Krippner Part 4: The Shadow Consequences of Science and Psi Rsearch

The Shadow Consequences of Science and Psi Research
Schroll: I suppose there are so many problems that can be solved with our so-called convential materialistic worldview that the ideas we have been talking about do sound like the storyline of a science fiction thriller. Indeed accepting these ideas as a real thesis would require us to change and transform our self-worldview as to what it means to be human so much that our concept of any sort of boundary between ourselves and everyone else would have to be—dare I say—radically changed.
Krippner: This is part of the problem. Indeed during the Cold War the CIA and the US defense department literally spent millions of dollars on Remote Viewing projects, and trained several dozen people—mainly half a dozen people who were their stars—to identify objects at distant points in the world. And then once they had their people trained, they put them to use identifying cold war targets, such as where the Soviets were hiding their atomic missals, and where kidnapped officials were being held, and where secret weapons were being built. This cost more money than parapsychology has ever had, and I’m not going to be the first to ask whether or not it was spent wisely and correctly, but it was spent. The consensus at the end of all of this was that this approach works, but it does not work any better than Earth Satellites, or aerial observations, or just plain reports from spymasters around the world. And so, it was felt that Remote Viewing and the psychics involved were not much more valuable than what other sources of information could provide. The project was discontinued. Now this was in the area of applied research, not experimental research, and so there were never any statistical tests or hypotheses drawn up, which is a shame. There are people and statisticians that have gone back over the work, to try and salvage it enough to come up with scientific conclusions. Jessica Utts is the major person in this field. She concluded something a little bit different than what the defense department claimed.8 They said these techniques work at statistically significant levels, although they do not work perfectly, they do work well enough that they should be kept in the repertoire. Actually these techniques are still being used, even though the actual experimentation has been discontinued, and the US government has identified a few people who are fairly consistently able to come up with enough accurate information that they can be kept on the government payroll. I knew some of the people that were Remote Viewers, and it was very stressful work, and some of them actually died of stress related diseases.9 One of them had a quadruple by-pass, and survived and is now in good shape, the one who got off without major health problems was Ingo Swan, a New York artist. And he claims that he was able to avoid stress and come through so well because he had studied Scientology. Perhaps he could have done just as well by studying transcendental mediation, who knows, but he had studied a mind discipline that had helped him to withstand the stress. However, he withdrew from the project before the others did. First of all he withdrew because the government was putting too much pressure on him, and he was not comfortable with the pressure level that was being applied, and he was beginning to feel some negative health affects. Second, he thought he had done his bit and he wanted to get back to his writing and his artwork and his other pursuits.
Schroll: This general idea that the funding for science—especially in the US—is always used as either some form of espionage in the case of Remote Viewing, or some other related military application worries me. Likewise the space program—we’ve had a lot of technological advancement developed by the space program that later became useful to the rest of us. But the agenda of science tends to be one of first developing some kind of weapon, or some way of manipulating other people, rather than developing some greater utopian social good to help raise-up the society and our world in general—not only in terms of its ideas, but its conditions. This is where the ideas associated with the humanistic psychology movement (if they were more widely known), could influence the way that science approaches problems and the methods it uses to acquire its knowledge.10
Krippner: Well let’s hope. You remember what President Eisenhower said during his farewell address. He warned our country against the military industrial complex in very prophetic words. But our nation’s leaders have chosen to disregard Eisenhower’s wisdom, and this has led to the worldview that you are talking about. Also, I’ll give you another set of priorities. I do considerable work with indigenous healers, and the World Health Organization. The United Nations has tried to foster projects with indigenous healers and tried to help them work together with Western trained doctors and nurses. Meanwhile the budget the World Health Organization has for one year is less than the amount of money the world spends on arms in three hours. So you can see what the priorities are; and yet the World Health organization does wonders with that little bit of money coming in from the United Nations each year. In conclusion, our priorities need to be questioned if science is to advance, if humankind is to be saved, and if the world is to survive.
Comments
Judy Tart: This was a fascinating interview with Stanley, one of the most interesting researchers in this area I know, and if it is an “introduction,” I hope this means that more is to follow! It has become extremely difficult to do research in any area of consciousness that is actually meaningful. Scientism and skeptics have managed to ridicule and trivialize the most important facts of human existence, making it almost impossible to get consistent funding or to even dare to propose research in these areas. Hopefully we will all contribute to changing this dead end worldview and shedding ever-increasing light on these vital questions of consciousness and reality. I look forward to more discussion on this topic.
