The Evolution of Gardner Murphy's Thinking in Psychology and Psychical Research

THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH VOLUME 82 APRIL > 1988 NUMBER 2 The Evolution of Gardner Murphy’s Thinking in Psychology and Psychical Research! Lois BARCLAY MURPHY ABSTRACT: From the viewpoint of a developmental psychologist, a series of questions regarding the roots and evolution of Gardner Murphy's interest in parapsychology are dealt with, such as: How did his interest in the subject begin? What forces within him and his environment nourished that interest? What led to the consolidation of a determination to work seriously in psychical research? What sustained that commitment to the day of his death? How did his work demonstrate his life-long need to integrate the new with the old and to deal with the place of human beings in the universe? It is appropriate to have this talk about Gardner here in the Cosmos Club, for he was a cosmic man. Everywhere we travelled he looked for the stars and planets; he knew what he would find in the southern hemi- sphere, in India, and in Africa, as well as in the skies of New England. He loved mountains—especially those from whose peaks he could see dis- tances around 360°. He recognized birds 100 feet away by their calls and songs. He was not worried when a black bear crossed his path in Holder- ness. When a loud barking dog pursued us, he would say in the friendliest way, ‘Hello there, fellow,’’ and the dog would amble up quietly with its tail down. And he loved the young of the human species—always asking about the children of his students, research assistants, and colleagues. The Saturday Review of December 13th, 1958, published an essay, ‘‘A Cosmic Christmas Carol,’’ based on Gardner’s book Human Potentialities (Murphy, 1958b), in which he looked so hopefully at the future evolution of man, kin to all other evolving life in the universe. He loved the sensory richness of the universe, music, and colors—he always wanted me to wear a red dress (and so I am wearing one this evening, to evoke a little of the atmosphere he created). ' This is a revised version of the Third Annual Gardner Murphy Memorial Lecture given April 10, 1987, at the Cosmos Club, Washington, DC,

102 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research My topic, the evolution of Gardner's thinking about psychology and psychical research, arose from my curiosity about the sources of his deep unassailable commitment to psi in the face of the ridicule, criticism, and even rejection he experienced in New York in the 1920s and 1930s, and even later. A story of my first encounter with him and its background will give a context for my question. In 1923 Professor Margaret Floy Wash- burn, the most brilliant member of the Vassar faculty and a recent presi- dent of the American Psychological Association, said to our class in Ab- normal Psychology, **There are two psychologists by the name of Prince —Morton Prince and Walter Prince. The former is a scientist, the latter is a fool.’* | looked them up in the library and found them both interesting, careful psychologists— Walter Prince was working in psychical research, as well as doing studies of multiple personality. In the fall of 1924, my graduate work roommate, Ruth Munroe, insisted on bringing her Columbia University psychology teacher, Gardner Murphy, to our apartment for tea to meet me. (I had protested that | had brilliant professors at Union Theological Seminary where I was studying and | did not have time to meet another, but she did bring him despite my objections.) In the course of our conversation he mentioned that he was commuting to Harvard on weekends to work on psychical research with Walter Prince! | was thunderstruck— what a courageous man, bucking the establishment to pursue this taboo field. As 1 became better acquainted and met some of his friends, I found that not one of them gave him any support on this, They thought he was a little *‘off* or a *‘little touched,”* that his judgment was unsound to take psychical research seriously. / thought they had remarkably closed minds. I wondered what were the sources of Gardner’s commitment and courage to ignore all of the ridicule. When he asked what I thought about it, I said, ‘‘Of course, these things should be investigated!" Among the many American parapsychologists there are those who worked for a time, then abandoned the effort, although they may have retained some interest. Gardner was one of those whose involvement in parapsychology was life-long; he died in the evening of the day that Morton Leeds told him that their book, The Paranormal and the Normal (Leeds & Murphy, 1980), was in galley proofs and would soon be off the press. Because I am a developmental psychologist, his unassailable com- mitment suggests to me a series of questions regarding the roots and the evolution of this commitment to psychical research: How did his