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7. Why are we in Parapsychology?
In
the face of all these unpleasant experiences one may ask why some of us stay in
parapsychology. Obviously many of us must obtain something from the field or
have specific motivations if we stay in it though faced with so many
difficulties. In a recent paper James Carpenter (2002) listed three reasons: to
explain unexplained phenomena, to eventually make practical use of the
phenomena, and to learn more about human nature. In an international survey
published in Spain by Francisco Gavilan Fontanet (1978), the proportion of the
most frequently endorsed reasons given for interest in parapsychology were: 31%
to explain phenomena through the use of the scientific method, 24% to answer
questions about the nature of man, and the meaning of life, death and the
beyond, and 23% personal experiences or the experiences of others.
For some, involvement in the field is certainly a scholarly pursuit of the first
magnitude due to its great intellectual challenge. Perhaps this is why such
philosophers as C. D. Broad (1962) have been concerned with the field. Several
writers have stated that the intellectual and methodological difficulties of
parapsychology make the field particularly challenging, especially as regards
critical thinking. F. C. S. Schiller (1927) argued that for anyone "who wished
to apprehend the real method of science and to appreciate its real difficulties,
there is no better training ground than Psychical Research" (p. 218).
J. B.
Rhine (n.d., p. 3) commented on the value of parapsychology as a discipline in
which to learn to evaluate new claims and criticisms, a context that provides an
excellent opportunity to develop a scientific mind. Similarly, years later
John Beloff referred to the educational value of parapsychology in this way:
It
teaches us ... how difficult it is to arrive at any definitive conclusions about
it. It raises for us, in its most acute form, the eternal question: 'What can I
believe?' ... At one instant it will open up for us exciting vistas of new
worlds to be conquered; at the next, it will cause them to vanish again in a
haze of doubts. It forces us to reckon with the almost bottomless duplicity of
our fellow creatures, and yet it forbids us to take refuge in any easy cynicism
no matter how fantastic the case under consideration. In a word, it plays
tug-of-war with us so that we can enjoy neither the peace of mind of the
committed believer nor the complacency of the skeptic (Beloff, 1990, p. 55).
However, there are other reasons. For me it is a question of reminding myself,
and others, of the potential of humankind. It is greatly satisfying to
participate in research as well as to teach students about what may be the most
exciting possibilities of the human mind. It does not matter if we are talking
about ESP scores in the lab or reports of spontaneous cases. Regardless of the
final explanation we will be learning something about the abilities of the mind
to process information in what now seem to us to be unconventional ways. This
will certainly extend our current knowledge. Furthermore, I see parapsychology
as part of the emerging field of positive psychology, a psychology devoted to
growth and strengths, to positive abilities. Unfortunately, however, like other
related areas of psychology, those who identify with positive psychology do not
acknowledge the contributions of parapsychology (e.g., Aspinwall & Staudinger,
2003).
Probably one of the most frequent motivations to be in parapsychology is the
search for different forms of transcendence of physical limitations. The
question here, and one for which such critics as James Alcock (1987) take us to
task, is the use of parapsychology to demonstrate or to suggest that human
beings have a component beyond our material constitution. There is no question
that this has been a driving force in parapsychology. In his seventeenth-century
work Saducismus Triumphatus Joseph Glanvil (1682) saw poltergeists, apparitions,
and other phenomena as evidence of a spiritual world. In his Human Personality
and Its Survival of Bodily Death,
Myers (1903, Vol. 2, p. 257) concluded that
psychic phenomena "prove that between the spiritual and the material worlds an
avenue of communication does in fact exist." Others such as
William McDougall
(1911), J. B. Rhine (1947), Joseph Gaither Pratt (1964),
Charles T. Tart (1979),
John Beloff (1990), and
Ian Stevenson (1981) have emphasized how ESP and other
phenomena are indicative of the existence of the mind independent of the body.
In J. B. Rhine's words: "The psi researches show the natural human mind can
escape physical boundaries under certain conditions ... Accordingly a distinct
difference between mind and matter, a relative dualism, has been demonstrated by
the psi experiments ..." (J. B. Rhine, 1947, p. 205). More recently, Charles
Tart (2002) argued for the importance of the spiritual implications of
parapsychology.
However, not everyone is in parapsychology to provide support for dualism or
spirituality. Some have had a physicalistic outlook that does not emphasize the
mind, the spirit, or any form of transcendence. Italian Ferdinando Cazzamalli
(1954) was highly critical of Rhine's emphasis on nonphysicality, preferring to
follow the old psychic force model prevalent in the spiritualistic and some of
the psychical research literatures. Such Soviet scientists as Dubrov and Pushkin
(1982) also upheld physicalistic assumptions. Others, like Dick Bierman (1996),
have been critical of dualism, assuming that physics will eventually explain
psi. For Irvin Child (1976), the fact that parapsychology shows the independence
of the mind from the body was not proved. In his words: "We may eventually
arrive at an understanding of paranormal phenomena that is just as dependent on
physics and chemistry as our understanding of color perception" (p. 117).
Next part: 8. Approaches to
Parapsychology
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