20 years at the Koestler Parapsychology Unit

Basic concepts and Some terminology in Parapsychology

BY: CAROLINE WATT

        July 2006

Many people have experienced seemingly psychic phenomena, such as having a dream that predicts the future, seeing a ghost, or thinking of a long-lost friend and then receiving a telephone call from that person moments later. In addition, some individuals appear to possess psychic abilities, including mediums who claim to communicate with the dead, healers who seem to help cure illness, and psychics who can apparently bend keys and cutlery using just the power of their minds.

Such allegedly psychic experiences and abilities have been reported throughout history – however, it is only in the last hundred years or so that researchers have carried out systematic and scientific work into these topics (for a historical review see Beloff, 1977).

The Koestler Parapsychology Unit is one such group of researchers. Based within the psychology department at the University of Edinburgh, the KPU includes the only endowed chair of parapsychology in the UK, established by a bequest following the suicide in 1983 of internationally acclaimed intellectual, writer and journalist Arthur Koestler. Koestler had a lifelong interest in the paranormal, seen most clearly in his 1972 book The Roots of Coincidence, and he wanted the subject to be given serious attention within a university setting.

In 1985 American parapsychologist Robert Morris was appointed as Edinburgh’s first Koestler Professor of Parapsychology. A figure widely respected by psychologists, parapsychologists and sceptics alike, Morris died unexpectedly in August 2004, after almost two decades as Koestler Professor. The Koestler Chair is currently vacant.

Over the years, 30 students gained their PhDs under Morris’s supervision, and about 120 undergraduate psychology students conducted their final-year projects and dissertations with KPU staff. A number of KPU research staff and students went on to obtain lectureships and established their own parapsychology research groups in other UK psychology departments. Two are now professors (Deborah Delanoy at the University of Northampton and Richard Wiseman at the University of Hertfordshire). A new brood of PhD students – one might think of them as Morris’s grandchildren – is now emerging from under the wings of individuals whose careers in psychology and parapsychology started at the Koestler Unit.

Basic concepts

The Koestler bequest defines parapsychology as ‘the scientific study of paranormal phenomena, in particular the capacity attributed to some individuals to interact with their environments by means other than the recognised sensory and motor channels’. As Morris did, I have emphasised that this definition not only includes the study of hypothesized ‘genuine psi’ but also ‘what’s not psychic but looks like it’ (Morris, 1986) – what one might call pseudo-psi.

Following the remit of the bequest, work at the Koestler Unit makes no assumptions about the mechanism that may underlie apparently paranormal experiences. In some cases, an experience that is initially interpreted as paranormal may turn out to be attributable to quite well-understood mechanisms, including coincidence, poor observation or recall, self-deception, and deception by others.

In other cases, psychic experiences may be explained through an extension of what science already knows about human sensorimotor capabilities, or new human capabilities may be discovered. Most parapsychologists would consider ‘paranormal’ phenomena to fall into either or both of the latter two categories, and would assume that they can apply the tools of science to investigate these possible extended or new capabilities.

Some terminology

Parapsychologists use the theory-neutral term psi to encompass the two main categories of allegedly paranormal phenomena.

Extrasensory perception (ESP)

Refers to apparent paranormal communication, where a person seems to obtain information from another person without the use of the currently known senses or inference. An example of this would be the feeling of knowing who is calling before answering the phone.

ESP breaks down into three sub-categories:

· Telepathy refers to apparent mind-to-mind communication;

· Clairvoyance refers to apparently obtaining information from the environment (e.g. from inside a sealed envelope); and

· Precognition refers to apparently obtaining information about a future event.

Psychokinesis (PK) 

is the second main category of psi phenomena. This refers to apparent paranormal influence, where one person appears to affect an animate or inanimate object in their environment through thought alone. For example, people commonly report feeling the hairs stand up on the back of their neck, turning round and finding they are being stared at.

There are three sub-categories of PK:

· Macro-PK refers to large-scale apparent PK effects, such as metal-bending or table levitations, that are visible to the naked eye;

· Micro-PK refers to apparent PK effects that can only be detected statistically (such as deviations in the output of electronic random number generators that correspond with the mental intention of an operator);

· Bio-PK or DMILS (direct mental interaction between living systems) usually refers to the apparent influence of one person’s volition on another person’s physiology (for example, psychic healing), though parapsychologists have also studied DMILS in animals and with samples of tissue or bodily fluids in vitro.

Work at the KPU largely falls into three broad strands: The study of:

· Pseudo-psi,

· Psi, and

· Paranormal beliefs and experiences.

References:

CAROLINE WATT, The Psychologist Vol 19 No 7, July 2006, www.thepsychologist.org.uk

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