interest in it start? What forces within himself and his environment nourished that interest? What led to the consolidation of a determination to work seri- ously in psychical research? What sustained that commitment to the day of his death? It is interesting that his devotion was not weakened by the fact that he himself had no significant psychical experiences, and he did not produce impressive successes in experimental sessions. He was in no way a “‘psychic’’ himself, but he believed in telepathy and he encouraged many other types of psychical research. He was so deeply frustrated at the Evolution of Gardner Murphy's Thinking 103 failure to find a dependably repeatable experiment that he said toward the end of his life, **I'd give every honor I've ever had for one repeatable experiment’’—repeatable, that is, by anyone who follows a prescribed experimental method. If we follow Gardner's own biosocial approach to the development of personality, we have to start with the issue of his own heritage. Here we find no direct clues; no one with psychic powers—demonstrated, faked or imagined—is recorded in the long list of his mother’s New England fore- bears. Whether the paternal grandfather of remote Irish background had any psychical gifts along with his talent for inventions we do not know. In another way, however, his heritage was favorable to Gardner's life- style. There was intensity, persistence, deep religious commitment, and courage, especially in his father—a capacity to persist in devotion to a cause in the face of recrimination, hostility, conflict. For Gardner's first 6 years, his father was an Episcopal priest, He resigned from that role when his concern about racial problems in the south made him decide to devote full time to reform efforts. His passion and eloquence also made him a leader in the early struggles to protect young children from exploitation in factories and mills. He initiated the National Child Labor Committee. At the turn of the century, his was a strong voice for the improvement of education in the south as an approach to improving racial relations. Gardner's quality of dedication to the cause of psychical research and his capacity to support it was like his father’s genius for arousing the nation to the evils of child labor and the deprivation and oppression of blacks. But this only tells us something about the quality of Gardner's commit- ment. It does not tell us how he got involved emotionally and intellec- tually. For this we need to reflect on certain of Gardner's own carly experi- ences. From a clinical point of view | cannot ignore certain events that I feel are related. From longitudinal research we know how persistent the impact of early infancy experiences may be in some children, At the age of 2 months his mother's milk gave out; he was changed to bottle-feeding, which with her help he accepted. There was loss, then there was more. As a child his family moved repeatedly—he lived in six different locations north and south before he entered college. There were repeated losses, then new experiences. The essence of this sequence of repeated loss fol- lowed by new discoveries was dramatized at Yale University. He was intensely excited when his teacher of English, Chauncey Tinker, told the class about the removal of né from the né plus ultra on the Pillars of Hercules after Columbus discovered the new world. Né plus ultra meant “nothing beyond here.*’ Plus ultra meant *‘more beyond.’ Plus ultra be- came a driving theme of Gardner's life—he was never willing to shut a door in science or to say that now we have the final answer—he believed that there was always more to be known—in psychology and in all other sciences. Further clues come from a combination of his own accounts of adoles-

104 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research cent stimulation and our speculations about the impact of certain specific early experiences. This issue of impact is especially interesting because Gardner's brother, DuBose, 2 years older, was not affected in the same way. Gardner tells the story of some bewildering encounters at the age of 4 or 5 when wonder, imagination, and curiosity are in full bloom. He and his brother had a couple of tin animals, Doggie and Horsie, each made of half-shells of metal linked together. One day the beloved Doggie fell apart, the two halves lying on the floor. That was a dreadful shock. What happened to Doggie’s soul? DuBose, at the age of 6 or 7, evidently had no such worries. Apparently, Doggie was not reassembled for there is no account of any relief to little Gardner’s anxiety about Doggic's soul. An- other episode occurred at a very early age when Gardner was so impres- sionable; After he was told that a devil's spade was buried at a certain spot, he dug into the ground and unearthed a real little spade. We have to let go of our adult common sense in order to grasp the feelings of this sensitive, intense little boy; the fact that he remembered these incidents suggests that some other similar occurrence stimulated his wonderings, his sense of mystery in the world, and his life-long quest for reality, for truth. Moreover, at the age of 7, as he remembered later, he said to his cousin Margaret, **Seven years is a long time if you look at it one way, and it’s a short time if you look at it another way.'’ As an adult he felt that he had been the same person from that point on. He was a reflective as well as an intense, impressionable little boy. From the time he started in school at the age of 7 in Concord, Massa- chusetts, to his adolescent years, we have no other evidence of direct challenge like that of the Doggie episode. He was a good boy—too good he felt later, as he had identified with his mother’s strict Puritan standards. He was deeply religious but also curious enough to read a book about other religions —Faiths of the World— when he was eleven. With adoles- cence and exposure to the intensely evangelistic revival type of religion to which another boy introduced him, with hymns like ‘‘Jesus, Lover of My Soul,’’ his devotion was focused on Jesus. In his first year at Yale when he was 17 he worked in the Yale Mission, still involved in very emotional evangelistic religion. Meanwhile, at 16, before he entered Yale, he had read a book by Sir William Barrett (1911) entitled Psychical Research. His beloved and much admired grandfather in Concord was the lawyer for the famous me- dium Mrs. Piper, and the family discussed psychical research at the dinner table. His father was interested and had thoughts of writing a book on the subject. William James, who had lectured in Concord earlier and was loved by Gardner's family, died in 1910 when Gardner was 15; James had been interested in and had written on psychical research. He had made a careful report on Mrs. Piper. This was published in the popular American Magazine in 1909 when Gardner was 14; it seems probable that Gardner's family read it. Thus, a group of influences from his religious life, from his reading, Evolution of Gardner Murphy's Thinking 105 from his family’s interest, and from the stimulus of William James com- bined to sustain his thinking about the mind and soul, a concern whose intensity was rooted, I believe, in experiences in early childhood. At the end of Gardner's freshman year at Yale, before he was 18, his father died of heart disease, Still deeply involved in religion, Gardner must have thought about his father's soul: What had happened to it? The previous Concord stimulation of interest in psychical research now grew into a purpose: He would work in the field and prove that the mind or soul was independent of the brain. At Yale, he heard that you could study the mind if you took psychology, and he began that study in his sopho- more year. He *‘loved all that stuff about the mind,"’ he said later. After asking his professor what would be the best preparation for studying psy- chical research and hearing the answer that psychology would be desir- able, he decided to become a psychologist. In his courses, Gardner was exposed to scientific standards in psychology and anthropology, as well as to the theory of evolution, which made a deep impression. At Yale, how- ever, in contrast to Concord and to his parents’ comfortable interest in psychical research, there was no support; Gardner confronted consistent negative attitudes to parapsychology for the first time. He left no diary notes or letters indicating that his father's death stimu- lated ruminations about the whereabouts of his loving and beloved father’s soul. But in the context of his continuing intense religious involvement during his freshman year, it is reasonable to assume that this issue was on his mind and heart. What he does say is that he felt the psychologists were just ignorant when they denied the possibility of a mind independent of the brain, The behavioristic orientation of the psychologists with its close grip on demonstrated facts was, moreover, in sharp contrast with the openness implied in Chauncey Tinker’s account of plus ultra. (Plus ultra was a recurrent theme in Gardner's writing, and the title of one of his auto- biographies [Murphy, 1974]. Speaking in India in 1955, he appealed to the Indian concern with the more, the deeper, the beyond in the human spirit.) For this ardent, reflective youth who could not, at Yale, share his inner struggles with what he called his ‘‘medium-level friends,’* the next few years brought a gradual eroding of the Episcopal faith. His commitment to science became as deep and intense as his commitment to religion had been. This was cemented by his election to Sigma Xi, the honor society for scientists. Finally in March of the year at Harvard following gradua- tion from Yale, **with great writhing,’ he decided that he must make a commitment to truth. And Episcopal theology he felt was not compatible with truth, In an autobiographical chapter he wrote, ‘‘I had to give up my dualism (mind-body dualism) which meant giving up my religious faith, and I did this with one clean, if bloody, stroke.'’ This phrase conveys the pain of that decision. **I did however,"’ he said, **determine that psychical research was very important and that | was going to stay with it,” (Murphy, 1974, p. 328). He did not abandon the tradition of Judeo-Chris-

