Parapsychology

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Photographs that purportedly depicted ghosts or spirits were popular during the 19th century.

Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, teleportation, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near-death experiences, synchronicity, apparitional experiences, etc.<ref name="Stuckrad 2007">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> Criticized as being a pseudoscience, the majority of mainstream scientists reject it.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Parapsychology has been criticised for continuing investigation despite being unable to provide reproducible evidence for the existence of any psychic phenomena after more than a century of research.<ref name="Stuckrad 2007" /><ref name="Cordón" /><ref>* Template:Cite journal

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Parapsychology research rarely appears in mainstream scientific journals; a few niche journals publish most papers about parapsychology.<ref>

• (Pigliucci, Boudry 2013) "Parapsychological research almost never appears in mainstream science journals."
• (Odling-Smee 2007) "But parapsychologists are still limited to publishing in a small number of niche journals."</ref>

Terminology

The term parapsychology was coined in 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir as the German {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}.<ref name="BringmannLück1997">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> It was adopted by J. B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research to indicate a significant shift toward experimental methodology and academic discipline.<ref name=Melton>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> The term originates from the Template:Langx Template:Transliteration meaning "alongside", and psychology.

In parapsychology, psi is the unknown factor in extrasensory perception and psychokinesis experiences that is not explained by known physical or biological mechanisms.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The term is derived from ψ psi, the 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet and the initial letter of the Template:Langx {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, "mind, soul".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=parasoc1>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The term was coined by biologist Bertold Wiesner, and first used by psychologist Robert Thouless in a 1942 article published in the British Journal of Psychology.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

The Parapsychological Association divides psi into two main categories: psi-gamma for extrasensory perception and psi-kappa for psychokinesis.<ref name=parasoc1/> In popular culture, "psi" has become more and more synonymous with extraordinary psychic, mental, and "psionic" abilities and powers.

History

Early psychical research

File:Henry Slade with Zöllner.png

Henry Slade with Johann Karl Friedrich Zöllner

In 1853, chemist Robert Hare conducted experiments with mediums and reported positive results.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Other researchers such as Frank Podmore highlighted flaws in his experiments, such as lack of controls to prevent trickery.<ref>Podmore, Frank. (1897). Studies in Psychical Research. G. P. Putnam's Sons. pp. 48–49</ref><ref>Podmore, Frank. (1902). Modern Spiritualism: A History and a Criticism. Methuen Publishing. pp. 234–235</ref> Agenor de Gasparin conducted early experiments into table-tipping. For five months in 1853, he declared the experiments a success, being the result of an "ectenic force". Critics noted that the conditions were insufficient to prevent trickery. For example, the sitters may have moved the table with their knees, and no experimenter was simultaneously watching above and below the table.<ref>Podmore, Frank. (1897). Studies in Psychical Research. New York: Putnam. p. 47</ref>

The German astrophysicist Johann Karl Friedrich Zöllner tested the medium Henry Slade in 1877. According to Zöllner, some of the experiments were successful.<ref>Stein, Gordon. (1996). The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 703. Template:ISBN "Slade succeeded only on tests that allowed easy trickery, such of producing knots in cords that had their ends tied together and the knot sealed, putting wooden rings on a table leg, and removing coins from sealed boxes. He failed utterly on tests that did not permit deception. He was unable to reverse the spirals of snail shells. He could not link two wooden rings, one of oak, the other of alder. He could not knot an endless ring cut from a bladder, or put a piece of candle inside a closed glass bulb. He failed to change the optical handedness of tartaric dex-tro to levo. These tests would have been easy to pass if Slade's spirit controls had been able to take an object into the fourth dimension, then return it after making the required manipulations. Such successes would have created marvelous PPOs (permanent paranormal objects), difficult for skeptics to explain. Zöllner wrote an entire book in praise of Slade. Titled Transcendental Physics (1878), it was partly translated into English in 1880 by spiritualist Charles Carleton Massey. The book is a classic of childlike gullibility by a scientist incapable of devising adequate controls for testing paranormal powers."</ref> However, flaws in the experiments were discovered, and critics have suggested that Slade was a fraud who performed trickery in the experiments.<ref>Mulholland, John. (1938). Beware Familiar Spirits. C. Scribner's Sons. pp. 111–112. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Hyman, Ray. (1989). The Elusive Quarry: A Scientific Appraisal of Psychical Research. Prometheus Books. p. 209. Template:ISBN "In the case of Zöllner's investigations of Slade, not only do we know that Slade was exposed before and after his sessions with Zöllner, but also there is ample reason to raise questions about the adequacy of the investigation. Carrington (1907), Podmore (1963), and Mrs. Sidgwick (1886–87) are among a number of critics who have uncovered flaws and loopholes in Zöllner's sittings with Slade."</ref>

The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was founded in London in 1882. Its formation was the first systematic effort to organize scientists and scholars to investigate paranormal phenomena. Early membership included philosophers, scholars, scientists, educators and politicians, such as Henry Sidgwick, Arthur Balfour, William Crookes, Rufus Osgood Mason, and Nobel Laureate Charles Richet.<ref name=Beloff>Template:Cite book</ref> Presidents of the Society included, in addition to Richet, Eleanor Sidgwick and William James, and subsequently Nobel Laureates Henri Bergson and Lord Rayleigh, and philosopher C. D. Broad.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Areas of study included telepathy, hypnotism, Reichenbach's phenomena, apparitions, hauntings, and the physical aspects of Spiritualism such as table-tilting, materialization, and apportation.<ref>Thurschwell, Pamela. (2004). Literature, Technology and Magical Thinking, 1880–1920. Cambridge University Press. p. 16. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>McCorristine, Shane. (2010). Spectres of the Self: Thinking about Ghosts and Ghost-Seeing in England, 1750–1920. Cambridge University Press. p. 114. Template:ISBN</ref> In the 1880s, the Society investigated apparitional experiences and hallucinations in the sane. Among the first important works was the two-volume publication in 1886, Phantasms of the Living, which was largely criticized by scholars.<ref>Douglas, Alfred. (1982). Extra-Sensory Powers: A Century of Psychical Research. Overlook Press. p. 76. Template:ISBN "Phantasms of the Living was criticized by a number of scholars when it appeared, one ground for the attack being the lack of written testimony regarding the apparitions composed shortly after they had been seen. In many instances several years had elapsed between the occurrence and a report of it being made to the investigators from the SPR."</ref> In 1894, the Census of Hallucinations was published which sampled 17,000 people. Out of these, 1,684 persons admitted to having experienced a hallucination of an apparition.<ref>Williams, William F. (2000). Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience: From Alien Abductions to Zone Therapy. Routledge. p. 49. Template:ISBN</ref> The SPR became the model for similar societies in other European countries and the United States during the late 19th century.

Early clairvoyance experiments were reported in 1884 by Charles Richet. Playing cards were enclosed in envelopes, and a subject was put under hypnosis to identify them. The subject was reported to have succeeded in a series of 133 trials, but the results dropped to the chance level when performed before a group of scientists in Cambridge. J. M. Peirce and E. C. Pickering reported a similar experiment in which they tested 36 subjects over 23,384 trials, which did not obtain above-chance scores.<ref name="Hansel 1985">C. E. M. Hansel. The Search for a Demonstration of ESP. In Paul Kurtz. (1985). A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology. Prometheus Books. pp. 97–127. Template:ISBN</ref>

In 1881, Eleanor Sidgwick revealed the fraudulent methods that spirit photographers such as Édouard Isidore Buguet, Frederic Hudson, and William H. Mumler had utilized.<ref>Edmunds, Simeon. (1966). Spiritualism: A Critical Survey. Aquarian Press. p. 115. Template:ISBN "The early history of spirit photography was reviewed by Mrs Henry Sidgwick in the Proceedings of the SPR in 1891. She showed clearly not only that Mumler, Hudson, Buguet and their ilk were fraudulent, but the way in which those who believed in them were deceived."</ref> During the late nineteenth century, many fraudulent mediums were exposed by SPR investigators.<ref>Moreman, Christopher M. (2010). Beyond the Threshold: Afterlife Beliefs and Experiences in World Religions. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. p. 163. Template:ISBN "SPR investigators quickly found that many mediums were indeed, as skeptics had alleged, operating under cover of darkness in order to perpetrate scams. They used a number of tricks facilitated by darkness: sleight of hand was used to manipulate objects and touch people eager to make contact with deceased loved ones; flour or white lines would give the illusion of spectral white hands or faces; accomplices were even stashed under tables or in secret rooms to lend support in the plot... As the investigations of the SPR, and other skeptics, were made public, many fraudulent mediums saw their careers ruined and many unsuspecting clients were enraged at the deception perpetrated."</ref>

Largely due to the support of psychologist William James, the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) opened its doors in Boston in 1885, moving to New York City in 1905 under the leadership of James H. Hyslop.<ref name="Berger">Template:Cite book</ref> Notable cases investigated by Walter Franklin Prince of the ASPR in the early 20th century included Pierre L. O. A. Keeler, the Great Amherst Mystery and Patience Worth.<ref>Larsen, Egon. (1966). The Deceivers: Lives of the Great Imposters. Roy Publishers. pp. 130–132</ref><ref>Berger, Arthur S. (1988). Lives and Letters in American Parapsychology: A Biographical History, 1850–1987. McFarland. pp. 75–107. Template:ISBN</ref>

Rhine era

In 1911, Stanford University became the first academic institution in the United States to study extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (PK) in a laboratory setting. The effort was headed by psychologist John Edgar Coover and funded by Thomas Welton Stanford, brother of the university's founder. After conducting approximately 10,000 experiments, Coover concluded that "statistical treatments of the data fail to reveal any cause beyond chance."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 1930, Duke University became the second major U.S. academic institution to engage in the critical study of ESP and psychokinesis in the laboratory. Under the guidance of psychologist William McDougall, and with the help of others in the department—including psychologists Karl Zener, Joseph B. Rhine, and Louisa E. Rhine—laboratory ESP experiments using volunteer subjects from the undergraduate student body began. As opposed to the approaches of psychical research, which generally sought qualitative evidence for paranormal phenomena, the experiments at Duke University proffered a quantitative, statistical approach using cards and dice. As a consequence of the ESP experiments at Duke, standard laboratory procedures for the testing of ESP were developed and adopted by interested researchers worldwide.<ref name="Berger"/>

George Estabrooks conducted an ESP experiment using cards in 1927. Harvard students were used as the subjects. Estabrooks acted as the sender, with the guesser in an adjoining room. Estabrooks conducted a total of 2,300 trials. When Estabrooks sent the subjects to a distant room with insulation, the scores dropped to chance level. Attempts to repeat the experiment also failed.<ref name="Hansel 1985"/>

The publication of J. B. Rhine's book, New Frontiers of the Mind (1937), brought the laboratory's findings to the general public. In his book, Rhine popularized the word "parapsychology", coined by psychologist Max Dessoir over 40 years earlier, to describe the research conducted at Duke. Rhine also founded an autonomous Parapsychology Laboratory within Duke and started the Journal of Parapsychology, which he co-edited with McDougall.<ref name=Berger/>

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Early parapsychological research employed the use of Zener cards in experiments designed to test for the existence of telepathic communication, or clairvoyant or precognitive perception.

