~ Approved For Release 2003/09/10 : 194 The Journal of Parapsychology minished by increasing communication and collaboration with for- eign parapsychologists. Early psychical research in Puerto Rico was strongly influenced by the nineteenth-century Spjritualist movement that had also spread to other countries. Mefliumistic séances in which raps and communication, with the spiriys were common drew attention mostly from people with a religiouy interest. It was perhaps, this influénce that led Agapito Morales to publish in 1904 a more cXitical ekamination of these phenomena. In his booklet Breve Tratada de Hifmotismo, Magnetismo, Espiritsmo y Suges- toterapia, Morales con edded that all those occurrences could take place without assuming{the action of spirit agencies. He interpreted possession as being aytdguggestion and attributed paranormal phe- nomena to our own psychic faculties. He considered that all of the experiments made yntil tdday demonstrate that there is an invisible force in our being fhat is Capable, for instance, of playing a guitar, lifting a table, or Iffting our 4wn bodies. According to him this force is under our control. He alsé. believed that mediumistic communi- cation could be/explained by \peans of telepathy between the me- dium and the sitter. \ Another major influence in the formation of a more empirical and critical approach to parapsychology was the work of Francisco Ponte, a dentist who became preside t of the Puerto Rican Feder- ation of Spjritists. Ponte visited Europé.in 1912 to familiarize him- self with the work of several Spiritualisticcenters, as well as psychi- cal resear¢h centers. He had had the opportunity to participate in mediumigtic séances in Italy with famous mediums such as Lucia Sordi afd Eusapia Palladino. During these \séances he witnessed manifestations of apparent telekinesis and miaterializations (Alva- rado, 1987; Ponte, 1914). Later Ponte returned to Puerto Rico and trie to reproduce the same phenomena with local mediums. He reported‘some of his find- ings on materializations of body parts during séances to Walter Franklin Prince, then Research Officer of the ASPR. Ponte’s work was important because of the critical and empirical approach he brought to his research on séance phenomena (Alvarado, 1979a). © This section on Puerto Rican parapsychology partly summarizes information contained in an article by Alvarado (1979a). CIA-RDP96-00792R000700290002-8 i ' | ! t ‘ Parapsychology in the Ibero-American World 195 The theoretical ideas of Ralph U. Sierra are also interesting. Sierra, who was interested in the psychology of ESP, believed that to develop telepathy it was necessary to develop first an internal state of tranquility so that the electrical activity of the brain did not interfere with the telepathic process (Sierra, 1966). Some of the most important developments, however, took place during the last two centuries. At the educational level, it is impor- tant to note the work of Celinda Madera who, during the 1970s, offered @ series of courses and lectures at different campuses of the University of Puerto Rico. Madera’s courses focused on the human- istic and thanspersonal aspects of psi. She herself had received train- ing at Duke University’s Parapsychology Laboratory (Alvarado, 1979a). In 1974, 4 fo estor A. Rodriguez Escudero, a lawyer, published a series of essays about parapsycholggy and Spiritualism in his book Los Caminos de Dios. He discussedA great variety of paranormal phe- nomena. His mkin objective w2S to show that parapsychology dem- onstrates the spititual aspect Sf man (Rodriguez Escudero, 1974). Another development ip 1977 was the creation of the Instituto de Investigaciones Psicofigicas at the University of Puerto Rico, May- agiiez campus. Fou to conduct investigations in parapsychology nstitute carried out studies of various param- eters of Kirlian phoySgraphy and of the effects of hypnosis on ESP. esearch investigations were never made available Ris period Alfonso Martinez Taboas began to publish a newsletter Expigrando lo Paranormal, a semipopular mag- azine later edited by Carlos Slvarado starting in 1976. Martine? Taboas and Carldg Alvarado wrote articles on parapsy- if Spanish for the Spabish journal Pst Comunicacién; they eir articles covered a wide range of topi¢s. Among these, Alvarado Wyote on experimental studies of OBEs/(1976), historical precedents df the so-called psychic discov- i i the use of historical know!l- # (1979b), and on J. B. Rhine (1980). Martinez Taboas published a review of the problem of repeatability in parapsychology (1979), critiques of psychological and physiological concepts of poltergeist research (1977, 1980, 1984; Martinez Taboas & Alvarado, 1981), and a discussion of the concept of parsimony applied to parapsy- chology (1983). The work of Martinez Taboas and Alvarado has been very im- portant in the effort to bridge the language barrier between the Spanish researcher and the non-Spanish-speaking researcher. This Approved For Release 2003/09/10 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000700290002-8