106 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research tian ethics and values. What he gave up at Harvard in March was replaced by an intense focus on psychical research that had been regarded with such hostility at Yale. L. T. Troland at Harvard supported his interest and re- ferred him to relevant bibliography, In August, 1917, Gardner went to France as a member of the Yale Mobile Hospital Unit in World War I. Paradoxically, this gave him oppor- tunities to pursue some interests related to psychical research. Once he used his time off duty to visit the site of the Lourdes healings, in which William James had also been interested. Some of the sick and defective persons were cured, as attested by accredited physicians. (We know a little more today about mental healing.) He also visited the home of Jeanne d’ Arc, of whom he had written a loving and carefully documented study at Yale. He believed that she did hear the voices that told her to save France. . : Most important of all, he visited the office of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in London, where he was warmly welcomed, The secre- tary made out a detailed list of readings, which he followed carefully. In short, his 2 years abroad fortified his commitment to psychical research and gave breadth and depth to his grasp of the range of experiences to be studied. He was so moved by the visit to the SPR that after he returned to the United States and finished the work for his Ph.D. at Columbia Univer- sity, he asked William McDougall at Harvard whether there would be any chance of getting an appointment at the London SPR. McDougall eagerly told him about the Hodgson Fellowship for work on psychical research at Harvard, and Gardner began commuting each weekend to work there with Walter Prince. In the early 1920s it was an overnight boat trip to Boston or a long daytime train trip; then one took the bus to Cambridge. He spoke of that period as a time of living a double life: In New York no one understood or respected his involvement in psychical research; in Cambridge there was companionship in discussion and experimentation in that field. But the commuting each week in addition to his Columbia teaching made for an exhausting schedule. When he became ill in the spring of 1925, it was at first diagnosed as flu, but it left him weak for years. It was impossible to continue the commuting to Harvard. (Only after a long sequence of efforts to get help for the miserable fatigue from which he could get no relief did a sputum culture point to a diagnosis of encephalitic flu.) He was not only too weak to commute to Harvard; he could not engage in any activity that involved long standing or sitting up. But he could read and dictate, give a lecture, then lie down on a couch in his Columbia office. After Robert Woodworth, chairman of the Psychology Department at Columbia, had been impressed by a seminar presentation, he had in- vited Gardner to teach an introductory course in the Extension department. Then he offered Gardner the social psychology course that Woodworth himself had been teaching in the graduate division. Gardner proposed a course in the history of psychology, and this was approved. In 1925, he Evolution of Gardner Murphy's Thinking 107 was appointed a full-time instructor in the Columbia College section of the Psychology Department. Not only Woodworth but two other senior members of the University Department of Psychology were warmly sup- portive of Gardner. In this period he wrote a paper, ‘'Telepathy as an Experimental Problem,"’ published in Carl Murchison’s 1927 volume, The Case For and Against Psychical Belief. In the history course and in the book based on stenotyped recordings of his lectures (Murphy, 1929), Gardner followed a principle of inclusive- ness and integrating the new with the old, which became central to all of his subsequent thinking and writing. In three editions that book was a bible for graduate students for over a half century. Another expression of his commiment to integrate the new with the old was his pioneer Ap- proaches to Personality with F. Jensen (1932). This combined presenta- tions of major psychoanalytic systems with implications of traditional psy- chological systems at a time when for most psychologists psychoanalysis was regarded with suspicion, even hostility. Between these, Gardner had determined to bring social psychology out of the armchair and demonstrate that it could be an empirical