Show me the evidence
Critics are fond of saying that there is no scientific evidence for psi. They wave their fist in the air and shout, "Show me the evidence!" Then they turn red and have a coughing fit. In less dramatic cases a student might be genuinely curious and open-minded, but unsure where to begin to find reliable evidence about psi. Google knows all and sees all, but it doesn't know how to interpret or evaluate what it knows (at least not yet).
In the past, my response to the "show me" challenge has been to give the titles of a few books to read, point to the bibliographies in those books, and advise the person to do their homework. I still think that this is the best approach for a beginner tackling a complex topic. But given the growing expectation that information on virtually any topic ought to be available online within 60 seconds, traditional methods of scholarship are disappearing fast.
So I've created a SHOW ME page with downloadable articles on psi and psi-related topics, all published in peer-reviewed journals. Most of these papers were published after the year 2000. Most report experimental studies or meta-analyses of classes of experiments. I will continue to add to this page and flesh it out, including links to recent or to especially useful ebooks. This page may eventually become annotated, then multithreaded and hyperlinked, and then morph into a Wiki.
Update (November 5, 2013): Here's a link to another good web site with links to scholarly articles on parapsychology, on Carlos Alvarado's blog.
Comments
The item on Rhine that people like to use as a means of stating he is credulous is the "Lady Wonder" horse incident, however, the Richmond-Times Dispatch states, "Rhine later altered his assessment slightly, saying he sometimes had detected subtle signals from Claudia Fonda that the horse may have responded to, although he never explained how the horse was able to give correct responses to things Fonda could not have known.
": http://archives.blogs.timesdispatch.com/2013/08/30/lady-wonder-1952/
For some remarkable incidents with Lady Wonder, see: http://books.google.com/books?id=VfJXWEh8IlYC&pg=PA77&dq=rhine+%2B+%22Lady+Wonder%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kWQsU-yOO5bkoATVkoLAAg&ved=0CFIQ6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=rhine%20%2B%20%22Lady%20Wonder%22&f=false
The idea with this, though in yogic traditions they were claimed as a potential preoccupation hindering enlightenment, is that the practitioner, via extreme involvement in yogic practice, could transform, dissolve internal blockages, and become a channel for full-fledged super-normal powers. You, Dean, have written about this, but here is something you overlooked in your writing:
Sanjay C. Patel has written on how ancient yogis, apparently displaying super-psi, gave accurate descriptions consistent with modern science of the nature of deep sea volcanoes, in ways that were beyond their (known) physical technological capacity to encounter. See the following, but especially his notes after the extracts:
1) Sanjay C. Patel, Deep-Sea Volcanoes and Their Associated Hydrothermal Vents, Historical Notes, Indian National Science Academy (INSA), New Delhi, December 2004, 39.4 (2004), pp. 511-518: http://sanjaycpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/INSA-Deep-Sea-Volcanoes-and-Their-Associated-Hydrothermal-Vents-BY-SANJAY-C-PATEL.pdf
2) Sanjay C. Patel, Who Really Discovered Deep-Sea Volcanoes? IMAREST, Marine Scientist, No. 9, 4Q, December 2004, pp. 27-29: http://sanjaycpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/IMAREST-Who-Really-Discovered-Deep-Sea-Volcanoes-BY-SANJAY-C-PATEL.pdf
3) Sanjay C. Patel, Who Were the Earliest Scholars of Submarine Volcanoes and Their Submerged Hydrothermal Vents? 22nd International Congress of History of Science, Book of Abstracts, Beijing 24-30 July 2005, p. 355: http://sanjaycpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/ICHS-Who-Were-the-Earliest-Scholars-of-Submarine-Volcanoes-BY-SANJAY-C-PATEL.pdf
The papers argue the discoveries would have not been possible by physical means within the time-frame of the writings, or time frames of earlier cultures - as Patel notes in the notes after the extract of one document: "I only postulated this physical explanation because it was a 'requirement' of getting these stunning agreements with modern discoveries accepted in scientific, mainstream peer-review. But here's the real crux: the physical explanation is quite inadmissible. Though India and the Indian Ocean display a remarkable history of volcanism, it is difficult to apply these conditions to the prehistoric past. Why? Because unlike Surtsey, India hasn't been a hotspot for millions of years. There is therefore no geological source for the tremendous volume of magma/lava required to build an island like Surtsey reaching above sea level. You can't get lava from nothing. Even by 'special pleading.' The severity of the problem has been pointed out to me by a number of geologists. [...] The yogis did not say that the emergence of the volcanic structure in the Indian ocean was a recent event. They said it occurred very soon after a part of the mainland of India itself was ablaze with volcanic fire. They explicitly said that this was about 120 million years ago! This timeline is in superb harmony with the objections of scientists who point out that no volcano like Surtsey could have emerged near India without a large hotspot magma source. However, it is scientifically established that such sources did exist 120 million years ago and a part of India was ablaze with volcanism at exactly the same time! How could the ancient yogis know this? Statistically, through sheer fantasy, they could have given any timeline whatsoever from 1 to infinite years ago. But they didn't. They chose exactly 120 million years ago. What are the chances of that? And what are the chances of all these descriptions coming together so coherently?"
