vy TIiMes A case for parapsych Mind-Reach Scientists Look at Psychic Ability. By. Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff. , 230 pp. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $8.95. eer ererntemmmemeriaattet meena orientate Lead ae a By ROBERT ORNSTEIN The scientific study of parapsycholo- gy has been with us for almost a cen- tury now, with little in the way of definitive results. One of the major problems in our acceptance of para- psychology, of course, is that we are quite resistant to new information and phenomena which we considera priori to be impossible. We do not normally pursue scientific inquiry, for instance, into these areas, If I were to propose. an experiment in training elephants to become peach trees I do not think much financial support would appear nor could I enlist anyone’s enthusiastic help. People simply do not inform themselves about things they do not believe to be possible. Such was the case within more con- - ventional science with Copernicus’s proposition of a universe that differed fundamentally from that of Ptolemy, with Harvey’s discovery of the circula- tion of blood and even in the reporting of the Wright brothers’ first air flight. Many. newspapers, including The New... York Times, simply refused ‘to cover’, it because. they: did not. think it: was, In “parapsychology, we find © thi : rejection | to an° extreme, : unmatched ny area, Even the grea “nor the testimony of all the ellows of the Royal Soci- ; a= ety”? would convince him of the truth of parapsychological data. In a professional review. of: the work of Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, au- Ahors of “Mind-Reach,” an unonymous reviewer in The Journal .of Electrical and Electronic Engineers wrote, “This is the kind of thing I wouldn’ t belleve in even if it were true.” :* : One of the basic difficulties in un derstanding parapsychology is that its * claims are a distinct challenge to our contemporary world-view. If “happen,” if there are modes of inter- personal, communication unknown to Robert Ornstein teaches at the ay versity of California Mcdica e and is the director of Human ‘iene magazine to appear in the fall. TSo0rk Approved For R&G&&&E- boosidgrd & GIA- 1ology “need much more than occasional Jong-. Shots to convince us. °°." -by Proclamation. - wardly describes © some =) people can perceive events before they |. = to the subject where two other people » have gone. These descriptions are then levee? tie Ww many, if people can influence action and/or events at a distante greater than the range of nornial influence, then perhaps we need dramatically to revise our conception of human abil- ities and/or conception of how events are registered by people. Since the bur- den of documentation, though, should be on those who claim that these ca- pacities exist, their interpretations of the nature of their data should be ac- cepted only after much evidence has been accumulated, There seems to be a persistent falla- cy regarding the work of parapsy- chologists that is based on a misunder- Standing of the nature of scientific proof—an assumption that one demon- stration, one example of a unique phe- nomenon should be enough to con- vince us that parapsychological or any other sort of scientific phenomena exist. William James expressed this proposition when he said that the ap- pearance of only one white crow would dispel forever the idea that all crows are black. But that is true only in an extremely idealistic universe, We necd much more evidence than one isolated instance to overthrow an ac- cepted world-view. The existence of William James’s white crow could well be dismissed by our statistics de- partment as statistically insignificant. Once bit of evidence ought to be enough but it.is not. “Every man is an exception,” as _ Soren Kirkegaard wrote. We are alll . billion-to-one shots and, as scientists, Many publicizers of parapsychology = have sought to counter their skeptics © They ~ claim—and - Targ and Puthoff are no exception— that there is a significant amount of incontrovertible, scientific evidence in. favor of the existence of parapsycho- logical phenomena. And’ the only rea-" ‘son these phenomena are :not more ‘widely accepted is because of hostile prejudices, because of preconceptions -in the minds of readers and reviewers, . nd because of blindness ““Mind - Reach” - fairly.’ straightfor- the ' experiments carried out at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, Calif., on so- called paranormal phenomena by Targ and Puthoff, who are physicists, The ‘authors outline several of their own . experiments in the book: One of these experiments involved “remote view- ing,” in which a person sequestered in a room is asked to describe a place © chosen at random and not revealed matched with “objective” descriptions | oe piaces. "which people were asked to guess a: Continued on Page 24° 2 Of the ability of anyone; else Mind-Reach(2) random event on a machine and picture drawing, in which the Israeli psychic Uri Geller at- tempted to draw plctures like those previously sealed in en- velopes and kept in a different room, All of these experiments are reported as successes by the authors but they provide very