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The capricious, actively evasive, unsustainable nature of psi: a summary and hypotheses
Journal of Parapsychology, The, Spring, 2003 by J.E. Kennedy
THE DECLINE OF PARAPSYCHOLOGY
Hansen (2001) suggested that the overall decline in funding and research in parapsychology is due to and indicative of the trickster nature of psi. Activity in the field of parapsychology generally increased in the decades up to the 1980s but has declined significantly since then. Hansen described the closing of several research laboratories, lower research output, and reduced circulation of journals.
White (1994) noted these same trends and interpreted them as evidence for the failure of research attempting to control psi. She advocated shifting research efforts to investigating the effects of psi experiences and learning from these experiences.
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Schlitz (2001) commented that research on psi is moving to disciplines outside of parapsychology that rarely refer to parapsychology. She finds it necessary to "restory" psi research to obtain funding.
Research on psi appears to be continuing a long history of periodically changing terminology and research methods in an effort to achieve acceptance. Each new round of dissociation from the past and optimism for the future initially seems very promising but then becomes mired in the same issues of trying to prove the existence of phenomena that seem to become actively evasive. This "succession of false dawns and frustrated hopes" (Beloff, 1994, p. 7) has been noted by both proponents of psi (Beloff, 1994; Pratt, 1978) and skeptics (Alcock, 2001; Hyman, 1995).
DISCUSSION
The overall evidence indicates that psi sometimes manifests consistently for periods of time and then almost universally becomes actively evasive. After a century of repeatedly confronting this situation, it may be time to consider this pattern as a basic property of psi. In fact, understanding this property appears to be necessary to make progress in parapsychology.
Psi cannot simply be categorized as either reliable or evasive. Psi effects appear to shift from reliable to evasive. In the evasive phase, psi may not appear at all or may appear in a form that is not expected or desired.
Because the term unsustainable captures both the reliable and evasive phases of psi and allows for the possibility of predictable patterns of psi effects, I use it here to refer to this property of psi. The reliable phase may continue for several experiments, or the shift to the evasive phase may occur within one study.
The reliable phase can occur during attempts to apply psi. According to Broughton (1991, p. 339), the first nine trials in the project to predict silver futures resulted in a $120,000 profit for Targ and his associates. Subsequently, the predictive effect and the interpersonal relationships of those involved deteriorated significantly (Harary, 1992).
Certain special experimenters who frequently change research topics appear to minimize the shifts to evasive results. Notable examples include Helmut Schmidt, William Braud, and Marilyn Schlitz. Although research by these individuals has a large role in the parapsychological literature, their results are not representative of what other researchers can expect. The generally positive results for these experimenters appear to be due to their unusual psi abilities combined with frequent changes of research interests. One of the most sustained lines of research for this group is the investigation of intentionality influences on electrodermal response by Braud and Schlitz. A summary of that research listed 15 experiments (Schlitz & Braud, 1997). The first 3 studies had the largest effect sizes, and only 1 of the last 8 studies was statistically significant. This suggests that even these special experimenters are susceptible to decline effects.
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