Another problem with Siegel's model is that it doesn't specify why some features of hallucinations, such as tunnels and lights, show up in NDEs, but not others. Cobwebs, honeycombs, and lattices are all found in hallucinations, but are conspicuously absent from NDE accounts."
Pim van Lommel further addresses this in a 2013 Journal of Consciousness Studies article ( van lommel, P. (2013). Non-local consciousness: A concept based on scientific research on near-death experiences during cardiac arrest. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 20, 7-48.) - search "hallucination" in it for some important revelations: http://pimvanlommel.nl/files/Nonlocal-Consciousness-article-JCS-2013.pdf
As for the other point - Radin responded point by point to James Alcock's "Give the Null Hypothesis a Chance" on p. 283 of "Entangled Minds": http://books.google.com/books?id=sUM1Hc-KwJQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=entangled+minds&hl=en&sa=X&ei=440wU8OxCsrwrAGUkoGQAQ&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=alcock&f=false
Likewise, for the Scole experiment, the following interview with researchers and overview of evidence in light of the criticism of the Scole report rebuts skeptical objections and is a good preliminary item before considering some of the items in the thread overvieweing earlier pre-parapsychology work related to Spiritualism - and in this case, a professional magician testified to the fact that conditions for fraud could not occur and the phenomena could not be reproduced by conjuring - see "The Afterlife Investigations: The Scole Experiment": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQvQ_WTtdHk
The following article on the Scole experiment is a preliminary overview and also notes follow-up work, etc.: http://www.normalparanormal.org/2/post/2014/03/revisiting-the-scole-experiments.html
It is of course preliminary, and not as in depth as the section in the academic David Fontana's "Is there an Afterlife?" which directly addresses published criticisms (in addition to his published articles on the subject - see "The Scole Report", p. 320 - see also p. 305 of the aforementioned volume), but it helps provide an introduction. The documentary, in itself, is excellent.
Playfair states, for basic recommended texts, "The basic text has to be Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death by Frederic Myers (1903). For a highly readable and comprehensive history of psychical research and parapsychology up to 1939, I recommend Natural and Supernatural and Science and Parascience by Brian Inglis.
Two excellent recent surveys are Parapsychology. The Controversial Science by Richard Broughton, who is the current president of the SPR, and The Conscious Universe by Dean Radin. As for the afterlife, my first choice would be Is There an Afterlife? by my late friend David Fontana."
Defenses of Myers, Playfair, and Inglis occur in the other comments thread that is beginning to look into the older material.
The production model does sound more convincing at the moment. What is needed is some sort of smoking gun that will lend more credence to the transmission idea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAMIvDmWbQs
Make of that what you will.
Are you, Dean, aware of this incident, and could you provide insight on it? I have seen some defense stating that he was attempting to make an "explanatory amalgam case" - e.g.: https://www.academia.edu/773437/Book_Review_of_The_Scalpel_and_The_Soul_by_Allan_J._Hamilton, but without directly stating so in his text, he dupes people, and provides ammunition to critics. This is unfortunate, because Dossey says much that I feel is relevant - I find his "Unbroken Wholeness" article to be very valuable.
Victor Stenger himself made some fabrications - he stated that Jeff Long's "Evidence for the Afterlife" was nothing but a collection of Internet anecdotes - a search through it notes reveals that almost all of it is based on journal articles. Long's book is a good rebuttal to Stenger's dismissals.
