Are There Any Solid Facts in Psychical Research?

Reprinted from the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research Volume 64 — January 1970 — Number 1] Are There Any Solid Facts in Psychical Research 1 GARDNER MurPuy I In a preliminary way, I will say at once that the following phenomena seem to me to be solidly established as facts in the field of psychical research: First, telepathy, or the transmission, as Myers defined it, “of impressions of any kind from one mind to another, independently of the recognized channels of sense” (9, Vol. 1, p- xxii). Second, clairvoyance, or the direct perception of an object or objective event, again without the utilization of the senses. Third, precognition, or the perception of an idea or an event which is in a future time; in other words, telepathy or clairvoyance in which the perceiver is in the present time, but the event per- ceived is in future time; that is, looking into the future. Fourth, retrocognition, symmetrical to precognition, or the per- ception in the present time of an object or event which is located in past time; that is, looking into the past. Fifth, psychokinesis, or the voluntary movement of objects as a result of agencies not known to belong to those of the physically recognized energies; and closely related to this, the phenomena of lights, sounds, odors, etc., which are apparently produced by a dynamic which transcends our present knowledge of physics. Closely parallel to all of these are phenomena appearing to indicate that the subject is acting upon physical reality in some indirect way, perhaps producing a phantasm or apparition of him- self which manifests itself at a distance, or a physical effect which can ultimately be recorded by physical instruments, but not at present a part of the known physical system of energies. But I wish to ask now whether any of these events are “solid” facts in another sense: in the sense in which the events that we find described in scientific textbooks are solid facts—that is, ordered within a conceptual system. Henry Margenau, Professor of Physics and Philosophy at Yale, is constantly insisting upon the difference between disconnected facts on the one hand and real science on the other, reminding us that the business of psychical research * This paper is based on a lecture given by Dr. Murphy at a meeting of the Society held on January 27, 1969.—Ed.

4 — Fournal of the American Society for Psychical Research should not be with disconnected facts, but with facts which are scientifically coherent and meaningful (6). I think that the series of realities which I have just described, the five broad categories of psychical phenomena, are still disconnected, and that in order to have real meaning they must be organized in an orderly way with reference to some systematic principles. To get at this problem, I am going to make my own tentative effort to formulate three broad working schemata or principles that we ought to keep in mind; they are principles regarding the re- lations of mind and body. Of course, I did not “dream up” for this occasion these three classical schemata, for they were all well known to the Greeks and likewise to ancient India; but I am going to attempt to formulate them in such a way that they will be more serviceable for the purposes of psychical research, which must find its way to a sound conception of the relation of mind to body. I am inclined to think that every meaningful fact that we have uncovered in our investigations can be ordered in terms of one or another, or indeed all three, of these systems or models. And I am inclined to think that the task of psychical research transcends altogether the mere gathering of more and more facts and should comprise an effort to see whether the facts we now have support one another and are coherent within an intelligible system. I suggest that any solidly established fact tends to support one theory as against the other two theories which I shall describe, and I urge that all of you who have a research orientation keep pressing us to order our data so that they will support or refute one or another theory and lead us into greater conceptual clarity. Il The three systematic possibilities which I will now offer in capsule form are, first, classical monism as represented by Spinoza; second, classical dualism as represented by Descartes; and third, what I shall call the ‘etheric” theory, adapted more or less from the work of Myers and of Newbold, of whom I shall say more later. Monistic Theory (Spinoza) Spinoza argued that mental events and bodily events are com- pletely parallel; for every mental event there is a physical event and for every physical event there is a mental event. Neither is “caused” by the other; both are aspects of the same ultimate reality and are considered by Spinoza to be “divine” attributes. According to this view, there cannot be a “relation” between mind and body because they are both simply aspects of one thing. Are There Any Solid Facts in Psychical Research? 