Rhine, along with associate Karl Zener, had developed a statistical system of testing for ESP that involved subjects guessing what symbol, out of five possible symbols, would appear when going through a special deck of cards designed for this purpose. A percentage of correct guesses (or hits) significantly above 20% was perceived as higher than chance and indicative of psychic ability. Rhine stated in his first book, Extrasensory Perception (1934), that after 90,000 trials, he felt ESP is "an actual and demonstrable occurrence".<ref name="Rhine1934">J. B. Rhine (1934). Extra-Sensory Perception. (4th ed.) Branden Publishing Company 1997. Template:ISBN</ref>

Irish medium and parapsychologist Eileen J. Garrett was tested by Rhine at Duke University in 1933 with Zener cards. Rhine placed certain symbols on the cards, sealed them in an envelope, and asked Garrett to guess their contents. She performed poorly and later criticized the tests by claiming the cards lacked a psychic energy called "energy stimulus" and that she could not perform clairvoyance to order.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The parapsychologist Samuel Soal and his colleagues tested Garrett in May 1937. Soal conducted most experiments in the Psychological Laboratory at University College London. Soal recorded over 12,000 guesses, but Garrett failed to produce above chance level.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In his report Soal wrote "In the case of Mrs. Eileen Garrett we fail to find the slightest confirmation of J. B. Rhine's remarkable claims relating to her alleged powers of extra-sensory perception. Not only did she fail when I took charge of the experiments, but she failed equally when four other carefully trained experimenters took my place."<ref>Samuel Soal. A Repetition of Dr. Rhine's work with Mrs. Eileen Garrett. Proc. S.P.R. Vol. XLII. pp. 84–85. Also quoted in Antony Flew. (1955). A New Approach To Psychical Research. Watts & Co. pp. 90–92.</ref>

The parapsychology experiments at Duke evoked much criticism from academics and others who challenged the concepts and evidence of ESP. Many psychological departments attempted to repeat Rhine's experiments with failure. W. S. Cox (1936) from Princeton University, with 132 subjects, produced 25,064 trials in a playing card ESP experiment. Cox concluded, "There is no evidence of extrasensory perception either in the 'average man' or of the group investigated or in any particular individual of that group. The discrepancy between these results and those obtained by Rhine is due either to uncontrollable factors in experimental procedure or to the difference in the subjects."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Four other psychological departments failed to replicate Rhine's results.<ref>Cited in C. E. M. Hansel The Search for a Demonstration of ESP in Paul Kurtz. (1985). A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology. Prometheus Books. pp. 105–127. Template:ISBN

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• Crumbaugh, J. C. (1938). An experimental study of extra-sensory perception. Masters thesis. Southern Methodist University.
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• Willoughby, R. R. (1938). Further card-guessing experiments. Journal of Psychology 18: 3–13.</ref> After thousands of card runs, James Charles Crumbaugh failed to duplicate the results of Rhine.<ref>Alcock, James. (1981). Parapsychology – Science Or Magic?: A Psychological Perspective. Pergamon Press. 136. Template:ISBN</ref>

File:Hubert Pearce with J. B. Rhine.png

Hubert Pearce with J. B. Rhine

In 1938, the psychologist Joseph Jastrow wrote that much of the evidence for extrasensory perception collected by Rhine and other parapsychologists was anecdotal, biased, dubious and the result of "faulty observation and familiar human frailties".<ref>Joseph Jastrow. (1938). ESP, House of Cards. The American Scholar 8: 13–22.</ref> Rhine's experiments were discredited due to the discovery that sensory leakage or cheating could account for all his results, such as the subject being able to read the symbols from the back of the cards and being able to see and hear the experimenter to note subtle clues.<ref>Harold Gulliksen. (1938). Extra-Sensory Perception: What Is It?. American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 43, No. 4. pp. 623–634. "Investigating Rhine's methods, we find that his mathematical methods are wrong and that the effect of this error would in some cases be negligible and in others very marked. We find that many of his experiments were set up in a manner which would tend to increase, instead of to diminish, the possibility of systematic clerical errors; and lastly, that the ESP cards can be read from the back."</ref><ref>Charles M. Wynn, Arthur W. Wiggins. (2001). Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction: Where Real Science Ends...and Pseudoscience Begins. Joseph Henry Press. p. 156. Template:ISBN "In 1940, Rhine coauthored a book, Extrasensory Perception After Sixty Years in which he suggested that something more than mere guess work was involved in his experiments. He was right! It is now known that the experiments conducted in his laboratory contained serious methodological flaws. Tests often took place with minimal or no screening between the subject and the person administering the test. Subjects could see the backs of cards that were later discovered to be so cheaply printed that a faint outline of the symbol could be seen. Furthermore, in face-to-face tests, subjects could see card faces reflected in the tester's eyeglasses or cornea. They were even able to (consciously or unconsciously) pick up clues from the tester's facial expression and voice inflection. In addition, an observant subject could identify the cards by certain irregularities like warped edges, spots on the backs, or design imperfections."</ref><ref>Terence Hines. (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 122. Template:ISBN "The procedural errors in the Rhine experiments have been extremely damaging to his claims to have demonstrated the existence of ESP. Equally damaging has been the fact that the results have not replicated when the experiments have been conducted in other laboratories."</ref><ref>Jonathan C. Smith. (2009). Pseudoscience and Extraordinary Claims of the Paranormal: A Critical Thinker's Toolkit. Wiley-Blackwell. Template:ISBN. "Today, researchers discount the first decade of Rhine's work with Zener cards. Stimulus leakage or cheating could account for all his findings. Slight indentations on the backs of cards revealed the symbols embossed on card faces. Subjects could see and hear the experimenter, and note subtle but revealing facial expressions or changes in breathing."</ref>

Illusionist Milbourne Christopher wrote years later that he felt "there are at least a dozen ways a subject who wished to cheat under the conditions Rhine described could deceive the investigator". When Rhine took precautions in response to criticisms of his methods, he failed to find any high-scoring subjects.<ref name="Milbourne">Milbourne Christopher. (1970). ESP, Seers & Psychics. Thomas Y. Crowell Co. pp. 24–28</ref> Another criticism, made by chemist Irving Langmuir, among others, was one of selective reporting. Langmuir stated that Rhine did not report scores of subjects that he suspected were intentionally guessing wrong and that this, he felt, biased the statistical results higher than they should have been.<ref>Robert L. Park. (2000). Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud. Oxford University Press. pp. 40–43. Template:ISBN</ref>

Rhine and his colleagues attempted to address these criticisms through new experiments described in the book Extrasensory Perception After Sixty Years (1940).<ref name=ESP60>Rhine, J.B. (1966). Foreword. In Pratt, J.G., Rhine, J.B., Smith, B.M., Stuart, C.E., & Greenwood, J.A. (eds.). Extrasensory Perception After Sixty Years. 2nd ed. Boston, US: Humphries.</ref> Rhine described three experiments: the Pearce-Pratt experiment, the Pratt-Woodruff experiment, and the Ownbey-Zirkle series, which he believed demonstrated ESP. However, C. E. M. Hansel wrote, "It is now known that each experiment contained serious flaws that escaped notice in the examination made by the authors of Extra-Sensory Perception After Sixty Years".<ref name="Hansel 1985"/> Joseph Gaither Pratt was the co-experimenter in the Pearce-Pratt and Pratt-Woodruff experiments at the Duke campus. Hansel visited the campus where the experiments took place and discovered the results could have originated through a trick, so they could not supply evidence for ESP.<ref>C. E. M. Hansel. (1980). ESP and Parapsychology: A Critical Re-Evaluation. Prometheus Books. pp. 125–140</ref>

In 1957, Rhine and Joseph Gaither Pratt wrote Parapsychology: Frontier Science of the Mind. Because of the methodological problems, parapsychologists no longer utilize card-guessing studies.<ref>Back from the Future: Parapsychology and the Bem Affair Template:Webarchive. Skeptical Inquirer. "Despite Rhine's confidence that he had established the reality of extrasensory perception, he had not done so. Methodological problems with his experiments eventually came to light, and as a result parapsychologists no longer run card-guessing studies and rarely even refer to Rhine's work."</ref> Rhine's experiments into psychokinesis (PK) were also criticized. John Sladek wrote:

His research used dice, with subjects 'willing' them to fall a certain way. Not only can dice be drilled, shaved, falsely numbered and manipulated, but even straight dice often show bias in the long run. Casinos for this reason retire dice often, but at Duke, subjects continued to try for the same effect on the same dice over long experimental runs. Not surprisingly, PK appeared at Duke and nowhere else.<ref name="Sladek 1974">John Sladek. (1974). The New Apocrypha: A Guide to Strange Sciences and Occult Beliefs. Panther. pp. 172–174</ref>

File:Mr. Zirkle and Miss Ownbey ESP experiment.png

Mr. Zirkle and Miss Ownbey

Parapsychologists and skeptics criticized the Ownbey-Zirkle ESP experiment at Duke.<ref name="Lamont 2013">Peter Lamont. (2013). Extraordinary Beliefs: A Historical Approach to a Psychological Problem. Cambridge University Press. pp. 206–208. Template:ISBN</ref> Ownbey would attempt to send ESP symbols to Zirkle, who would guess what they were. The pair were placed in adjacent rooms, unable to see each other, and an electric fan was used to prevent the pair from communicating by sensory cues. Ownbey tapped a telegraph key to Zirkle to inform him when she was trying to send him a symbol. The door separating the two rooms was open during the experiment, and after each guess, Zirkle would call out his guess to Ownbey, who recorded his choice. Critics pointed out the experiment was flawed as Ownbey acted as both the sender and the experimenter; nobody controlled the experiment, so Ownbey could have cheated by communicating with Zirkle or made recording mistakes.<ref name="Lamont 2013"/><ref>C. E. M. Hansel. (1989). The Search for Psychic Power: ESP and Parapsychology Revisited. Prometheus Books. p. 46. Template:ISBN</ref>

The Turner-Ownbey long-distance telepathy experiment was also flawed. May Frances Turner positioned herself in the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory, while Sara Ownbey claimed to receive transmissions 250 miles away. For the experiment, Turner would think of a symbol and write it down, while Ownbey would write her guesses.<ref name="Sladek 1974"/> The scores were highly successful and both records were supposed to be sent to J. B. Rhine, however, Ownbey sent them to Turner. Critics pointed out this invalidated the results as she could have simply written her own record to agree with the other. When the experiment was repeated and the records were sent to Rhine, the scores dropped to average.<ref name="Sladek 1974"/><ref>Bergen Evans. (1954). The Spoor of Spooks: And Other Nonsense. Knopf. p. 24</ref><ref>C. E. M. Hansel. (1989). The Search for Psychic Power: ESP and Parapsychology Revisited. Prometheus Books. pp. 56–58. Template:ISBN</ref>