One interesting citation, supporting the "blind shall see" NDE assertion that Stenger attacks with this unfortunate strawman, which self-evidently validates something beyond Materialist Monism, is the article K. Ring and S. Cooper, "Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind: A Study of Apparent Eyeless Vision," Journal of Near-Death Studies 16 (1998): 101-47 - which can be read here: http://newdualism.org/nde-papers/Ring/Ring-Journal%20of%20Near-Death%20Studies_1997-16-101-147.pdf
Stenger then talks about the critiques of Bem, Rhine, etc., also refuted with the articles cited, and states, "Meta-analysis is totally unreliable and a waste of time in searching for a phenomena not evident in individual experiments." The problem is, the phenomena is evident in individual experiments, and the critiques of them have themselves been rebutted.
Stenger references Blackmore frequently. In "Irreducible Mind", p. 387n18, her "inadequate anesthesia" explanation for veridical OBE perceptions is critiqued - it is noted - ‘The phenomenology of such awakenings … is altogether different from that of NDEs, and often extremely unpleasant, frightening, and even painful… The experiences are typically brief and fragmentary, and primarily auditory or tactile, and not visual; for example the patient may report hearing noises or snippets of speech, or briefly feeling sensations associated with intubation or with specific surgical procedures.": http://books.google.com/books?id=6gS_LcIjFMsC&pg=PA387&dq=%22The+experiences+are+typically+brief+and+fragmentary%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jvlRU4O7GsiXyASpg4GYDQ&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22The%20experiences%20are%20typically%20brief%20and%20fragmentary%22&f=false
As I discussed previously, Blackmore fraudulently misrepresented the facts on the Wilmot bilocation - in light of this, and previous information suggesting the invalidity of the counter-advocate approach, we might want to reconsider the theories of advocates, like Bozzano, profiled by Carlos Alvarado: http://www.survivalafterdeath.info/articles/alvarado/bozzano.htm
Irreducible Mind would be a good text for Stenger to obtain, the authors state, "We believe that the empirical evidence marshalled in this
book is sufficient to falsify all forms of biological naturalism, the current
physicalist consensus on mind-brain relations": http://books.google.com/books?id=6gS_LcIjFMsC&pg=PA605&dq=%22We+believe+that+the+empirical+evidence+marshalled+in+this+book+is+sufficient+to+falsify+all+forms+of+biological+naturalism,+the+current+physicalist+consensus+on+mind-brain+relations%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=D_tRU4bMFMuxyAThkICICw&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22We%20believe%20that%20the%20empirical%20evidence%20marshalled%20in%20this%20book%20is%20sufficient%20to%20falsify%20all%20forms%20of%20biological%20naturalism%2C%20the%20current%20physicalist%20consensus%20on%20mind-brain%20relations%22&f=false
With Oliver Lodge, appraising the attacks on him regarding Devant and Palladino require more detail than I care to present here - I will do this at a later time in the Garrett comments thread. The attacks by Mercier are spurious and misrepresentative, attacks regarding Gladys Osborne Leonard are totally misrepresentative - I will note this later in the Garrett thread.
Let me note one thing though - Hereward Carrington wrote a book called "The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism: The Fraudulent and the Genuine" where he went in depth into fraudulent magic tricks that pretenders to mediumship used, but how these arguments did not apply to DD Home, who was the main medium of relevance to Crookes, and to Leonora Piper, who was the main medium of relevance to Lodge (she convinced him of survival).