Rita Dwyer: Thanks Judy for bringing up the issue of scientism, the learned skepticism entrenched within “hard” science for things that are not laboratory replicable. I urge others to read Body Mind Spirit (1997) by Charles T. Tart if they need to be convinced that Psi Dreaming gets an undeserved bad rap.
Schroll: Thank you Judy and Rita for raising this concern about scientism. In a panel I organized for the 16th International Transpersonal Association conference, that included Charles T. Tart, he echoed these concerns:
I was recently credited with coining the word scientism, but this is not true. Back in the early 19th century, sociologists were talking about scientism when they recognized that for a lot of scientists, the practice of science was no longer a method for trying to refine our knowledge about reality. It became an arrogant agenda where we basically figured out everything important and we could ignore all of the worldviews that did not fit (Tart, 2004).
Scientism’s opposition to what C. T. Tart refers to as genuine science bears repeating:
Genuine science, as many scientists understand it, starts with curiosity about aspects of reality and remains fundamentally open-minded and empirical. Humans love to create explanations and theories, but science insists that all these theories be constantly submitted to empirical test. If they fail such tests, they must be revised or rejected, no matter how intellectually or emotionally appealing they are . . . [On the other hand,] scientism results when the process of open-minded scientific inquiry stops or is restricted to “legitimate” areas and a new requirement for acceptance of data and theories beyond empirical fidelity is added—namely, that results be compatible with a materialistic philosophy of life . . . At worst, scientism psychologically acts in the same ways that rigid, fundamentalist religions [have acted throughout humankind’s social-psychological development, in order to limit human curiosity and freedom] (Tart: 78, 1992).
In contrast to scientism I have sought to champion the term integral science—which C. T. Tart has referred to as essential science (Tart, 2000, 2004). I use this idea to frame my argument that EuroAmerican science has become an incoherent, dissociated system of unexamined contradictions that resembles the personality characteristics of schizoid behavior. “Integral/essential science embraces a revolution of ethics, the re-emergence of shamanic practitioners, indigenous traditions of knowledge, the use of sacred visionary plants, and the growing edges of a more inclusive worldview” (Schroll: 3, 2005b).
Rita Dwyer: Patricia S. wrote, “Dr. Schroll said “We may need to throw out the idea that all memory is inside the brain and instead it involves a resonance with the non-local field.” [Patricia S. asks,] “What do other species and life forms know? Whales are our ancestors. Those of us who live near old trees might ask them. Just allowing the idea that other species communicate is one way to change consciousness.” I believe this, Patricia—one has only to look at the work of Rupert Sheldrake and his concept of morphogenetic fields to see that other species communicate in ways we 20th century humans may not yet understand, but some have done so, particularly, in cultures we often label as primitive.
Schroll: Sheldrake’s work is very important, and I would like to have him attend a future IASD conference to discuss these ideas further. Thus far, the most tentative outgrowth and least experimentally substantiated aspect of Sheldrake’s work concerns the idea of inter-species communication; yet he has written on how animals (dogs specifically) know when their human caretakers are home. Sheldrake’s research on dogs and their human caretakers, as well as how pigeons home, is talked about in his book Seven Experiments That Could Change the World (1994). To my knowledge Sheldrake has yet to include the work of John Lilly whose work with dolphins was an attempt to explore inter-species communication. Lilly is also famous for his samadhi tank or sensory deprivation tank experiments (Lilly, 1971), which is one experimental thread that could be useful to dream researchers interested in investigating inter-species communication. Bringing together the work of Sheldrake and Lilly is therefore something that would facilitate this inquiry.
Another avenue of past research tangentially related to inter-species communication, yet speaking specifically to understanding the physical basis of psi, are the experiments of Harvard biologist William McDougall—whose research assistant was J. B. Rhine. McDougall was interested in the question of Lamarkian inheritance, or the ability to pass down specific abilities (like playing the violin) as traits from parent to offspring—a view that is not shared by neo-Darwinism, evolutionary biology, molecular biologists, ect. McDougall’s experiments are discussed in Sheldrake’s book A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation (Sheldrake, 1981); whose later editions include a thorough discussion of experiments designed to test Sheldrake’s hypothesis (Sheldrake, 1985). Maureen O’Hara, past president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology and past president of Saybrook Graduate School is, nevertheless, opposed to Sheldrake’s interpretation of morphogenetic fields. O’Hara associates Sheldrake’s work with the 100th monkey phenomena that she has written about at length (O’Hara, 1985), telling us:
My objection to the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon, then, is not that it is a myth, but that it is [a] bad myth, and that it draws its force not from the collective imagination, but by masquerading as science. It leads us . . . . in the direction of propaganda, manipulation, totalitarianism, and a worldview dominated by the powerful and persuasive (O’Hara: 75-76, 1985).
