Free Verbal Response Experiments with Lalsingh Harribance

Reprinted from the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research Volume 67 — April 1973 — Number 2 Free Verbal Response Experiments with Lalsingh Harribance W. G. Rott, R. L. Morris, J. A. DaMGaAaRD, J. Kern, anp M. Rott! i ABSTRACT: Two series of free verbal response readings to concealed (TPs) were carried out with a sensitive, Lalsingh Harribance (LH). Ten males comprised one series; ten females comprised the other. An undevel and concealed photograph of each TP was gi to L.H. as a token object. L.H.’s statements for each TP picture were taped and transcribed. Each was then shown all ten sets of statements and to pick out the one most relevant to him. The — for females were significant (P < .02), as were the overall results =< UZ). The Tes were also asked to rate individual statements drawn from all ten proto- cols, A content analysis showed significant results for both sexes on Physical Des- fang a Statements Ae Life for a TPs ~ Eee om r males were also significant. A weighting procedure developed ul Roll was applied to the content analysis data and was found to augment the results. INTRODUCTION When Lalsingh Harribance (L.H.) began work at the Psychical Research Foundation, we concentrated on informal free verbal response (F VR) experiments. The tests were attempts to examine experimentally the type of “readings” he was accustomed to giving people in his West Indies home of Trinidad. During such readings he would tell people about themselves and advise them about their problems. In the preliminary experiments in Durham, we found that L.H. occasionally had vivid impressions of deceased relatives or friends of the target persons. L.H., however, was reluctant to pursue this aspect of his abilities and we, in turn, first wanted to provide reliable evidence of ESP under FVR conditions before we looked into the question of especial interest to us, whether L.H.’s impressions of deceased individuals had a bearing on the survival issue. In most of the early FVR tests, many of which were conducted by John Stump, L.H. was persuaded to respond to photographs of target persons (TPs) in opaque envelopes since this condition was similar to the card-calling tests in which he was so successful. L.H. soon became convinced he could succeed in this task. Since it is easier to exclude sensory cues under this condition than with the TP present in the experimental area, we used con- * We wish to thank the Parapsychology Foundation for support of the work described in this paper.

or 198 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research cealed photographs of TPs in most of our exploratory FVR tests with L.H. One concession was made: L.H. requested to know the sex of the person in the photograph, claiming that he organized his entire reading around this piece of information and that he felt more confident of success if he did not have to worry about whether or not his initial impression of the TP’s sex was correct. This conces- sion could be made without disrupting the design of a study so long as all photographs in a given series were of persons of the same sex. The results of these early tests, however, were not as good as had been expected. On several occasions, L.H. gave a detailed descrip- tion which a TP recognized afterward as applying to his circum- stances, but which was made to a photograph of another TP in the group. W.G.R. speculated on the basis of his psi field theory (3) that one possible reason for these apparent displacements was that object (“psychometric”) associations might have been established among the pictures or envelopes by our keeping these together rior to the trials and by running the tests in close succession. e experiment reported below was designed to reduce such hypothetical contaminations. PROCEDURE Two series were carried out, one using ten male TPs (Series A) and one using ten females (Series B). These series were done simul- taneously, one TP a day, male one day and female the next. The experiments were conducted from October 31, 1969, to December 6, 1969. All TPs were college age or adults, living in the Durham- Chapel Hill area. They were drawn from a larger pool of potential TPs, one at a time, by a secretary not concerned with an other aspect of the experiment. Each TP was selected only after the preceding TP of the same sex had been run. It was hoped that sepa- ration of the subjects to this extent would aid in minimizing the possible displacement effects mentioned before. There were two experimenters in each session. We thought it might help L.H. to focus on the TP if the other persons in the experimental situation were of a different sex, since this was apparently such an important aspect for him. Thus, when the TP was a female, two male experimenters (W.G.R. and R.L.M.) conducted the tests; and when the TP was a male the two experi- menters were females (J.K. and M.R.). L.H, did not know any of the TPs and the experimenter who was with L.H. did not know which TP was taking part in any given session. Free Verbal Response Experiments 199 oe TPs were ae x oe at 10:00 a.m. on each day of ¢ experiment at the ibrary building. The library buildin a eo from the laboratory building where the enced osc to be ucted, At 9:45 a.m., fifteen minutes before the scheduled arrival of the TP, one of the two experimenters designated as recorders (either M.R. or R.L.M., designated henceforth as the recording experi- menter) closeted himself with L.H. in a rear room of the laboratory building of the PRF (Room | of the floor plan found on page 105 in @ previous issue of this Journal [5S]). Room | has no windows facing the street or the library building, and all doors in the build- ing were closed. When each TP arrived at the PRF library building for