Volume 77, Number 2 Fall 2013 ISSN 0022-3387 EDITORIAL STAFF John A. Palmer, Editor David Roberts, Managing Editor Donald S. Burdick, Statistical Editor Robert Gebelein, Business Manager The Journal of Parapsychology is published twice a year, in Spring and Fall, by Parapsychology Press, a subsidiary of The Rhine Center, 2741 Campus Walk Ave., Building 500, Durham, NC 27705. The Journal is devoted mainly to original reports of experimental research in parapsychology. It also publishes research reviews, methodological, theoretical, and historical papers of relevance to psi research, abstracts, and selected invited addresses from Parapsychological Association conventions, book reviews, and letters. For the first time in 2013, an electronic version of the Journal will be available to all subscribers on the Rhine Research Center’s website (www.rhine.org.) The current subscription rates are: Individuals ($65.00), institutions ($77.00), with no other categories available. Members of the Rhine Research Center in the Scientific Supporter category receive the electronic journal free with their membership. The cur- rent subscription rates for paper copies of the Journal are: Individuals ($100.00), institutions ($118.00). Foreign subscribers must pay in U.S. dollars. Selected single issues (current or archival) are available at $35.00 each; go to www.rhine.org for more information. Orders for subscriptions or back issues, corre- spondence, and changes of address should be sent to: Journal of Parapsychology, 2741 Campus Walk Ave., Building 500, Durham, NC 27705. Subscriptions may also be ordered online at www.rhine.org. Postmaster: Send address changes to the Journal of Parapsychology, 2741 Campus Walk Ave., Building 500, Durham, NC 27705. Subscribers: Send change of address notice 30 days prior to the actual change of address. The Journal will not replace undelivered copies resulting from address changes; cop- ies will be forwarded only if subscribers notify their local post office in writing that they will guarantee second-class forwarding postage. Copies of this publication are available in 16-mm microfilm, 35-mm microfilm, 105-mm micro- fiche, article copies, and on compact disc from ProQuest, 789 E. Eisenhower Pkwy.,P. O. Box 1346, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346. Photocopies of individual articles may be obtained from The Genuine Article, ISI, 65 E. Wacker Place, Suite 400, Chicago, IL 60601. Some articles are also available through Info Trac OneFile and Lexscience. Copyright and permission. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by Parapsychology Press, provided that the base fee is paid directly to Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Dr., Danvers, MA 01923. For those organizations that have been granted a photocopy license by CCC, a separate system of payment has been arranged. The Journal is an affiliated publication of the Parapsychological Association. Copyright © 2013 by the Parapsychology Press ISSN 0022-3387 VOlume 77 / Number 2 / FAll 2013 GUEST EDITORIAL Physicalism 159 Robert S. Gebelein PARAPSYCHOLOGICAL Association Abstracts of Presented Papers from the Parapsychological Association 56th Annual Convention, Viterbo, Italy, August 8–11, 2013 165 Articles RSPK and Consciousness 192 William G. Roll (deceased) and William T. Joines A Critical Test of the EMF-Paranormal Phenomena Theory: Evidence from a Haunted Site without Electricity-Generating Fields 212 Brian R. Laythe and Kay Owen Methodology for Confirmatory Experiments on Physiological Measures of Precognitive Anticipation 237 J. E. Kennedy Shamanic-like Journeying and Psi Signal Detection: II. Phenomenological Dimensions 249 Adam J. Rock, Lance Storm, Kylie Harris, and Harris L. Friedman Floating Sensations Prior to Sleep and Out-of-Body Experiences 271 Alexander De Foe, George Van Doorn, and Mark Symmons Into The Unknown: Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis To Explore Personal Accounts Of Paranormal Experiences 281 Ken Drinkwater, Neil Dagnall, and Lauren Bate BOOK REVIEWS Telephone Calls from the Dead: A Revised Look at the Phenomenon Thirty Years On By Callum E. Cooper. 295 Mark Bocuzzi Science, The Self, and Survival After Death: Selected Writings of Ian Stevenson Edited by Emily Williams Kelly 297 James G. Matlock Men and Women of Parapsychology, Personal Reflections, Esprit Volume 2 Edited by Rosemarie Pilkington 301 Philip S. Morse Correspondence (Kennedy) 304 Benefactors 307 Index 308 Postal Forms 316 We would like to thank the following persons for their work in translating abstracts for this issue of the Journal: Eberhard Bauer (German), Etzel Cardeña (Spanish), and Renaud Evrard (French). Journal of Parapsychology, 77(2), 159–164. GUEST EDITORIAL PHYSICALISM By Robert S. Gebelein1 Scientism, reductionism, materialism, physicalism—the assertion that there is no reality beyond the physical or what can be explained by known physical laws—has been accepted at our major educa- tional institutions as some kind of absolute inviolable truth, such that persons suggesting the possibility of such things as