science. He wrote Experimental Social Psychology (Murphy & Murphy, 1931), now considered a landmark contribution to empirical social psychology, which stimulated much research and a series of texts based on experimental work. To my astonishment, since | was a young graduate student, 7 years younger, Gardner wanted to discuss marriage, and despite his poor health we were married in 1926. He introduced me to some of the astonishing records of communications from English mediums, and we did some in- formal distance experiments with a friend across the river. One day in 1927 when Gardner was ill in bed with severe bronchitis, a young biologist knocked on the door of our apartment—this was J. B. Rhine, He wanted to know whether Gardner's interest in psychical re- search was a stable commitment, and I assured him that it was—that when he recovered from his illness he would be again working actively on those problems. McDougall, by then at Duke University, had invited Rhine to take a full-time appointment in psychical research—the first and only such appointment in an American university. After this conversation with me, he accepted that position. In 1934, a month at Dr. William Hay's Sanatorium with a combination of detoxification and special diet produced a startling restoration of Gardner's health. This was the same year that Dr. Rhine published his exciting book, Extra-Sensory Perception (Rhine, 1934). Following a visit to Rhine's laboratory at Duke, Gardner consistently supported Rhine—at the same time criticizing the Rhines’ pattern of rushing into print with popularizations not always justified by rigorous research. At one point when Gardner asked me what I thought about his devoting full time to psychical research, | said that I thought that he might do more to support that subject if he established himself as a respected psycholo-

108 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research gist. Rhine (1980) has recalled a tense confrontation at a symposium in the 1938 American Psychological Association (APA) convention at Co- lumbus, Ohio. Two psychologists hostile to psychical research were cer- tain that they could demolish its claims. Afterward, Irvin Child (1980) wrote that Gardner Murphy exposed the irrelevance of some of the critical attacks, keeping to the path of strict rationality. Rhine said that the ap- plause of the huge audience made it obvious who had won the debate. Until 1952 Gardner continued a double life with enthusiastic colleagues at the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) as one part and his work as a psychologist for the other part. It was repeatedly said that he was the superego of the Society for Psychological Study of Social Issues; it seems to me that he was also the superego of the ASPR, always setting the highest scientific standards while he encouraged exploration of new techniques and new problems. He was especially interested in a French chemist, René Warcollier, and his creative experiments with drawings, as well as a Dutch experimenter, Brugmans. Gardner's special combination of flexibility and rigor supported both breadth of experimentation and in- tegrity of findings. His stimulus and support continued on visits to the ASPR after he became Director of Research at the Menninger Foundation in Kansas. He was president of the ASPR from 1962-1971. Gardner gave both moral and financial support to young experimenters and the major studies of Osis, and Ullman and Krippner. Only the failure of his health prevented active participation in the 1970s. I remember how in the 1930s Gardner's scientific conscience had been shocked, appalled, and disgusted at the frauds perpetrated by the medium ‘*Margery,”’ who claimed to produce ectoplasm in her mediumistic ses- sions. He was also dismayed at the deterioration of standards in the Amer- ican Society for Psychical Research when it supported her and, more than that, at the neglect of serious experimental work. He was ready to do something about it, and the nearly simultaneous occurrence of two events made it possible for him to exert a dominant influence: The first was the move from his heavily burdened chairmanship of the Columbia College Psychology Department, where he had been on 22 dissertation committees during his last year there in addition to teaching and administrative respon- sibilities. In September, 1940, he became a professor of psychology at City College of New York (CCNY) with a much lighter schedule that left him free to spend his mornings at the office of the ASPR. Freedom was not the only gift of that move. He was teaching his Personality course. The unparalleled enthusiasm for that course among students and faculty released energy in addition to that generated by the relief from his heavy Columbia schedule. Recently, former CCNY students told me that they called him ‘*God Murphy."" The year 1940 was also the last of Gardner's three-year term