the reading, he or she was met by the other experimenter, either J.K. or et — TP experimenter). At this time the TP experimenter si ¢ recording experimenter and L.H. that the TP had arrived by buzzing the laboratory building once on the telephone intercom. L.H. had requested to know of the TP’s arrival so that he would not have to prepare himself for the test (he usually spends several minutes in relaxation and prayer before an experiment) in case the TP did not turn up. The TP experimen- ter then took a black and white Polaroid picture of the TP and ob- tained a few strands of his hair. The photograph was not developed but was left in its original black opaque casing. It was sealed by an added layer of Scotch tape around the edges. Following this the TP wrote a short statement about a personal problem on an index card. his card was then folded, with the statement on the inside. The hair was placed inside the folded card and both were sealed inside a heavy opaque brown envelope. The contents of this envelope plus the encased photograph were intended as “‘contacts” or associated objects. L.H. feels he receives a special impression from photo- graphs whether concealed or not. The hair was used because sensitives often claim this may aid their ESP. We used the card with a problem to get the TP into a state of mind of “seeking help” from L.H. Such a state would parallel the state of the sitter WhO goes to a medium secking advice or assistance about something. Additionally, L.H. likes to view his readings as being of help to ple, and feels that such a desire on the TP’s part may enable to read the TP better (see [1] for a fuller description of this aspect of L.H.). The TPs had been told that no one would see the Statement with the problem and this was discarded after the test. After he had written the problem, the TP filled out a biographical onnaire. When this was completed the TP was conducted to laboratory building, through the front door, and into a side room ‘9 3 of the floor plan). The TP experimenter placed the enve- and photograph on a table in the large room just inside the

200 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research front door. Following this he rapped once on the door leading to the rear of the building and returned immediately to the TP in Room 3. Upon hearing this rap, the recording experimenter paused to give the TP experimenter time to enter Room 3 and close the door, then came out to get the envelopes and take them to L.H. This procedure insured that neither L.H. nor the recording imenter had had sensory contact with the TP or source of information about the TP. L.H. was handed the envelopes and asked to begin. His statements were recorded. During the time L.H. made his statements the TP sat at a desk in Room 3 and the experimenter sat about ten feet to the rear. A picture of L.H. was available to the TP if he wanted to look at it. ‘the TP had been requested before- hand to remain as quiet as possible upon entering the building and to let his thoughts center on the problem as he sat at the desk. After fifteen minutes the TP and TP experimenter left quictly through the front door and returned to the library building. The TP was dismissed. After the TP was gone the TP experimenter signaled the recording experimenter and L.H. by an intercom buzzer. This procedure insured that neither L.H. nor the recording experimenter would see the TP. By that time L.H. had generally finished his reading. If not, he continued until he felt no impressions coming to him. At the end of each reading for the females the re- cording experimenter asked L.H. to give a rough rating of how well he thought he had done. After L.H. finished his reading the recording experimenter filled out a copy of the biographical questionnaire taken by the TP earlier, using L.H.’s statements about the TP as a basis. When this was done, and when the TP had gone, L.H. and the recording experimenter were free to leave Room |. The recording experi- menter took the tape of L.H.'s readings, the undeveloped photo- graph, and the questionnaire back to the library building and gave them to W.G.R. W.G.R. compared the TP’s questionnaire with the one filled out by the recording experimenter. He would then call L.H. and tell him in general whether or not it appeared he had done well for the day, maintaining a positive tone even if he had to tell L.H. that the session was not a good one. 'This procedure served ' to provide a vehicle for daily encouragement of L.H. At the end of the two series, the twenty protocols were tran- scribed and edited (blind) to remove statements not directly related to the TP, plus any statements that might bias the results (e.g., statements pertaining to the TP’s clothing which could be related to the weather on the day that particular TP was read). Copies of all ten edited female protocols were distributed to the ten female TPs with the request that each select the record that most closely corresponded to her circumstances, then choose second, a fourth, and fifth in decreasing degree of correspondence. The s done for the males. r owing this, and before the TPs were told which protocols re really theirs, each protocol was separated into discrete units of ion or items by J.A.D., using as a criterion the amount of tion needed to be able to answer the item true or false. For protocols of each sex all items were then sorted into eleven 2 ies (see Table 2) to form a male or female question- The were asked to return to the PRF at their convenience out the appropriate questionnaire. Each item was answered ecking “true,” “‘false,” or “?.” Target ns did not know which protocol a given item was taken and J.A.D. did not y the results of the overall ratings by the TPs at the time she RESULTS ankings of the Complete Protocols nen eo. is made of the responses according to first by all of both series, the exact P-value (by binomial on) is P < .02 (six out of twenty chosen correctly); when ind second choices are combined, P < .003. The scoring for es alone is independently significant on first choices (four ct out of ten) and on Grst and second choices combined < .02 and < .01 respectively). he data were analyzed for ESP hitting using both the un- hted and weighted Burdick-Roll ods (2). The weight iated with each item in the weighting procedure was equal to total number of subj (™) minus the number of subjects ‘ating the item true (n). the fewer subjects the item applied to, Table 1 Comparison of Waicutep anp U: Currican Ratios on ANALYsts oF ‘Tora Items