little evidence either in their book or in published jour- nal articles that any of them can be repeated. Nor has any- pares ORT RTROPRERGRADZS one else reported similar ree - sults, Here is the difficulty: If the experiments cannot be repeated by others we have the situation of the one white crow. It may be theoretically true (assuming we take his word that he saw one) that all crows are not black, but that is irrelevant un- less he can produce another white one as proof. Again, para- psychologists labor under a fundamental misconception of the importance of the idea of chance, of the idea of science. and of the necessity for the verification. “Mind-Reach,” then, © is a book slim in‘ hard evidence, It is pleasantly written, and it is amusing to follow the thought of the authors as they work out their research and some- times horrifying to see what their opposition has been. But it is ultimately an unsatisfying “the solidity of P rinsing a and - book lacking any indication of .. in all. people—the book ‘claims that they have ENC. lurb of the to repeat them. Indeed, I have attempted, in collaboration with these au- thors, to repeat one of their ex- periments (published in Nature) and was unable to do so though I spent a large amount of time trying and had the same subject they. used and the full coopera- tion of the authors. Instead of any real evidence ‘that accords with the accepted standards of contemporary psychophysiolog- *jcal research, what we have in this book are a few minor, sketchy suggestions of how re- search in this area ought to proceed, The authors do make some useful points. We should stick to conditions which mimic those of everyday life, not use- ‘less, trivial situations (although they ignore their own advice in one of their experiments). Further, even if it is granted that they have demonstrated “remote viewing,” the phe- nomenon has been studied only on a very few people. When the =vaie attempt to “sell gleage HOO RRR cl IE GY psyenic nH ER tt te, documented that ‘some degree of psychic ability is universal’ —they' are engaging in the same sort of unjustified propa- gandizing they decry in their opponents. It is one thing to say that “here we demonstrate a minor finding in a few sub- jects which: might be used by others,” but it is ridiculous to ask ‘us to believe that their minor, preliminary experiments prove anything about psychic abilities in, the general, Popula- tion, ** 4 “Throughout the ‘book the au- thors state their hope that the study of parapsychology will become primarily a_ scientific one in:which speculations are firmly: grounded: in the evi- dence, In their own writing, however, Targ and Puthoff al- most always go beyond evi- dence and claim:.they have proven their case when they ‘have done nothing of the sort. In writing this book, the au- thors have done more harm, perhaps, to their own position ref to their fieid of study than have helped. 2 eee
“abst ridin te et oy sf Robert” Crnstein’ in his ‘review ‘of our, “book: ‘Mind-Reach_ ‘in the Varch van Pook Review macgrrene ‘that our experiments) ‘in. Remote. Cor. experiments “in “Remote Viewing have been widely replicated’ in half a dozen latoratories across the country. Three of* these were putlished in the Proceedings of the Slectrical and Mectroni, Engineers — (October 1976) - a journal Ornstein refers to = .and fourth “as ” pres rented: at the” Lee 3 Cur: experime severely monitored | “in. the. history of ‘science. { ualified : consul tants and ~ Judes were involved inje eros ah respensita : cbatuoducts ons, that rine Reach ‘delves: into a ) subject. sensitive in” S@.0f i this: review, it turned. out: to, he so “minds,
at or) Ca al \ an anette ‘ a 4 " uo Pie gy a é Mi ey ee ,o Weg 8 ge x mi Ay Nealon ont tH us “pr Mapes ee " 3109116": CH-REPI6-D0787 ROPISOOsAGE2 IE. beg fey Bc keke SRR ' re . ye un “4 feet ere ee ey THE CITY COLLEGE OF THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK NEW YORK, N, Y. 10031 January 1, 1977 DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY Dear itussell and #al: Happy sew Year! And many thanks for arranging to have me sent a copy of your book! I congratulate you on it. It'tg beautifully written, in such an easy style that I couldn't stop it once it wag berun -- finished it ina Single sitting. And it voresents impressively so much that's important aid iateresting, that the content is a pleasure as Well ag the style. I should think it would bowl over the readers who didn't know about your work beforehand -- and am sure that parapsychologists will be grateful for it, because it puts all together in one place the corpus of work you've done. the timing wags particularly zood for me. It camé the same day as the galley#s for my ms. for Wolman's Handbook, and I revised them to give two citations to the bokk. thanks avain, and hopes that you'll carry on With all your bright ideas for what needs dodins! Cordially, eee ‘ jf oO meas 0 , ‘ ap ate’ “i s cat ‘ ' “ we. ; Sal ay : a4 bP WR ey diary he cs iJ . WP cai v yn re Le ie * oe : Mate i ‘ tr aie aa ae "ES ahh Se Nee ~ oe, ‘ “ 8 Sethe ey tn ie ta Nts Lin. atin hal . . nay ~ ope a a ae (ee ted ~, aa Q Or a ne ee wet AE Mt, 4 eee a, Me Se OOP EES ad aah aes DAE git re a id tac aie ata