5 Dualistic Theory (Descartes) Descartes put forward the theory of absolute dualism, which holds that mind and matter are eternally separable, He taught that motions terminating in the brain produced ideas in what he called the “unextended” mind, which he thought functioned through the pineal gland. It was as if the immaterial force of the mind comes in like an arrow, striking the pineal gland in such a way as to control the body. Descartes thought that if we are able to think of the soul clearly and perfectly without having to presuppose the concept of the body, and if we are able to think of the body clearly and perfectly without having to presuppose the concept of the soul, then this is a proof that we have two distinct beings or substances entirely independent of one another. “Etherial” Theory (Myers-Newbold) I am going to present the third, or “‘etherial,” theory in a slightly novel manner. When I was a young psychical researcher, I talked with Professor W. R. Newbold at the University of Pennsylvania. Newbold was a distinguished philosopher, psychologist, and ar- cheologist who had made studies of Assyriology and of the remark- able artifacts which had been dug up in the Near East showing the thought of the Assyrians and Babylonians long before the time of Christ. Newbold, who had had sittings with the celebrated Boston medium, Mrs. Piper, was deeply interested in psychical research and contributed a number of papers to the publications of the S.P.R. and A.S.P.R. He told me, as I understood him, that the main task of psychical research is to combinesound, modernscientific method with the ancient lore which has been forgotten. And one of the things that the ancients knew, he said, and that we ought to know today, is that it is never really a question of a simple dualism of mind versus body, but that there is a reality, so to speak, in between, There is a world, for example, of phantasms, of ghosts, of hauntings, of ESP projections. These are not physical events —they do not leave a record on a photographic plate—but neither are they solely mental events. They seem to represent an interaction between our bodies and some unknown reality outside of time and space. I am trying to put this theory, first expressed to me by Newbold, into the form of what I am calling an etheric theory; It is something like, but not identical with, Myers’ “metetheric” theory? put forward in Human Personality (9). As I conceive it, —_—_—_—_—— * Myers defines the word “‘metetherial” as “that whi i beyond the ether; the metetherial enna anlage gs carint eels adel ther; tl ent denotes th tual e dental world in which the soul exists” (9, Vol. i pri a ai”

6 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research there is a sphere of psychic events which is intermediate between the bodily sphere and a transcendent sphere; an apparition, for example, would be seen as something between a physical event and a transcendent event. il Now, how can we bring such philosophical theories as these three into relation to our experimental results? I plead that we must turn the specific “hard facts” of psychical research into organized and meaningful systems such as these three mind-body theories require. I stress that we need to formulate theoretical systems and then find which system is best supported by the kind of facts that we have. Let us consider the first step that we will have to take as we get further data such as those of Osis, Schmeidler, Pratt, Ullman, and many others, systematizing their observations on long-distance telepathy, paranormal dreams, etc., which they offer us as solid facts. What are some of the things that we will have to do to give such facts a coherent, meaningful form? We will have to show that these facts are related to other facts; that they form coherent systems; and that these systems of facts can be lodged within a larger theoretical framework, such as the mind-body theories that I have offered you. Can a new finding on long-distance telepathy, like the Osis-Turner studies of the effect of distance (11), really be articulated and brought into relation to mind-body theory or some equally ambitious philosophical theory ? To illustrate the point, let us take the classic experiments of Brugmans and his associates (1) at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Since these experiments are so well known, I will merely remind you that the agents in an upper room in the University Laboratories were able to transmit letters and numbers to a subject sitting blindfolded in a black cage in a lower room. The possibility of sensory cues seems to have been adequately ruled out, and the results were hugely significant. This experiment is now being replicated in modified form at the A.S.P.R. This leads me to offer a challenge: if we get positive results, as Brugmans did, what can we do to show that these results have scientific meaning—that these evidences of telepathy are not mere flukes, but have an orderly place in nature relating them to one of our mind-body theories ? I would say that until this is done, the concept of telepathy hangs in the air, without having very much mean- ing Are There Any Solid Facts in Psychical Research? 