I am not in agreement with all of that book, and I consider Isaac Funk's "The Widow's Mite" to be a useful alternative to it in the cases where Carrington is too critical. But his defenses of Home and Piper are highly relevant: https://archive.org/stream/physicalphenome05carrgoog#page/n358/mode/2up
Frank Podmore also noted of Piper's sittings that "the sittings which have to be written down as failures now number barely 10 per cent.": http://books.google.com/books?lr=&output=html&id=NA0rAAAAYAAJ&dq=editions%3ALCCN09022954&jtp=75
He concluded:
"If Mrs Piper’s trance-utterances are entirely founded on knowledge acquired by normal means, Mrs Piper must be admitted to have inaugurated a new departure in fraud. Nothing to approach this has ever been done before. On the assumption that all so-called clairvoyance is fraudulent, we have seen the utmost which fraud has been able to accomplish in the past, and at its best it falls immeasurably short of Mrs Piper’s achievements. Now, that in itself requires explanation.": http://books.google.com/books?id=NA0rAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA78&focus=viewport&dq=editions:LCCN09022954&lr=&output=html
In his mostly ultra-skeptical book “The Newer Spiritualism”, written in 1910, p. 222, Podmore conceded that "Taken as a whole, the correspondences are so numerous and precise, and the possibility of leakage to Mrs. Piper through normal channels in many cases so effectually excluded, that it is impossible to doubt that we have here proof of a supernormal agency of some kind - either telepathy by the trance intelligence from the sitter or some kind of communication with the dead.": http://archive.org/stream/newerspiritualis00podmrich#page/222/mode/2up
Criticism of Piper can be refuted by a consultation of the primary sources excerpted in "How Martin Gardner Bamboozled the Skeptics": http://parapsykologi.se/Notiser/Taylor,%20G.%20(2011).%20How%20Martin%20Gardner%20Bamboozled%20the%20Skeptics.pdf, but much more importantly, in Alan Gauld's "The Founders of Psychical Research", particularly Appendix B (which also refutes spurious attack on Hodgson) - see also his "Mediumship and Survival", available for free online. I am engaged in some writing that will refute eventually all of the criticism of her and similar mediums - this is to be expanded in the near future: https://archive.org/details/NotesonSpiritualismandPsychicalResearch
Podmore's hypothesis of telepathy in the case of Piper is strained by consideration of cases where Piper conveyed relevant information not known by the sitters at the time, but only later discovered to be accurate. "The Cosmic Relations and Immortality" by Henry Holt, pp. 411-413., for a full contextualization of one such example, regarding William James: https://archive.org/stream/cosmicrelationsi01holtiala#page/410/mode/2up
Nevertheless, the theory that the events were purely hallucinatory runs into grave difficulties. In the first place, the annals of hypnotism and mesmerism provide no independent evidence of any powers of comparable magnitude. But even if, faute-de-mieux, we attribute to Home this unique power over his sitters we would have to suppose that he could wield it with 100 per cent efficacy. If even one witness for even part of the time had failed to succumb to it, the game would have been up. Yet there is no record of one such witness failing to see, say, a table-levitation, which every one else present claimed to observe, and this is the more telling insamuch as investigators were well aware of the danger of falling a victim to Home's charisma and took strenuous precautions against it (Dingwall, 1953; Zorab, 1970). There is also some evidence of tables being broken by a too precipitate descent which is hard to reconcile with an hallucinatory explanation."
In Home's favor, note that Eric Dingwall was one of the main people who released "Revelations of a Spirit Medium", the textbook of fraudulent tricks used by pseudo-mediums, yet he wrote a positive review of the book "The Shadow and the Light", which refuted attacks on Home like Horace Wyndham's "Mr. Sludge the Medium", refuted claims of fraud, etc.: https://ia601200.us.archive.org/13/items/NotesonSpiritualismandPsychicalResearch/JenkinsElizabeth.TheShadowAndTheLightReviewedByE.j.DingwallJsprVolume52_pg143to147.pdf
For counter to attacks on Crookes' experiments with Home, see Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 26, No.1, pp. 9-42, 2012: "A review of Sir William Crookes' papers on psychic force with some additional remarks on psychic phenomena.": http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/full/jse_26_1_full.pdf
Attacks on the accordion experiment, the assertion that Home only played two songs, etc., etc., are all spurious, but rather than getting into that now, I will take note of a particularly interesting incident.
"The next account is from the Rev. H. Douglas, rector of Edmondthorpe, Rutlandshire. Our colleague, Mr. Barkworth, to whom this account was sent, writes : " Mr. Douglas is a man of acute and scholarly intelligence, and of wide and varied acquaintance with the world and society. I mention this to enable you the better to form a judgment on his testimony."
Edmondthorpe Rectory, Wymondham, Oakham.
April 11, 1889.
