JOURNAL of SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION a Publication of the Society for Scientifi C Exploration (ISSN 0892-3310) Published Quarterly, and Continuously Since 1987
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JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION A Publication of the Society for Scientifi c Exploration (ISSN 0892-3310) published quarterly, and continuously since 1987 Editorial Offi ce: Journal@Scientifi cExploration.org Manuscript Submission: h" p://journalofscientifi cexploration.org/index.php/jse/ EditorinChief: Stephen E. Braude, University of Maryland Baltimore County Managing Editor: Kathleen E. Erickson, San Jose State University, California Assistant Managing Editor: Elissa Hoeger, Princeton, NJ Associate Editors Carlos S. Alvarado, Parapsychology Foundation, New York, New York Imants Barušs, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada Daryl Bem, Ph.D., Cornell University, Ithaca, New York Robert Bobrow, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York Jeremy Drake, HarvardSmithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts Michael Ibison, Institute for Advanced Studies, Austin, Texas Roger D. Nelson, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey Mark Rodeghier, Center for UFO Studies, Chicago, Illinois Harald Walach, Viadrina European University, Frankfurt, Germany Publications Commi" ee Chair: Garret Moddel, University of Colorado Boulder Editorial Board Dr. Mikel Aickin, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ Dr. Steven J. Dick, U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington, DC Dr. Peter Fenwick, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK Dr. Alan Gauld, University of No" ingham, UK Prof. W. H. Jeff erys, University of Texas, Austin, TX Dr. Wayne B. Jonas, Samueli Institute, Alexandria, VA Dr. Michael Levin, Tufts University, Boston, MA Dr. David C. Pieri, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Prof. Juan Roederer, University of AlaskaFairbanks, AK Prof. Peter A. Sturrock, Stanford University, CA Prof. N. C. Wickramasinghe, Churchill College, UK SUBSCRIPTIONS & PREVIOUS JOURNAL ISSUES: Order forms on back pages or at scientifi c exploration.org. COPYRIGHT: Authors retain copyright. However, when an article has been submi" ed to the Journal of Scientifi c Exploration, the Journal holds fi rst serial rights. Additionally, the Society has the right to post the published article and make it available via electronic and print subscription. The material must not appear anywhere else (including on an Internet web site) until it has been published by the JSE (or rejected). After publication, authors may use the material as they wish but should make appropriate reference to the JSE: Reprinted from [title of article], Journal of Scientifi c Exploration, vol. [x], no. [xx], pp. [xx]. Society for Scientifi c Explorationh" ps://www.scientifi cexploration.org Journal of Scientifi c Exploration (ISSN 08923310), an open access, peerreviewed journal, is published quarterly in March, June, September, and December by the Society for Scientifi c Exploration, P. O. Box 8012 Princeton, NJ 08543 USA. The Journal is free to everyone. Society Members may purchase print subscriptions for $60 per year. Library print subscriptions are $165 per year. JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION A Publication of the Society for Scientifi c Exploration AIMS AND SCOPE: The Journal of Scienti! c Exploration is an Open Access journal, which publishes material consistent with the Society’s mission: to provide a professional forum for critical discussion of topics that are for various reasons ignored or studied inadequately within mainstream science, and to promote improved understanding of social and intellectual factors that limit the scope of scienti! c inquiry. Topics of interest cover a wide spectrum, ranging from apparent anomalies in well-established disciplines to rogue phenomena that seem to belong to no established discipline, as well as philosophical issues about the connections among disciplines. The Journal publishes research articles, review articles, essays, commentaries, guest editorials, historical perspectives, obituaries, book reviews, and letters or commentaries pertaining to previously published material. The Journal of Scienti! c Exploration is a Platinum Open Access journal as of 2018 with a CC-BY-NC Creative Commons license, shared copyright journal: Platinum Open Access means there are no fees to readers and no fees to authors—neither page charges (APCs) nor open access fees. CC-BY-NC means Creative Commons open access license, with full attribution, no commercial use (except exerpts). Excerpts and reuse are allowed with no changes and with a full citation of the original work. An entire article cannot be resold. Shared copyright means the Society for Scienti! c Exploration shares copyright with its JSE authors. The Journal of Scienti! c Exploration is indexed in Scopus, Elsevier Abstracts, and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). https://doi.org/10.31275/20201867 for this whole issue PDF, JSE 34:2, Summer 2020. JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION A Publication of the Society for Scientifi c Exploration Volume 34, Number 2 2020 EDITORIAL 199 Does Telepathy Threaten Mental Privacy? S"#$%#& E. B'()*# RESEARCH ARTICLES 209 A New Model to Explain the Alignment of Certain Ancient Sites M('+ J. C(',-""- 233 Mind Control of a Distant Electronic P("'./.