Ghosts - By Hans Holzer Page 0,24

that his accuracy rate was 86 percent accurate with airplane accidents because they come in cycles, 92.6 percent accurate in the case of major fires, 84 percent accurate with automobile accidents, and that his evaluations could be used for many business purposes, from advertising campaigns to executive changes to new product launchings and even to the planning of entertainment. In politics, Anderson proposed to help chart, ahead of time, the possible outcome of political campaigns. He even dealt with hunting and fishing forecasts, and since the latter two occupations are particularly dear to the heart of the business community, it would appear that Anderson had it wrapped up in one neat little package.

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Professor R. A. McConnell, Department of Bio-physics and Microbiology, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, wrote in an article published by the American Psychologist in May 1968 that in discussing ESP before psychology students, it was not unusual to speak of the credulity of the public. He felt it more necessary, however, to examine the credibility of scientists, including both those for ESP and those against it. Referring to an article on ESP by the British researcher G. R. Price, published by Science in 1955, Professor McConnell points to Price’s contention that proof of ESP is conclusive only if one is to accept the good faith and sanity of the experimenters, but that ESP can easily be explained away if one assumes that the experimenters, working in collaboration with their witnesses, have intentionally faked the results. McConnell goes on to point out that this unsubstantiated suggestion of fraud by Price, a chemist by profession, was being published on the first page of the most influential scientific journal in America.

A lot of time has passed since 1955: the American Association for the Advancement of Science has recently voted the Parapsychology Association a member. The latter, one of several bodies of scientific investigators in the field of parapsychology, had sought entrance into the association for many years but had been barred by the alleged prejudices of those in control. The Parapsychology Association itself, due to a fine irony, had also barred some reputable researchers from membership in its own ranks for the very same reasons. But the dam burst, and parapsychology became an accepted subject within the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The researchers were also invited to join. My own New York Committee for the Investigation of Paranormal Occurrences, founded in 1962 under the sponsorship of Eileen Garrett, president of the Parapsychology Foundation, Inc., is also a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

In his article, Professor McConnell points out the fallibility of certain textbooks considered to be bulwarks of scientific knowledge. He reminds his audience that until the year 1800 the highest scientific authorities thought that there were no such things as meteorites. Then the leaders of science found out that meteorites came from outer space, and the textbooks were rewritten accordingly. What disturbs Professor McConnell is that the revised textbooks did not mention that there had been an argument about the matter. He wonders how many arguments are still going on in science and how many serious mistakes are in the textbooks we use for study. In his opinion, we ought to believe only one half of the ideas expressed in the works on biological sciences, although he is not sure which half. In his view, ESP belongs in psychology, one of the biological sciences. He feels that when it comes to ESP, so-called authorities are in error. McConnell points out that most psychology textbooks omit the subject entirely as unworthy of serious consideration. But in his opinion, the books are wrong, for ESP is a real psychological phenomenon. He also shows that the majority of those doing serious research in ESP are not psychologists, and deduces from this and the usual textbook treatment of the subject as well as from his own sources that psychologists are simply not interested in ESP.

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L. C. Kling, M.D., is a psychiatrist living in Strasbourg, France. He writes in German and has published occasional papers dealing with his profession. Most psychiatrists and psychoanalysts who base their work upon the findings of Sigmund Freud, balk at the idea that Dr. Freud had any interest in psychic phenomena or ESP. But the fact is—and Dr. Kling points this out in an article published in 1966—that Freud had many encounters with paranormal phenomena. When he was sixty-five years old he wrote to American researcher Herewood Carrington: “If