Approved F pp or Release 2001/03/26 : CIA-RDP96-0078ZR000200080037-4 In a new book, Mind-Reach, Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff claim that there is strong evidence for “remote viewing.” Here, Ray Hyman disputes this ¢ ontention. —~ Eds. PSYCHICS AND SCIENTISTS: “MIND-REACH” AND REMOTE VIEWING he dust jacket of Mind-Reach (New York: Delacorte, 1977). informs us that “this book is a lucid and fascinating record of historic experiments—historic because they put the seal of ‘hard’ physical science upon evidence that some degree of psychic ability is universal—a phenomenon straight out of science fiction that actually happened, and can be made to happen again in any laboratory! The scientists even offer a ‘recipe’ for developing your own ESP ‘information channel.’ ” The two scientists in question are Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, both laser physicists at the prestigious Stanford Re- search Institute. As scientists, their credentials are impec- cable. Targ has important patents to his credit in the laser field. Puthoff, a Stanford Ph.D., in addition to also having laser patents has coauthored a textbook in quantum physics. Although Margaret Mead, in the introduction to the book, writes that the evidence put forth does “not appear to be the work of true believers who set out to use science to validate passionately held beliefs,” neither author is a novice in psy- chical research. Targ’s interest in psychic phenomena goes back some twenty years. Prior to the time covered by this book, he had done work with an ESP teaching machine and, he told me, he had investigated the famed psychic Peter Hurkos. Targ also claims to be an amateur magician, who not only has prac- ticed conjuring but also is aware of the standard methods of deception. Puthoff, who has made it to the level of a Class II! Operational Thetan in the Church of Scientology, had pre- viously obtained funding to study the Backster Effect—the alleged ability of plants to sense by extransensory means the thoughts of humans. The research described in this book began in 1972 when both Targ and Puthoff came to the Stanford Research Insti- tute. The major portion of their work involves remote viewing, a term they use to refer to phenomena that cover “a range of subjective experience variously referred to in the literature as __ astral projection (occult); simple clairvoyance, traveling clair- Ray Hyman, professor of psy- chology at the University of Or- egon and author of The Nature of Psychological Inquiry, is on the executive council of the Committee for the Scientific In- vestigation of Claims of the Para- normal and participated in “The Psychics,” a TV program in the “Ethics in America” series. 40 Oe ee eamouu(_¢:. elease 2001/03/26 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080037-4 Ray Hyman voyance, OF ‘out-of-body experience (parapsychological) exteriorization OF disassociation (psychological); or auto SCOpy (medical).” Remote viewing occurs when a subject § able to describe a target site even though he has no sensor basis for doing so. This can come about, according to ths authors, by giving the subject the longitude and latitude c any place on the globe, or by sending a team of observers to. randomly selected site that is unknown to the subject. In addition, the book contains research into other psychi phenomena. Studies are reported with an electronic randor generator (ESP teaching machine), with attempts to influenc magnetometers, compasses, and other instruments remotell with Uri Geller’s attempts at psychically bending metal, d materializing objects, seeing the face of a hidden die, an duplicating drawings from which he was shielded. he authors present us with both “hard” and “soft” et dence. The “hard” evidence consists of outcomes th pass their strict criteria for having occurred under “rigorou and “controlled” scientific conditions. If they cannot figu out any way that the results could have been produced - “trickery, instrument artifact, inadvertent cuing, or accide then they pass the test. “Soft” evidence is all the rest of t occurrences that intrigue the authors but that, for one reas or another, cannot pass the test on all the criteria. Let’s look first at what the authors claim as “hard” « dence. They state that “the primary achievement of this ‘search has been the demonstration of high-quality ‘rem: viewing’: the ability of experienced and inexperienced vol teers to view, by means of mental processes, remote € graphical or technical targets, such as roads, buildings, : laboratory apparatus.” This remote-viewing ability, they clz is unaffected by distance or the type of shielding provi by a Faraday cage. It can also occur precognitively —tha the subject can correctly describe the target site before target team has randomly selected and visited it. They fur claim that this sort of psychic ability seems to be pred nantly a function of the right hemisphere of the brain, cause accuracy is more in terms of geometric shapes patterns than in interpretation and also because EEG act seems to indicate this. They also claim that anyone ca this. They have succeeded with both experienced and perienced subjects. Indeed, they claim that no subject failed to show the ability. They also claim “hard” evidence for at least some su showing success on the electronic random generator. I case of Uri Geller, they claim scientific evidence for normal perceptual abilities in divining the uppermost ta athe} Lum