7 * IV Fortunately, the experiments of Brugmans and his associates offer us three working principles which tie their results to those _ of earlier experiments performed in Britain and France which bear on the question of the physical or mental conditions which facilitate the telepathic response. _ First, there is the principle of relaxation. What has relaxation to do with telepathy? We can say that in the telepathy iments carried out by Warcollier (18) in Paris, in the early otic experiments done in England under Gurney (3) and , and in the hypnotic experiments done by Fahler (2) in i d we have a converging line of evidence suggesting that relaxation both of mind and of body is a cogent preliminary experimental condition in relation to the elicitation of a telepathic result. Since mind and body vary concomitantly, this scores a point in favor of Spinoza’s monistic theory. These experiments bind together several different kinds of relaxation and several different techniques for inducing relaxation. A generalized scientific prin- ciple begins to emerge. But it does not go far enough; it is just one point. _ A second principle that begins to emerge from all these studies has to do with a “splitting” of the mind, or dissociation, by which it is possible for one part of the mind to be wholly fixated on a task while another part of the mind—perhaps a deep, unconscious part—is reaching out for telepathic contact. We have, in other words, the possibility that telepathy is an expression of a “split” condition of the mind, a condition which would probably interfere with most types of ordinary work, but which in the creative work of the artist seems to tie the psi process with the splitting process. As far as the evidence goes, it suggests that splitting occurs at the Pe ysiological level at the same time that it occurs at the psyche- ical level. Score another point for Spinoza. But let us wait for more evidence. Thirdly, evidence of the importance of motivation appears in almost all these studies; there seems to be a relationship between the degree to which a person is preoccupied with success and the degree to which he is capable of hitting the particular target defined. This afternoon I was discussing with some of our young Investigators the question whether this is a straight-line relation- ship; that is, whether we can always say that the greater the Motivation, the greater the paranormal result. We can learn to find with new techniques just that degree of voluntary mobilization and degree of devotion to the task which, without making the subject too tense, will permit a steady and effective focusing upon the

8 fournal of the American Society for Psychical Research target. Clearly, this is a good lead, but definite results are not yet at hand. Thus it would seem to me that we need to do more refined psychological, physiological, and mathematical analyses of all the variables involved before we can say that we have caught the es- sence of the favorable moment in which ESP occurs. We have clues sticking out at us, so to speak, from the underbrush. We have a few clues pointing in Spinoza’s direction. A little later I shall refer to Tyrrell’s study of apparitions (17) to find clues supporting the Myers-Newbold theory. I am afraid that the number of relevant variables is probably very large. Indeed, in our attempt at replica- tion, we have usually tried to do over and over again what has been done before, forgetting that there are many favorable working conditions which have to be realized before the first study can be successfully repeated. We have a human situation of great com- plexity whenever psi phenomena appear. It isn’t enough to take piecemeal bits of the total situation and hope that the results will reappear. It isn’t enough merely to do what the experimenter said he did; he undoubtedly put much more into the experiment than he was able to make clear in his report. And our own difficult and arduous replication teaches us how complex the chain of interdependent relationships is which ties a paranormal result to the psychological conditions which predispose to it. I am asking for a great deal, I am afraid. But psychical research plods along slowly; maybe it can be speeded up by seeking the nature of science and of scientific theory-building and its testing. V Suppose we should want to make generalizations about telepathic and clairvoyant phenomena (and retrocognitive and precognitive phenomena as well) which would all be coherent. There is almost none of this in psychical