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against  eventual  replicability.  In  the  Maimonides  se- 
I   ries,  likewise,  three  successive  replications  (Lines  C, 
[ 
  D,  and  E  in  Table  1)  yielded  no  significant  result,  yet 
I   they  are  part  of  a   program  yielding  highly  significant 
| 
  overall  results. 
^ —   If  results  of  such  potentially  great  interest  and 
scientific  importance  as  those  of  the  Maimonides 
program  had  been  reported  on  a   more  conventional 
topic,  one  might  expect  them  to  be  widely  and  ac- 
curately described  in  reviews  of  the  field  to  which 
they  were  relevant,  and  to  be  analyzed  carefully  as  a 
basis  for  sound  evaluation  of  whether  replication  and 
extension  of  the  research  were  indicated,  or  of  whether 
errors  could  be  detected  and  understood.  What  has 
happened  in  this  instance  of  anomalous  research 
findings? 
Representation  of  the  Maimonides 
Research  in  Books  by  Psychologists 
It  is  appropriate  to  begin  with  E.  M.  Hansel’s  1980 
revision  of  his  earlier  critical  book  on  parapsychology. 
As  part  of  his  attempt  to  bring  the  earlier  book  up  to 
date,  he  included  an  entire  chapter  on  experiments 
on  telepathy  in  dreams.  One  page  was  devoted  to  a 
description  of  the  basic  method  used  in  the  Maimon- 
ides experiments;  one  paragraph  summarized  the  im- 
pressive outcome  of  10  of  the  experiments.  The  rest 
of  the  chapter  was  devoted  mainly  to  a   specific  account 
of  the  experiment  in  which  psychologist  Robert  Van 
de  Castle  was  the  subject  (the  outcome  is  summarized 
in  Line  G   of  my  Table  1 )   and  to  the  attempted  rep- 
lication at  the  University  of  Wyoming  (Belvedere  & 
Foulkes,  1971),  in  which  Van  de  Castle  was  again  the 
subject.  Another  page  was  devoted  to  another  of  the 
Maimonides  experiments  that  was  also  repeated  at 
the  University  of  Wyoming  (Foulkes  et  al.,  1972). 
Hansel  did  Dot  mention  the  replication  by  Globus  et 
al.  (1968),  whose  authors  felt  that  the  results  encour- 
aged further  exploration.  Hansel  gave  more  weight  to 
the  two  negative  outcomes  at  Wyoming  than  to  the 
-sunroftheldai  m   oh!d«._ngearch  ^argui  ng  that,  sensory 
xm^up^xJS^y'perinitted  by  the  procedures  al  Mai- 
monides, not  possible  because  of  greater  care  taken 
by  the  Wyoming  experimenters,  were  responsible  for 
the  difference  in  results.  He  did  not  provide,  of  course, 
the  full  account  of  procedures  presented  in  the  original 
Maimonides  reports  that  might  persuade  many  read- 
ers that  Hansel’s  interpretation  is  far  from  compelling. 
fTor  did  he  consider  why  some  of  the  other  experi- 
ments at  Maimonides,  not  obviously  distinguished  in 
the  care  with  which  they  were  done  from  the  two  that 
were  replicated  (e.g.,  those  on  Lines  E,  M,  and  O   of 
Table  1)  yielded  a   dose-to-chance  outcome  such  as 
Hansel  might  have  expected  sensory  cuing  to  prevent. 
Hansel  exaggerated  the  opportunities  for  sensory 
cuing— -that  is,  for  the  percipient  to  obtaj  n’by  ordinary 
sensory  means  some  information  about  the  target  for 
the  night.  He  did  this  notably  by  misinterpreting  an 
ambiguous  statement  in  the  Maimonides  reports,  not 
mentioning  that  his  interpretation  was  incompatible 
with  other  passages;  his  interpretation  was  in  fact  er- 
roneous, as  shown  by  Akers  (1984,  pp.  128-129). 
Furthermore,  Hansel  did  not  alert  the  reader  to  the 
great  care  exerted  by  the  researchers  to  eliminate  pos- 
sible sources  of  sensory  cuing.  Most  important  is  the 
fact  that  Hansel  did  not  provide  any  plausible  ac- 
count—other  than.  fraud-^-gf  how  the  qpjx)rtuhitfes 
T«yr  sensory  cuing  that  he  claimed  existed  would  be 
ltkelyfoleadto  the  striking  findings  of  the  research. 