Lucien Warner and Mildred Raible performed a famous ESP experiment at Duke University. Warner and Raible locked a subject in a room with a switch controlling a signal light elsewhere, which she could signal to guess the card. Ten runs with ESP packs of cards were used, and she achieved 93 hits (43 more than chance). Weaknesses with the experiment were later discovered. The duration of the light signal could be varied so that the subject could call for specific symbols. Certain symbols in the experiment appeared far more often than others, indicating poor shuffling or card manipulation. The experiment was not repeated.<ref name="Sladek 1974"/><ref>C. E. M. Hansel. (1989). The Search for Psychic Power: ESP and Parapsychology Revisited. Prometheus Books. p. 53. Template:ISBN "First, the recording was not completely independent, since the flash of light in the experimenters' room could be varied in duration by the subject and thus provide a possible cue. Second, there were five different symbols in the target series, but the experimental record showed that two of these arose more frequently than the other three."</ref>

Duke's administration grew less sympathetic to parapsychology, and after Rhine's retirement in 1965, parapsychological links with the university were broken. Rhine later established the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man (FRNM) and the Institute for Parapsychology as a successor to the Duke laboratory.<ref name="Berger"/> In 1995, the centenary of Rhine's birth, the FRNM was renamed the Rhine Research Center. Today, the Rhine Research Center is a parapsychology research unit, stating that it "aims to improve the human condition by creating a scientific understanding of those abilities and sensitivities that appear to transcend the ordinary limits of space and time".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Establishment of the Parapsychological Association

The Parapsychological Association (PA) was created in Durham, North Carolina, on June 19, 1957. J. B. Rhine proposed its formation at a parapsychology workshop held at the Parapsychology Laboratory of Duke University. Rhine proposed that the group form itself into the nucleus of an international professional society in parapsychology. The aim of the organization, as stated in its Constitution, became "to advance parapsychology as a science, to disseminate knowledge of the field, and to integrate the findings with those of other branches of science".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1969, under the direction of anthropologist Margaret Mead, the Parapsychological Association became affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the largest general scientific society in the world.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> In 1979, physicist John A. Wheeler said that parapsychology is pseudoscientific and that the affiliation of the PA to the AAAS needed to be reconsidered.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=Wheeler>Template:Cite book</ref>

His challenge to parapsychology's AAAS affiliation was unsuccessful.<ref name=Wheeler /> Today, the PA consists of about three hundred full, associate, and affiliated members worldwide.<ref name=Harvey>Template:Cite book</ref>

Stargate Project

Beginning in the early 1950s, the CIA started extensive research into behavioral engineering. The findings from these experiments led to the formation of the Stargate Project, which handled ESP research for the U.S. federal government.

The Stargate Project was terminated in 1995 with the conclusion that it was never useful in any intelligence operation. The information was vague and included a lot of irrelevant and erroneous data. There was also reason to suspect that the research managers had adjusted their project reports to fit the known background cues.<ref>An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications by Mumford, Rose and Goslin "remote viewings have never provided an adequate basis for 'actionable' intelligence operations-that is, information sufficiently valuable or compelling so that action was taken as a result (...) a large amount of irrelevant, erroneous information is provided and little agreement is observed among viewers' reports. (...) remote viewers and project managers reported that remote viewing reports were changed to make them consistent with known background cues (...) Also, it raises some doubts about some well-publicized cases of dramatic hits, which, if taken at face value, could not easily be attributed to background cues. In at least some of these cases, there is a reason to suspect, based on both subsequent investigations and the viewers' statement that reports had been "changed" by previous program managers, that substantially more background information was available than one might at first assume."</ref>

1970s and 1980s

The affiliation of the Parapsychological Association (PA) with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, along with a general openness to psychic and occult phenomena in the 1970s, led to a decade of increased parapsychological research. During this period, other related organizations were also formed, including the Academy of Parapsychology and Medicine (1970), the Institute of Parascience (1971), the Academy of Religion and Psychical Research, the Institute of Noetic Sciences (1973), the International Kirlian Research Association (1975), and the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory (1979). Parapsychological work was also conducted at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) during this time.<ref name="Melton"/>

The scope of parapsychology expanded during these years. Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson conducted much of his research into reincarnation during the 1970s, and the second edition of his Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation was published in 1974. Psychologist Thelma Moss studied Kirlian photography at UCLA's parapsychology laboratory. The influx of spiritual teachers from Asia and their claims of abilities produced by meditation led to research on altered states of consciousness. American Society for Psychical Research Director of Research, Karlis Osis, conducted experiments in out of body experiences. Physicist Russell Targ coined the term remote viewing for use in some of his work at SRI in 1974.<ref name="Melton"/>

The surge in paranormal research continued into the 1980s: the Parapsychological Association reported members working in more than 30 countries. For example, research was carried out and regular conferences held in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union<ref name="Melton"/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> although the word parapsychology was discarded in favor of the term psychotronics.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The main promoter of psychotronics was Czech scientist Zdeněk Rejdák, who described it as a physical science, organizing conferences and presiding over the International Association for Psychotronic Research.<ref name="praguepost">Template:Cite news</ref>

In 1985, the Department of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh established a Chair of Parapsychology, awarding it to Robert Morris, an experimental parapsychologist from the United States. Morris and his research associates and PhD students pursued research on topics related to parapsychology.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Modern era

File:Bernard-carr.jpg

Bernard Carr (astronomer), one-time president of the Society for Psychical Research

Since the 1980s, contemporary parapsychological research has waned considerably in the United States.<ref name="Smee">Template:Cite journal</ref> Early research was considered inconclusive, and parapsychologists faced strong skepticism from their academic colleagues.<ref name="Melton"/> Some effects thought to be paranormal, for example, the effects of Kirlian photography (thought by some to represent a human aura), disappeared under more stringent controls, leaving those avenues of research at dead-ends.<ref name="Melton"/> Most parapsychology research in the US is now confined to private institutions funded by private sources.<ref name="Melton"/> After 28 years of research, Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory (PEAR), which studied psychokinesis, closed in 2007.<ref name="Smee"/>

Two universities in the United States have academic parapsychology laboratories. The Division of Perceptual Studies, a unit at the University of Virginia's Department of Psychiatric Medicine, studies the possibility of survival of consciousness after bodily death, near-death experiences, and out-of-body experiences.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Gary Schwartz at the University of Arizona's Veritas Laboratory conducted laboratory investigations of mediums, criticized by scientific skeptics. Several private institutions, including the Institute of Noetic Sciences, conduct and promote parapsychological research.<ref name="Smee"/>

Over the last two decades, some new sources of funding for parapsychology in Europe have seen a "substantial increase in European parapsychological research so that the center of gravity for the field has swung from the United States to Europe".<ref name=hji/> The United Kingdom has the largest number of active parapsychologists of all nations.<ref name=hji>Harvey J. Irwin and Caroline Watt. An introduction to parapsychology McFarland, 2007, pp. 248–249.</ref> In the UK, researchers work in conventional psychology departments and do studies in mainstream psychology to "boost their credibility and show that their methods are sound". It is thought that this approach could account for the relative strength of parapsychology in Britain.<ref name="Smee"/>

As of 2007, parapsychology was researched in some 30 countries,<ref name=hji/> and some universities worldwide continue academic parapsychology programs. Among these are the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the University of Edinburgh;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the Parapsychology Research Group at Liverpool Hope University (this closed in April 2011);<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the SOPHIA Project at the University of Arizona;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the Consciousness and Transpersonal Psychology Research Unit of Liverpool John Moores University;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the Center for the Study of Anomalous Psychological Processes at the University of Northampton;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Research and professional organizations include the Parapsychological Association;<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> the Society for Psychical Research, publisher of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research and Psi Encyclopedia;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the American Society for Psychical Research, publisher of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research (last published in 2004);<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the Rhine Research Center and Institute for Parapsychology, publisher of the Journal of Parapsychology;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the Parapsychology Foundation, which published the International Journal of Parapsychology (between 1959 and 1968 and 2000–2001)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and the Australian Institute of Parapsychological Research, publisher of the Australian Journal of Parapsychology.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The European Journal of Parapsychology ceased publishing in 2010.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Parapsychological research has also included other sub-disciplines of psychology. These related fields include transpersonal psychology, which studies transcendent or spiritual aspects of the human mind, and anomalistic psychology, which examines paranormal beliefs and subjective anomalous experiences in traditional psychological terms.<ref name="Smee"/><ref name="Zusne 1989">Template:Cite book</ref>

Research

Scope

Parapsychologists study some ostensible paranormal phenomena, including but not limited to:

• Telepathy: Transfer of information of thoughts or feelings between individuals by means other than the five classical senses.
• Precognition: Perception of information about future places or events before they occur.
• Clairvoyance: Obtaining information about places or events at remote locations by means unknown to current science.
• Psychokinesis: The ability of the mind to influence matter, time, space, or energy by means unknown to current science.
• Near-death experiences: An experience reported by a person who nearly died or who experienced clinical death and then revived.
• Reincarnation: The rebirth of a soul or other non-physical aspect of human consciousness in a new physical body after death.
• Apparitional experiences: Phenomena often attributed to ghosts and encountered in places a deceased individual is thought to have frequented or in association with the person's former belongings.

The definitions for the terms above may not reflect their mainstream usage nor the opinions of all parapsychologists and their critics.

According to the Parapsychological Association, parapsychologists do not study all paranormal phenomena, nor are they concerned with astrology, UFOs, cryptozoology, paganism, vampires, alchemy, or witchcraft.<ref name=faqfile1>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Journals dealing with parapsychology include the Journal of Parapsychology, Journal of Near-Death Studies, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, and Journal of Scientific Exploration.

Experimental research

Ganzfeld

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} The Ganzfeld (German for "whole field") is a technique used to test individuals for telepathy. The technique—a form of moderate sensory deprivation—was developed to quickly quiet mental "noise" by providing mild, unpatterned stimuli to the visual and auditory senses. The visual sense is usually isolated by creating a soft red glow which is diffused through half ping-pong balls placed over the recipient's eyes. The auditory sense is usually blocked by playing white noise, static, or similar sounds to the recipient. The subject is also seated in a reclined, comfortable position to minimize the sense of touch.<ref name="Radin2007">Template:Cite book</ref>

In the typical Ganzfeld experiment, a "sender" and a "receiver" are isolated.<ref name="HymanGanzfeld">Template:Cite journal</ref> The receiver is put into the Ganzfeld state,<ref name="Radin2007"/> or Ganzfeld effect and the sender is shown a video clip or still picture and asked to send that image to the receiver mentally. While in the Ganzfeld, experimenters ask the receiver to continuously speak aloud all mental processes, including images, thoughts, and feelings. At the end of the sending period, typically about 20 to 40 minutes, the receiver is taken out of the Ganzfeld state and shown four images or videos, one of which is the actual target and three non-target decoys. The receiver attempts to select the target, using perceptions experienced during the Ganzfeld state as clues to what the mentally "sent" image might have been.

