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From: mod-psi@ulowell.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.psi
Subject: Re: psi research vs witchcraft
Message-ID: <918@ulowell.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Jan-87 21:10:36 EST
Article-I.D.: ulowell.918
Posted: Mon Jan  5 21:10:36 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 6-Jan-87 05:50:52 EST
References: <429@mind.UUCP>
Sender: rickheit@ulowell.UUCP
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Centram Systems, Berkeley
Lines: 62
Approved: rickheit@ulowell.UUCP

In article <429@mind.UUCP> dean@mind.UUCP (Dean Radin) writes:
>I hope that readers of this newsgroup realize that there is a vast 
>difference between academic parapsychology and the practice of
>witchcraft and other occult arts.  The former is a scientific discipline,
>no different in principle than experimental psychology or physics; the latter
>is essentially a belief system.

False.  Parapsychology is the belief system, as demonstrated by the many
cases of experimenter fraud motivated by an obviously preconceived belief
that in the end the subject matter would prove to be real: a few little
twiddlings here and there are merely helping things along.  Parapsychology
is a pseudo-scientific extension of the nineteenth century cult of
spiritualism, as is made clear by, for instance, William James' summary of
the early work of the Society for Psychical Research, reprinted in "The Will
to Believe" (available from Dover).

It is obvious if you read Targ or Rogo or any of the other respected and
popular psi authors that they have always believed in psychic powers: that
they entered research with the aim not of discovering whether such powers
exist, but of proving that they do.  They make all sorts of grandiose claims
for which no experimental evidence is offered, such as how to build up one's
psychic powers.  I suggest that if they knew how to build up psychic powers,
they would be able to train themselves or others sufficiently well that
repeatable experiments would be possible.

There is still not a single repeatable experiment to demonstrate the
existence of any psychical phenomenon, after over a century of ostensibly
scientific work.  No legitimate science has ever suffered from this problem;
but we are supposed to believe that psychical effects are somehow harder to
study than nucleon shells.  A less preconceived response would simply be to
assume that the subject matter does not exist, if it resists so tenaciously
all attempts to observe it.  If physics worked like parapsychology, we would
all be making up rationalizations for the existence of the ether despite
Michelson-Morley.

Occultism and witchcraft, however, present a large number of repeatable
experiments in ritual and meditation which have been shown to have an effect
on the psyches of a number of people.  Unfortunately, psychological
experiments in these religious traditions and others have been avoided like
the plague, at what I believe to be an incalculable cost to psychology.
Occultism and witchcraft, unlike dogma-oriented religions like Christianity
(but like Buddhism and Taoism) are oriented towards action and inaction, or
in Gurdjieff's well-turned phrase "work on self", rather than belief.  The
primary reason for the avoidance of such experiments has been the perception
in the West that religion is primarily a matter of belief and explanation,
which of course is true only of the monotheistic religions.

>Whether there are any legitimate connections between occult beliefs 
>and claims and the small magnitude, statistical psi effects as revealed 
>in the laboratory, remains to be seen.

Oh sure.  Let's see even one such repeatable and falsifiable psi effect.

I have nothing against people who believe in psychic powers; I get rather
disgusted with Randi-style blanket condemnations of the intelligence and
honesty of such people.  It is not my intent to insult anyone who disagrees
with me, but I was not about to let such a ridiculous and inverted comparison
pass without comment.
--
Tim Maroney, Electronic Village Idiot
{ihnp4,sun,well,ptsfa,lll-crg,frog}!hoptoad!tim (uucp)
hoptoad!tim@lll-crg (arpa)