research. We can read in Rhine’s first book (12) that the same conditions which assisted his subjects in telepathic results also assisted them in clairvoyant results; but for the most part, we don’t know whether the working conditions that seem to be favorable for telepathy and clairvoyance are also fa- vorable for precognition and psychokinesis. There is practically nothing in the literature which compares the working conditions for, say, psychokinesis and the working conditions for telepathy. We don’t even know whether a person good at one type of para- normal task is good at other types of paranormal tasks, for we have not taken seriously the notion that the interdependence of many realities is what is required, It is not enough merely to give a Are There Any Solid Facts in Psychical Research? 9 certain type of result a name and say that it is one more case of okinesis; we must see this particular case of psychokinesis jn relation to other cases of psychokinesis and also in relation to other types of psi phenomena. It seems to me that, as we read the experimental reports in the journals, we are nearly always left with so-called hard facts in our hands and no idea what to do with them. They are like a series of facts that might be named by a geologist. The geologist might say, “I have some facts for you—there are mountains, there are rivers, there are oceans.” But this is not geology, for it does not tell us what kinds of heat, or pressure, or erosion created these mountains and rivers and oceans. To say that the modern horse is descended from a little five-toed eohippus which lived millions of years ago is not evolutionary biology. It becomes evolutionary biology only when we can say what forces in nature favored bigger rather than smaller horses, and hoofed rather than five-toed horses, giving them power to survive in new worlds which the little eohippus did not confront. Are there dynamic laws of this sort, laws of development, in psychical research? Are there laws telling us what forces are at work over long periods of time and what results they produce? When we see a telepathic or a clairvoyant or a precognitive result, can we say anything about its develop- mental history? Are we conducting our experiments today in such a way as to permit us to decide between major constructions of reality? This is the kind of systematic effort which should ulti- mately give us “hard facts” in Margenau’s use of the term. Is all this too much to ask? I do not think so. Think of the thousands of studies of plants and animals which were done before the time of Darwin; that is, before the development of a sustaining theory. Can we, in psychical research, develop the systematic ibilities of the three theoretical mind-body constructions which mentioned earlier ? Can we develop these theories to a point where specific new experiments will decide between them—or, indeed, whether a fourth theory or an nth theory is better than the three that I defined ? Can we find which gives the best fit to the recorded observations ? How can we move, in our experiments, to transcend the question of looking for sheer facts and seek general principles? Perhaps the trouble is that we fail to remember in psychical research that facts in nature do not really exist except in the form of relations between classes of events. Sunrises, for example, or eclipses, or the march of the seasons, are factual data arising from the relations between heavenly bodies that move, spin, and get in the way of one another. Barometers and thermometers go up and down and report changing relationships—not things intrinsic to the water or the mercury which are used for the measurements,

10 journal of the American Society for Psychical Research but the systematic patterns of relationships between them. It may well be that in our efforts to understand the paranormal the relational system which ties the living individual to his environment has been neglected. It may well be, for example, that there is no such thing as clairvoyance within the individual mind, clairvoyance as an expression of just one person. It may turn out, in fact, that all psychic events are not only transspatial and transtemporal, but fully transpersonal as well; and that in this transpersonal world there are interpersonal relationships which we have ignored. It may be that all psi phenomena depend not upon the biological or psychological laws that describe the life of the individual, but upon transactions or relational systems which must be directly investi- gated in their own right. Suppose we take Moss’s recent observations (7) on the psycho- logical openness of the individual as a factor which she says enables him to succeed in an extrasensory task. But it may well be that it is not the openness in general of the individual, but particular kinds of openness, or particular kinds of contact, that allow him, when working with another