File:Ganzfeld.jpg

Participant of a Ganzfeld experiment. Proponents say such experiments have shown evidence of telepathy,<ref name=PsychologicalBulletin2/> while critics like Ray Hyman have pointed out that they have not been independently replicated.<ref name=PsychologicalBulletin1/>

The Ganzfeld experiment studies that were examined by Ray Hyman and Charles Honorton had methodological problems that were well documented. Honorton reported only 36% of the studies used duplicate target sets of pictures to avoid handling cues.<ref>Julie Milton, Richard Wiseman. (2002). A Response to Storm and Ertel (2002). The Journal of Parapsychology. Volume 66: 183–186.</ref> Hyman discovered flaws in all of the 42 Ganzfeld experiments, and to assess each experiment, he devised a set of 12 categories of flaws. Six of these concerned statistical defects, and the other six covered procedural flaws such as inadequate documentation, randomization, security, and possibilities of sensory leakage.<ref name="Hyman2007"/> Over half of the studies failed to safeguard against sensory leakage, and all of the studies contained at least one of the 12 flaws. Because of the flaws, Honorton agreed with Hyman the 42 Ganzfeld studies could not support the claim for the existence of psi.<ref name="Hyman2007"/>

Possibilities of sensory leakage in the Ganzfeld experiments included the receivers hearing what was going on in the sender's room next door as the rooms were not soundproof and the sender's fingerprints to be visible on the target object for the receiver to see.<ref>Richard Wiseman, Matthew Smith, Diana Kornbrot. (1996). Assessing possible sender-to-experimenter acoustic leakage in the PRL autoganzfeld. Journal of Parapsychology. Volume 60: 97–128.</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Hyman reviewed the autoganzfeld experiments and discovered a pattern in the data that implied a visual cue may have taken place. Hyman wrote the autoganzfeld experiments were flawed because they did not preclude the possibility of sensory leakage.<ref name="Hyman2007"/>

In 2010, Lance Storm, Patrizio Tressoldi, and Lorenzo Di Risio analyzed 29 Ganzfeld studies from 1997 to 2008. Of the 1,498 trials, 483 produced hits, corresponding to a hit rate of 32.2%. This hit rate is statistically significant with Template:Nowrap Participants selected for personality traits and personal characteristics thought to be psi-conducive were found to perform significantly better than unselected participants in the Ganzfeld condition.<ref name=StormEtAl2010>Template:Cite journal</ref> Hyman (2010) published a rebuttal to Storm et al. According to Hyman, "Reliance on meta-analysis as the sole basis for justifying the claim that an anomaly exists and that the evidence for it is consistent and replicable is fallacious. It distorts what scientists mean by confirmatory evidence." Hyman wrote that the Ganzfeld studies were not independently replicated and failed to produce evidence for psi.<ref name=PsychologicalBulletin1>Template:Cite journal</ref> Storm et al. published a response to Hyman stating that the Ganzfeld experimental design has proved to be consistent and reliable, that parapsychology is a struggling discipline that has not received much attention, and that therefore further research on the subject is necessary.<ref name=PsychologicalBulletin2>Template:Cite journal</ref> Rouder et al. 2013 wrote that critical evaluation of Storm et al.'s meta-analysis reveals no evidence for psi, no plausible mechanism and omitted replication failures.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Remote viewing

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File:Russell Targ, physicist.jpg

Russell Targ, co-founder of the Stargate Project

Remote viewing is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target using subjective means, in particular, extrasensory perception. A remote viewer is typically expected to give information about an object, event, person, or location hidden from physical view and separated at some distance.<ref>Leonard Zusne, Warren H. Jones (1989). Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. p. 167. Template:ISBN</ref> Several hundred such trials have been conducted by investigators over the past 25 years, including those by the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory (PEAR) and by scientists at SRI International and Science Applications International Corporation.<ref name="EnhancingHuman">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="ReinventingMedicine">Template:Cite book</ref> Many of these were under contract by the U.S. government as part of the espionage program Stargate Project, which terminated in 1995 having failed to document any practical intelligence value.<ref name="Time">Template:Cite magazine</ref>

The psychologists David Marks and Richard Kammann attempted to replicate Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff's remote viewing experiments that were carried out in the 1970s at SRI International. In a series of 35 studies, they could not replicate the results, motivating them to investigate the procedure of the original experiments. Marks and Kammann discovered that the notes given to the judges in Targ and Puthoff's experiments contained clues as to the order in which they were carried out, such as referring to yesterday's two targets or having the session date written at the top of the page. They concluded that these clues were the reason for the experiment's high hit rates.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Marks was able to achieve 100 percent accuracy without visiting any of the sites himself but by using cues.<ref>Martin Bridgstock. (2009). Beyond Belief: Skepticism, Science and the Paranormal. Cambridge University Press. p. 106. Template:ISBN "The explanation used by Marks and Kammann clearly involves the use of Occam's razor. Marks and Kammann argued that the 'cues' - clues to the order in which sites had been visited—provided sufficient information for the results, without any recourse to extrasensory perception. Indeed Marks himself was able to achieve 100 percent accuracy in allocating some transcripts to sites without visiting any of the sites himself, purely on the ground basis of the cues. From Occam's razor, it follows that if a straightforward natural explanation exists, there is no need for the spectacular paranormal explanation: Targ and Puthoff's claims are not justified".</ref> James Randi wrote controlled tests in collaboration with several other researchers, eliminating several sources of cueing and extraneous evidence present in the original tests; Randi's controlled tests produced negative results. Students could also solve Puthoff and Targ's locations from the cues included in the transcripts.<ref>Template:Cite Encyclopedia of Claims</ref>

In 1980, Charles Tart claimed that rejudging the transcripts from one of Targ and Puthoff's experiments revealed an above-chance result.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Targ and Puthoff again refused to provide copies of the transcripts and it was not until July 1985 that they were made available for study, when it was discovered they still contained sensory cues.<ref>Terence Hines. (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 136. Template:ISBN</ref> Marks and Christopher Scott (1986) wrote, "Considering the importance for the remote viewing hypothesis of adequate cue removal, Tart's failure to perform this basic task seems beyond comprehension. As previously concluded, remote viewing has not been demonstrated in the experiments conducted by Puthoff and Targ, only the repeated failure of the investigators to remove sensory cues."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

PEAR closed its doors at the end of February 2007. Its founder, Robert G. Jahn, said of it, "For 28 years, we've done what we wanted to do, and there's no reason to stay and generate more of the same data."<ref name="NY Times 2007-02-06"/> Statistical flaws in his work have been proposed by others in the parapsychological and general scientific communities.<ref name="Hansen">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The physicist Robert L. Park said of PEAR, "It's been an embarrassment to science, and I think an embarrassment for Princeton".<ref name="NY Times 2007-02-06">Template:Cite news </ref>

Psychokinesis on random number generators

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} The advent of powerful and inexpensive electronic and computer technologies has allowed the development of fully automated experiments studying possible interactions between mind and matter. In the most common experiment of this type, a random number generator (RNG), based on electronic or radioactive noise, produces a data stream that is recorded and analyzed by computer software. A subject attempts to mentally alter the distribution of the random numbers, usually in an experimental design that is functionally equivalent to getting more "heads" than "tails" while flipping a coin. In the RNG experiment, design flexibility can be combined with rigorous controls while collecting a large amount of data quickly. This technique has been used both to test individuals for psychokinesis and to test the possible influence on RNGs of large groups of people.<ref name=Dunne85>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Major meta-analyses of the RNG database have been published every few years since appearing in the journal Foundations of Physics in 1986.<ref name="Dunne85"/> PEAR founder Robert G. Jahn and his colleague Brenda Dunne say that the experiments produced "a very small effect" not significant enough to be observed over a brief experiment but over a large number of trials resulted in a tiny statistical deviation from chance.<ref name="Park 2000"/> According to Massimo Pigliucci, the results from PEAR can be explained without invoking the paranormal because of two problems with the experiment: "the difficulty of designing machines capable of generating truly random events and the fact that statistical "significance" is not at all a good measure of the importance or genuineness of a phenomenon."<ref name="Pigliucci2010">Massimo Pigliucci. (2010). Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk. University of Chicago Press. pp. 77–80. Template:ISBN</ref> Pigluicci has written that the statistical analysis used by the Jahn and the PEAR group relied on a quantity called a "p-value", but a problem with p-values is that if the sample size (number of trials) is very large, like the PEAR tests, then one is guaranteed to find artificially low p-values indicating a statistically significant result even though nothing was occurring other than small biases in the experimental apparatus.<ref name="Pigliucci2010"/>

Two German independent scientific groups have failed to replicate the PEAR results.<ref name="Pigliucci2010"/> Pigliucci has written this was "yet another indication that the simplest hypothesis is likely to be true: there was nothing to replicate."<ref name="Pigliucci2010"/> The most recent meta-analysis on psychokinesis was published in Psychological Bulletin, along with several critical commentaries. It analyzed the results of 380 studies; the authors reported an overall positive effect size that was statistically significant but very small relative to the sample size and could, in principle, be explained by publication bias.<ref name="pmid16822162">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="pmid16822164">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Direct mental interactions with living systems

Formerly called bio-PK, "direct mental interactions with living systems" (DMILS) studies the effects of one person's intentions on a distant person's psychophysiological state.<ref name="pmid15142304" /> One type of DMILS experiment looks at the commonly reported "feeling of being stared at". The "starer" and the "staree" are isolated in different locations, and the starer is periodically asked to simply gaze at the staree via closed-circuit video links. Meanwhile, the staree's nervous system activity is automatically and continuously monitored.

Parapsychologists have interpreted the cumulative data on this and similar DMILS experiments to suggest that one person's attention directed towards a remote, isolated person can significantly activate or calm that person's nervous system. In a meta-analysis of these experiments published in the British Journal of Psychology in 2004, researchers found a small but significant overall DMILS effect. However, the study also found that the effect size was insignificant when a small number of the highest-quality studies from one laboratory were analyzed. The authors concluded that although the existence of some anomaly related to distant intentions cannot be ruled out, there was also a shortage of independent replications and theoretical concepts.<ref name="pmid15142304">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Dream telepathy

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Parapsychological studies into dream telepathy were carried out at the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York led by Stanley Krippner and Montague Ullman. They concluded the results from some of their experiments supported dream telepathy.<ref name=ullmanweb>Template:Cite book</ref> However, the results have not been independently replicated.<ref>Parker, Adrian. (1975). States of Mind: ESP and Altered States of Consciousness. Taplinger. p. 90. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Hyman, Ray. (1986). Maimonides dream-telepathy experiments. Skeptical Inquirer 11: 91–92.</ref><ref>Neher, Andrew. (2011). Paranormal and Transcendental Experience: A Psychological Examination. Dover Publications. p. 145. Template:ISBN</ref>

The picture target experiments that Krippner and Ullman conducted were criticized by C. E. M. Hansel. According to Hansel, there were weaknesses in the design of the experiments in the way in which the agents became aware of their target picture. Only the agent should have known the target, and no other person should have known until the targets were judged; however, an experimenter was with the agent when the target envelope was opened. Hansel also wrote that the experiment had poor controls as the main experimenter could communicate with the subject.<ref>Hansel, C. E. M. The Search for a Demonstration of ESP. In Kurtz, Paul. (1985). A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology. Prometheus Books. pp. 97–127. Template:ISBN</ref> In 2002, Krippner denied Hansel's accusations, claiming the agent did not communicate with the experimenter.<ref>Ramakrishna Rao, K, Gowri Rammohan, V. (2002). New Frontiers of Human Science: A Festschrift for K. Ramakrishna Rao. McFarland. p. 135. Template:ISBN</ref>