For  example,  he  seemed  to  consider  important  the 
fact  that  at  Maimonides  the  agent  could  leave  his  or 
her  room  during  the  night  to  go  to  the  bathroom, 
whereas  in  Wyoming  the  agent  had  a   room  with  its 
own  bathroom,  and  the  outer  door  to  the  room  was 
sealed  with  tape  to  prevent  the  agent  from  emerging. 
Hansel  did  not  attempt  to  say  how  the  agent’s  visit  to 
the  bathroom  could  have  altered  the  details  of  the 
percipient's  dreams  each  night  in  a   manner  distinc- 
tively appropriate  to  that  night’s  target.  The  only 
plausible  route  of  influence  on  the  dream  record 
seems  to  be  deliberate  fraud  involving  the  researchers 
and  their  subjects.  The  great  number  and  variety  of 
personnel  in  these  studies — experimenters,  agents, 
percipients,  and  judges — makes  fraud  especially  un- 
likely as  an  explanation  of  the  positive  findings;  but 
Hansel  did  not  mention  this  important  fact. 
disappears  to  me  that  all  of  Hansel’s  criticisms 
of  the  Maimonides  experiments  are  relevant  only  on 
theliypo  thesis  of  fraud  (except  for  the  mistaken  crit- 
icism I   have  mentioned  above).  He  said  that  uninten- 
tional communication  was  more  likely  but  provided 
no  evidence  either  that  it  occurred  or  that  such  com- 
munication— in  any  form  in  which  it  might  have  oc- 
curred— could  have  produced  such  consistent  results 
as  emerged  from  the  Maimonides  experiments.  I   infer 
that  Hansel  was  merely  avoiding  making  explicit  his 
unsupported  accusations  of  fraud.  Fraud  is  an  inter- 
pretation always  important  to  keep  in  mind,  and  it  is 
one  that  could  not  be  entirely  excluded  even  by  pre- 
cautions going  beyond  those  used  in  the  Wyoming 
studies.  But  the  fact  that  fraud  was  as  always,  theo- 
retically possible  hardly  justifies  dismissal  of  a   series 
of  carefully  conducted  studies  that  offer  important 
suggestions  for  opening  up  a   new  line  of  inquiry  into 
a   topic  potentially  of  great  significance.  Especially  re- 
grettable is  Hansel's  description  of  various  supposed 
defects  in  the  experiments  as  though  they  mark  the 
experiments  as  being  carelessly  conducted  by  general 
scientific  criteria,  whereas  in  fact  the  supposed  defects 
are  relevant  only  if  one  assumes  fraud.  A   reader  who 
is  introduced  to  the  Maimonides  research  by  Hansel’s 
chapter  is  likely  to  get  a   totally  erroneous  impression 
of  the  care  taken  by  the  experimenters  to  avoid  various 
possible  sources  of  error.  The  one  thing  they  could 
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not  avoid  was  obtaining  results  that  Hansel  considered 
a  pnon  impossible,  hence  evidence  of:S5?b3 
Hansel  was  not  entirely  frank  about  his  reasoning. 
?Qi?1  w.Qrth  n^ng  »s  that  Hansel 
rhim”lf.a.PP'y. ,n  his  criticalaaacl^Jhtsianl" 
^loT^dcha  he  demanded  of  ibc  jjs^hen 
JJf  bascd  ,mPhcitly  on  the  assuVSKT 
Hon  that  the  difference  of  outcome  between  the  Mai- 
momdes  and  the  Wyoming  experiments  was  a   genuine 
difference,  not  attributable  to  random  variation  He 
did  not  even  raise  the  question,  as  he  surely  would 
^'V"  ”"?c  ,p?rallcl  instance,  the  Maimonides 
esearchers  had  claimed  or  implied  statistical  signif- 
icance where  it  was  questionable.  In  fact,  the  difference 
of  outcome  might  well  have  arisen  from  random  error 
for  the  percipient's  own  judgments  the  difference  is 
significant  at  the  5%  level  (2-tailed),  but  for  the  out- 
siders judgments  it  does  not  approach  significance 
Another  1980  book  is  The  Psychology  of  Tran- 
scenaence,  by  Andrew  Neher,  in  which  almost  100 
pag«  are  devoted  to  “psychic  experience.”  Neher  dif- 
fered from  the  other  authors  I   refer  to  in  describing 
the  Maimonides  work  as  a   "series  of  studies  of  great 
interest  (p.  145),  but  this  evaluation  seems  to  be  ne- 
gated by  his  devoting  only  three  lines  to  it  and  four 
lines  to  unsuccessful  replications. 