DEAR MR. BARKWORTH, The incident I related to you, to which you
refer, happened some 25 years ago, or perhaps 26 or 27. It took place at the home of Lady Poulett, in some square out of Regent-street. I cannot recollect where, but Lady Mount-Temple and the late Lord Mount-Temple were there also. Mr. Home was there. We all saw the supper table, on which there was a quantity of glass and china full of good things, rise, I should say, to an angle of 45deg. without anything slipping in the least, and then relapse to its normal position. There was also a so-called centre-table in the room, round which we were seated it had nothing upon it and as we joined hands it moved and we followed it. There was Baron Reichenbach, the discoverer of paraffin, present, who laughed at us, and challenged us to move the table if we would let him get under it and hold it. He was a rather tall and powerfully-built man, and he got under the table and clasped it with both his arms, but it moved as before, dragging him all round the room. Another thing happened which I cannot forget. A friend of mine, also present, doubted the evidence of hell. The "spirits" rapped out, "Put a Bible under the table!" and when we had done so, we all heard a distinct, rapid, sharp turning over of the leaves, and it was rapped out again, "Let Mr. Douglas take up the Bible. No one else!" On taking it up we found the leaves turned down at Psalm ix., exactly at verse 17, "The wicked shall be turned into hell," &c. Collusion was, it seemed to us all, impossible.
I went to this seance, and to others, because I felt it a duty to examine what seemed to me a supernatural phenomenon. But I have been told so many utter falsehoods [not, however, by Home, as Mr. Douglas explains in a later letter] that I am persuaded of its Satanic origin, if it is supernatural. I have no objection to my name being used, if it is of any good, only I should like it to be understood what I believe about it. I remain, yours very sincerely, H. DOUGLAS.
In a subsequent letter Mr. Douglas writes :
April 22nd, 1889.
I have not kept my note of the occurrence in question, as I dismissed the subject from my mind as useless; and what I wrote to you is simply what I remember. But my memory has been very good, and the circumstances were too remarkable to be forgotten. I cannot recall the date with anything like precision, but think it must have been about 1862-4. I believe there was no cloth on the table, but the Bible was not in view. It was the centre-table under which the Bible was placed, not the supper table. It must have been, I should say, some 7ft. or 8ft. in diameter, and was massive and heavy. This was the table which moved and dragged Baron Reichenbach round the room.
We were perhaps 10 or 12 persons whose hands were on the table, and I think Mr. Home was one of us. He was not in a trance, but in a perfectly normal condition. H. DOUGLAS."
Mention has been made before in this comments thread of Wilhelm Reich. Regarding Reich, as I noted before, Reich - the following article disputes the entire basis of the attack on him, and demonstrates replication of all his major experiments: http://www.academia.edu/3677461/In_Defense_of_Wilhelm_Reich_An_Open_Response_to_Nature_and_the_Scientific_Medical_Community
I have seen references to historical cross-cultural correlations and attempted validations of the "chakra meridian system", but need to obtain the scholarly sources - however, I recall faintly from memory seeing some interesting related references in Michael Murphy's "The Future of the Body". I have also seen references to the book "Spiritual Healing Professional Supplement", presenting it as an overview of 191 studies, with 124 significant successes, and 83 of those having significance p < 0.01. These sources are to be acquired and delved into in further depth.
For now I will note that even with "negative studies", there are very interesting effects that we might overlook. Here is some interesting commentary on a recent study -"a group of women who had recently undergone a C-section had significantly lower heart rates and blood pressure readings because they had been the target of a reiki healer who was 100 km away.
The researchers from the University of Toronto had not even been testing for cardiovascular effects; they wanted to see if a distance reiki healer could lower the women's pain levels after the C-section. The healer was unable to relieve the pain of 40 women in the trial, but clearly there were other health benefits.
It was a double blind study, so none of the women knew they had been selected for healing; despite this, all the women in the reiki group had a significantly lower heart rate and reduced systolic blood pressure over the three days following surgery.": http://www.wddty.com/spooky-healing-at-a-distance.html - that refers to this study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22021729
See the following comment - " however, the distant reiki group had a significantly lower heart rate (74.3 ± 8.1 bpm vs 79.8 ± 7.9 bpm, p=0.003) and blood pressure (106.4 ± 9.7 mmHg vs 111.9 ± 11.0 mmHg, p=0.02) post surgery."