individual, to succeed in ESP. Perhaps the factors will come out more strongly and more meaningfully when they are stated in terms of the relationships between the subject, the agent, and the other persons who, together with the experimenter, comprise the experimental surroundings. If we could actually work out such a relational system, perhaps we would find that the “hard facts” of today are all facts relating to systems of events rather than to self-contained events. VI In this matter of a shift of research emphasis from straightfor- ward simple facts about behavior to facts about systems of rela- tionships, I should like to refer to some ongoing research of Osis in which he factor-analyzed self-report items from psychological scales to determine how the items of these scales were associated with each other. He found that the items tended to cluster into five relatively clear-cut factors: 1. A feeling of openness and closeness to others, a lowering of the barriers between the group members. . A stillness, a state in which the mind is not active with thoughts and images. . A buoyant mood which is brought to the session. . A dimension of meaningfulness. . An intensification of and change in the individual’s state of con- sciousness (10). »_ nw N e There Any Solid Facts in Psychical Research? 11 We might do well to look at these five items and consider how we might evaluate them in relation to the way they may be ‘associated with the activation of extrasensory perception. It seems to me that the first item, a lowering of barriers between ‘members of the group, is of importance in the sense that such openness is not an attribute of a single individual, but an attribute relating to the communication system that obtains between indi- yiduals. Indeed, a lowering of barriers between groups of persons s plainly something that is not anchored in the brain of one person, or the sum of all persons; rather, it is a form of mutual influence ‘or potential communication between them. This illustrates what I mean by a relationship system. _ The “stillness” of mind referred to in the second item is perhaps more difficult to define. It looks like a state of transition from one activity to another; a sort of emptying or clearing of the mind. This may be what Rhine has called “putting the mind on dead center,” or what I have referred to as a “brown study” or state of abstraction. Perhaps it is not really a state as such, but the transition from an active to a passive state—a sort of ‘‘make-and- break” process—that is the critical preconditioning circumstance. __ These same factors would probably also apply to the third item, ‘the buoyant mood being based upon interpersonal relationships and, in any event, involving a capacity to bring a successful feeling Pp from one situation to another situation, thus involving a shift in figure and ground, or the ‘‘make-and-break”’ response. __ As for item four, the “dimension of meaningfulness,” this may ‘again entail a figure-ground relationship, but we need to know ‘more about it. Item five, ‘‘an intensification of and change in the individual’s State of consciousness,”’ is exactly the point on which I would bear down most heavily. It is the change—whether of intensification or of qualitative attributes—that is the important and central fact, and this is plainly a matter of very complex field relationships. VII I think, then, that in a strict sense there are no hard facts in psychical research—not at least until the term “hard facts” is thoroughly reconsidered and redefined. I do not believe that there is ever a “hard chunk” of telepathy, or even telepathy as an expression of someone’s personal gift as such. I believe that tele- _ pathic contact can be identified as a form of perceptual response in which the individual is immersed for the time being in a new relationship with another human being. This is, of course, only

12 Fournal of the American Society for Psychical Research a new way of saying something which has been familiar to psychical research for a long time. Yet there are two reasons for repeating it: First, earlier statements about this, including my own, still seem very foggy and we need to keep struggling to make our meaning clearer. Second, psychical research, all over the world and decade after decade, continues to be based almost entirely upon the effort to obtain more and more hard facts, solid replicable facts, solemnly placed within isolating cages which effectively prevent contact with the larger reality, the larger system of relationships that we need to see and use. However, it must be stressed that a few really critical facts may swing interpretations to one or another theoretical system. Vill Let us look at a research program which might be based, like relativity theory, upon the attributes not of the experimental subject alone, but upon the attributes of a subject-environment relation- ship. Some possibilities