Edward Belvedere and David Foulkes attempted to replicate the picture-target experiments. The finding was that neither the subject nor the judges matched the targets with dreams above chance level.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Results from other experiments by Belvedere and Foulkes were also negative.<ref>Hansel, C. E. M. (1989). The Search for Psychic Power: ESP and Parapsychology Revisited. Prometheus Books. pp. 141–152. Template:ISBN</ref>

In 2003, Simon Sherwood and Chris Roe wrote a review that claimed support for dream telepathy at Maimonides.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> However, James Alcock noted that their review was based on "extreme messiness" of data. Alcock concluded the dream telepathy experiments at Maimonides have failed to provide evidence for telepathy and "lack of replication is rampant".<ref>Template:Cite journal "In their article, Sherwood and Roe examine attempts to replicate the well-known Maimonides dream studies that began in the 1960s. They provide a good review of these studies of dream telepathy and clairvoyance, but if one thing emerges for me from their review, it is the extreme messiness of the data adduced. Lack of replication is rampant. While one would normally expect that continuing scientific scrutiny of a phenomenon should lead to stronger effect sizes as one learns more about the subject matter and refines the methodology, this is apparently not the case with this research."</ref>

Near-death experiences

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File:Hieronymus Bosch 013.jpg

Ascent of the Blessed by Hieronymus Bosch (after 1490) depicts a tunnel of light and spiritual figures similar to those reported by near-death experiencers.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

A near-death experience (NDE) is an experience reported by a person who nearly died, or who experienced clinical death and then revived. NDEs include one or more of the following experiences: a sense of being dead; an out-of-body experience; a sensation of floating above one's body and seeing the surrounding area; a sense of overwhelming love and peace; a sensation of moving upwards through a tunnel or narrow passageway; meeting deceased relatives or spiritual figures; encountering a being of light, or a light; experiencing a life review; reaching a border or boundary; and a feeling of being returned to the body, often accompanied by reluctance.<ref name=Mauro>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Interest in the NDE was spurred initially by the research of psychiatrists Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, George G. Ritchie, and Raymond Moody. In 1975, Moody wrote the best-selling book Life After Life and in 1977, he wrote a second book, Reflections on Life After Life.<ref>Lee Worth Bailey and Jenny L. Yates (1996). The near-death experience: a reader Routledge, p. 26.</ref> In 1998, Moody was appointed chair in "consciousness studies" at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The International Association for Near-death Studies (IANDS) was founded in 1978 to meet the needs of early researchers and experiencers within this field of research. Later researchers, such as psychiatrist Bruce Greyson, psychologist Kenneth Ring, and cardiologist Michael Sabom, introduced the study of near-death experiences to the academic setting.<ref name="Mauro"/>

Reincarnation research

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Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, from the University of Virginia, conducted more than 2,500 case studies over 40 years and published twelve books. He wrote that childhood memories ostensibly related to reincarnation normally occurred between the ages of three and seven years and then faded shortly afterward. He compared the memories with reports of people known to the deceased, attempting to do so before any contact between the child and the deceased's family had occurred,<ref name="Tucker 2005">Template:Cite book</ref> and searched for disconfirming evidence that could provide alternative explanations for the reports aside from reincarnation.<ref name="document">Template:Cite news</ref>

Some 35 percent of the subjects examined by Stevenson had birthmarks or congenital disabilities. Stevenson believed that the existence of birthmarks and deformities on children, when they occurred at the location of fatal wounds in the deceased, provided the best evidence for reincarnation.<ref name="Cadoret, Remi 2005">Template:Cite journal</ref> However, Stevenson has never claimed that he had proved the existence of reincarnation, and cautiously referred to his cases as being "of the reincarnation type" or "suggestive of reincarnation".<ref>Harvey J. Irwin (2004). An Introduction to Parapsychology. McFarland, p. 218.</ref> Researchers who believe in the evidence for reincarnation have been unsuccessful in getting the scientific community to consider it a serious possibility.<ref name=ShroderFeb11>Template:Cite news</ref>

Ian Wilson argued that a large number of Stevenson's cases consisted of poor children remembering wealthy lives or belonging to a higher caste. He speculated that such cases may represent a scheme to obtain money from the family of the alleged former incarnation.<ref>Ian Wilson. (1981). Mind Out of Time: Reincarnation Investigated. Gollancz. Template:ISBN</ref> Philosopher Keith Augustine has written, "The vast majority of Stevenson's cases come from countries where a religious belief in reincarnation is strong, and rarely elsewhere, seems to indicate that cultural conditioning (rather than reincarnation) generates claims of spontaneous past-life memories."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Philosopher Paul Edwards wrote that reincarnation invokes logically dubious assumptions and is inconsistent with modern science.<ref>Robert Cogan. (1998). Critical Thinking: Step by Step. University Press of America. pp. 202–203. Template:ISBN "Edwards catalogs common sense objections which have been made against reincarnation. 1) How does a soul exist between bodies? 2) Tertullian's objection: If there is reincarnation, why are not babies born with the mental abilities of adults? 3) Reincarnation claims an infinite series of prior incarnations. Evolution teaches that there was a time when humans did not yet exist. So reincarnation is inconsistent with modern science. 4) If there is reincarnation, then what is happening when the population increases? 5) If there is reincarnation, then why do so few, if any people, remember past lives?... To answer these objections believers in reincarnation must accept additional assumptions... Acceptance of these silly assumptions, Edwards says, amounts to a crucifixion of one's intellect."

• Paul Edwards. (1996, reprinted in 2001). Reincarnation: A Critical Examination. Prometheus books. Template:ISBN</ref>

Scientific reception

File:James Alcock.jpg

James Alcock is a notable critic of parapsychology.

Evaluation

The scientific consensus is that there is insufficient evidence to support the existence of psi phenomena.<ref>Simon Hoggart, Mike Hutchinson. (1995). Bizarre Beliefs. Richard Cohen Books. p. 145. Template:ISBN "The trouble is that the history of research into psi is littered with failed experiments, ambiguous experiments, and experiments which are claimed as great successes but are quickly rejected by conventional scientists. There has also been some spectacular cheating."</ref><ref>Robert Cogan. (1998). Critical Thinking: Step by Step. University Press of America. p. 227. Template:ISBN "When an experiment can't be repeated and get the same result, this tends to show that the result was due to some error in experimental procedure, rather than some real causal process. ESP experiments simply have not turned up any repeatable paranormal phenomena."</ref><ref>Charles M. Wynn, Arthur W. Wiggins. (2001). Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction: Where Real Science Ends...and Pseudoscience Begins. Joseph Henry Press. p. 165. Template:ISBN "Extrasensory perception and psychokinesis fail to fulfill the requirements of the scientific method. They therefore must remain pseudoscientific concepts until methodological flaws in their study are eliminated, and repeatable data supporting their existence are obtained."</ref><ref>Terence Hines. (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 144. Template:ISBN "It is important to realize that, in one hundred years of parapsychological investigations, there has never been a single adequate demonstration of the reality of any psi phenomenon."</ref><ref name="Dalkvist1994">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Drees1998">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Victor Stenger. (1990). Physics and Psychics: The Search for a World Beyond the Senses. Prometheus Books. p. 166. Template:ISBN "The bottom line is simple: science is based on consensus, and at present a scientific consensus that psychic phenomena exist is still not established."</ref><ref>Eugene B. Zechmeister, James E. Johnson. (1992). Critical Thinking: A Functional Approach. Brooks/Cole Pub. Co. p. 115. Template:ISBN "There exists no good scientific evidence for the existence of paranormal phenomena such as ESP. To be acceptable to the scientific community, evidence must be both valid and reliable."</ref>

Scientists critical of parapsychology state that its extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence if they are to be taken seriously.<ref name=Gracely>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Scientists who have evaluated parapsychology have written the entire body of evidence is of poor quality and not adequately controlled.<ref>

• Template:Cite journal
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• Michael Shermer. (2003). Psychic drift. Why most scientists do not believe in ESP and psi phenomena. Scientific American 288: 2.</ref> In support of this view, critics cite instances of fraud, flawed studies, and cognitive biases (such as clustering illusion, availability error, confirmation bias, illusion of control, magical thinking, and the bias blind spot) as ways to explain parapsychological results.<ref>Graham Reed. (1988). The Psychology of Anomalous Experience: A Cognitive Approach. Prometheus Books. Template:ISBN Leonard Zusne, Warren H. Jones (1989). Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Research has also shown that people's desire to believe in paranormal phenomena causes them to discount strong evidence that it does not exist.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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The psychologists Donovan Rawcliffe (1952), C. E. M. Hansel (1980), Ray Hyman (1989), and Andrew Neher (2011) have studied the history of psi experiments from the late 19th century up until the 1980s. Flaws and weaknesses were discovered in every experiment investigated, so the possibility of sensory leakage and trickery were not ruled out. The data from the Creery sister and the Soal-Goldney experiments were proven to be fraudulent, one of the subjects from the Smith-Blackburn experiments confessed to fraud, the Brugmans experiment, the experiments by John Edgar Coover and those conducted by Joseph Gaither Pratt and Helmut Schmidt had flaws in the design of the experiments, did not rule out the possibility of sensory cues or trickery and have not been replicated.<ref>Donovan Rawcliffe. (1952). The Psychology of the Occult. Derricke Ridgway, London.</ref><ref>C. E. M. Hansel. (1980). ESP and Parapsychology: A Critical Reevaluation. Prometheus Books.</ref><ref>Ray Hyman. (1989). The Elusive Quarry: A Scientific Appraisal of Psychical Research. Prometheus Books. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Andrew Neher. (2011). Paranormal and Transcendental Experience: A Psychological Examination. Dover Publications. Template:ISBN</ref>

According to critics, psi is negatively defined as any effect that cannot be currently explained in terms of chance or normal causes, and this is a fallacy as it encourages parapsychologists to use any peculiarity in the data as a characteristic of psi.<ref name="Hyman2007">Ray Hyman. Evaluating Parapsychological Claims in Robert J. Sternberg, Henry L. Roediger, Diane F. Halpern. (2007). Critical Thinking in Psychology. Cambridge University Press. pp. 216–231. Template:ISBN</ref><ref name="Alcock2003">Template:Cite journal "Parapsychology is the only realm of objective inquiry in which the phenomena are all negatively defined, defined in terms of ruling out normal explanations. Of course, ruling out all normal explanations is not an easy task. We may not be aware of all possible normal explanations, or we may be deceived by our subjects, or we may deceive ourselves. If all normal explanations actually could be ruled out, just what is it that is at play? What is psi? Unfortunately, it is just a label. It has no substantive definition that goes beyond saying that all normal explanations have apparently been eliminated. Of course, parapsychologists generally presume that it has something to do with some ability of the mind to transcend the laws of nature as we know them, but all that is so vague as to be unhelpful in any scientific exploration."</ref> Parapsychologists have admitted it is impossible to eliminate the possibility of non-paranormal causes in their experiments. There is no independent method to indicate the presence or absence of psi.<ref name="Hyman2007"/> Persi Diaconis has written that the controls in parapsychological experiments are often loose with possibilities of subject cheating and unconscious sensory cues.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

