not knowledge or even comparable to the idea of knowledge; science is merely the process of gathering knowledge by reliable and recognized means. These means, however, may change as time goes on, and the means considered reliable in the past may fail the test in the future, while, conversely, new methods not used in the past may come into prominence and be found useful. To consider the edifice of science an immovable object, a wall against which one may safely lean with confidence in the knowledge that nearly everything worth knowing is already known, is a most unrealistic concept. Just as a living thing changes from day to day, so does science and that which makes up scientific evidence.
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There are, however, forces within science representing the conservative or establishment point of view. These forces are vested in certain powerful individuals who are not so much unconvinced of the reality of controversial phenomena and the advisability of including these phenomena in the scientific process as they are unwilling to change their established concept of science. They are, in short, unwilling to learn new and startling facts, many of which conflict with that which they have learned in the past, that which forms the very basis and foundation of their scientific beliefs. Science derives from scire, meaning “to know.” Scientia, the Latin noun upon which our English term “science” is based, is best translated as “the ability to know,” or perhaps, “understanding.” Knowledge as an absolute is another matter. I doubt very much that absolute knowledge is possible even within the confines of human comprehension. What we are dealing with in science is a method of reaching toward it, not attaining it. In the end, the veil of secrecy will hide the ultimate truth from us, very likely because we are incapable of grasping it due to insufficient spiritual awareness. This insufficiency expresses itself, among other ways, through a determined reliance upon terminology and frames of reference derived from materialistic concepts that have little bearing upon the higher strata of information. Every form of research requires its own set of tools and its own criteria. Applying the purely materialistic empiric concepts of evidence to nonmaterialistic areas is not likely to yield satisfactory results. An entirely different set of criteria must be established first before we can hope to grasp the significance of those nonmaterial concepts and forces around us that have been with us since the beginning of time. These are both within us and without us. They form the innermost layer of human consciousness as well as the outer reaches of the existing universe.
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By and large, the average scientist who is not directly concerned with the field of ESP and parapsychology does not venture into it, either pro or con. He is usually too much concerned with his own field and with the insufficiencies found in his own bailiwick. Occasionally, people in areas that are peripheral to ESP and parapsychology will venture into it, partly because they are attracted by it and sense a growing importance in the study of those areas that have so long been neglected by most scientists, and partly because they feel that in attacking the findings of parapsychology they are in some psychologically understandable way validating their own failures. When Professor Joseph B. Rhine first started measuring what he called the “psi” factor in man, critics were quick to point out the hazards of a system relying so heavily on contrived, artificial conditions and statistics. Whatever Professor Rhine was able to prove in the way of significant data has since been largely obscured by criticism, some of it valid and some of it not, and of course by the far greater importance of observing spontaneous phenomena in the field when and if they occur. In the beginning, however, Professor Rhine represented a milestone in scientific thinking. It was the first time that the area, formerly left solely to the occultist, had been explored by a trained scientist in the modern sense of the term. Even then, no one took the field of parapsychology very seriously; Rhine and his closest associate, Dr. Hornell Hart, were considered part of the Department of Sociology, as there had not as yet been a distinct Department of Parapsychology or a degree in that new science. Even today there is no doctorate in it, and those working in the field usually must have other credits as well. But the picture is changing. A few years ago, Dr. Jules