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No. 50 December 13, 1967 from Problems to Principles

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No. 50 December 13, 1967 from Problems to Principles VOLUME XX, NO. 50 DECEMBER 13, 1967 FROM PROBLEMS TO PRINCIPLES AMUSING consideration of Parapsychology as a What have forty years done to the central branch of Psychology—a not entirely "wanted" problem and the degree to which a solution to it has development in the eyes of the cautious members been secured? While opinions may differ as to the wording, certainly the central problem or question of this profession—is offered by Louisa E. Rhine concerns the nature of man, especially with relation in the September issue of the Journal of to the physical universe. But the emphasis at the two Parapsychology. This paper, titled periods is different. In the 1920's the question could "Parapsychology Then and Now," begins by well have been phrased, "What is the post-mortem noting that the obstacles to acceptance of destiny of man?" This, of course, was the survival problem. It was the central one of the twenties, as in scientific studies of this sort have not altered a the main it had been throughout the previous history great deal in some eighty years. Dr. Rhine writes: of psychical research, at least in the English-speaking We can turn the pages of history and find men world. like Sidgewick and Meyers in the last century hoping The question would not be phrased the same that another fifty years or so from their day would see today. Rather, it might be, "What is psychological a change, at least in the climate of opinion about the man in a physical universe?" This is a larger question field (known at that time, of course, as psychical than the earlier one because the final answer will research). But we now know very well that even have to show what man is while he is living, and that though much more time than fifty years has passed, answer will necessarily encompass the earlier one as the climate for parapsychology is not entirely well. different today from what it was in the 1880's. At both periods, there has been an audience interested in This means that, along with certain the research of the time, but it has been implications for scientific method, generalizing preponderantly a popular one. At both periods, on psychic research may reveal its fundamentally the other hand, the scientific world has been largely philosophical character. It means that if you want skeptical, uninterested in, ignorant and oblivious of, and unreceptive to the problems involved in to know about death, you must first understand parapsychology. life. We may agree with this entirely, yet we shall also have to recognize that the cobblestone-kicker There are also differences to be considered, ("It's real; my toe hurts! " ) becomes impatient at but these are found mainly in the internal history so engrossing a prospect. He wants to of psychical research. The "popular" interest communicate with his dead wife. So, for reasons remains an enduring provocative. "John Doe says of this sort, Fate has many more readers than the he saw a ghost. Richard Roe says there aren't any Journal of Parapsychology. ghosts and Doe didn't see them. Who is right?" This is one form taken by popular interest. All science is confronted by similar problems. Another, more poignant, asks what happens to Otto Hahn went in search of the secrets of the loved ones after death. Do they still exist? If so, physical universe. The cobblestone-kickers under what conditions? wanted an atom bomb. The classical biologist seeks to understand in principle the processes of These questions do not and will not die out, morphogenesis and the mystery of the living cell, but the scientific approach to them follows a but editors who publish for the man in the street characteristic pattern. It turns particular or know that a great many people want to read about "popular" questions into general inquiries. As Dr. how to control heredity—how, as one man put it, Rhine says: to be able to order from medical science a son ten MANAS Reprint - LEAD ARTICLE 2 feet tall. As a result the public acquires much specialty. Already, many of the technical terms of romantic information about DNA and the miracle this "specialty" vibrate with the potentialities of of self-duplicating molecules. Serious ecologists trans-physical if not metaphysical or supernormal would like to preserve for the world an meaning. The content of parapsychology often atmosphere that will support life, while the AEC seems, at least in implication, the same as the wants to test nuclear weapons and hears mainly content of religion. what it chooses to hear on the subject of fall-out. A phase of the history of psychic research But the mystery of death and the issue of unmentioned by Dr. Rhine is that, almost from its supernormal powers, being deeply and universally very beginnings, people who ostensibly start out connected with human longing, present special as objective scientists have had a tendency to peel problems. Some of the differences indicated off into popular activities. The yearning for above can be argued out at a professional level, knowledge in this area is intense, and such is the but the nature of man is an intensely personal as prestige of any sort of "science" that the well as a theoretical question. In other words, vulnerable "will-to-believe" responds all too there is just no way to erase the haunting presence readily to "science now tells us" claims. It would of basic human longing from research in these be easy to erect a scale of appeals to a popular directions. It makes of psychic research audience in this field, starting at the top with the practically a sacred enterprise. This brings austere and wholly responsible work of the profound human responsibility to parapsychology— Rhines, ranging down through numerous "fringe" an attitude which has been evident in both the levels of science and pretended science to bargain- Rhines and their illustrious predecessor, William basement attractions. Then, paradoxically, at the McDougall. same time, curious researchers are continually One aspect of this responsibility was well put sifting popular beliefs of the past, commonly by Bishop Berkeley: "We should speak with the called "superstitions," and finding a ground of vulgar but think with the learned." This means, as authentic cognition beneath the jungle growth of Ralph Slovenko has explained, that "we should folk embellishment. use the kind of language which our listeners can These, you could say, are merely some of the understand, for language is for the purpose of occupational hazards of a career in communication." Here, quite obviously, is parapsychology. But might there be a more ideal another of the special problems attached to milieu for such investigations? Is there a way of parapsychology, for which, it must be admitted, its avoiding what a Committee Report on education practitioners are often poorly prepared. For how recently described as a "recurring problem of can the watchful reservations of scientific modern society"—the fact that "knowledge is investigation, the tentative hypotheses which lead perpetually academicized and made remote from to the design of experiments, and the carefully the thing it purports to study"? hedged statements of the significance of We must distinguish between the generalizing conclusions reached, be translated into language effect which scientific study imposes on its that the vulgar will understand and accept? subject-matter and the obscurantist's learned This is indeed a problem confronting the refuge from any obligation to "speak with the parapsychologist, although its difficulties are by vulgar." The one is a climb to a height, the other no means his "fault." The fault, if there be any, a flight, yet superficially they sometimes seem the lies in the very conception of parapsychological same. "Academic" jargon becomes absolutely research, which attempts to deal with universal inaccessible to the popular intelligence, whereas questions within the confines of a scientific the genuinely necessary abstractions of Volume XX, No. 50 MANAS Reprint December 13, 1967 3 philosophy—such as the conversion of the right up to the present. Today's "reforms" in problem of "survival" to the question of the religion exhibit exactly the same condition. They "nature of man"—might still be capable of being are being pursued by clerics, over the heads of the rendered into the simpler terms of parable or people, with promising reports periodically issued myth. by a collaborating press. Was there ever more barefaced institutional manipulation in matters But to make such renderings, one might say, supposedly connected with the final destiny of is hardly the duty of scientists working in man? The better minds continue to care for our research. Precisely; and this is a basic flaw in the salvation. entire modern approach to knowledge. Our civilization has worked out no practical means of How was the scientific revolution betrayed? speaking with the vulgar while thinking with the By becoming, almost from its beginning, a learned. It is for this reason that the great mass of demoralized revolution. Leave the pretentious people is left to the ministrations of professional talk of good and evil to the church, its popular "vulgarizers" instead of being introduced to the champions declared. We, they said, shall be questions of philosophy in terms which allow both concerned with real things. Not man and his simplicity and dignity. problems, not life and its mysteries, but matter and force, are the things to study. With simple, How shall we account for this irresponsible unambiguous truth about the laws of nature we and educationally immoral situation? It is a direct shall eventually be able to silence all those consequence, you could say, of the betrayal of the spurious authorities.
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