ore it was weighted. In both methods, L.H. was more accurate 202 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research sls . a female than with male target persons, The unweighted method gessshssasass ttl at ave noma CR of 137, whee the ition to this procedure, a differential weighting technique : 3 EL netigate the cascat to. whe sriioes ten SZia RRR SRFBOREZBLNZE es might contribute differentially to the overall significance (id side iv hid dls Phau results. Half the data were used to obtain these differential Gs bah rod yin ‘which were then applied to the other half. When the data first five TPs of rire pata oy ey ot th no weights and weights, it was found that for the men n and Family were the most significant cate- , and for the women Physical Description and Love Life ao co! te the category differences into the analysis it was ir Sided soarrive at a differential weighted value (Weigh- Soe each item in the -scoring categories by taking the of the weighted figure (N-n)* as the final weight, while the epee rece wenn’ ws betcee NA ). These new : e then used to analyze the data from the second five sex. The results, shown in Table 3, reveal that this ey of weighting improved the results for both men and women. n, the CR rose from 2.37 for Weighting 1 to 3.82 for ag 2. For women, the CR rose from 3.85 to 4.55. This indicates that the categories which were successful during half were also successful during the second half. This ncy can be empl statistically to make the results more e to the differential distribution of psi across categories. Table 3 Content Anatyats or Tora. Items ror Seconp Five TPs or Eacn Sex Table 2 Contant ANAL ysis py [rem Carecony ror Finst Five TPs or Eactt Sex Males * The categories on which these CR's are based were weighted (N-n)* in the Weighting 2 analysis of the second five TPs of cach sex. Remaining categories were weighted (N-#) as before. ‘Total Items ly there was not a great deal of day-to-day differ- e in LH. te ratings of how well ke had done with the female TPs, Physical Health Vocation/Education Love Life Other Future Wants Interests Needs Personal Family

204 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research and statistical analysis is inappropriate. There were three days in which he considered that he had done quite well; for those three days he got two direct hits and the remaining TP ranked her tocol second. There were two days in which L.H. felt that he Rad not made contact. One of these was a direct hit; the other was a complete miss and was not ranked in the top five. For the other five days there was one direct hit, one ranking of second, one of fourth, and two complete misses. Discussion The conditions in these experiments were such that the only reasonable explanation of the results appears to be ESP. This was the first controlled test with L.H. using free verbal response methods. In attempting to collect evidence about a sensitive’s FVR abilities, the investigator must provide a friendly environment which is conducive to the expression of the sensitive's psychical abilities, yet must maintain conditions which will rule out normal causes, in icular sensory cues and chance coincidence, as an explanation for the results. In earlier tests with a sensitive who seemed to show evidence of psychical abilities under informal conditions, we obtained barely suggestive results when formal experimental procedures were used (4). Even in the case of L.H., with whom a great deal of our recent work has been done, our results in FVR experiments have been much less impressive than those obtained in card tests, al- though the FVR iments much more closely resemble the normal working conditions of L.H. The procedure we employed included many features designed to make L.H. psychologically comfortable, while at the same time maintaining an adequate experimental design. L.H. had asked for some form of feedback after each session to help him keep up his confidence and motivation. We were able to provide some infor- mation by having the TP fill out the biographical questionnaire which could then be compared with a similar questionnaire filled out by the recording experimenter on the basis of L.H.,’s statements. The information given L.H. was always general, and he was never shown the questionnaires themselves. However, L.H. might still have tried to use this information by avoiding making statements in the future that resembled his successful statements on that day. By avoiding similar statements in the future, he would reduce the opportunity for later protocols to resemble the one that he knew to be fairly accurate. It would be easier then for the TP to pick out his own protocol later. To check on this possibility, we examined Verbal Response Experiments 205 questionnaires to see if statements that had been accurate in questionnaires were avoided in later questionnaires. There as no such trend, so it is unlikely that L.H. used the questionnaires A lem that occurs when TPs are run one a day over several Jays is the possible biasing effect of the particulars of a given day, uch as weather, day