as a member of the governing council of the APA, and that change freed not only the time for meetings of the ASPR but time needed for thinking about issucs related to that organization. The second crucial event was the scheduled election of ASPR trustees Evolution of Gardner Murphy's Thinking 109 in January, 1941. Gardner was not the only one who was distressed at the ASPR's support of the suspected Margery and also its unscientific popular emphasis on mediums generally. At the January 28, 1941 election of trustees, four of the old guard were defeated and the four candidates from the competing slate won; these included George Hyslop and Gardner. Seven other old guard trustees resigned, two intelligent and knowledge- able women were added to the Board, Hyslop became President, and Gardner became Chairman of the Research Committee. Now he had the time and the leverage to accomplish a drastic change in the activity of the ASPR. In support of his own passionate commitment to make it function on a serious scientific level, a new Editor and Research Associate, Laura Dale, rapidly became deeply identified with the research and with the quarterly Journal, which she edited. And a gifted Columbia student, Er- nest Taves, was awarded a research fellowship under Gardner's supervi- sion, The decade of the 1940s was an exciting time for Gardner and the group around him, which included Joseph L. Woodruff, an instructor at City College, for whom Gardner arranged the Hodgson Fellowship. Soon Ger- trude Schmeidler added her famous sheep-goat studies of the relationship of favorable and unfavorable attitudes to success in ESP experiments; this led to studies of adjustment and expansiveness as these related to ESP success, Gardner not only sparked a wide variety of experiments, he wrote an article almost every year on some issue of theory. His 1943 paper, ‘*Psychical Phenomena and Human Needs,’ was di- rectly parallel to his City College researches on the relation of needs to perception, sometimes referred to as the pioneer *‘new look"’ studies. In that paper he summarized needs apparently leading to spontaneous psy- chical experiences, such as the need for contact with a loved one and the need for self-protection. He saw psychical events as subject to the same laws as psychological events. In his 1967 presentation to the New York Academy of Sciences he summarized: *‘The readiness of the subject to perceive . . . has the same kind of effect in parapsychology as in normal psychology; . . . strong motivation, lowering thresholds, increasing orga- nizing power’’ (Murphy, 1967, p. 258) are important in both perceptual and extrasensory perceptual situations. Three articles published in 1945 offered a thorough discussion of re- search on the question of survival after death, including a logical analysis of difficulties confronting the survival hypothesis (Murphy, 1945a, 1945b, 1945c). Following these discussions came his reflections on the mind-body relationship (Murphy, 1946)—dealing with the question that caused him so much anguish at the age of four or five, almost a half-cen- tury carlier, During the remaining quarter-century of his active life, this issue and the related issue of the place of man in the universe continued to occupy his thinking. He found persistent resolution, if not the answer to the question, in his conviction that man is isomorphic with the universe,

110 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research that is, he is of the same stuff, and organized according to the same laws, as the rest of the universe. All during those years while he was teaching and doing research at City College and working with a group at the ASPR on Saturdays, Gardner was also writing his classic and comprehensive Personality: A Biosocial Ap- proach to Origins and Structure. In 1947 that book was off the press and from that time on, especially, he encouraged the integration of psycholog- ical principles into parapsychological thought. His paper, **Pro- gress in Parapsychology’’ (Murphy, 1958d), distilled his thinking about basic principles in the perspective of the history of science. Here he em- phasized the principle of emergence—a new concept or approach can emerge from the interaction of two basic concepts. He felt that although there had been much extension or extrapolation from J. B. Rhine’s work, there had been no cross-fertilization between Rhine's approach with Wil- liam James’ reflections on Mrs. Piper's trance, for instance. Next, he proposed that instead of doing chiefly studies focused on ex- periments with one independent variable, it is necessary to develop models which define the complex multi-dimensional biological and social context in which paranormal events occur. ‘Complexity of models is demanded by complexity of events" (Murphy, 1958d, p. 231). The interaction of persons involved—sender and recipient—is part of this complexity. What makes a good