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Reflections on being a parapsychologist
Journal of Parapsychology, The, Fall, 2003 by Carlos S. Alvarado
Another strategy to obtain credibility is to show the outside world that we are aware of alternative explanations of psychic phenomena. While this is part of normal scientific discourse, it also projects a good image of our critical abilities, something that is particularly useful when one is identified with parapsychology professionally. In fact, one can find this in some of the classics of parapsychology. Much space was devoted to the problems with human testimony and consideration of chance coincidences in Phantasms of the Living (Gurney, Myers & Podmore, 1886, Vol. 1, Chapter 4, Vol. 2, Chapter 13). Similarly, in his 1934 monograph Extra-Sensory Perception, J. B. Rhine (1934, Chapter 9) devoted sections to alternative explanations, if only to counter them. Later examples included Robert Tocquet's (1970/1973, pp. 147-149, 219-227) discussion of fraudulent miraculous healings and stigmata and Ian Stevenson's (1975, pp. 18-44) analysis of sources of error in the study of reincarnation-type cases.
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I became aware of the rhetorical value of writing about fraud and other normal explanations while I was crafting a paper published 16 years ago on luminous phenomena around mediums, mystics, saints and other individuals (Alvarado, 1987). I knew I was writing about a topic that was rare and unconventional, even among parapsychologists, and I was worried about the reception of the paper. While a section on fraud and other normal explanations should always be part of examinations of cases such as the ones I discussed, including that section was also a strategy to establish credibility.
More recently, Robert Morris has devoted much time to what looks psychic but is not. I believe that Morris's success in revitalizing parapsychology in academic circles in Great Britain (Smith, 1999) comes to some extent from this strategy of showing the world of psychology that he is aware of a wide range of pitfalls in behavioral research, not to mention some that are specific to parapsychology (Morris, 1986; see also Wiseman & Morris, 1995).
Another way in which we try to enhance our credibility as scientists is by confining most of our efforts to such conservative phenomena as ESP. A quick look at the research papers presented at the last four PA conventions (2000-2003) shows that the preferred research topic of PA members was ESP (see Table 1). Much less attention was paid to PK or to OBEs, mediumship, hauntings, or poltergeists. Certainly scientists have to focus their efforts in order to make advances. In some ways this process started in modern parapsychology with J. B. Rhine's (1934) monograph Extrasensory Perception, in which, while discussing a classificatory scheme of psychic phenomena, Rhine reduced parapsychology to ESP. Regardless of the scientific reasons for this strategy, the fact is that traditionally modern parapsychology has focused most of its efforts on ESP and has neglected a wide variety of other phenomena, even if they can be related to ESP when one speculates on their mechanisms. While such a strategy has focused our research, it has also limited our knowledge of the variety of experiences people report. We know much less than we should about other psychic experiences, their impact on people, and their relation to mental health concerns, among other issues. So we have paid for our strategy of limiting the range of topics studied (Alvarado, 1996c).
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