From Michael Sudduth:
Steve,
I concur with your point about the authenticity of psychic phenomena.
Anyone who believes that all psychic phenomena can be adequately explained by fraud is clearly mistaken. D.D. Home's physical mediumship, cannot be adequately explained in this manner. Nor can the mental mediumship of Piper and Leonard.
On the former, see Stephen Braude, Limits of Influence: Psychokinesis and the Philosophy of Science. On the latter, see Alan Gauld, Mediumship and Survival. David Ray Griffin's book Philosophy, Parapsychology, and Spirituality presents a pretty good argument against the fraud hypothesis. For a more recent examination of potentially fraudulent vs. authentic cases, see Braude's forthcoming book, The Gold Leaf Lady and Other Parapsychological Investigations (University of Chicago). I've read some of the chapter drafts. It's a good contribution to Braude's already extensive collection of contributions to parapsychological inquiry and survival of death.
Let me add, though, that I don't accept the "demonic hypothesis" as adequate to explain all the cases either. I find this approach, the common Christian one, to be largely based on a misunderstanding of what psychic phenomena are. Indeed, depending on whether psi-functioning can be naturalized or not, attributing such events to demonic agency would be akin to attributing airflight to necromancy. Christians need to develop more intellectual responsibility, especially since they tend to demand it of others with respect to understanding Christianity.
Since I have recently discussed this extensively on the H.H. Price Society group, interested parties may read my posts there, including my own encounters with the paranormal, which will eventually find their way into a more developed written form.
See especially these posts: 1, 2, 3, 4.
On my view, there are many cases of psychic phenomena that cannot be explained by the usual suspects (e.g., fraud, malobservation) or the demonic agency hypothesis. These phenomena must provide evidence for human cognitive functioning and causal powers beyond what can
presently be explained by scientific models of the world OR they provide evidence of the post-postmortem survival of some aspect of the human person. The latter would of course entail the former, but since the converse isn't true, it's best to distinguish between these two hypotheses.
I'm presently teaching a course that goes into considerable detail about the concept and evidences of survival. In addition to various handouts, there is an archive of some of the best on-line materials on the question of survival and related issues.
Michael
Erratum:
ReplyDelete"Indeed, depending on whether psi-functioning can be naturalized or not, attributing such events to demonic agency would be akin to attributing airflight to decromancy."
The last word here should be "necromancy."
:-)
Michael
http://www.randi.org/
ReplyDeletehttp://www.randi.org/
ReplyDeleteRandi? Surely you jest.
Michael
Michael,
ReplyDeleteDo you care to give us the best-evidenced and most-solid case, in your own opinion, of psychic phenomena that are not naturalistic (e.g. fraud or skilled inference)?
Preferably, there is some serious online documentation of the case.
>Do you care to give us the best-evidenced and most-solid case, in
ReplyDelete>your own opinion, of psychic phenomena that are not naturalistic
>(e.g. fraud or skilled inference)? Preferably, there is some serious
>online documentation of the case.
Daniel,
Sorry it has taken me a week to get back to you. I'm extremely
busy. But I've taken some time to lay out what I consider some
of the better evidences for psi, though I think it's important ultimately
to view these cases in relation to each other, not in isolation.
As far as psychokinesis is concerned, some of the best cases are
those investigated and documented by William Roll and his colleagues
at the Rhine Institute in North Carolina. Three cases stand out in particular:
the Miami Poltergeist (1967), the Olive Hill Kentucky case (1968), and
the Columbus (Tina Resch) case (1984), controversial as the latter is.
The first two cases, along with a dozen or so others, are discussed by
Roll in his book *The Poltergeist* (1972, 2004). The latter is the focus
in Roll's book *Unleashed* (2004). Roll studied under H.H. Price at Oxford
and is well-known for his theorizing about the spontaneous recurrent
psychokinesis (RSPK).
For an overview of largely PK cases (though with some ESP cases
included), see William Roll and Michael Persinger, "Investigations
of Poltergeists and Haunts: A Review and Interpretation" in *Hauntings
and Poltergeists: Multidisciplinary Perspectives,* ed. Houran and
Lange (2001). (I have an electronic version of this paper if you would
like a copy). The cases above are included in outline form in this
paper, including the Olive Hill case. In this particular case, Roll
claims that he and John Stump of the Rhine Institute witnessed
the anomalous movement of various household objects, including
the complete levitation of a large kitchen table with no one within
arms/legs reach and no other means of causing it to lift by known
forces.
The Gold Leaf Lady case investigated by Berthold E. Schwarz
and Stephen Braude in the late 1980s resists explanation in
terms of fraud, delusion, and the other usual suspects, despite the
efforts of Paul Kurtz of CSICOP to debunk this. The case is
discussed by Braude in his forthcoming book *The Gold Leaf Lady
and Other Paranormal Investigations* (forthcoming 2007). Braude's
revelations about Kurtz and Randi make one seriously doubt the
competence and intellectual honesty of many contemporary
skeptics.
There's also a whole range of research literature on table-tilting,
levitations, and associated phenomena in the line of D.D. Home
and Eusapia Palladino. While I believe the case for psi with
respect to Home and Palladino is good, it's important to see
the continuities between 19th and early 20th century physical
mediumship and the investigation of spontaneous cases of
ostensible psychokinesis since the 1950s. Some of this material
is quite good in my view because (a) some of the investigators
had a history of exposing frauds, (b) experimental controls were
implemented, (c) the phenomena were repeated under similar
controls, (d) the investigators had academic credentials and
outstanding reputations, (e) many of the incidents took place
in a good light, and (f) in some cases the phenomena were documented through
various electronic recording devices, including video.
