Examining Claims of Psi Phenomena

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Examining Claims of Psi Phenomena

• Myth and Fact

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Terms

• ____________- the scientific study of paranormal
  phenomena
• _______- all psychic phenomena
• ____________________________ the ability to
  obtain knowledge of a target object or of another
  persons mind in the absence of sensory contact
• __________________________- the ability of the
  mind to influence matters directly

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History

• Story time
• Where does parapsychology stem from?
• 19th century spiritualism
• When did the field of parapsychology begin?
• 1882 Society for Psychical Research

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Examples of psi

• Out-of-body experiences observing from above
• Accurately describing a physical location without
  visiting it
• Self-hypnosis
• ____________
• Leaving ones body at will
• ______________
• Myth or fact?

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What is psi useful for anyway?

• Enhancing Human Performance Issues, Theories and
  Techniques
• Enemy actions
• Technology
• Nuclear weapons
• Mind reading

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Anecdotal Evidence

• Personal testimony
• People continue to rely on qualitative
  (descriptive) evidence, although nothing in
  scientific literature supports psi claims.
• __________________________
• _______ Natural conditions allow psychic
  functioning to occur naturally
• _______ Personal testimonies are often affected
  by biases

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Scientific Evidence

• What do psychologists want?
• SCIENTIFICALLY VALID
• RESEARCH!
• Critical Thinking
• Control
• Replicable
• Robust
• Lawful

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The workings of psi

• How is psi phenomena created?
• Human Emotion
• How come not everyone demonstrates paranormal
  abilities?
• _________________________________________
• Ex daily distractions, loud traffic
• Psi practitioners have an ability to reliably
  guide psi by intention or motivation

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Psychokinesis Healing

• Mice and goiters
• Mice under anesthesia
• Myth or fact?

Watkins, 1965, 1971
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Zener CardsPK

• Zener cards

MacDougall Rhine, 1927
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Zener Cards cont.PK

• The Pearce and Pratt Experiments
• Pearce 100-250 yards away
• Pratt places Zener cards face down
• Pearce records the order of the cards
• Pratt Pearce

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Remote ViewingESP

• Participant and experimenter in one location
• Research team at another geographical location
• Participant records images
• Team and participant gather to review
• Remote Viewing video with Objects

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• ____________________________
• How is it done?
• Halved ping-pong balls taped over their eyes.
• White-noise
• Bright light
• Sender communicates an object
• Ganzfeld Video
• Participant records their thoughts
• Is it a hit?

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• Criticisms sensory leakage, inadequate
  randomization, statistical errors, and inadequate
  documentation
• Conclusion Research methods are too weak to
  establish the existence of paranormal phenomena.
• BUT

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Random Event GeneratorsESP

• REGs were invented by Helmut Schmidt
• Benefits
• Completely random events
• Sensory leakage
• Double-blind procedure
• Response recording

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An Autoganzfeld experiment

• Does Psi Exist? (Bem, 1994)
• Participants NYC students Julliard students
• 160 clips static and 1 minute long
• Ranking
• Hit rates
• Overall ________, expect _________ by chance!
• __________students 50!!!
• Myth or Fact???

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Criticisms of Psi Experiments and the Solutions

• cheating while alone subjects are never left
  alone
• sensory cues targets are prepared by an
  independent experimenter and are handled as
  little as possible
• non-randomness random selection is used
• inaccurate reading scores are double checked by
  an independent scorer
• inappropriate use of statistics the American
  Institute of Mathematical Statistics evaluates
  the statistics used
• fabricated evidence double-blind procedures and
  replication are essential

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The James Randi Education Foundation One Million
Dollar Challenge

• The Foundation is committed to providing
  reliable information about paranormal claims. It
  both supports and conducts original research into
  such claims.
• At JREF, we offer a one-million-dollar prize to
  anyone who can show, under proper observing
  conditions, evidence of any paranormal,
  supernatural, or occult power or event. The JREF
  does not involve itself in the testing procedure,
  other than helping to design the protocol and
  approving the conditions under which a test will
  take place. All tests are designed with the
  participation and approval of the applicant. In
  most cases, the applicant will be asked to
  perform a relatively simple preliminary test of
  the claim, which if successful, will be followed
  by the formal test. Preliminary tests are usually
  conducted by associates of the JREF at the site
  where the applicant lives. Upon success in the
  preliminary testing process, the "applicant"
  becomes a "claimant."
• To date, no one has ever passed the preliminary
  tests.

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Tell me, is Psi Phenomena Fact or Myth?!?

• An evaluation of a large body of the best
  available evidence does not support the
  contention that these phenomena exist.
• The 1988 NRC report concludes, The Committee
  finds no scientific justification from research
  conducted over a period of 130 years for the
  existence of parapsychological phenomena.
• BUT KEEP IN MIND!
• Palmer says that we cannot evaluate the effect
  of the paranormal because we do not currently
  have an adequate theory of paranormality.