Content provided in partnership with
The capricious, actively evasive, unsustainable nature of psi: a summary and hypotheses
Journal of Parapsychology, The, Spring, 2003 by J.E. Kennedy
LACK OF PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF PSI
The inability to practically apply psi provides some of the clearest evidence for the capricious or unsustainable nature of psi. Even minimal reliability of psi could be leveraged into money-making operations. The fact that parapsychological research is not financed by entrepreneurs profiting from successful applications of psi is a clear indication of the unsustainable nature of psi and lack of tangible progress.
- Most Popular Articles in Reference
- The importance of understanding organizational culture
- Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students
- What factors attract foreign direct investment?
- Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...
- How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques
- More »
Opportunity and interest in applying psi have occurred throughout the history of parapsychology. The PK experiments with dice were originally inspired by gambling (J. B. Rhine, 1946b). Several experiments have been carried out to predict the outcomes of casino games (Brier & Tyminski, 1970a, 1970b; Dean & Taetzsch, 1970, Puthoff, May, & Thompson, 1986). Although these studies provided statistically significant outcomes, they have not resulted in a usefully reliable application of psi.
Attempts to apply psi typically have not given results that were sufficiently reliable to maintain the interest of those initiating or supporting the projects. These efforts have provided results that were noteworthy to those with an existing interest and belief in psi phenomena. However, the overall unreliability of the results did not change the minds of those with an existing skepticism about the phenomena or maintain the interest of those looking for useful applications.
For example, a contracted project to investigate using ESP to find land mines produced statistically significant results in the first few sessions, but the later sessions declined to chance (J. B. Rhine, 1971). Rhine terminated the study because he thought it unlikely that the positive results would resume.
Targ described another case:
[W]e did a series of trials some time ago where we had nine successes in a row forecasting silver futures changes, and then I tried to replicate that ... and got eight out of nine hits. ... I then sought for replication to take advantage of this mechanical psi machine we had created and I got eight out of nine failures. That has really stopped my personal psi investigation for a couple of years while I have tried to meditate on what the problem is here. (Targ, Braud, Stanford, Schlitz, & Honorton, 1991, pp. 76-77)
The 24-year government-funded Star Gate project to investigate using psi in government intelligence work is probably the most well-funded effort to develop applications of psi. In a congressionally mandated evaluation of the project, one reviewer, Ray Hyman, who had previously been skeptical of psi, gave an unfavorable evaluation (Hyman, 1995). The other reviewer, Jessica Utts, had previously been favorable to psi and gave a positive evaluation (Utts, 1995a, 1995b). The agency recommended that the project be discontinued. Ed May, the director for most of the project, took issue with the process for reaching that recommendation (May, 1996).
The pivotal question was whether there was any evidence for the successful use of psi in intelligence operations. Most of the reports on the operational use of psi were classified and not available to the reviewers. According to May (1996), even unclassified information was not evaluated. This information included documents that indicated remote viewing had produced
Find Research Guides for:
Find Featured Titles for: News
Most Popular Articles in Reference
- The importance of understanding organizational culture
- Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students
- What factors attract foreign direct investment?
- Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...
- How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques
- More »