Tony Cornell's G.Circle and H.Circle séance experiments in the
1950s, documented in his *Investigating the Paranormal* (2002),
provides an important contribution to PK cases investigated by
a researcher with a record of exposing fraud. Indeed, Cornell takes
note of several fraudulent cases in his book. These are clearly
distinguished from other cases that resist such neat natural-type
explanations. Cornell is a graduate of Cambridge University and
a life-long investigator/researcher of paranoral phenomena. His
co-authored book with Alan Gauld *Poltergeists* (1979) provides
a very useful list of 500 haunting and poltergeist cases, many
of which are subjected to comparative (statistical) analysis in
the book.
Kenneth Batcheldor, Colin Brookes-Smith, and Dave Hunt conducted
hundreds of experiments in the 1960s and early 1970s to test the
idea of table levitation. See Batcheldor, "Report on a Case of Table
Levitation and Associated Phenomena," *Journal of the Society for
Psychical Research,* 43, no. 729 (September 1966), pp. 339-356;
Brookes-Smith and Hunt, "Some Experiments in Psychokinesis,"
*Journal of Society of Psychical Research, 45, 1970, pp. 265-281,
"Data Tape Recorded Experimental PK Phenomena," Journal of
the Society of Psychical Research, 47 (1973), pp. 69-89. Batcheldor
reported success with table levitations (as high as the chests of
the participants), under variously controlled circumstances, in 70 of his 200 experiments running from April 1964 to December 1965.
Members of the Toronto Society of Psychical Research seemed
to have replicated some of the phenomena reported by Batcheldor,
Hunt, and Brookes-Smith in their famous Philip Group experiments
conducted 1972-1974, in which anomalous table movements, raps
and knocks were produced in the style of the old Victorian séance.
(See Iris Owen, *Conjuring Philip,* 1976). I actually own a copy
of video footage of the Philip Group's experiments. Since I've
witnessed the same phenomena myself, first-hand in my home
and under self-imposed controls during a six month period in
1981, all of this rings true to me. (At another time perhaps I'll
share my own encounters with psychic phenomena).
The best defense of large-scale psychokinesis is probably Stephen
Braude's *Limits of Influence.* Braude's account of Home and
Palladino is without rival in my view.
As far as ESP goes, the mediumship of Piper and Leonard, without
a doubt, the most impressive cases of ESP. If you don't have the
patience to read through the hundreds of pages of documentation
on the Piper and Leonard séance sessions (which stretch over a
20 year period of time, under rigorous skeptical scrutiny), you
should probably read C.D. Broad, *Lectures on Psychical Research*
(1962), Alan Gauld, *Mediumship and Survival* (1982) and
Stephen Braude, *Immortal Remains* (2004). See also, William
James "Report on Mrs. Piper's Hodgson-Control" (1909). In fact,
I'd recommend the entire collection of James' essays on psychical
research published by Harvard in 1986.
More recently, William Roll's investigation of the Wyrick family
in Georgia in the late 1980s and again in the late 1990s, and
Loyd Auerbach's investigation of a series of apparitional
experiences in Livermore, California in the late 1980s, are
impressive cases in my view. I've had the good fortune of being
able to discuss these cases with Roll and Auerbach. The Wyrick
case was made into a docudrama on the Discovery Channel
called *A Haunting in Georgia.* The two hour film does not
do justice to the actual case, which I've discussed with Roll
and his colleague on the investigation Andrew Nichols. Roll
discusses this case in the Roll and Persinger paper above.
Here's a link to the New Dominion film about the case:
http://www.newdominion.com/index.asp?id=217
Auerbach's investigation is summarized in his popular book
*Hauntings and Poltergeists* (2004). Since this book is
written for a popular audience, it doesn't do justice to the
actual case.
Stephen Braude's discussion of veridical apparitional experiences
of the living makes an important contribution to the issue of
ESP as well. See also, Griffin's discussion veridical elements in
several apparitional and near death experience cases in his
*Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality* (1997).
While there is certainly some provocative experimental evidence
of ESP (e.g., ganzfeld experiments. remote viewing experiments),
I find the non-experimental evidence more compelling. Indeed, the
emphasis on experimental evidence for psi seems fundamentally
flawed for the reasons noted by Stephen Braude in his *Limits of
Influence* (1986, 1991).
But for a good on-line overview of remote viewing, see Jessica Utts:
http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/air2.html
Here's a link to the 1994 Honorton and Bem paper on Ganzfeld experiments
http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~abraham/psy1.html
Bem's response to Hyman's criticisms of the Ganzfeld tests
http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~abraham/psy2.html
A good recent overview of the experimental evidence for receptive and
expressive psi is found in Dean Radin's *Entangled Minds* (2006).
Here are some other good websources for psi (and survival).
http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/
http://www.parapsych.org/
http://www.williamjames.com/Intro/CONTENTS.htm
http://www.parapsychology.org/dynamic/060302.html
http://www.homestead.com/mscourses/files/OnLineSurvivalReadings.htm
Hope this helps.
Michael