A   third  1 980  publication,  The  Psychology  of  the 
Psychic,  by  David  Marks  and  Richard  Kammann, 
provides  less  of  a   general  review  of  recent  parapsy- 
chology than  Hansel's  book  or  even  Nchcr’s  one  long 
chapter.  It  is  largely  devoted  to  the  techniques  of 
mentalists  (that  is,  conjurors  specializing  in  psycho- 
logical rather  than  physical  effects)  and  can  be  useful 
to  anyone  encountering  a   mentalisl  who  pretends  to 
psychic.  Most  readers  are  not  likely  to  be  aware 
at  parapsychological  research  receives  only  Limited 
attention.  The  jacket  blurbs  give  a   very  different  view 
e  book,  as  do  the  authors  in  their  introductory 
sentences:  
ESP  is  just  around  the  next  comer.  When  you  get  there  it 
"CXt  comer-  Having  now  turned  over  one 
°ilh^  **  decide  to  call  it  quits  and 
r^rt  our^findmgs  for  public  review.  (Marks  &   Kammann. 
Given  this  introduction  to  the  nature  of  the  book, 
readers  might  suppose  it  would  at  least  mention  any 
comer  that  many  parapsychologists  have  judged  to  be 
an  impressive  turning.  But  the  Maimonidesjdream 
experiments  received  no  mention  at  all."    
^iioll,cr^olume75y  psychologist  James  Alcock 
.  8  ’*  Quite  clearly  purports  to  include  a   general  re- 
view and  evaluation  of  parapsychological  research. 
Alcock  mentioned  (p.  6)  that  Hansel  had  examined 
the  Maimonides  experiments,  but  the  only  account 
o   t  cm  that  Alcock  offered  (on  p.  163)  was  incidental 
o   a  discussion  of  control  groups.  By  implication  he 
seemed  to  reject  the  Maimonides  experiments  because 
they  included  no  control  groups.  He  wrote  that  “a 
control  group,  for  which  no  sender  or  no  target  was 
used,  would  appear  essential”  (p.  1 63).  Later  he  added, 
“One  could,  a   tematively,  ‘send’  when  the  subject  was 
not  in  the  dreim  state,  and  compare  ‘success’  in  this 
case  with  success  in  dream  state  trials”  (p.  163).  The 
jirst  of  these  statements  suggests  a   ml-vant  ^   Ofcon- 
trol  groups  but  errs  jn_~caJling  it  essential;  in  other 
P??5M3Scal  research,  Alcock  would  have  doubtless 
rcachly  recognized  that  withih-subject  control  can, 
where  least  ble.  be  much  more  tffiu’ciifand  pertinent 
than  a   separate .control  .group.  His  second  statement' 
suggests  a   type  of  experiment" that  is  probably  im- 
possible (because  in  satisfactory  form  it  seems  to  re- 
quire the  subject  to  dream  whether  awake  or  asleep 
and  not  to  know  whether  he  or  she  was  awake  or 
asleep).  This  stcond  kind  of  experiment,  moreover, 
has  special  pertinence  only  to  a   comparison  between 
v^^.n8’  n01 10  the  question  of  whether 
ESP  is  manifested  in  dreaming. 