follow : First, interpersonal relations as they exist between subject, agent, and experimenter. This aspect has been stressed in the work of Schmeidler (13) and of Soal (15), who studied the special psycho- logical relationships obtaining between their subject-agent pairs. Much more intensive work of this sort is needed. Second, a study of the life histories of subjects, agents, and experimenters as related to their psychic functioning. This need has long been recognized, but where do we go to find the develop- mental histories? Except for a few rather fragmentary autobiog- raphies and biographies of special clairvoyants and mediumistic subjects, this literature is very feeble. Third, experimental enrichment of the gift of paranormal com- munication: for example, learning how to use whatever limited powers one may have, as suggested by Tart (16), and relating to the fact that we have overlooked the possibility of applying modern studies of the learning process as a way of enhancing extrasensory capacities. Fourth, a study of cultural settings in which the paranormal is at home. We can all think of certain lands traditionally rich in psychic phenomena, but tragically little of the necessary cross- cultural investigation has actually been carried out. Fifth, the attempt to formulate generalizations as laws, moving these laws into the realm of systematic body-mind theory. For we must not only find lawful contexts for paranormal events as they group themselves as illustrations of telepathy or clairvoyance or Are There Any Solid Facts in Psychical Research? 13 ychokinesis; we must also try to relate them to very broad general theories about mind and body, which I will now try to do. IX I think that the generalizations which I have attempted to formulate hold broadly for all psychical phenomena. And I think that I can go further and say that these generalizations seem mostly to depend upon transitions from one state to another. For example, a deep relaxation leads to a break in which we are aware of the big difference between profound physiological relaxation and very intense and concentrated mental activity. I believe that these sudden transitions not only involve transactions between two or more observable events, but that they also involve transactions between one level of reality and another—or perhaps I should say between one kind of reality and another. This is certainly much easier to fit to the third theory (Myers-Newbold) than it is to the first theory (Spinoza), and almost impossible to fit to the second theory (Descartes). There is almost no case of a sudden change of state, as in the altered state between great alertness and deep drowsiness, that does not remind one of the optimal states which have been discussed in the classical literature of psychical research—in Phantasms of the Living (4) or in Human Personality (9)—where we are given armfuls of cases which point to the importance of the change of state, particularly cases involving two or more persons as in the collective and reciprocal experiences (5). All of this points strongly to the need for devising experiments which will make the most of the sudden altered states of consciousness as a cardinal clue. _ I think it becomes clear that we can no longer go on, as many investigators have, with simple generalizations as to conditions which favor one single phenomenon, or the appearance of this phenomenon in a single individual. If there really is an interaction of mental and physical processes, with mind remaining mind all the time and matter remaining matter all the time, do we not have an obligation to develop a meaningful bridge or meaningful con- ceptual schema which will carry us from one to the other? As I have suggested, the dualistic system of Descartes is probably the most difficult to apply to paranormal phenomena and the Myers- Newbold system the easiest. But the question arises: have we looked at the intrinsic limitations of these theories, and have we been ready to recognize the necessity for compounding new theories which will contain the advantages and not the disadvantages of the older theories?

14 Fournal of the American Society for Psychical Research p< Before I close, I would like to remind you of some further reasons why I think we would do well to take seriously the idea of a change of state, or change of level in the utilization of energies, which is involved in the Myers-Newbold theory. The physicists are constantly reminding us that the transition from one state to another involves the release of energy. When you burn a log of firewood, when you use a flashbulb, or when you strike a piano key, you shift from one kind of energy to another, and you can compute the amount of energy released all the way from the melting of a tiny bit of ice to the detonation of a hydrogen bomb. I am not saying, of course, that psychical “energies” are of any sort that physics now recognizes; in