226 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
226 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
Excerpt from:
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"States of Mind: ESP and Altered States of Consciousness"
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by Adrian Parker BF1321.P37 (1975)
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---
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(Chapter 7, Page 134)
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ESP in the Psychedelic State
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Whether or not psychedelic drugs are objectively conducive to extrasensory
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perception, there seems little doubt that, following their use, individuals
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are more open minded to such phenomena. 76 percent of a sample of marijuana
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users believe in ESP (Tart 1971), and 75 percent of a sample of LSD users
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reported they were more open minded after taking the drug than before (Harman
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1964).
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One can explain this in different ways. It may be that the experience of
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'other worlds', with their transcendence of normal space-time relations,
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breaks down our logical defenses against such experiences as ESP. Indeed,
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this in turn may promote an increased frequency of ESP experiences associated
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with the drugs. Alternatively, the sceptic can use the same argument - that
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psychedelics break down 'ego boundaries' between the self and others, thereby
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promoting regressive, animistic beliefs. Only empirical research can decide
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which of the two views is correct.
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In an excellent review of the difficulties involved in such research, the
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psychotherapist Duncan Blewett (1963) has suggested that the psychedelic
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experience must first be 'stabilised' before an attempt can be made to
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utilise it. Usually the state is not stable but rather a kaleidoscope of
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images and feelings which are being discovered and explored. The self
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dissociates from this and as 'ego loss' ensues objectivity is impossible,
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which can result in either self-acceptance or rejection, culminating in an
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experience anywhere between the psychotic and self-realisation ends of the
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dimension. Obviously such psychological problems and feelings must be worked
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through and resolved before experimentation can be tried. Another problem
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noted by Blewett is that the psychedelic experience is often a fusing of
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empathy and telepathy, but a non-verbal one for which research may need new
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methods, such as being able to identify the 'feeling style' of subjects.
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Even this may be a generalisation from a psychotherapeutic context. As we
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shall see later, subjects will experience levels varying from the purely
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sensory to the mystical, depending on the situation and the support they
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receive. At a sensory level subjects may be too fascinated by novel
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perceptions to become involved in dull experimentation, while at mystical
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levels, ESPs may seem too mundane and obvious so that experimentation appears
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a waste of time!
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It is a sad fact that three out of four pilot studies seem to have been
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grounded by these problems. Karlis Osis, parapsychologist at the American
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Society for Psychical Research, reported a study (1961) in which he gave LSD
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to mediums and asked them to do 'object reading tests' - to give information
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about the owners of objects that were presented to them. Unfortunately only
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one medium showed any signs of being successful and the whole thing proved
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unsatisfactory because the mediums became too involved with and distracted
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by their own personal problems.
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Another study, by biochemist Roberto Cavanna and psychoanalyst Emilio
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Servadio (1964), became virtually an exploration of methodical difficulties.
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LSD and psilocybin were used and strict screening was felt to be necessary to
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eliminate any risks to the subject, which left then with only three, two of
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whom were supposed to be the controls for the one remaining sensitive. No
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preparatory adjustment or prior experience with the drugs was apparently
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given to help stabilise the experience. 'Improbable' qualitative materials
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were used as ESP targets; a picture of a foot, for example, combined with a
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wrist watch. A rating assessment of the degree of correspondence between
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responses and targets (which is open to personal bias) was employed instead
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of the usual blind matching of responses and targets, but no quantitative
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evidence of ESP was produced.
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The latest and most extensive study reported was carried out by the Dutch
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researchers S.R. Van Asperen de Boor, P.R. Barkema and J. Kappers (1966).
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While this seems to have been conducted in a proficient and meticulous manner
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it appears to have been at the expense of almost total neglect of
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interpersonal factors.
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Having first tried LSD, they gave it up as too disturbing to work with.
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Instead they administered psilocybin, which is less severe in its effects, to
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their thirty subjects and followed it by Zener card guessing tests (for ESP),
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object reading tests, and travelling clairvoyance tests. While there was a
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definite indication of ESP in the scores from the Zener card tests, this
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showed no significant difference from scores in the control sessions without
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the drug. The other tests also produced some evidence of ESP but the scores
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again were little different from those obtained without the drug, and their
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two best subjects had claimed previous paranormal ability. Unfortunately
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assessments also used ratings of correspondences which are open to bias.
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Symbolic reprensentation seemed to occur with the psilocybin as, for one
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example, one subject in response to an object reading test said the owner of
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the object had the name of an animal, 'Wolf', when his name was Wolfson.
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The lack of success is understandable when we note that the authors reported
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that more than half the subjects were distracted by their experiences and
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many were said to make 'psychotic remarks'. Probably the most interesing
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finding was that there were differences between the ESP scores associated
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with the various 'target persons', or intended agents, for the ESP
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experience. This also seemed to be true of the ESP scores associated with the
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three experimenters themselves, although no formal assessment could be made
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of these findings.
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Besides the neglect of relationship and interpersonal factors, a major
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deficiency common to these three studies is the absence of preparatory
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experience with the psychedelic drug which would have helped to stabilise the
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experience. Apparently no previous experience was given in the Osis and
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Cavanna-Servadio investigations, and only two out of the thirty subjects in
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the Dutch series took the drug more than once.