Alcock,  in  short,  did  not  seem  to  recognize  that 
the  design  of  the  Maimonides  experiments  was  based 
on  controls  exdctly  parallel  to  those  used  by  innu- 
merable psychologists  in  other  research  with  similar 
logical  structure  (and  even  implied,  curiously  enough, 
m   his  own  second  suggestion).  He  encouraged  readers 
°   think  that  the  Maimonides  studies  are  beyond  the  i 
pale  of  acceptable  experimental  design,  whereas  in  j 
act  they  are  fine  examples  of  appropriate  use  of  j 
w   in-subject  control  rather  than  between-subjects  i 
control. 
The  quality  of  thinking  with  which  Alcock  con- 
ronted  the  Maimonides  research  appeared  also  in  a 
passage  that  did  not  refer  to  it  by  name.  Referring  to 
an  article  published  in  The  Humanist  by  Ethel  Grod- 
zms  Romm,  he  wrote, 
Romm  (1977)  argued  that  a  fundamental  problem  with  both 
the  dream  telcpathl  research  and  the  remote  viewing  tests 
is  uiat  the  reports  suffer  from  what  she  called  "shoe-fitting" 
.  6uage,  she  cited  a   study  in  which  the  sender  was  installed 
in  a   room  draped  in  white  fabric  and  had  ice  cubes  poured 
oown  his  back.  A   receiver  who  reported  “white"  was  im- 
mediately judged  tc  have  made  a   "hit”  by  an  independent 
panel.  Yet,  as  she  observed,  words  such  as  "miserable", 
wet  ,  or  "icy"  wou  d  have  been  better  hits. .  .  .  Again,  the 
o   vtous  need  is  for  a  control  group.  Why  are  they  not  used? 
IP*  Io3) 
What  Romm  described  as  “shoe  fitting"  (misinter- 
preting  events  to  fit  one’s  expectations)  is  an  important 
kind  of  error  that  i:;  repeatedly  made  in  interpretation 
o   everyday  occurrences  by  people  who  believe  they 
are  psychic.  But  the  dream  telepathy  research  at  Mai- 
momdes  was  well  protected  against  this  kind  of  error 
y  the  painstaking  controls  that  Alcock  seemed  not 
to  have  noticed.  .Surely  Romm  must  be  referring  to 
some  other  and  very  sloppy  dream  research? 
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Noi_al_a)l.  The  details  in  this  paragraph,  and  Expect?’  and  it  repeatedly  speaks  of  “cult  phuds," 
even  more  tn  Komm  s  article,  point  unmistakably, 
though  inaccurately,  to  the  fifth  night  of  the  first  pre- 
cognitive  series  at  Maimonides.  The  actual  details  of 
target  and  response  would  alone  deprive  it  of  much 
of  its  value  as  an  example  of  shoe  fitting.  As  reported 
by  Krippner,  Ullman,  &   Honorton  (1971),  the  target 
was  a   morning  experience  that  included  being  in  a 
room  that  was  drafwd  with  white  sheets.  The  subject’s 
first  dream  report  had  included  the  statement,  “I  was 
just  standing  in  a   room,  surrounded  by  white.  Every 
imaginable  thing  in  that  room  was  white”  (p.  201). 
There  is  more  similarity  here  than  Romm  and  Alcock 
acknowledged  in  mentioning  from  this  passage  only 
the  single  word  “white.” 
More  important,  however,  is  the  fact  that  the  ex- 
periment they  were  referring  to  provided  no  oppor- 
tunity for  shoe  fitting.  The  procedures  followed  in  the 
experiment  were  completely  misrepresented  in  a   way 
that  created  the  illusion  that  the  possibility  existed. 
There  was  no  panel,  in  the  sense  of  a   group  of  people 
gathered  together  and  capable  of  influencing  each 
other.  The  judges,  operating  independently,  separately 
judged  every  one  of  the  64  possible  combinations  of 
target  and  transcript  yielded  by  the  eight  nights  of  the 
experiment,  not  just  the  eight  correct  pairings,  and 
they  had  no  clues  to  which  those  eight  were.  Their 
responses  are  hardly  likely  to  have  been  immediate, 
as  they  required  reading  the  entire  night’s  transcript. 
Because  each  judge  was  working  alone  and  was  not 
recording  times,  there  would  have  been  no  record  if 
a   particular  response  had  been  immediate,  and  no 
record  of  what  particular  element  in  the  transcript 
led  to  an  immediate  response. 