In 1998, physics professor Michael W. Friedlander noted that parapsychology has "failed to produce any clear evidence for the existence of anomalous effects that require us to go beyond the known region of science."<ref>Michael W. Friedlander. (1998). At the Fringes of Science. Westview Press. p. 122. Template:ISBN</ref> Philosopher and skeptic Robert Todd Carroll has written research in parapsychology has been characterized by "deception, fraud, and incompetence in setting up properly controlled experiments and evaluating statistical data."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The psychologist Ray Hyman has pointed out that some parapsychologists such as Dick Bierman, Walter Lucadou, J. E. Kennedy, and Robert Jahn have admitted the evidence for psi is "inconsistent, irreproducible, and fails to meet acceptable scientific standards."<ref>Ray Hyman. (2008). "Anomalous Cognition? A Second Perspective". Skeptical Inquirer. Volume 32. Retrieved May 22, 2014.</ref> Richard Wiseman has criticized the parapsychological community for widespread errors in research methods including cherry-picking new procedures which may produce preferred results, explaining away unsuccessful attempted replications with claims of an "experimenter effect", data mining, and retrospective data selection.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Independent evaluators and researchers dispute the existence of parapsychological phenomena and the scientific validity of parapsychological research. In 1988, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences published a report on the subject that concluded that "no scientific justification from research conducted over a period of 130 years for the existence of parapsychological phenomena."<ref name=NAS>Template:Cite book</ref> No accepted theory of parapsychology currently exists, and many competing and often conflicting models have been advocated by different parapsychologists in an attempt to explain reported paranormal phenomena.<ref>James Alcock, Jean Burns, Anthony Freeman. (2003). Psi Wars: Getting to Grips with the Paranormal. Imprint Academic. p. 25. Template:ISBN</ref> Terence Hines in his book Pseudoscience and the Paranormal (2003), wrote, "Many theories have been proposed by parapsychologists to explain how psi takes place. To skeptics, such theory building seems premature, as the phenomena to be explained by the theories have yet to be demonstrated convincingly."<ref>Terence Hines. (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 146. Template:ISBN</ref> Skeptics such as Antony Flew have cited the lack of such a theory as their reason for rejecting parapsychology.<ref>Antony Flew. (1989). The problem of evidencing the improbable and the impossible. In G. K. Zollschan, J. F. Schumaker & G. F. Walsh (eds.). Exploring the paranormal. pp. 313–327. Dorset, England: Prism Press.</ref>

In a review of parapsychological reports, Hyman wrote, "randomization is often inadequate, multiple statistical testing without adjustment for significance levels is prevalent, possibilities for sensory leakage are not uniformly prevented, errors in use of statistical tests are much too common, and documentation is typically inadequate".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Parapsychology has been criticized for making no precise predictions.<ref>Mario Bunge. (1983). Treatise on Basic Philosophy: Volume 6: Epistemology & Methodology II: Understanding the World. Springer. p. 56. Template:ISBN</ref>

File:Hyman LeeRoss DarylBem VictorBenassi.jpg

Ray Hyman (standing), Lee Ross, Daryl Bem and Victor Benassi at the 1983 CSICOP Conference in Buffalo, New York

In 2003, James Alcock Professor of Psychology at York University published Give the Null Hypothesis a Chance: Reasons to Remain Doubtful about the Existence of Psi, where he claimed that parapsychologists never seem to take seriously the possibility that psi does not exist. Because of that, they interpret null results as indicating only that they were unable to observe psi in a particular experiment rather than taking it as support for the possibility that there is no psi. The failure to take the null hypothesis as a serious alternative to their psi hypotheses leads them to rely upon many arbitrary "effects" to excuse failures to find predicted effects, excuse the lack of consistency in outcomes, and excuse failures to replicate.<ref name="Alcock2003"/>

Fundamental endemic problems in parapsychological research include, amongst others: insufficient definition of the subject matter, total reliance on negative definitions of their phenomena (e.g., psi is said to occur only when all known normal influences are ruled out); failure to produce a single phenomenon that neutral researchers can independently replicate; the invention of "effects" such as the psi-experimenter effect to explain away inconsistencies in the data and failures to achieve predicted outcomes; unfalsifiability of claims; the unpredictability of effects; lack of progress in over a century of formal research; methodological weaknesses; reliance on statistical procedures to determine when psi has supposedly occurred, even though statistical analysis does not in itself justify a claim that psi has occurred; and failure to jibe with other areas of science. Overall, he argues that there is nothing in parapsychological research that would ever lead parapsychologists to conclude that psi does not exist. So, even if it does not, the search will likely continue for a long time. "I continue to believe that parapsychology is, at bottom, motivated by belief in search of data, rather than data in search of explanation."<ref name="Alcock2003"/>

Alcock and cognitive psychologist Arthur S. Reber have criticized parapsychology broadly, writing that if psi effects were true, they would negate fundamental principles of science such as causality, time's arrow, thermodynamics, and the inverse square law. According to Alcock and Reber, "parapsychology cannot be true unless the rest of science isn't. Moreover, if psi effects were real, they would have already fatally disrupted the rest of the body of science".<ref name="AlcockSI">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Richard Land has written that from what is known about human biology, it is implausible that evolution has provided humans with ESP as research has shown the recognized five senses are adequate for the evolution and survival of the species.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Michael Shermer, in the article "Psychic Drift: Why most scientists do not believe in ESP and psi phenomena" for Scientific American, wrote "the reason for skepticism is that we need replicable data and a viable theory, both of which are missing in psi research."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

In January 2008, the results of a study using neuroimaging were published. To provide what are purported to be the most favorable experimental conditions, the study included appropriate emotional stimuli and had biologically or emotionally related participants, such as twins. The experiment was designed to produce positive results if telepathy, clairvoyance or precognition occurred. Still, despite this, no distinguishable neuronal responses were found between psychic and non-psychic stimuli, while variations in the same stimuli showed anticipated effects on brain activation patterns. The researchers concluded, "These findings are the strongest evidence yet obtained against the existence of paranormal mental phenomena."<ref name="Moulton">Template:Cite journal</ref> Other studies have attempted to test the psi hypothesis by using functional neuroimaging. A neuroscience review of the studies (Acunzo et al. 2013) discovered methodological weaknesses that could account for the reported psi effects.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

A 2014 study discovered that schizophrenic patients have more belief in psi than healthy adults.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Some researchers have become skeptical of parapsychology, such as Susan Blackmore and John Taylor, after years of study and no progress in demonstrating the existence of psi by the scientific method.<ref>John Taylor. (1980). Science and the Supernatural: An Investigation of Paranormal Phenomena Including Psychic Healing, Clairvoyance, Telepathy, and Precognition by a Distinguished Physicist and Mathematician. Temple Smith. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Susan Blackmore. (2001). Why I Have Given Up in Paul Kurtz. Skeptical Odysseys: Personal Accounts by the World's Leading Paranormal Inquirers. Prometheus Books. pp. 85–94. Template:ISBN</ref>

Physics

The ideas of psi (precognition, psychokinesis and telepathy) violate well-established laws of physics.<ref>Mario Bunge. (1983). Treatise on Basic Philosophy: Volume 6: Epistemology & Methodology II: Understanding the World. Springer. pp. 225–226. Template:ISBN

• "Precognition violates the principle of antecedence ("causality"), according to which the effect does not happen before the cause. Psychokinesis violates the principle of conservation of energy as well as the postulate that mind cannot act directly on matter. (If it did no experimenter could trust his own readings of his instruments.) Telepathy and precognition are incompatible with the epistemological principle according to which the gaining of factual knowledge requires sense perception at some point."
• "Parapsychology makes no use of any knowledge gained in other fields, such as physics and physiological psychology. Moreover, its hypotheses are inconsistent with some basic assumptions of factual science. In particular, the very idea of a disembodied mental entity is incompatible with physiological psychology; and the claim that signals can be transmitted across space without fading with distance is inconsistent with physics."</ref> Psychokinesis violates the inverse-square law, the second law of thermodynamics, and the conservation of momentum.<ref>Template:Cite book Gilovich, Thomas (1993). How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life. Simon & Schuster. pp. 160, 169, 174, 175. Template:ISBN.</ref><ref>Milton A. Rothman. (1988). A Physicist's Guide to Skepticism. Prometheus Books. p. 193. Template:ISBN "Transmission of information through space requires transfer of energy from one place to another. Telepathy requires transmission of an energy-carrying signal directly from one mind to another. All descriptions of ESP imply violations of conservation of energy in one way or another, as well as violations of all the principles of information theory and even of the principle of causality. Strict application of physical principles requires us to say that ESP is impossible."</ref> There is no known mechanism for psi.<ref>Charles M. Wynn, Arthur W. Wiggins. (2001). Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction: Where Real Science Ends...and Pseudoscience Begins. Joseph Henry Press. p. 165. Template:ISBN "One of the reasons scientists have difficulty believing that psi effects are real is that there is no known mechanism by which they could occur. PK action-at-a-distance would presumably employ an action-at-a-distance force that is as yet unknown to science... Similarly, there is no known sense (stimulation and receptor) by which thoughts could travel from one person to another by which the mind could project itself elsewhere in the present, future, or past."</ref>

On the subject of psychokinesis, the physicist Sean M. Carroll has written that both human brains and the spoons they try to bend are made, like all matter, of quarks and leptons; everything else they do emerges as properties of the behavior of quarks and leptons. The quarks and leptons interact through the four forces: strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravitational. Thus, either it is one of the four known forces, or it is a new force, and any new force with a range over 1 millimeter must be at most a billionth the strength of gravity, or it will have been captured in experiments already done. This leaves no physical force that could account for psychokinesis.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Physicist John G. Taylor, who investigated parapsychological claims, wrote that an unknown fifth force causing psychokinesis would have to transmit a great deal of energy. The energy would have to overcome the electromagnetic forces binding the atoms together. The atoms would need to respond more strongly to the fifth force while it is operative than to electric forces. Therefore, such an additional force between atoms should exist all the time and not only during alleged paranormal occurrences. Taylor wrote there is no scientific trace of such a force in physics, down to many orders of magnitude; thus, if a scientific viewpoint is to be preserved, the idea of any fifth force must be discarded. Taylor concluded there is no possible physical mechanism for psychokinesis, and it is in complete contradiction to established science.<ref>John Taylor. (1980). Science and the Supernatural: An Investigation of Paranormal Phenomena Including Psychic Healing, Clairvoyance, Telepathy, and Precognition by a Distinguished Physicist and Mathematician. Temple Smith. pp. 27–30. Template:ISBN</ref>