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But the remaining pilot study seems to have overcome many of these
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deficiencies. This was a study of telepathy during LSD sessions conducted by
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Robert Masters and Jean Housten at the Mind Research Foundation in New York.
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Masters and Housten were experienced in the use of psychedelic drugs, having
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spent about fifteen years in their research, and during this time they came
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across occasional instances of what looked like ESP, which they found
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sufficiently intriguing to inaugurate a pilot study.
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One instance described by them involved an apparent travelling clairvoyance
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experience in which a subject reported seeing 'a ship caught in ice floes
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somewhere in northern seas', its name being given as the 'France'. Two days
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later newspapers recorded that a ship named 'France' had been freed from ice
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near Greenland.
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Masters and Housten's pilot investigation had two parts; an ESP card guessing
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series in which subjects attempted during their psychedelic experience to
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identify the cards the 'guide' was looking at, and an image test in which the
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'guide' tried to imagine a scene described on a piece of paper and the
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subject also tried to experience it. Masters and Housten reported the results
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of the card guessing separately for high- and low-scoring subjects, twenty
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three of whom averaged 3.5 hits or less over their ten runs each. This is far
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below what could be accounted for by chance, and since they describe these
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subjects as bored and poorly motivated, it may have been a case of
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'psi-missing' - where ESP is used to avoid giving the correct repsonse. The
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remaining four subjects produced enormously high scores averaging a total of
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8.5 hits for their ten runs each. These subjects were described as close
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friends of the guide, better motivated and with a high degree of empathy.
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Whether these scores are looked at separately or together, they could not
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arise by chance except statistically at less than once in ten million times.
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The only alternative to ESP is to claim that non-verbal or subliminal forms
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of communiciation were responsible since the guide was often in the same room
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as the subject.
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The image tests were unfortunately carried out under the same conditions,
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but these also produced an extraordinary high level of correspondence.
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Forty-eight of the sixty-two subjects 'approximated' to the guide's image on
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at least two occasions out of ten. The remaining fourteen were all persons
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not well known to the guide, and they experienced anxiety or were bored with
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the test. But on several occasions, subjects appeared to identify correctly
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what the guide was experiencing even when he was unable to imagine the
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target. Masters and Housten give a remarkable example of this in the
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following case.
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Paper in the envelope reads Guide imagines Subject reports
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----------------------------- --------------------- ----------------------
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1 Viking ship tossed in storm Same Snake with arched head
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swimming in tossed seas
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2 A rain forest in the Amazon Same, with some exotic Lush vegetation, exotic
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flowers growing flowers, startling
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greens, all seen through
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watery mist
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3 Atlas holding up the world Same Hercules tossing a ball
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up and down in his hand
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4 Greek island with small Same, but with an A circus
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white houses built in earthquake, houses
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terraced hills falling down
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5 A sail boat off a rocky Same Sail boat sailing around
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coast a cliff
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6 Ski slope in New England A forest fire. A forest fire
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white, with skiers Guide was unable to
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sliding down imagine the ski scene
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7 New York City traffic Same but with very Geisha girl in full
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scene brilliant colours oriental regalia
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8 A plantation in the Many images relating A Negro picking cotton
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old South to pre-Civil war in a field
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plantation life,
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including a Negro
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picking cotton
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9 An arab on a camel Same Camel passing through
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passing a pyramid the inside of a vast
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labyrinthine tomb
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10 The Himalayas - Same A climbing expedition
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snow-capped peaks in the Alps
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Whether or not we accept the Masters and Housten study as providing evidence
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of ESP in the psychedelic state, it does illustrate the importance of the
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quality of the relationship - especially in terms of motivation and empathy -
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in this kind of research. Another distinctive feature of this study is that
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it used guides who had helped subjects through their psychedelic experiences,
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and therefore empathy was presumably high.
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Because of the prohibition on psychedelics no further experiemental research
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using LSD to induce ESP has been reported, so the only remaining approach is
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to observe it in subcultures where psychedelics are used illicitly. Stanley
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Krippner, psychologist in the Maimonides team, and anthropologist Don Fersh
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(1968, 1971) have made an innovative field study of ESP in hippie communes.
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They visited twenty-two communities in the south-western USA and noticed that
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'one common element which permeated them was the report of paranormal
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experience'. Although Krippner and Fersh did not observe any of these events
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at that time, six members of one commune paid a visit to the Maimonides Dream
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Laboratory. They went into the laboratory sound room while an assistant chose
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a target to look at. The group consensus opinion was that it was 'a machine
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on which there were a lot of buttons'; the target was a typewriter. During
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the second attempt the assistant tried to sense an image of a bridge and each
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member of the commune was questioned individually. This time two of the six
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said 'bridge' and a third said 'suspension bridge'.
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This kind of research can possibly throw light on whether or not the frequent
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use of psychedelic drugs in a free life style does promote an openness to
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ESP, but it seems doubtful whether much more can be learned about the nature
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of the relationship of the psychedelic experience to ESP without further
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controlled experimentation.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------
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LSD-ESP.TXT 14-JUL-90
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