I   looked  up  in  a   1 977  issue  of  The  Humanist  the 
article  by  Romm  that  Alcock  cited.  The  half  page  on 
shoe-fitting  language  gave  as  examples  this  item  from 
the  Maimonidts  research  and  also  fte  SRI  remote- . 
viewing  experiments  (Puthoff  &   Targ,.  1 976><ione  at 
J>R1  International.  |jp  both  cases  what  was  said  was 
pure  fiction,  based  on  failure  to  note  what  was  done 
in  the  experimentslmd  In  particular  that  the  experi- 
menters were  well  aware  of  the  danger  of  shoe-fitting 
language  and  that  the  design  or  their  experiments  in- 
corporated procedures  to  ensure  that  it  could  not  oc- 
cur. Romm’s  ignorance  about  the  Maimonides  re- 
search and  her  apparent  willingness  to  fabricate  false- 
hoods about  it  should  be  recognized  by  anyone  who 
bad  read  any  of  the  Maimonides  research  publica- 
tions. Yet  Alcock  accepted  and  repeated  the  fictions 
as  though  they  were  true.  His  presentation  inthe  con- 
text of  a   book  apparently  in  the  scientific  tradition 
seems  to  me  more  dangerous  than  Romm’s  original 
article,  for  anyone  with  a   scientific  orientation  should 
be  able  to  recognize  Romm’s  article  as  propaganda. 
Its  title,  for  example,  is  “When  You  Give  a   Goset 
Occultist  a   PhD,  What  Kind  of  Research  Can  You 
November  1985  •   American  Psychologist 
meaning  people  with  PhDs  who  are  interested  in 
parapsychologjcal  problems.  Alcock’s  repetition  of 
Romm’s  misstatements  in  a   context  lacking  these 
clues  may  well  be  taken  by  many  a   reader  as  scholarly 
writing  based  on  correct  information  and  rational 
thought.  Paradoxically,  both  Alcock’s  paragraph  and 
Romm’s  article  are  excellent  examj^es  of 
'  
jjije  shoe- 
.   
titling  error  that  both  decry  in  others  whojire  in  fact 
carefully  avoiding  it. . 
   — 
The  last  of  the  five  books  that  bring,  or  fail  to 
bring,  the  Maimonides  research  to  the  attention  of 
psychologists  and  their  students  is  Anomalistic  Psy- 
chology: A   Study  of  Extraordinary  Phenomena  of  Be- 
havior and  Experience,  a   1982  volume  by  Leonard 
Zusne  and  Warren  H.  Jones.  This  is  in  many  ways 
an  excellent  book,  and  it  is  also  the  one  of  the  five 
that  comes  closest  to  including  a   general  review  of 
important  recent  research  in  parapsychology.  Its  brief 
account  of  the  Maimonides  dream  experiments,  how- 
ever, misrepresented  them  in  ways  that  should  seri- 
ously reduce  a   reader's  interest  in  considering  them 
further. 
Zusne  and  Jones’s  description  of  the  basic  pro- 
cedure made  three  serious  errors.  First,  it  implied  that 
one  of  the  experimenters  had  a   chance  to  know  the 
identity  of  the  target.  (“After  the  subject  falls  asleep, 
in  art  reproduction  is  selected  from  a   large  collection 
randomly,  placed  in  an  envelope,  and  given  to  the 
agent”  p.  260).  In  fact,  precautions  were  taken  to  en- 
sure that  no  one  but  the  agent  could  know  the  identity 
of  the  target.  Second,  the  authors  stated  that  “three 
judges .  .• .  rate  their  confidence  that  the  dream  con- 
tent matches  the  target  picture”  (p.  260),  leading  the 
reader  to  suppose  that  the  judges  were  informed  of 
the  identity  of  the  target  at  the  time  of  rating.  In  fact, 
a   
judge  was  presented  with  a   dream  transcript  and  a 
pool  of  potential  targets  and  was  asked  to  rate  the 
degree  of  similarity  between  the  transcript  and  each 
member  of  the  pool,  while  being  unaware  of  which 
member  had  been  the  target.  Third,  there  was  a   sim- 
ilarly, though  more  obscurely,  misleading  description 
of  how  ratings  were  obtained  from  the  dreamer. 