ad 3 Approved For Releage 2001/03/26 : CIA-RDP96-0078%000200080037-4, a die in a closed box and in duplicating drawings made under conditions that precluded sensory contact. wo The book is replete with accounts of striking and seemingly” — persuasive phenomena that the authors admit occurred under conditions that do not meet the standards for. “hard” evi- dence. Geller was seemingly able to affect the magnetom- . eter, affect a scale under a bell jar, move a TV picture in’ - various directions, cause a compass needle to move, dema- terialize part of a camera, and trigger off a number of “coinci-. dences.” The. last chapter deals: with anecdotes involving prophetic dreams, psychic cats, sympathetic: magic, and exploring outer space via remote viewing. Wet are we to make of all this? What is it that makes this work “historic”? Certainly it is not the fact that physicists are investigating and apparently finding evidence for psychic phenomena. In spite of implications to the contrary on the dust jacket and in Margaret Mead’s introduction (she claims that one advantage of these experiments is that “they come out of physics, popularly believed to be the hardest of the hard sciences”), physicists have a history going back ‘over a. hundred years of investigating and endorsing psychic phe- nomena. In the nineteenth century there were such big names as Crookes, Lodge, Barrett, and Zoellner. Other well-known scientists who plunged into psychical research were Alfred’ Russel Wallace, Robert Hare, Charles Richet, and Claude Flammarion. Nor is it the general approach of Targ and Puthoff, which treats the subject as a full-fledged collaborator ' rather than a guinea pig. All of the previously mentioned sci- entists also went out of their way to make the investigative - conditions “safe” and sympathetic for the alleged psychics. What is new, if it stands up to further scrutiny, is the un- - precedented consistency of the findings. They simply have no failures in their remote-viewing experiments. Experienced and inexperienced subjects succeed. Even skeptical visitors suc- ceed when put through the protocols. (The authors slip into another meaning of “succeed” in this latter case. “Success” in the regular experiments is measured by the agreement of reports with actual target sites as obtained by a neutral judge; “success” in the case of visitors is measured by subjective: judgment that a given description does seem to match, in part, the given site.) \f Targ and Puthoff have actually hit upon a formula for getting results with all subjects, and if these results can be replicated in independent laboratories as they claim, then indeed their work represents a major breakthrough in psychi- cal research. Up to now, this field of endeavor has been plagued by inconsistencies, hidden pitfalls, and nonrepeat- ability. It has caused its most dedicated workers nothing but frustration. Here is what William James had to say in his last article on psychical research in 1909 (William James on Psy- chical Research, ed. by G. Murphy and R. O. Ballou [New_ York: Viking, 1969]). For twenty-five years | have been in touch with the literature of psychical research, and have had acquaintance with numerous “researchers.” | have also spent a good many hours . . . in wit- nessing (or trying to witness) phenomena. Yet | am theoretical- ly no “further” than | was at the beginning; and | confess that at times | have been tempted to believe that the Creator has eternally intended this department of nature to remain baf- fling, to prompt our curiosities and hopes and suspicions all in equal measure so that, although ghosts and clairvoyances, and raps and messages from spirits, are always seeming to exist and éan never be:fully explained away, they also can never be 2 susceptible of full corroboration. Some sixty-six years after William James penned these words, the philosopher Antony Flew, after twenty years in psychical research, in an article in the November 1975 New Humanist, had this to say: It seemed: to me that thé situation in this misbegotten area could be summed up by saying that there was too much evi- dence for one just to dismiss it as all a lot of nonsense, and enough to require.that one should maintain a continuing inter- est in the field, even if a distant interest. On the other hand, it seemed to me then that, though there was too much for one just to reject the whole business out of hand as a lot of superstition, nevertheless there was no such thing as a reliably repeatable phenomenon in the area, and there was really almost nothing positive that you could point to with assur- ance; there were some bits of negative work you could point to with assurance, but that was all. The depressing thing about ’ the subsequent twenty-two years is that, though people have Subscribe to otheffumanist Renew Now “Amid the vast array of American magazines, The Humanist stands out as uniquely stimu- lating and eminently worth reading. It is the only journal that can keep-you up to date on ‘the fast-growing Humanist movement in the United States."’ coe — Corliss Lamont “1 am delighted with The Humanist. It main-~ tains a high level of both thought and ex- pression.” ° — WIIl Durant Rates: 1 year (6 issues) $12.00 2 years (12 issues) $20.00 3 years (18 issues) $27.00 the ffumanist” 923 Kensington Avenue Buffalo, New York 14215 Approved For Release 2001/03/26 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080037-4 May/June 1977 17
