It is significant that both the Rhine
and the Phantasms cases share this pattern despite the very different methods used
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to gather these collections.
Evidently parapsychologists cannot
inflict physical
injury
on
their experimental
participants
in order to simulate
real-life spontaneous cases.
However,
negative
physical events are
likely
to have a negative emotional impact
both on the target person and on the percipient
(especially
if they are emotionally
close).
Possibly,
therefore,
targets
which
have some
strong
negative
emotional
impact on a person may have more success In a free-response experimental setting
than
trivial or impersonal targets.
Further,
it might be expected that any emotional
impact
is
better than
none, and
so
positive
emotional
targets
could perhaps be
successfully used
in experimental research
- this might circumvent any researcher’s
concern about the ethics of exposing experimental participants to unpleasant targets.
3. THEORETICAL SUGGESTIONS BY PARAPSYCHOLOGISTS
Although this
is not a comprehensive review,
I have tried to cover instances where
authors
have
made
specific
comments
about
likely
successful
targets.
Their
suggestions range from post hoc inferences based on the kinds of targets which were
successful
in experimental studies to observations
of what makes a good target
in
areas of research related to parapsychology.
Le
Shan
(1977)
criticizes
parapsychologists
for
often
neglecting
to
consider
the
theoretical assumptions underpinning their research.
There has been
little discussion,
he
feels,
of what kind of information
psi transmits even though there seems to be
wide agreement that psi does transmit information.
As an example of how theorising
on
this issue might influence our experimental design and choice of target material,
Le Shan considers the
possibility
that
psi might depend on
individual
differences,
being
better adapted
for one purpose with one person and another purpose
in a
different person.
In
this case, he suggests we should
’’customize’’ our targets by
examining
experimental
participants
for
their
personal
interests,
philosophies,
preferred sensory modalities, and so on.
One of the few studies specifically to examine how target characteristics relate to psi
performance was
conducted
by
Williams & Duke
(1979), who go
on
to
discuss
theoretical
suggestions
derived
from
their
observations.
Taking
an
evolutionary
perspective and
asking what
sort
of
information
might have been
most
crucial
to
communicate
before
language
evolved
in
humans,
they
conclude
that
targets
reflecting
"emotion,
sex,
survival,
nature, food and other basic concerns
might be
psychically perceived better than other types of targets" (p.15)
In a
similar vein, a theoretical paper by Nash
(1980) on the
characteristics of psi
communication
considers
that,
to
be
effective,
psi
communication
must
convey
"meaningful information".
Also, one of the Maimonides experimental participants,
in a
letter
to Ullman and
Krippner, gave
her overall impressions
of a dream
telepathy
series
in which she had
recently
participated.
She
felt
that the more "potent and
unusual"
the
target
material
the
better,
because
with
subjects
who
might
be
subconsciously afraid of telepathy this kind of target might be less
likely to be "kept
out" (Ullman &
Krippner,
1973).
Perhaps
unfortunately,
it
is very
rare
to
find any
published
opinions
from
the
experimental
participants who
play
a
crucial
part
in
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