precognition, telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, the existence of a spiritual reality, the power of prayer, reincarnation, levitation, or intelligent design are automatically dismissed as mentally incompetent, and denied publication, funding, and employment. And yet, despite these obstacles, qualified and responsible people are studying these dismissed subjects and building up a body of knowledge (e.g., Radin, 2013; Schmicker, 2002; Tart, 2009). The result is that our major educational institutions, having become paralyzed by their adherence to physicalism, are falling farther and farther behind actual cultural knowledge. I am sending this to the presidents of our top-ranked educational institutions, to see what they can do to end the paralysis and revive the flow of information and ideas. There seems to be a fear on the part of some people that acknowledging the existence of “spiritual” phenomena will take us right back to religion again. So the first thing we need to do is to separate the spiritual from religion. Religion is primarily fiction created to explain and deal with the unknown, primar- ily the spiritual. Religion presents itself as a rigid authoritarian belief system, pretending to be absolute ultimate truth, to give people the security they want. Religion will always be incompatible with science, not because it deals with the spiritual, but because it is a rigid belief system. The spiritual can be explored scientifically, as some people are now doing, simply by observing the evidence and drawing valid logical inferences from it. No religious assumptions (like the existence of a “God”) have to be made. But science has overextended itself by trying to replace religion. With Darwin’s theory of the origin of species, it was no longer necessary to have a Creator to explain our existence. Matter simply assembled itself, according to known physical laws. Everything was known or could be known through physical science. Biologists themselves have accumulated the evidence to refute Darwin’s theory. New species have appeared too quickly, in geological time, to have evolved through the process of adaptation, and they have appeared fully formed, and not in gradual stages of adaptation (e.g., Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1983; Illustra Media, 2009). Biologists can’t admit that Darwin’s theory has been refuted, because their whole belief system rests upon it (e.g., Dawkins, 1987). We are thrown back to the realization that we don’t really know. Physicalism has become the new fiction to explain the unknown. 1 Editor’s Note: Robert Gebelein is the Business Manager of the Journal of Parapsychology. The editorial is a revised ver- sion of a letter he sent to the presidents of over 137 top-ranked American colleges and universities in 2013. As with all our Guest Editorials, the views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Journal of Parapsychology or its Editor. The present editorial does, however, conform to my desire that our editorials be provocative. 160 The Journal of Parapsychology What is the scientific basis for physicalism? In order for physicalism, scientifically, to be the absolute and inviolable truth it is treated as, it would have to be demonstrated scientifically, absolutely and inviolably. And I don’t see that proof any- where. In order to establish scientifically that there is no reality beyond the physical, one would need a complete knowledge of everything. With the discovery of dark matter, it should be clear that we are nowhere near a complete knowledge of even the physical, let alone those dimensions which may yet be undetected. Conversely, the other side of the logical proposition “There are no such things” is that if we can find only one such thing, the proposition is falsified. In 1958, I dreamed of my grandmother’s death an hour before I received the telegram. That’s all the evidence I ever needed to know there was a reality be- yond what had been explained in my physics courses at Harvard. The Catholic Church has recorded thousands of miracles. The Christian Science Church has recorded thousands of miraculous cures. All this evidence, along with my own experience, is dismissed as “anecdotal evidence” because it wasn’t acquired by members of the scientific establishment. This is supported by the further assertion that all persons outside their social group are unintelligent, uninformed, and superstitious (of course, without the necessary psychological testing). This is not scientific thinking. This is in-group thinking, where members of the in-group believe they are superior to people in the out-group, who have faults that in-group people don’t have (Berelson & Steiner, 1964). It is related to psychological projection and class prejudice. If you belong to a social group, any group, you must conform to its norms and at least pay lip service to its opinions, attitudes, and beliefs. I have seen this demonstrated with small groups of boys, like the gang on the street corner (Berelson & Steiner, 1964). I believe it also applies to larger groups, like the Catholic Church, the Hippies, and the scientific community.