That is relevant because it relates to non-subjective, measurable physiological effects. Stenger's reference of the "debunking" of therapeutic touch should be taken with some caution, because this "debunking" was refuted in "Irreducible Mind" - see the overview of this by Julio Siquiera, who has also written critical reviews of Stenger's work - for the excerpt regarding TT, see the following, n11: http://www.criticandokardec.com.br/page_136_irreducible_mind.pdf - for links to back and forth advocate - counter-advocate commentary on "Irreducible Mind", see: http://www.criticandokardec.com.br/irreducible_skepticism.htm
Also, systematic reviews of sham-controlled trials have validated the P6 acupncture point. For an overview of this, read the following much more balanced versions of articles where I attempted to present a neutral point of view for EFT, TFT, and TAT:
EFT: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emotional_Freedom_Techniques&diff=533654554&oldid=533654435
TFT: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thought_Field_Therapy&diff=532709737&oldid=532706658
TAT: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tapas_Acupressure_Technique&diff=532709193&oldid=532703937
Consider also the following meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials of Qigong demonstrating efficacy: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20594090
This is important, since these views have been cited previously, and factor into the attempted theories of people like Russel Targ and others: http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_15_3_rauscher.pdf
Thy physicist David Harriman is another person who has criticized aspects of quantum physics which have been used in this way (though perhaps they have been used as the distorted misunderstandings of others) - his lecture is interesting - I will attempt to accumulate sources necessary for an informed appraisal of it - the lecture can be listened to for free here: http://renaissance.libsyn.com/peace-revolution-episode-062-the-philosophic-corruption-of-reality-evil-begins-with-irrationality
Critics like to cite as a coup d'etat statement the following, justifying their dismissals of statistical evidence, etc.:
"Many brilliant men have investigated the paranormal but they have yet to find a single person who can, without trickery, send or receive even a three-letter word under test conditions."(Christopher 1970: 37).
Ignoring the cases above (e.g. - some of the phenomena of Piper and other mediums where counteradvocate explanations do not apply), I will note the following:
For a refutation of this claim, you have provided the following: http://deanradin.com/evidence/Carpenter2010.pdf
However, this I find this case even more interesting: https://ia601200.us.archive.org/13/items/NotesonSpiritualismandPsychicalResearch/TheCaseOfIlga-k-Report-of-a-phenomenon-of-unusual-perception.pdf
Carter references chapter XIII of A Critical Examination of the Belief in a Life after Death, by C. J. Ducasse., which directly deals with Lamont's views: http://www.survivalafterdeath.info/books/ducasse/critical/13.htm
Also, I referenced Alan Gauld and Eric Dingwall as sources supporting two of the most important mediums in early psychical research. Both are recognized as serious scholars by the mainstream and by counteradvocate sources. Alan Gauld's "A History of Hypnotism" has received positive reviews from the mainstream as can be seen by the amazon info section, Dingwall's "Abnormal Hypnotic Phenomena", on psi associated with hypnosis, has been positively reviewed in mainstream journals: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1033964/
Dingwall attacked much in psychical research - some of this can be controverted, and my next contributions to the Garrett comments thread will be to discuss this, and also further rebut attacks on Myers and Gurney (on of my sources states that Dingwall later in life distanced himself from Trevor Hall). Dingwall however, in addition to editing that anthology on hypnotisim and criticizing early Stenger-like critics like Joseph McCabe, also came to positive conclusiond regarding the phenomena of Daniel Dunglas Home and Joseph of Cupertino.
Alan Gauld was also a co-author of "Irreducible Mind" and his "Founders of Psychical Research" engages the more prominent relevant counteradvocate literature, though in a couple instances I disagree with it, I elaborate, and will elaborate further, in the Garrett thread. Of Eric Dingwall, Brian Inglis stated in his "Acknowledgements" section of "Natural and Supernatural", "I owe much to Dr. E.J. Dingwall's pioneering research", though he mentions his disagreements with him. Guy Lyon Playfair thought highly of Dingwall, recommended him as a very good source, saying that he was a skeptic in the truest sense of the word, in email correspondence - and in an SPR tribute to Dingwall, Playfair wrote that Dingwall thought positively of his (Playfair's) "The Flying Cow", though he actually criticized him (Playfair) re the more skeptical parts.