Approved For Release 2001/03/26 : CIA-RDP96-00784R000200080037-4 yone on working in this area— perhaps more has been done in the last twenty-two yeats than in any comparable period before— it still seems to me that the general evidential situa- tion is just the same. We do not know yet whether Targ and Puthoff will be making similar laments at some future date. l ' a! a Russell Targ (left) and Harold Puthoff (right) at SRI _—_ — eanwhile, however, they have already encountered the inevitable frustrations that. confront every researcher in this field. They have become the target for attacks from what they call the “Loyal Opposition.” The specific members of the Loyal Opposition that they deal with are The Amazing Randi, Martin Gardner, Joe Hanlon, George Lawrence, and myself. In a chapter entitled “The Loyal Opposition—What Are They Loyal To?” Targ and Puthoff deal with their critics in an inter- esting manner. The authors imply that they are aware that resistance to new and radical ideas plays a positive role in the development of science. But they have obviously been stung at the per- sonal level. They describe what from their viewpoint con- stitutes a series of unethical and malicious misrepresentations of their work by the Loyal Opposition. And | am indicted for a breach of ethics in allegedly “leaking” information about my confidential visit to SRI to Time magazine. Obviously, Targ and Puthoff are puzzled by what they take as fanatic and unfair criticism. So they try to account for it. “At first, we spun paranoid theories with Cold War overtones. Perhaps there really was a developing ESP gap, as implied by the Ostrander-Schroeder book Psychic Discoveries Behind the fron Curtain. Perhaps United. States efforts in the study of the paranormal were the target of a deliberate program of disin- formation, with the press the unwitting accomplice.” After planting this suggestion of a communist conspiracy, the authors dismiss it on the grounds that “the deep-rooted dis- 18 Approved For Release 2001/03/26 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080037-4 trust of the apparent paranormal functioning precedes the Cold War struggle by at least a century.” (tread this just at the time that NBC put on its movie on the late Senator Joe McCarthy). Instead, they graciously grant their critics good faith, The difficulty lies in the fact that the Loyal Opposition consists of individuals who cannot face up to the possibility that thei world views may be wrong. Targ and Puthoff supply a psy- “The authors may not yet have found the mag- ic formula for the repeatable ESP experiment. The history of the field is against them. And enough questions can be raised about their current work to raise doubts, at least for mem- bers of the Loyal Opposition.” ———————— ns chological analysis of how the Loyal Opposition employs ever more extreme defenses to protect themselves from having to admit evidence that challenges the premises of their world view. They also point out that precognition and other psychic | phenomena are compatible with current notions in quantum physics. This means, in their logic, that the burden of proof | now lies with the critic who wants to deny such phenomena. All this is unfortunate. By dismissing their critics as mis- 3 guided fanatics, Targ and Puthoff miss the legitimate reasons for suspecting their work. If they were not so blinded by the search for psychological blocks in their opposition, the author. might better see how they have supplied the critics with much of their ammunition. My own criticisms of their work cannot be simply dismissed as another case of someone who cannot tolerate challenges to his world view. As far back as Decem- ber 1957, | committed to print my opinion that if ESP were | proved to be a reality it would not provide a serious threat to science or other accepted views (in a review of Experiments in Telepathy, by S. G. Soal and F. Bateman, in the Journal of the American Statistical Association); and in his recent book, The Search for Superman, John Wilhelm writes of my position: “He has a personal belief structure that seemingly would suf- ‘fer least if psychic phenomena became accepted as a scien- tific reality.” | want to make this clear to emphasize that there are grounds other than dogmatic fanaticism to raise serious questions about the credibility of the evidence that Tare and Puthoff have offered us. . in challenging the validity of their findings, | also want to emphasize that | am not necessarily claiming that they are more vulnerable to error than other scientists plunging into this tricky area. But they are vulnerable. And what seems to be a serious problem is their unwillingness or inability to ad- mit that they are vulnerable. Neither expertise in laser physics nor training in conjuring nor sincere desire to make their ex- periments error-free and fraud-proof suffices to immunize them from mistakes, misinterpretations, and deception. In- deed, their very insistence that they are free from such defects may actually enhance their vulnerability. In a given specialty like laser physics, one which has a well- developed history and accepted standards of instrumentation, measurement, experimental paradigms, and other agreed- upon procedures, 4 scientist's colleagues know what is meant when he states that he gathered his data under controlled and othe} fumanist