This  misinformation  was  followed  by  even  more 
serious  misrepresentation  of  the  research  and,  by  im- 
plication, of  the  competence  of  the  researchers.  Zusne 
and  Jones  (1982)  wrote  that  Ullman  and  Krippner 
(1978)  had  found  that  dreamers  were  not  influenced 
telepathically  unless  they  knew  in  advance  that  an 
attempt  would  be  made  to  influence  them.  This  led, 
they  wrote,  to  the  subject's  being  “primed  prior  to 
going  to  sleep”  through  the  experimenter’s 
preparing  the  receiver  through  experiences  that  were  related 
to  the  content  of  the  picture  to  be  telepathically  transmitted 
during  the  night.  Thus,  when  the  picture  was  Van  Gogh’s 
Comdor  of  the  St.  Paul  Hospital,  which  depicts  a   lonely 
figure  in  the  hallways  of  a   mental  hospital,  the  receiver;  ( I ) 
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heard  Rosa’s  Spellbound  played  on  a   phonograph;  (2)  heard 
the  monitor  laugh  hysterically  in  the  room;  (3)  was  addressed 
as  “Mr.  Van  Gogh"  by  the  monitor,  (4)  was  shown  paintings 
done  by  mental  patients;  (5)  was  given  a   pfll  and  a   glass  of 
water,  and  (6)  was  daubed  with  a   piece  of  cotton  dipped  in 
acetone.  The  receiver  was  an  English  “sensitive,"  but  it  is 
obvious  that  no  psychic  sensitivity  was  required  to  figure 
out  the  genera)  content  of  the  picture  and  to  produce  an 
appropriate  report,  whether  any  dreams  were  actually  seen  rjicf-iiccir.r, 
or  not.  (pp.  260-26 1 ) 
 discussion 
The  experiments  at  the  Maimonides  Medical  Center 
If  researchers  were  to  report  positive  results  of  on  the  possibility  of  ESP  in  dreams  dearly  merit  care- 
tbe  experiment  described  here  by  Zusne  and  Jones  ful  attention  from  psychologists  who,  for  whatever 
and  were  to  claim  that  it  provided  some  positive  ev-  reason,  are  interested  in  the  question  of  ESP.  To  firm 
idence  of  ESP,  what  would  a   reader  condude?  Surely,  believers  in  the  impossibility  of  ESP,  they  pose  a   chal- 
that  the  researchers  were  completely  incompetent,  but  lenge  to  skill  in  detecting;  experimental  flaws  or  to  the 
probably  not  that  they  were  dishonest.  For  dishonesty  undemanding  of  other  sources  of  error.  To  those  who 
to  take  such  a   frank  and  transparent  form  is  hardly  can  conceive  that  ESP  n   ight  be  possible,  they  convey 
cre<hblc-  suggestions  about  some  of  the  conditions  influencing 
Incompetence  of  the  researchers  is  not,  however,  its  appearance  or  absence  and  about  techniques  for 
a   proper  inference.  The  simple  fact,  which  anyone  investigating  it.  ' 
can  easily  verify,  is  that  the  account  Zusne  and  Jones  This  attention  is  not  likely  to  be  given  by  psy- 
gave  of  the  experiment  is  grossly  inaccurate.  What  chologists  whose  knowl  wlge  about  the  experiments 
Zusne  and  Jones  have  done  is  to  describe  (for  one  comes  from  the  books  by  their  fellow  psychologists 
specific  night  of  the  experiment)  some  of  the  stimuli  that  purport  to  review  parapsychological  research, 
provided  to  the  dreamer  the  next  morning,  after  his  Some  of  those  books  enjjage  in  nearly  incredible  fal- 
dreams  had  been  recorded  and  his  night’s  sleep  was  gfication  of  the  facts  about  the  experiments;  others 
over.  Zusne  and  Jones  erroneously  stated  that  these  amply  neglect  them.  I  believe  it  is  fair  to  say  that 
stimuli  were  provided  before  the  night’s  sleep,  to  prime  none  of  these  books  has  c  orrectly  identified  any  defect 
the  subject  to  have  or  falsely  report  having  the  desired  in  the  Maimonides  experiments  other  than  ones  rel- 