fact, the whole point is that they are remote indeed from the kinds of energy with which modern physics is dealing. But I am saying that the change of state, the change of level, and the manifestation of release of energy while making such transitions, stand out too obviously to be overlooked. This is what observers of paraphysical phenomena—raps, lights, movement of objects—have been telling us, and this is what the meaning of experimental psychokinesis seems to be. Perceptual phenomena also involve a kind of “detonation,” a change of state, a precipitation of a new kind of response within the living organism. Ordinarily there is not enough sensory stimulation to trigger us into action, but under the conditions of high motivation, splitting of the mind, withdrawal from everyday preoccupations, and intense orientation toward distant reality, there may indeed be a sudden triggering of a response, a transition from one level or function to another. This accords well, so far as our fragmentary evidence goes, with the Myers-Newbold theory. Let us take the well-known Larkin-M’Connel case and see what we can do with a rather typical type of apparition experience: The percipient was Lieut. J. J. Larkin, of the R.A.F., and the apparition was that of one of Lieut. Larkin’s fellow officers, Lieut. David M’Connel, killed in an airplane crash on December 7, 1919. Lieut. Larkin reported that he spent the afternoon of December 7th in his room at the barracks. He sat in front of the fire reading and writing, and was wide awake all the time. At about 3:30 p.m. he heard someone walking up the passage. “The door opened with the usual noise and clatter which David always made; I heard his ‘Hello boy!’ and I turned half round in my chair and saw him standing in the doorway, half in and half out of the room, holding the door knob in his hand. He was dressed in his full flying clothes but wearing his naval cap, there being nothing unusual in his appearance, . . . In reply . . . I remarked, ‘Hello! Back already ?” Are There Any Solid Facts in Psychical Research? 15 He replied, ‘Yes. Got there all right, had a good trip.’ . . . I was looking at him the whole time he was speaking. He said, ‘Well, cheero!’ closed the door noisily and went out.” Shortly after this a friend dropped in to see Lieut. Larkin, and Larkin told him that he had just seen and talked with Lieut. M’Connel. (‘This friend sent a corroborative statement to the S.P.R.) Later on that day it was learned that Lieut. M’Connel had been instantly killed in a flying accident which occurred at about 3:25 p.m. Mistaken identity seems to be ruled out, since the light was very good in the room where the apparition appeared. Moreover, there was no other man in the barracks at the time who in any way resembled Lieut. M’Connel. It was also found that M’Connel was wearing his naval cap when he was killed—apparently an unusual circumstance. Agent and per- cipient had been “very good friends though not intimate friends in the true sense of the word” (14, pp. 151-160; summarized in 8, pp. 3-4). This apparition involved full perception through both visual and auditory modalities and it certainly involved a crashing type of experience in more than one sense. And we are reminded that apparitions are typically not slowly worked into our experience, but rather that they come to us with a “‘bang.”’ I think that Shake- speare very fully understood this. You may remember that Macbeth, who was contemplating the murder of Banquo, is reaching out toward the dagger. “Here let me clutch thee,” he says. He is not quite sure whether this is a so-called real or a so-called hallucinatory dagger. But he can’t take hold and he decides that it is something from a “‘heat-oppressed brain,” that he has been hallucinating. But does Banquo, when he appears in this scene, give any such impres- sion? The stage directions are perfectly clear: ‘Enter Ghost!” And they are perfectly clear at the end of the scene: ‘‘Exit Ghost!” This crashes through; this is a change of state. And Macbeth pays tribute to this: immediately after the ghost has disappeared he says, “Why, so; being gone, I am a man again.” He has gone through a moment of maximal sensitivity to a horrible paranormal impres- sion and then is shaking it off. I don’t think we could get clearer evidence of the change of state phenomenon, with tremendous release of energies. Lady Macbeth sees this with extraordinary clarity and helps Macbeth get out of the crowd. “Stand not upon the order of your going,” she says. She realizes that she must get her husband out of this crisis as soon as possible. I think this story beautifully illustrates the fact that with appari- tions we are dealing with something that involves a true interaction, a true change of level, and a true alteration in energy relationships. After an intensive and extensive scholarly study of such cases, Tyrrell (17) declined to believe that apparitions are physical events which can leave a photographic or phonographic record. He did