sender, one who gets positive results? We have had more studies of good receivers starting with Gertrude Schmeidler’s studies of the effect of positive and negative attitudes toward ESP. Presumably most senders are favorable to ESP, but there have been skeptics who tended to get negative results. Gardner, himself, was profoundly favorable in his attitude, but he did not succeed in producing positive results—there must be more than a positive attitude involved in the senders as well as the receivers and in their interaction. Gardner included, in 1967, freedom from inhibitions and inhibiting conditions as a possible factor. Possibly Gardner's own unceasing reflection was an inhibiting factor; I believe that one has to let go of all cerebrations in order to be open to ESP. Biological factors in both sender and receiver and their interaction also need to be studied in cross-cultural projects, he felt. In this same paper he said, **The best method . . . is one which integrates all the life sciences relevant to a given act of perception’’ (Murphy, 1967, pp. 258-259). Gardner would have been excited by Patric Giesler’s recent (1984) re- view of studies of psi in the field by anthropologists. Giesler comments that the diversity of human societies in terms of genetic patterns, climate, child-rearing patterns, styles of social interaction, uses of different diets and drugs, and other psychosocial dimensions should arouse the interest of the parapsychologists. 1 would add that it should be possible to select cultures in which para- normal experiences are accepted, and the age-level, status, interpersonal habits of individuals believed to have paranormal experiences are known; then one could study the biological and psychological equipment of those Evolution of Gardner Murphy's Thinking 111 people and further study the biosocial conditions related to variability in their psi functioning. In studying the individual sender and receiver in any culture it would be important to know as much as possible about the style of normal perception in that culture—the thresholds for subliminal per- ception, the tendency to perceive little details or to get a general impres- sion, the tendency—as in autokinetic studies—to remain rigidly attached to a given stimulus as compared to the tendency to explore around it, the tendency to merge with the stimulus as compared with remaining always detached, at a distance. All of these and other perceptual styles have been studied, but have they been considered in relation to ESP? As part of his interest in bringing parapsychological studies in relation to psychology, Gardner, with Alice Moriarity (Moriarity & Murphy, 1967), also carried on a study of creativity in relation to ESP; they found evidence for the dissociation tendency to be a link. What contributes to the capacity for dissociation? What studies of altered states of consciousness have been carried out in the field? What studies have been made of thresholds of visual, auditory, tactual, or pain stimuli in relation to para- psychology? What studies have been made of the biosocial characteristics of people who had precognition of the Titanic disaster, of Bob Kennedy's assassination, of plane crashes, earthquakes? After Gardner became Director of Research at the Menninger Founda- tion in Kansas in 1952, he directed studies in Perceptual Learning, con- sulted with clinicians doing research, and stimulated the development of new projects. His devotion to psychical research was expressed on profes- sional trips to the East coast when he always found time to visit the ASPR and fertilize the field there. At the same time he looked back thoughtfully at his intensive reading of reports about spontaneous cases of telepathy, records of sessions with the most respected mediums, the experiments of Gertrude Schmeidler and of his collaborators in the 1940s. He had turned down an earlier request from Arthur Rosenthal of Basic Books to write a guide to parapsychology. But when he was invited in 1956 to write a book on modern approaches to marginal areas of fact or theory, he agreed to prepare a source book on psychical research, with comments and interpre- tations. This developed into the little classic, Challenge of Psychical Re- search: A Primer of Parapsychology (Murphy with Dale, 1961), a book which again integrates the new and the old, In the introduction he empha- sizes the scientists’ centuries-old dilemma of observations, facts, which do not fit into the accepted system. Gardner felt that the public needed a perspective in which the new studies could be seen alongside of the clas- sical work. The drive to always integrate the new with the old, the present with the past, persisted through most of his major writing, including his writing on psychical research. Could his push toward integrating the old and the new be related to his fidelity to other carly loves in literature and his extraordinary memory that simply retained everything? Is it related to his often emphasized deep de- sire for inclusiveness so that he wanted to keep all that he had learned