- T'#00-,*. Device: A ProofofConcept L)1.(&- P#*#'-/-,. PreRegistered Study E,#&( P'(". L)1( S#2#&/("- 246 The Global Consciousness Project's EventRelated Responses Look Like Brain EEG EventRelated Potentials R-3#' D. N#,0-& 268 Behind the Mask: Decoding the P#"#' A. S")''-1+ Dedication of Shakespeares Sonnets K("%,##& E. E'.1+0-& COMMENTARY 351 New Life for Cold Fusion H#&'4 H. B()#' BOOK REVIEWS 355 Essay Review: The Star Gate Archives, Volumes 1–4, Reports of the United States Government Sponsored Psi Program, 1972–1995 edited by Edwin C. May and Sonali Bhatt Marwaha D(2.#& B'-*#'.1+ 198 Table of Contents JSE 34:2 364 Essay Review: Scientocracy: Why a Science Court Is Needed. Scientocracy: The Tangled Web of Public Science and Public Policy edited by Patrick J. Michaels and Terence Kealey H#&'4 H. B()#' 373 Greening the Paranormal: Exploring the Ecology of Extraordinary Experience edited by Jack Hunter S%('-& H#5."" R(5,#""# 382 Demons on the Couch: Spirit Possession, Exorcisms, and the DSM-5 by Michael J. Sersch T-** H(4#& 392 Enchanted Ground: The Spirit Room of Jonathan Koons by Sharon Hatfield T-2 R)66,#0 SSE NEWS 395 SSE Annual Meeting Announcement 396 Aspiring Explorers News 397 Bial Foundation Award 398 SSE Masthead 399 Index of Previous Articles in JSE 420 Gi7 Orders, Gi7 Memberships, Back Issues 421 Society Membership 422 Instructions for JSE Authors Journal of Scientifi c Exploration, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 199ñ208, 2020 08923310/20 EDITORIAL Does Telepathy Threaten Mental Privacy? S!"#$"% E. B&'()" https://doi.org/10.31275/20201829 Creative Commons License CC-BY-NC long-standing concern (or at least a belief ) A about ESP, held by both skeptics and believers in the paranormal, is that if telepathy really occurs, then it might pose a threat to mental privacy. And it’s easy enough to see what motivates that view. Presumably we like to think that we enjoy privileged access to our own mental states. But if others could come to know telepathically what we’re thinking or feeling, then (among other disquieting prospects) that would mean that our sins of the heart and most embarrassing or repulsive fleeting thoughts would potentially be available for public inspection. But how well-founded is that belief or concern? To get a grip on the issues, we should begin by considering the valuable distinction (perhaps first mentioned by C. D. Broad [Broad, 1953, 1962] between telepathic (or clairvoyant) cognition and telepathic (or clairvoyant) interaction. As you would expect, every instance of the former would be an instance of the latter, but the converse doesn’t hold—that is, ESP interaction may occur without ESP cognition. To see why this matters, we must take a closer look. If telepathic cognition occurs at all, it would presumably be a form of non-sensorial knowledge about another individual’s state of mind. More specifically, it would be a state of affairs in which so-called percipient A comes to know something about a telepathic interaction A has with another individual B. And what kind of things might A telepathically come to know? Well, presumably, in its most robust (and most intrusively intimidating) form, A would learn what’s going on in B’s mind—that is, that B is having certain thoughts, perceptions, or emotions. But it would still be an instance of telepathic cognition — 200 Editorial admittedly, less intimidating or threatening to one’s mental privacy—if A learned merely that B was the telepathic cause of A’s current thought or experience—that is, that B was directly influencing or interfering with A’s stream of consciousness, whether or not A’s resulting thoughts or experiences were those of B or known by A to be those of B. However, Broad shrewdly recognized that the evidence for telepathy was seldom (if ever) evidence of these kinds of knowledge. On the contrary, what we usually find is evidence suggesting only telepathic interaction. In what is probably telepathy’s most commonly reported form, person B’s mental state merely influences that of A, and A learns nothing from the process about B’s causal role, much less details of what B is thinking or feeling. For example, it would be telepathic interaction (not cognition) if my thought of the Eiffel Tower directly (that is, without sensory mediation) caused a remote person simply to think about the Eiffel Tower (or about towers generally, or about the Tower of London)—that is, without that person realizing that I played a causal role in that event, much less that I was thinking about the Eiffel Tower. Similarly, it would be a case of clairvoyant interaction (not cognition) if a burning house was the direct cause of someone at a remote location simply thinking about fire (or heat), or feeling a need to apply aloe to one’s skin, or having the urge to watch Blazing Inferno. There’s no need (and arguably not even a temptation) in these cases to insist that the percipient knows (presumably subconsciously) what caused the experience in question.