O’Hara’s critique of Sheldrake’s work is, nevertheless, far less thorough than that of her investigation of the 100th monkey phenomena. Indeed O’Hara’s public criticism of Sheldrake’s work barely mentions his hypothesis of formative causation and postulate of morphogenetic fields as a means of explanation (O’Hara, 1984); whose most substantial criticism of Sheldrake is in a private communication that I have yet to publish (O’Hara, 1989b). Whereas in her public criticism O’Hara has focused attention on the dangers of pseudoscience (especially the New Age movement) and the importance of our proper understanding of the politics of science (i.e., the social construction of theory formation), harking back to our previous discussion of scientism (O’Hara, 1988, 1989a). I am therefore in agreement and support these views of O’Hara regarding theory formation that need to be taken up by social psychologists and cultural anthropologists. This is why I am deeply concerned that O’Hara sees a relationship between the 100th monkey story, the New Age movement and Sheldrake’s hypothesis. Indeed for those of us interested in finding a physical basis of psi and inter-species communication, resolving these misunderstanding needs to be one of our top priorities.
Notes
1. Due to length limitations only a few replies to the comments that this essay received during this conference were able to be included; additional replies are forthcoming.
2. Krippner’s question as to whether or not there is a connection between these clusters of nightmares and the unusual behavior of these radioactive particles that would lend support to a field theory of consciousness was discussed in Jayne Gackenbach’s 2006 IASD presentation “Non-Local Consciousness and the Maharishi Effect.” Questions about specific experiments related to the global consciousness project should be directed to Gackenbach. Jill Fisher also assisted Gackenbach in putting this research together. If enough money can be raised to continue this research, we should also contact Brenda Dunne at Princeton, whose work with Robert Jahn and the Princeton Engineering Group is discussed in their book Margins of Reality (1987). (Sadly the research lab at Princeton has ceased its activities; yet the voice I miss most on nightmares and consciousness is the late John E. Mack). Krippner pointed out during this same IASD symposium that the Maharishi Effect has not been replicated in years. Nor does the Maharishi Institute communicate with or use any data from the Global Consciousness Project or Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) Group to support its hypotheses (PEAR, 2005a, 2005b). Schroll offered a related hypothesis during this symposium, that synchronistic events tend to take place during peak and plateau experiences (Schroll, 2005c, 2006a). Finally, Krippner added that Ernest Hartmann has been collecting data on dreams and the 9/11 attacks (Hartmann, 2006).
3. Schroll, 2006b; Ullman, 2006a, 2006b.
4. See note #2; Schroll, 1987, 2005a; Sheldrake, 1981. 1988, 1990; Ullman, 2006a, 2006b.
5. See note #2; Krippner, S., Devereux, P. & Fish, A. (nd.); currently I am completing a paper that will provide a detailed discussion of this field theory model and Bohm and Sheldrake’s research, whose working titled is “Bohm’s Holistic Physics, Sacred Sites, Spiritual Emergence and Ecopsychology’s Vision.”
6. Schroll, 2000, 2001a.
7. This again points to Bohm and Sheldrake’s work; see note #4 and #5.
8. Schroll with Schwartz, 2005, see pages 7-9 for a discussion of Utts’ work.
9. During the 5th IASD PsiberDreaming conference, Dale Graff raised some significant questions regarding this discussion of Remote Viewing experiments; Graff also posed several thought provoking questions about the physics of psi dreaming. Space limits prevent us from addressing these concerns here that will be taken up in a future essay.
10. In 1968 Erich Fromm pointed out:
A specter is stalking in our midst whom only a few see with clarity. . . . a completely mechanized society, devoted to maximal material output and consumption, directed by computers; and in this social process, man himself is being transformed into a part of the total machine, well fed and entertained, yet passive, unalive, and will little feeling (Fromm: 1, 1968).
These concerns regarding technology and its military applications are also taken up in Bohm, 1993; Bohm & Kelly, 1990; Krippner, 2006; Schroll, 2001b, 2004b, 2005b; Schroll, Krippner, Fadiman, Vich and Mojeiko, nd; Schroll with Schwartz, 2005.
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