112 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research while he continued to explore plus ultra—the *‘more beyond"’? And if we can tolerate another level of speculation, could the response to the need for inclusiveness, and the ‘‘more beyond,’’ be strengthened by his need to transcend the Victorian restrictions, prohibitions, inhibitions, and taboos of his New England childhood? To ignore intellectual barriers was an as- sertion of freedom. The result, of course, was to make him one of the most inspiring, mind-broadening teachers of the twentieth century — second only to Freud in the number of students he inspired to go into psychology, according to one survey. Challenge of Psychical Research (Murphy with Dale, 1961) presents a fascinating range of data from spontaneous cases, experimental telepathy and clairvoyance, precognition, survival after death—not by any means a comprehensive sample, but still a selection of different kinds of para- normal findings from different periods of time and locales of work. Parallel with that book and published the year before is his book with Robert O. Ballou, William James on Psychical Research (Murphy & Ballou, 1960). Gardner read all of James’ writings in psychology and all of his published letters. This book contains a compilation of James’ papers on psychical research, including letters and speeches. In a biographical sketch Gardner wrote of James in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, he states that James’ essay, **What Psychical Research has Ac- complished,"’ ‘must be regarded as the most powerful and convincing of all apologies for the work of this society’’ (Murphy, 1958c, p. 309). Gardner also felt that James gave psychical research a certain status, a certain intellectual respectability, which only his prestige could have given it at that time. In addition, James played a major role in founding official psychical research in the United States while keeping it close to the London SPR. Finally, Gardner wrote, James presented a ‘‘radical empiri- cism"’ regarding the position which a serious facer of facts must assume when what seem to be unassimilable data must somehow be faced and thought through. In this summary of James’ work, Gardner could be talking about him- self, so comparable was his approach and influence. David Shakow, often called the father of clinical psychology, said: ‘Gardner Murphy is the William James of our time."’ Others insist that he is ‘‘the first Gardner Murphy."” REFERENCES BARRETT, Sir W. F. (1911). Psychical Research, New York: Holt. Cup, I. L. (1980). Tribute honoring the memory of Gardner Murphy. 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Psychical phenomena and human needs. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 37, 163-191. Murpuy, G. (1945a). An outline of survival evidence. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 39, 2-34. Murpuy, G. (1945b). Difficulties confronting the survival hypothesis. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 39, 67—94. Murpny, G. (1945c). Field theory and survival. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 39, 181—209. Murpuy, G. (1946). Psychical research and the mind-body relation. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 40, 189-207. Murpuy, G. (1947). Personality: A Biosocial Approach to Origins and Structure. New York: Harper & Row. Murpny, G. (1958a, December 13). A cosmic Christmas carol. Saturday Review, 41, 45-48. Murpnry, G. (1958b). Human Potentialities. New York: Basic Books. Murpuy, G. (1958c). Our pioneers, [l: William James. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 39, 309-314. Murpuy, G. (1958d). Progress in parapsychology. Journal of Parapsy- chology, 22, 229-263. Murpuy, G. (1967). Introductory aspects of modern parapsychological research. Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, 30, 256-260. Murpuy, G. (1974). There is more beyond. In T. S. Krawiec (Ed.), The Psychologists. Volume II (pp. 321—344). New York: Oxford University Press. Murpuy, G., & BALLou, R. O. (Eps.). (1960). William James on Psy- chical Research, New York: Viking. Murpuy, G., wirH DALE, L. A. (1961). Challenge of Psychical Re- search: A Primer of Parapsychology. New York: Harper & Row. Murpuy, G., & JENSEN, F. (1932). Approaches to Personality. New York: Harper & Row,

114 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research Murpuy, G., & Murpuy, L. B. (1931). Experimental Social Psy- chology. New York: Harper & Row. RHINE, J. B. (1934). Extra-Sensory Perception. Boston: Bruce Humphries. RHINE, J. B. (1980). My partner, Gardner Murphy. Journal of the Amer- ican Society for Psychical Research, 74, 62—65. 3217 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Apt. 50 Washington, DC 20008