16 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research feel, however, that they represent a reality in time and space, con- veyed both by sight and hearing to the senses and on to the mind of the percipient. This seems to be pretty close to what we would expect on the basis of the Myers-Newbold theory. There is, ap- parently, a sort of reality which is outside of the kind of time and space which we ordinarily know—a reality which we cannot touch directly, but which we can touch through an intermediary. The apparition belongs to an “in-between” kind of reality. An example of experimental telepathy which might fit the Spi- noza theory but might also fit the Myers-Newbold model is the Brugmans-type experiment which is now being carried out in the A.S.P.R. laboratories if success is reached in the endeavor to raise the image level to the hallucinatory level. It will be interesting to see whether the physiological alterations, the splitting of the mind, and the development of special sensitivity which were helpful in Brugmans’ work will also be helpful in our own attempts at replication. I have already hinted that experimental psychokinesis seems to involve a relation between the world of the mind and the world of physical movement through sudden energy release. Of course, I am not saying that the theory suggested by Myers and Newbold is correct. But I am saying that at this stage in psychical research we desperately need clear statements about alternative possibilities, and that the facts which we gather must be submitted to the acid test both of factual reality and of meaning- ful places in the world of what can properly be said to be known. There will be many mistakes made, but as I contemplate the many volumes on serious psychical research published by the English and American Societies, not even to count the world of books and the works of other lands, I ask whether the mere accumulation of more data is what we chiefly need. I think rather that what we need is the accumulation of systematic and orderly presentations of interlocking facts. One approach I have suggested is that we look at the three prominent mind-body theories which I have briefly described and that we test our empirical data against them to see which one gives the best fit. We shall have ‘hard facts” in psychical research only when we can relate our many observa- tions to one another in a meaningful way and fit them all into a coherent system of ideas. REFERENCES 1. Brucmans, H. I. F. W. “Une Communication sur des Expé- riences Télépathiques au Laboratoire de Psychologie 4 Gro- ningue . . .” Proceedings of the First International Congress of Psychical Research, Copenhagen, 1922, 396-408. dre There Any Solid Facts in Psychical Research? 17 . FAHLER, J. ““Parapsykologiska Experiment och Hypnos.” Serien Vetenskap i dag, Hbl. 15.4.1959. Helsinki. Gurnty, E. “Recent Experiments in Hypnotism.” Proc. S.P.R., Vol. 5, 1888-89, 3-17. Gurney, E., Myers, F. W. H., anp Popmore, F. Phantasms of the Living. London: Triibner, 1886. (2 vols.) . Hart, H., anp Hart, E. B. “Visions and Apparitions Col- lectively and Reciprocally Perceived.’ Proc. S.P.R., Vol. 41, 1932-1933, 205-249. . Marcenau, H. “ESP in the Framework of Modern Science.” Journal A.S.P.R., Vol. 60, July, 1966, 214-228. 7. Moss, T. “ESP Effects in ‘Artists’ Contrasted with ‘Non- Artists.’”’ Journal of Parapsychology, Vol. 33, March, 1969, 57-69. 8. Murpuy, G. “An Outline of Survival Evidence.” Journal A.S.P.R., Vol. 39, January, 1945, 1-34. 9. Myers, F. W. H. Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death. London: Longmans, Green, 1903. (2 vols.) 10. Osis, K., AND Boxert, E. ‘‘Changed States of Consciousness and ESP.” Paper read at the 12th Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association, New York, September, 1969. 11. Osis, K., AnD Turner, M. E., Jr. “Distance and ESP: A Transcontinental Experiment.” Proc. A.S.P.R., Vol. 27, Sep- tember, 1968, 1-48. 12. Rune, J. B. Extra-Sensory Perception. Boston: Bruce Hum- phries, 1964. (First edition published in 1934.) 13. ScHMEIDLER, G. R. “Telepathy and Resistance to It.” Journal A.S.P.R., Vol. 60, July, 1966, 207-209. (Abstract.) 14. Stpewick, E. M. “Phantasms of the Living... .”’ Proc. S.P.R., Vol. 33, 1923, 1-429. 15. Soar, S. G., AnD BaTeMaN, F. Modern Experiments in Tele- pathy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954. 16. Tart, C. T. “Card Guessing Tests: Learning Paradigm or Extinction Paradigm?” Journal A.S.P.R., Vol. 60, January, 1966, 46-55. 17. TyrreLt, G. N. M. Apparitions. London: Duckworth, 1953. 18. Warco.iier, R. Experimental Telepathy. Boston: Boston So- ciety for Psychic Research, 1938. wk Ye WN an Department of Psychology George Washington University Washington, D. C. 20006 PRINTED IN BRUGES, BELGIUM, BY THE ST. CATHERINE PRESS, LTD.