Journal of Scientific Exploration Journal of Journal A Publication of the volume 35 issue 2 Scientific Exploration Summer 2021 Summer 2021 2021 Summer pp. 257–472 JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION A Publication of the Society for Scientific Exploration (ISSN 0892-3310) published quarterly, and continuously since 1987 Editorial Office: [email protected] Manuscript Submission: http://journalofscientificexploration.org/index.php/jse/ Editor-in-Chief: Stephen E. Braude, University of Maryland Baltimore County Managing Editor: Kathleen E. Erickson, San Jose State University, California Assistant Managing Editor: Elissa Hoeger, Princeton, New Jersey Associate Editors Peter A. Bancel, Institut Métapsychique International, Paris, France; Institute of Noetic Sciences, Petaluma, California, USA Imants Barušs, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada Robert Bobrow, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, USA Jeremy Drake, Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA Hartmut Grote, Cardiff University, United Kingdom Julia Mossbridge, University of San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA Roger D. Nelson, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA Mark Rodeghier, Center for UFO Studies, Chicago, Illinois, USA Paul H. Smith, Remote Viewing Instructional Services, Cedar City, Utah, USA Harald Walach, Viadrina European University, Frankfurt in Brandenburg, Germany Publications Committee 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 Nottingham, UK Prof. W. H. Jefferys, 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 Alaska–Fairbanks, AK Prof. Peter A. Sturrock, Stanford University, CA Prof. N. C. Wickramasinghe, University of Buckingham, UK; University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka SUBSCRIPTIONS & PREVIOUS JOURNAL ISSUES: Order at scientificexploration.org COPYRIGHT: Authors share copyright (JSE has first serial rights). While underJSE review, articles may not be published elsewhere except on the author’s website. JSE has the right to make accepted articles available online and through print subscription. Content may be reused with proper citation, noncommercially. Society for Scientific Exploration—https://www.scientificexploration.org Journal of Scientific Exploration (ISSN 0892-3310), an open access, peer-reviewed journal, is published quarterly in March, June, September, and December by the Society for Scientific Exploration, PO BOX 8012, Princeton, NJ 08543 USA. The Journal is free to everyone. Print subscriptions: Society members: $60 per year, Libraries: $165 per year. JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION A Publication of the Society for Scientific Exploration AIMS AND SCOPE: The Journal of Scientific 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 scientific inquiry. 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An entire article cannot be resold. Shared copyright means the Society for Scientific Exploration shares copyright with its JSE authors. The Journal of Scientific Exploration is indexed in Scopus, Elsevier Abstracts, CrossRef, and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). https://doi.org/10.31275/20212193 for this whole issue PDF, JSE, 35(2), Spring 2021. JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION A Publication of the Society for Scientific Exploration Volume 35, Number 2 2021 EDITORIAL 261 The Need for Negativity Stephen E. Braude RESEARCH ARTICLES 267 EEG Activity During Mental Influence William Giroldini on a Random Signal Generator Luciano Pederzoli 287 Mind–Matter Entanglement Correlations: Blind Analysis of a New Correlation Matrix Experiment Hartmut Grote 311 The Effects of Meditation and Tayzia Collesso Visualization on the Direct Mental Maria Forrester Influence of Random Event Generators Imants Barušs 345 Phenomenological Interpretations of Some Somatic Temporal and Spatial Patterns of Biophoton Emission in Humans Daqing Piao COMMENTARY 383 Reply to: Grote, H. (2018). Commentary: Intentional observer effects on quantum Markus A. Maier randomness: A Bayesian analysis reveals Moritz C. Dechamps evidence against micro-psychokinesis Günter Schiepek BOOK REVIEWS 389 Historical Views of Spiritism and Mediumship in Spain, 1880–1930 Ciencia y Espiritismo en España, 1880–1930 [Science and Spiritism in Spain, 1880–1930] by Andrea Graus Carlos S. Alvarado 260 Table of Contents JSE 35:2 405 Has Physics Theory Become Vacuous? Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray by Sabine Hossenfelder Henry H. Bauer 415 Sensitive Soul: The Unseen Role of Emotion in Extraordinary States by Michael A. Jawer Robert S. Bobrow 417 An Extraordinary Journey: The Memoirs of a Physical Medium by Stewart Alexander Zofia Weaver 422 Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth by Stuart Ritchie Henry H. Bauer 433 Mystery Cats of the World Revisited: Blue Tigers, King Cheetahs, Black Cougars, Spotted Lions, and More by Karl P. N. Shuker George M. Eberhart SSE NEWS 444 Aspiring Explorers News 445 SSE Masthead 446 Bial Foundation Awards Available 448 Index of Previous Articles in JSE 470 Gift Orders, Gift Memberships, Back Issues, Society Membership 472 Instructions for JSE Authors Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 261–266, 2021 0892-3310/21 EDITORIAL The Need for Negativity Stephen E. Braude https://doi.org/10.31275/20212191 Creative Commons License CC-BY-NC everal of my recent Editorials have dealt with Sterminological/conceptual errors and confu- sions that have been all too prevalent among psi researchers. In this Editorial, I want to consider a related issue often raised about parapsychological concepts and explanation. Probably we’ve all heard the complaint that parapsychology’s core concepts have been defined only negatively, with respect to our present level of ignorance—for example, taking “telepathy” to be “the causal influence of one mind on another independently of theknown senses.” Perhaps some of you have even expressed that complaint yourselves. Of course, the assumption underlying those complaints is that this definitional strategy is a problem. However, it seems like a perfectly reasonable procedure to me, and I can easily accept the possibility that we might eventually learn enough about phenomena so defined that we can later construct better, detailed, and more informative analytical definitions. But at least as far as psi research is concerned, I consider it presumptuous—at our present (and considerable) level of ignorance— to proceed any other way. We hardly have the barest hint, based on all the available data, as to what psi is doing in the world (i.e., both inside and outside the lab). In fact, formal, experimental evidence has been particularly unilluminating. It has barely succeeded, if it’s succeeded at all, in convincing parapsychological fence-sitters that there are any genuine paranormal phenomena to study (I’ve explored some reasons for this in Braude, 1997). And it certainly hasn’t shed light on how pervasive, extensive, and refined psi effects might be, or whether effects 262 Editorial of radically different magnitudes would be the result of substantially different processes. At best, typical quantitative research examines only straitjacketed expressions of phenomena that non-laboratory evidence suggests occur more impressively (if not flamboyantly) “in the wild.” So it strikes me as appropriately modest and circumspect to define “PK” (for example) as “the effect of an organism on a region r of the physical world without any known sort of physical interaction between the organism’s body and r.” (For additional specific parapsychological definitions, see Braude, 2002). Philosopher Michael Scriven addressed this topic very sensibly back in the 1970s (Scriven, 1976). Among other things, and focusing more specifically on the topic of scientific explanation, he argued (plausibly) that so-called negative definitions are still substantive. Scriven wrote, . let us briefly consider another of the puzzles about explana- tion