Felix Planer, a professor of electrical engineering, has written that if psychokinesis were real, then it would be easy to demonstrate by getting subjects to depress a scale on a sensitive balance, raise the temperature of a water bath which could be measured with an accuracy of a hundredth of a degree Celsius or affect an element in an electrical circuit such as a resistor which could be monitored to better than a millionth of an ampere.<ref name="Planer1980">Felix Planer. (1980). Superstition. Cassell. p. 242. Template:ISBN</ref> Planer writes that such experiments are extremely sensitive and easy to monitor but are not utilized by parapsychologists as they "do not hold out the remotest hope of demonstrating even a minute trace of PK" because the alleged phenomenon is non-existent. Planer has written that parapsychologists fall back on studies that involve only unrepeatable statistics, owing their results to poor experimental methods, recording mistakes, and faulty statistical mathematics.<ref name="Planer1980"/>

According to Planer, "all research in medicine and other sciences would become illusionary, if the existence of PK had to be taken seriously; for no experiment could be relied upon to furnish objective results, since all measurements would become falsified to a greater or lesser degree, according to his PK ability, by the experimenter's wishes." Planer concluded the concept of psychokinesis is absurd and has no scientific basis.<ref>Felix Planer. (1980). Superstition. Cassell. p. 254. Template:ISBN</ref>

Philosopher and physicist Mario Bunge has written that "psychokinesis, or PK, violates the principle that mind cannot act directly on matter. (If it did, no experimenter could trust his readings of measuring instruments.) It also violates the principles of conservation of energy and momentum. The claim that quantum mechanics allows for the possibility of mental power influencing randomizers—an alleged case of micro-PK—is ludicrous since that theory respects the said conservation principles, and it deals exclusively with physical things."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The physicist Robert L. Park questioned if the mind really could influence matter, then it would be easy for parapsychologists to measure such a phenomenon by using the alleged psychokinetic power to deflect a microbalance which would not require any dubious statistics but "the reason, of course, is that the microbalance stubbornly refuses to budge."<ref name="Park 2000">Robert L. Park. (2000). Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud. Oxford University Press. pp. 198–200. Template:ISBN</ref> Park has suggested the reason statistical studies are so popular in parapsychology is because they introduce opportunities for uncertainty and error, which are used to support the biases of the experimenter. Park wrote, "No proof of psychic phenomena is ever found. In spite of all the tests devised by parapsychologists like Jahn and Radin, and huge amounts of data collected over a period of many years, the results are no more convincing today than when they began their experiments."<ref name="Park 2000"/>

Pseudoscience

File:MarioBungesmall.jpg

Mario Bunge has described parapsychology as a "pseudoscience paragon".<ref name="Bunge 1983">Mario Bunge. (1983). Treatise on Basic Philosophy: Volume 6: Epistemology & Methodology II: Understanding the World. Springer. pp. 225–227. Template:ISBN</ref>

Parapsychological theories are viewed as pseudoscientific by the scientific community as incompatible with well-established laws of science. As there is no repeatable evidence for psi, the field is often regarded as a pseudoscience.<ref>Mario Bunge. (1984). What is Pseudoscience?. The Skeptical Inquirer. Volume 9: 36–46.</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Arthur Newell Strahler. (1992). Understanding Science: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues. Prometheus Books. pp. 168–212. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Terence Hines. (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. pp. 113–150. Template:ISBN</ref>

The philosopher Raimo Tuomela summarized why the majority of scientists consider parapsychology to be a pseudoscience in his essay "Science, Protoscience, and Pseudoscience".<ref>Raimo Tuomela Science, Protoscience, and Pseudoscience in Joseph C. Pitt, Marcello Pera (1987). Rational Changes in Science: Essays on Scientific Reasoning. Springer. pp. 83–102. Template:ISBN</ref>

• Parapsychology relies on an ill-defined ontology and typically shuns exact thinking.
• The hypotheses and theories of parapsychology have not been proven and are in bad shape.
• Extremely little progress has taken place in parapsychology on the whole and parapsychology conflicts with established science.
• Parapsychology has poor research problems, being concerned with establishing the existence of its subject matter and having practically no theories to create proper research problems.
• While in parts of parapsychology there are attempts to use the methods of science there are also unscientific areas; and in any case parapsychological research can at best qualify as prescientific because of its poor theoretical foundation.
• Parapsychology is a largely isolated research area.

The methods of parapsychologists are regarded by critics, including those who wrote the science standards for the California State Board of Education,<ref name="CaliBoard">Template:Cite book</ref> to be pseudoscientific.<ref name=Beyerstein>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Some of the more specific criticisms state that parapsychology does not have a clearly defined subject matter, an easily repeatable experiment that can demonstrate a psi effect on demand, nor an underlying theory to explain the paranormal transfer of information.<ref name=Hyman /> James Alcock has stated that few of parapsychology's experimental results have prompted interdisciplinary research with more mainstream sciences such as physics or biology and that parapsychology remains an isolated science to such an extent that its very legitimacy is questionable,<ref name=Alcock81>Template:Cite book</ref> and as a whole is not justified in being labeled "scientific".<ref name=Alcock98>Template:Cite journal</ref> Alcock wrote, "Parapsychology is indistinguishable from pseudo-science, and its ideas are essentially those of magic... There is no evidence that would lead the cautious observer to believe that parapsychologists and paraphysicists are on the track of a real phenomenon, a real energy or power that has so far escaped the attention of those people engaged in "normal" science."<ref>James Alcock. (1981). Parapsychology-Science Or Magic?: A Psychological Perspective. Pergamon Press. p. 196. Template:ISBN</ref>

The scientific community considers parapsychology a pseudoscience because it continues to explore the hypothesis that psychic abilities exist despite a century of experimental results that fail to demonstrate that hypothesis conclusively.<ref name="Cordón">Template:Cite book</ref> A panel commissioned by the United States National Research Council to study paranormal claims concluded that "despite a 130-year record of scientific research on such matters, our committee could find no scientific justification for the existence of phenomena such as extrasensory perception, mental telepathy or 'mind over matter' exercises... Evaluation of a large body of the best available evidence simply does not support the contention that these phenomena exist."<ref>Thomas Gilovich. (1993). How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life. Free Press. p. 160</ref>

There is also an issue of non-falsifiability associated with psi. On this subject Terence Hines has written:

The most common rationale offered by parapsychologists to explain the lack of a repeatable demonstration of ESP or other psi phenomena is to say that ESP in particular and psi phenomena in general are elusive or jealous phenomena. This means the phenomena go away when a skeptic is present or when skeptical "vibrations" are present. This argument seems nicely to explain away some of the major problems facing parapsychology until it is realized that it is nothing more than a classic nonfalsifiable hypothesis... The use of the nonfalsifiable hypothesis is permitted in parapsychology to a degree unheard of in any scientific discipline. To the extent that investigators accept this type of hypothesis, they will be immune to having their belief in psi disproved. No matter how many experiments fail to provide evidence for psi and no matter how good those experiments are, the nonfalsifiable hypothesis will always protect the belief.<ref>Terence Hines. (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. pp. 117–145. Template:ISBN</ref>{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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Mario Bunge has written that research in parapsychology for over a hundred years has produced no firm findings or testable predictions. All parapsychologists can do is claim alleged data is anomalous and beyond the reach of ordinary science. The aim of parapsychologists "is not that of finding laws and systematizing them into theories in order to understand and forecast" but to "buttress ancient spiritualist myths or to serve as a surrogate for lost religions."<ref name="Bunge 1983"/>

The psychologist David Marks has written that parapsychologists have failed to produce a single repeatable demonstration of the paranormal and described psychical research as a pseudoscience, an "incoherent collection of belief systems steeped in fantasy, illusion and error."<ref>David Marks. (1986). Investigating the Paranormal. Nature. Volume 320: 119–124.</ref> However, Chris French, who is not convinced that parapsychology has demonstrated evidence for psi, has argued that parapsychological experiments still adhere to the scientific method and should not be completely dismissed as pseudoscience. "Sceptics like myself will often point out that there's been systematic research in parapsychology for well over a century, and so far the wider scientific community is not convinced."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> French has noted his position is "the minority view among critics of parapsychology".<ref>French, Chris; Stone, Anna. (2014). Anomalistic Psychology: Exploring Paranormal Belief and Experience. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 252–255. Template:ISBN</ref>

Philosopher Bradley Dowden characterized parapsychology as a pseudoscience because parapsychologists have no valid theories to test or reproducible data from their experiments.<ref>Dowden, Bradley. (1993). Logical Reasoning. Wadsworth Publishing Company. p. 392. Template:ISBN</ref>

Fraud

File:James Randi crop.jpg

Stage magician and skeptic James Randi has demonstrated that magic tricks can simulate or duplicate some supposedly psychic phenomena.

There have been instances of fraud in the history of parapsychology research.<ref>Henry Gordon. (1988). Extrasensory Deception: ESP, Psychics, Shirley MacLaine, Ghosts, UFOs. Macmillan of Canada. p. 13. Template:ISBN "The history of parapsychology, of psychic phenomena, has been studded with fraud and experimental error."</ref> In the late 19th century, the Creery Sisters (Mary, Alice, Maud, Kathleen, and Emily) were tested by the Society for Psychical Research and believed them to have genuine psychic ability; however, during a later experiment they were caught utilizing signal codes and they confessed to fraud.<ref>Hyman, Ray. (1989). The Elusive Quarry: A Scientific Appraisal of Psychical Research. Prometheus Books. pp. 99–106. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Stein, Gordon. (1996). The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 688. Template:ISBN]</ref> George Albert Smith and Douglas Blackburn were claimed to be genuine psychics by the Society for Psychical Research, but Blackburn confessed to fraud:

For nearly thirty years the telepathic experiments conducted by Mr. G. A. Smith and myself have been accepted and cited as the basic evidence of the truth of thought transference...