James Randi considered Gauld's statements about the contents of the SPR catalog of Home's materials that Dingwall was responsible for to be sufficient to make him abandon his position: https://ia601200.us.archive.org/13/items/NotesonSpiritualismandPsychicalResearch/RandiCommentsOnHisHomeMouthOrganTheoryJsprVolume62_pg188to189.pdf
Gordon Stein dedicated his "Encyclopedia of the Paranormal" to Dingwall, though it is doubtful he would have agreed with some of Stein's views - incidentally, Dingwall left CISCOP. Alan Gauld contributed a chapter on the SPR to that book - so skeptics of the above should know, again, that these are respected sources. Regarding that text, see the following: http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/SteinReview.htm
He extended William James' transmission theory, stating:
"if life exists apart from
the body, and merely manifests through it, using it as an instrument for the purposes
of such manifestation, then we can readily see how life may manifest, at times, outside
or beyond the legitimate confines of the body. This view, in short, represents merely an
extension of William James’ “Transmissive” Theory of Consciousness ... to the whole
of our life and vital energies. And if life be an energy, separate and apart from the
body, merely utilising it, or manifesting through it, for the purposes of its phenomenal
expression, then we may readily conceive that this life-force might exist quite apart
from the physical body — not only in this life, but in some other sphere of activity, after
the permanent destruction of the physical body itself." (cited in Alvarado above)
Brian Dunning is cited as an authority on the Ganzfeld - he is a podcaster who agrees with the ideology of the editors who write these articles, who plead guilty to fraud: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/ebay-the-fbi-shawn-hogan-and-brian-dunning-2013-4
The citation of Heines inaccurately reflects the state of affairs with regard to the Ganzfeld, as is noted by Derakshani, "shown by statistician Jessica Utts and acknowledged by Wiseman (personal correspondence, July 2011) to have used a flawed estimate of the overall effect size and p-value of the combined results": http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2011/12/alternative-take-on-esp.html
The editors seem to be on a rampage in attacking every notable parapsychology proponent. Martin Gardner is cited frequently, editors ignore the fraud he was involved in, discussed elsewhere.
Victor Stenger has made negative comments about Stanley Krippner: http://www.skeptiko.com/victor-stenger-slams-parapsychology-calls-stanley-krippner-charlatan/
I was reminded of this by browsing the forum for that site, where the following was noted: http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/are-there-any-paranormal-phenomena-at-all.577/page-6#post-12263
"I wonder if Lane has read about Krippner. Sadly the Krippner thread with Krippner's reply regarding replications was gobbled up, but here's the article I referenced.
The knock on parapsychology studies has long been that any so-called evidence of ESP is usually limited to negligible effects only detectable after scouring massive bodies of data. "Those to whom this criticism has any appeal should be aware that the Maimonides experiments are clearly exempt from it," wrote Irvin Child, Yale's former psychology department chair, in American Psychologist, the APA's flagship journal. "I believe many psychologists would, like myself, consider the ESP hypothesis to merit serious consideration and continued research if they read the Maimonides reports for themselves."
And here was Krippner's reply, conveyed by someone who said they were a former grad student of his when I asked about replications:
First of all, our original dream telepathy results were repeated several times in our own laboratory. We published both the successful replications and the unsuccessful replications. All of these articles are referenced at the end of our book DREAM TELEPATHY (by Ullman, Krippner, and Vaughan). A meta-analysis of all the studies produced high significant results and was published in a 1985 article by Irvin Child in The American Psychologist, flagship journal of the American Psychological Association..
Several other researchers attempted to replicate our work. Both the successful replications and the unsuccessful replications have been published in the chapter by Roe and Sherwood in ADVANCES IN PARAPSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH, VOLUME 9 (edited by Krippner and Friedman). A meta-analysis of all these studies produced highly significant results. They were not as strong as the Maimonides data, probably because they used "home dreams" instead of "laboratory dreams," the latter involving psychophysiological recordings. In the lab, participants can be awakened once they have been in REM sleep for a while. For home dreams, participants are usually awakened randomly by telephone, hence many dreams are lost.
Obviously we can argue about whether the person was really Krippner's grad student and so on, but people can just email Krippner himself via his website."
This, hopefully, is a counterbalance to the Wikipedia assault on dream telepathy.
False:
Several oil companies, for example, hired him to do some exploration. Acting as a sort of airborne divining rod, Geller targeted 11 prospects, four of which he says proved out. Geller doesn't charge fees, he claims.
He relies on people to pay him what his service is worth. In this case a percentage royalty. "It's a little percentage," he says, "but in oil a little is a lot."
Which companies he has worked for Geller won't say. "They do not want their name to be linked to the psychic, to the paranormal." His only really public venture to date is his success in bringing together Japan's
Aoki Corporagtion and the U.S. Tishman Reality in a $500 million hotel, condominium shopping development near Disney World in Florida. Both John Aoki and John Tishman were personal friends. But Geller claims to be more than a mere go-between. "My role is that I predict the success of the venture."
That's where the power lies in being able to predict future success.
- Mishlove, The Roots...