of the week, current events and so on, which may increase the likelihood that the TP is in a certain mood, or is worried about certain things. Additionally, the fact that a TP chose ‘acertain day to come may indicate something about working habits ‘¢.g., those who come on Saturdays may have a job that they cannot leave during the week). As a partial check on this possibility, we examined the rankings done by each TP of all ten protocols ining to his or her sex. If L.H. said similar things about all people run on Fridays, then a TP run on Friday should not only rank himself among the first five; he should also rank others run on Friday among the first five. We examined the extent to which protocols of others run on a similar day to each TP were ranked high by that TP. No evidence for similarity was found with respect to day of weck, temperature, or or absence of rain, We could only examine specific current events indirectly. A major current event of the sort that would influence both L.H. and the TP would probably exert an effect over not just one day but conceivably three or four. If such were the case, consecutive protocols should tend to resemble each other and be rated similarly. Examination of the data showed no such trend. _ Of additional bearing on this point is the differential success content categories. Both sexes had good results on Physical sa a males had good results on Family Life and females on Love Life. None of these categories would appear to be related to current events. Statements in Physical Description category which might be related to the weather on the day of the test, such as references to raincoats, were edited wr agree york tests were run during the same season, it seems unlikely that other statements, spi ing for instance, to color of clothing, could have been ration- ally inferred by L.H. on the basis of the weather. Certain possibilities for sensory cues may have occurred to the feader. L. H. was confined to his room with the reco experi- menter at the time of the TP’s arrival. NU TPs pated cir cars ee the PRF grounds, so no cues from automobile sounds were present. Arrival time was known approximately to L.H., and Gevisticns which sometimes occurred might have led him to form hypotheses about the TP. However, there are many possible reasons for delays ranging from unstable personality traits to heavy traffic and other conditions over which the TP had no control, Of course,

206 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research any direct or indirect reference to delays in the protocols were edited out. Early arrivals were camouflaged from L.H. in that the TP experimenter never started the experimental procedure until 10:00 a.m. When the TP experimenter and TP entered the laborato building, there were two closed doors between them and L.H. at all times. The experimenter led the way, thus controlling the tempo of walking, The floors were covered by rugs to reduce vibrations and the noisy fan from the heating unit was always on. It is unlikely that L.H. was able to discriminate the TP’s footsteps from the other end of the house. Even if he was able to hear the footsteps of the TP, it is unlikely that he could have inferred any- thing from them since the TP always walked quietly and at a speed set by the experimenter. The results of the content analysis suggest some possible para- psychological interpretations. L.H,'s success with Physical Descri tion may indicate that he was aided by the physical location of the person, and was able most effectively to home in on the informa- tion that was available in the same building as he was. Also, the physical appearance of the TP would be the main information available through the thoughts of the experimenter who was in the same room as the TP. Alternatively, the success on statements of Physical Description may be a matter of their being initial impres- sions: they were generally given at the start of the reading. The research worker who is interested in the question of survival after death as this arises in experiments involving ostensible communications through mediums is faced with two separate problems. First of all he must be able to set up his experiments or observations in such a way that he can be reasonably certain that some evidence of psi is present in the utterances of the medium, be that psi between the medium and a theta agent or psi between the medium and some other aspect of the environment such as a living person or an objective record. Secondly, he must have some way of determining whether or not these processes involve deceased per- sonalities. It is obvious that the parapsychologist can only seriously explore the second hypothesis if he has solved the first problem and can show that the medium possesses genuine psychical abilities. The experiment reported here suggests that L.H. can produce ESP information under controlled FVR conditions. Additional studies along similar lines, but with a greater emphasis on the aspect of possible input from theta agencies, have been conducted and are currently being analyzed. Verbal Response Experiments 207 REFERENCES -Arroccut, J. Psychological studies. (Symposium: Experiments with Lalsingh Harribance.) Proceedings of the Parapsychological _ Association, 6, 1969, 68-70. Buroick, D. S., anp Rout, W. G. Differential weighting of _ ESP responses. Journal A.S.P.R., 65, 1971, 173-184. . Rox, W. G. The psi field, Proceedings of the Parapsychological Association, 1, 1957-1964, 32-65. 4. Rott, W. G. Free verbal response and identi-kit tests with a medium. A.S.P.R., 65, 1971, 185-191. 5. Rott, W. G., ano Kuen, J. Further forced-choice ESP i ose - Lalsingh Harribance. Journal A.S.P.R., 66, 1972, 103-11 tation Durham, North Carolina 27706 Printed by the St Catherine Press Ltd., Tempelhof 37, Bruges, Belgium,