kind  of  dream.  The  correct  sequence  of  events  was  evant  only  to  the  hypothesis  of  fraud  or  on  inappro- 
quite  clearly  stated  in  the  brief  reference  Zusne  and  priate  statistical  reasoning  (easily  remedied  by  new 
JoDes  cited  (Ullman  &   Krippner,  1978),  as  well  as  in  calculations  from  the  published  data).  I   do  not  mean 
the  original  research  report  (Krippner,  Honorton,  &   that  the  Maimonides  experiments  are  models  of  design 
Ullman,  1972).  and  execution.  I   have  a   ready  called  attention  to  a 
1   can  understand  and  sympathize  with  Zusne  and  design  flaw  that  prevents  sensitive  analysis  of  some  of 
Jones’s  error.  The  experiment  they  cited  is  one  in  the  experiments;  and  the  control  procedures  were  vi- 
whicb  the  nocturnal  dreamer  was  seeking  to  dream  dated  at  one  session,  as  i\kers  (1984)  pointed  out  on 
in  response  to  a   set  of  stimuli  to  be  created  and  pre-  the  basis  of  the  full  information  supplied  in  the  orig- 
sented  to  him  the  next  morning.  As  may  be  seen  in  inal  report  (Neither  of  these  genuine  defects  was 
Table  1,  results  from  such  precognitive  sessions  (all  mentioned  in  any  of  the  five  books  I   have  reviewed 
done  with  a   single  subject)  were  especially  strong.  This  here,  an  indication  of  their  authors’  general  lack  of 
apparent  transcendence  of  time  as  well  as  space  makes  correct  information  about  the  Maimonides  experi- 
the  precognitive  findings  seem  at  least  doubly  impos-  ments.) 
sible  to  most  of  us.  An  easy  misreading,  therefore,  on  Readers  who  doubt  i   hat  the  falsification  is  as  ex- 
initially  scanning  the  research  report,  would  be  to  treme  as  I   have  picture!  it  need  only  consult  the 
suppose  the  stimuli  to  have  been  presented  partly  in  sources  I   have  referred  tc .  Their  doubt  might  also  be 
advance  (because  some  parts  obviously  involved  a   reduced  by  familiarity  with  some  of  James  Bradley’s 
waking  subject)  and  partly  during  sleep.  research  (1981, 1984).  In  his  1984  article,  be  reported 
This  erroneous  reading  on  which  Zusne  and  similar  misrepresentations  of  fact  on  a   topic,  robust- 
Jones  based  tbeir  account  could  easily  have  been  cor-  ness  of  procedures  of  inference,  on  which 
rected  by  a   more  careful  rereading.  In  dealing  with  psychologists  would  notbje  thought  to  have  nearly  the 
©Jhcr  topics,  they  might  have  realized  the  improba-  strength  of  preconception  that  many  are  known  to 
bility  that  researchers  could  have  been  so  grossly  in-  have  about  ESP.  How  much  more  likely,  then,  falsi - 
competent  and  could  have  checked  the  accuracy  of  fication  on  so  emotionally  laden  a   topic  as  ESP  is  for 
their  statements  before  publishing  them.  Zusne  and  many  psychologists!  In  ihe  earlier  article,  Bradley 
Jones  are  not  alone  in  this  tendency  to  quick  nusper-  (1981)  presented  experimental  evidence  (for  college 
ception  of  para  psychological  research  through  pre-  students,  in  this  case,  noil  psychologists)  that  confi- 
copccptioD  and  .prejudice;  wr  have  already  seen  it  in 
Akock’s  book.  Alcock  (1983)  wrote  the  review  of 
Zusne  and  Jones’s  book  for  Contemporary  Psychology. 
the  book-review  journal  of  the  American  Psycholog- 
ical Association,  and  he  did  not  mention  this  egregious 
error,  even  though  very  slight  acquaintance  with  the 
Maimonides  research  should  suffice  to  detect  it. 
none  of  these  books  has  < 
in  the  Maimonides  expc 
evant  only  to  the  bypotl 
November  1985  •   American  Psychologist 
Approved  For  Release  2000/08/08  :   CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2