...the whole of those alleged experiments were bogus, and originated in the honest desire of two youths to show how easily men of scientific mind and training could be deceived when seeking for evidence in support of a theory they were wishful to establish.<ref>Andrew Neher. (2011). Paranormal and Transcendental Experience: A Psychological Examination Dover Publications. p. 220. Template:ISBN</ref>{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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The experiments of Samuel Soal and K. M. Goldney of 1941–1943 (suggesting the precognitive ability of a single participant) were long regarded as some of the best in the field because they relied upon independent checking and witnesses to prevent fraud. However, many years later, statistical evidence, uncovered and published by other parapsychologists in the field, suggested that Soal had cheated by altering some of the raw data.<ref name=Alcock81/>Template:Rp<ref name=Haskell>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Betty Markwick. (1985). The establishment of data manipulation in the Soal-Shackleton experiments. In Paul Kurtz. A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology. Prometheus Books. pp. 287–312. Template:ISBN</ref>

In 1974, many experiments by Walter J. Levy, J. B. Rhine's successor as director of the Institute for Parapsychology, were exposed as fraudulent.<ref name="McBurney 2009">McBurney, Donald H; White, Theresa L. (2009). Research Methods. Wadsworth Publishing. p. 60. Template:ISBN</ref> Levy had reported on a series of successful ESP experiments involving computer-controlled manipulation of non-human subjects, including rats. His experiments showed very high positive results. However, Levy's fellow researchers became suspicious about his methods. They found that Levy interfered with data-recording equipment, manually creating fraudulent strings of positive results. Levy confessed to the fraud and resigned.<ref name="McBurney 2009"/><ref>Neher, Andrew. (2011). Paranormal and Transcendental Experience: A Psychological Examination. Dover Publications. p. 144. Template:ISBN</ref>

In 1974, Rhine published the paper Security versus Deception in Parapsychology in the Journal of Parapsychology, which documented 12 cases of fraud that he had detected from 1940 to 1950 but refused to give the names of the participants in the studies.<ref>Philip John Tyson, Dai Jones, Jonathan Elcock. (2011). Psychology in Social Context: Issues and Debates. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 199. Template:ISBN</ref> Massimo Pigliucci has written:

Most damning of all, Rhine admitted publicly that he had uncovered at least twelve instances of dishonesty among his researchers in a single decade, from 1940 to 1950. However, he flaunted standard academic protocol by refusing to divulge the names of the fraudsters, which means that there is unknown number of published papers in the literature that claim paranormal effects while in fact they were the result of conscious deception.<ref>Massimo Pigliucci. (2010). Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk. University of Chicago Press. p. 82. Template:ISBN</ref>

Martin Gardner claimed to have inside information that files in Rhine's laboratory contain material suggesting fraud on the part of Hubert Pearce.<ref name="Frazier pp. 168-170">Kendrick Frazier. (1991). The Hundredth Monkey: And Other Paradigms of the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. pp. 168–170. Template:ISBN</ref> Pearce was never able to obtain above-chance results when persons other than the experimenter were present during an experiment, making it more likely that he was cheating in some way. Rhine's other subjects could only obtain non-chance levels when they could shuffle the cards, which suggested they used tricks to arrange the order of the Zener cards before the experiments started.<ref>Lawrie Reznek. (2010). Delusions and the Madness of the Masses. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 54. Template:ISBN</ref>

A researcher from Tarkio College in Missouri, James D. MacFarland, was suspected of falsifying data to achieve positive psi results.<ref name="Frazier pp. 168-170"/> Before the fraud was discovered, MacFarland published two articles in the Journal of Parapsychology (1937 & 1938) supporting the existence of ESP.<ref name=MacFarland01-1937>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=MacFarland02-1938>Template:Cite journal</ref> Presumably speaking about MacFarland, Louisa Rhine wrote that in reviewing the data submitted to the lab in 1938, the researchers at the Duke Parapsychology Lab recognized the fraud. "...before long they were all certain that Jim had consistently falsified his records... To produce extra hits, Jim had to resort to erasures and transpositions in the records of his call series."<ref>Louisa Rhine. (1983). Something Hidden. McFarland & Company. p. 226. Template:ISBN</ref> MacFarland never published another article in the Journal of Parapsychology after the fraud was discovered.

Some instances of fraud amongst spiritualist mediums were exposed by early psychical researchers such as Richard Hodgson<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and Harry Price.<ref>Mary Roach. (2010). Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. Canongate Books Ltd. pp. 122–130. Template:ISBN</ref> In the 1920s, magician and escapologist Harry Houdini said that researchers and observers had not created experimental procedures that preclude fraud.<ref name=Houdini>Template:Cite book</ref>

Criticism of experimental results

Critical analysts, including some parapsychologists, are unsatisfied with experimental parapsychology studies.<ref name=Hyman>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=Alcock03>Template:Cite journal</ref> Some reviewers, such as psychologist Ray Hyman, contend that apparently successful experimental results in psi research are more likely due to sloppy procedures, poorly trained researchers, or methodological flaws rather than to genuine psi effects.<ref name=Akers>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Fellow psychologist Stuart Vyse hearkens back to a time of data manipulation, now recognized as "p-hacking", as part of the issue.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Within parapsychology there are disagreements over the results and methodology as well. For example, the experiments at the PEAR laboratory were criticized in a paper published by the Journal of Parapsychology in which parapsychologists independent from the PEAR laboratory concluded that these experiments "depart[ed] from criteria usually expected in formal scientific experimentation" due to "[p]roblems with regard to randomization, statistical baselines, application of statistical models, agent coding of descriptor lists, feedback to percipients, sensory cues, and precautions against cheating." They felt that the originally stated significance values were "meaningless".<ref name="Hansen"/>

A typical measure of psi phenomena is a statistical deviation from chance expectation. However, critics point out that statistical deviation is, strictly speaking, only evidence of a statistical anomaly, and the cause of the deviation is not known. Hyman contends that even if psi experiments that regularly reproduce similar deviations from chance could be designed, they would not necessarily prove psychic functioning.<ref name=Hyman33>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Critics have coined the term The Psi Assumption to describe "the assumption that any significant departure from the laws of chance in a test of psychic ability is evidence that something anomalous or paranormal has occurred...[in other words] assuming what they should be proving." These critics hold that concluding the existence of psychic phenomena based on chance deviation in inadequately designed experiments is affirming the consequent or begging the question.<ref name= Carrol>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1979, magician and debunker James Randi engineered a hoax, now referred to as Project Alpha to encourage a tightening of standards within the parapsychology community. Randi recruited two young magicians and sent them undercover to Washington University's McDonnell Laboratory, where they "fooled researchers ... into believing they had paranormal powers." The aim was to expose poor experimental methods and the credulity thought to be common in parapsychology.<ref name="NYTimes" /> Randi has stated that both of his recruits deceived experimenters for three years with demonstrations of supposedly psychic abilities: blowing electric fuses sealed in a box, causing a lightweight paper rotor perched atop a needle to turn inside a bell jar, bending metal spoons sealed in a glass bottle, etc.<ref>Randi, J. (1983) The Project Alpha experiment: Part one: the first two years. Skeptical Inquirer, Summer issue, pp. 24–33 and Randi, J. (1983)The Project Alpha Experiment: Part two: Beyond the Laboratory,” Skeptical Inquirer Fall issue, pp. 36–45</ref> The hoax by Randi raised ethical concerns in the scientific and parapsychology communities, eliciting criticism even among skeptical communities such as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), which he helped found, but also positive responses from the President of the Parapsychological Association Stanley Krippner. Psychologist Ray Hyman, a CSICOP member, called the results "counterproductive".<ref name="NYTimes">Template:Cite news</ref>

Selection bias and meta-analysis

Selective reporting has been offered by critics as an explanation for the positive results reported by parapsychologists. Selective reporting is sometimes called a "file drawer" problem, which arises when only positive study results are made public, while studies with negative or null results are not made public.<ref name="pmid16822164"/> Selective reporting has a compounded effect on meta-analysis, which is a statistical technique that aggregates the results of many studies to generate sufficient statistical power to demonstrate a result that the individual studies themselves could not demonstrate at a statistically significant level. For example, a recent meta-analysis combined 380 studies on psychokinesis,<ref name="pmid16822162"/> including data from the PEAR lab. It concluded that, although there is a statistically significant overall effect, it is inconsistent, and relatively few negative studies would cancel it out. Consequently, biased publication of positive results could be the cause.<ref name="Smee"/>

Numerous researchers have criticized the popularity of meta-analysis in parapsychology,<ref name="UttsStatisticalScience" /> and is often seen as troublesome even within parapsychology.<ref name="UttsStatisticalScience">Template:Cite journal</ref> Critics have said that parapsychologists misuse meta-analysis to create the incorrect impression that statistically significant results have been obtained that indicate the existence of psi phenomena.<ref name=Stenger>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Physicist Robert Park states that parapsychology's reported positive results are problematic because most such findings are invariably at the margin of statistical significance and that might be explained by a number of confounding effects; Park states that such marginal results are a typical symptom of pathological science as described by Irving Langmuir.<ref name="Park 2000"/>

Researcher J. E. Kennedy has said that concerns over meta-analysis in science and medicine also apply to problems present in parapsychological meta-analysis. As a post-hoc analysis, critics emphasize the opportunity the method presents to produce biased outcomes via selecting cases chosen for study, methods employed, and other key criteria. Critics say that analogous problems with meta-analysis have been documented in medicine, where it has been shown different investigators performing meta-analyses of the same set of studies have reached contradictory conclusions.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Anomalistic psychology

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In anomalistic psychology, paranormal phenomena have naturalistic explanations resulting from psychological and physical factors, which have sometimes given the impression of paranormal activity to some people when, in fact, there have been none.<ref name="Zusne 1989"/><ref>Nicola Holt, Christine Simmonds-Moore, David Luke, Christopher French. (2012). Anomalistic Psychology (Palgrave Insights in Psychology). Palgrave Macmillan. Template:ISBN</ref> According to the psychologist Chris French:

The difference between anomalistic psychology and parapsychology is in terms of the aims of what each discipline is about. Parapsychologists typically are actually searching for evidence to prove the reality of paranormal forces, to prove they really do exist. So the starting assumption is that paranormal things do happen, whereas anomalistic psychologists tend to start from the position that paranormal forces probably don't exist and that therefore we should be looking for other kinds of explanations, in particular the psychological explanations for those experiences that people typically label as paranormal.<ref>Template:Cite interview</ref>{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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While parapsychology has declined, anomalistic psychology has risen. It is now offered as an option in some psychology degree programs. It is also an option on the A2 psychology syllabus in the UK.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Skeptic organizations

Organizations that encourage a critical examination of parapsychology and parapsychological research include the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, publisher of the Skeptical Inquirer;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the James Randi Educational Foundation, founded by illusionist and skeptic James Randi,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and the Occult Investigative Committee of the Society of American Magicians<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> a society for professional magicians/illusionists that seeks "the promotion of harmony among magicians, and the opposition of the unnecessary public exposure of magical effects."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

See also

• Outline of parapsychology
• List of topics characterized as pseudoscience

Further reading

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• Alcock, James (1981). Parapsychology-Science Or Magic?: A Psychological Perspective. Pergamon Press.
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• Hines, Terence (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. Template:ISBN
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• Moore, E. Garth (1977). Believe It or Not: Christianity and Psychical Research. London: Mowbray. Template:ISBN
• Neher, Andrew (2011). Paranormal and Transcendental Experience: A Psychological Examination. Dover Publications.
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External links

• The Division of Perceptual Studies (Template:Webarchive) at the University of Virginia School of Medicine
• Institute of Noetic Sciences – a nonprofit organization that sponsors research in parapsychology.
• Parapsychological Association – an organization of scientists and scholars engaged in the study of psychic phenomena, affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1969.
• Rhine Research Center – a historical parapsychological research center featuring the first building ever made for experimental work in parapsychology. The Rhine Research Center is a hub for research and education in Parapsychology.
• Society for Psychical Research – founded in 1882, the SPR was the first society to conduct organized scholarly research into parapsychology and other human experiences that challenge contemporary scientific models and continues its work today.
• Committee for Skeptical Inquiry – organization formed in 1976 to promote scientific skepticism and encourage the critical investigation of paranormal claims and parapsychology.
• James Randi Educational Foundation – JREF was founded to promote critical thinking in the areas of the supernatural and paranormal. The JREF has provided skeptical views in the area of parapsychology.
• FindArticles.com Index – a large number of articles about parapsychology, from publications such as the Journal of Parapsychology and the Skeptical Inquirer.