Satan in his efforts to defeat the divine plan for the redemption of man, seeks to foul the springs of learning, in an effort to distort and misconstrue the truths of the divine Guidebook. The wily foe, with his wrecking tools, lurks in concealment to pollute every activity of life.
The introduction of the doctrine of evolution destroyed the harmonious union of intellectual and spiritual culture that has been fostered by the home and the church. The fundamental truths of the Bible were no longer given an honored place, and unscriptural teachings began to influence science, and to sunder the school from fundamental Christianity. The consequent discord between science and religion plunged the student into confusion, and too often destroyed his faith in God's Word, in the spiritual nature of man, and his belief in the supernatural.
College and university students have in consequence been confronted with agnosticism and atheism in the content of their courses of instruction. The spiritual result of this scholastic environment has been well stated by Dr. J. B. Rhine, in his book, The Reach of the Mind: "Rational man lost his belief in his own spiritual nature. . . . It had no place in the mechanistic picture of the world." Moreover, "Wherever science came in, the traditional belief in man's spiritual nature went out." 1
Now this picture is changing. As the penduluth again swings away from materialism, Satan is once more ready with a pseudo science to lure the unwary. One of his most subtle invasions of the thinking of modern man is in the field of parapsychology.
Recent research in the mental sciences is now producing a new spiritual concept of man and bids fair to leaven the entire field of education. It purports to reharmonize religion and science, and rewed them on the issue that parted them a century ago. Such dramatic changes are very significant in the light of Bible prophecy.
Spiritualism Versus Science
In the battle of science versus religion spiritualism has been a valiant contender for a spiritual nature of man. It has persistently knocked at the doors of science and tendered its best evidence in support of its case. Science, by and large, has heretofore remained unmoved and unconvinced. Spiritualism's evidences have been branded as the figments of mystic dreamers, or the phantasies of the credulous.
A vast amount of convincing data on psychic phenomena, however, has now been amassed, and much of it is not adequately accounted for by natural known physical laws. The investigations of psychical scientists and their studies in the field of parapsychology have brought spiritualists wider recognition and increasing prestige.
In the year 1882 the Society for Psychical Research was formed in England, followed in 1885 by the organization of the American Society for Psychical Research. Other groups and organizations are now devoted to the study of parapsychology. The gathering and screening of psychic data is becoming a major science. Tests made under controlled conditions have provided a body of convincing circumstantial evidence that appears to support the spiritualist's claim, and which apparently is meeting with increasing favor and recognition on the part of psychical investigators.
Parapsychologists are now conducting a more detailed and critical study of extrasensory phenomena, such as clairvoyance and telepathy, as well as other paranormal experiences that are apparently of a spiritualistic nature. They are seeking to determine the inherent capabilities of the human mind. What are its extrasensory perceptions? Can man receive impressions through means other than the five senses? Does he possess the power of thought transfer (telepathy), or the ability to see the invisible (clairvoyance)? Can he by means of some psychic sixth sense foretell events (precognition), or control the movement of physical objects (psychokinesis)? By means of investigations in the field of parapsychology science expects to provide the answers.
Extrasensory Perception
To determine the extent of paranormal perceptions commonly called "extrasensory perception," indicated by the initials ESP, test cards were prepared, using five characters, namely, a square, a circle, a star, a plus sign, and a wavy line. There are five of these sets in a pack of 25 cards, which are known as Extrasensory Perception Cards, ESP cards.
In testing for clairvoyance (ability to see the invisible), the cards were placed in an opaque envelope. The entire pack of cards was then invisible to normal sight. The cards were shuffled mechanically or by hand, and the subject would then indicate what he thought was the symbol on the card chosen. Well-established laws of chance, or probability, indicate the subject might as a maximum make five correct guesses out of the pack of 25 cards. If his score is above five, it is taken to indicate a perception above normal—the ability to "see" the symbol by the extrasensory perception of clairvoyance. Thousands of tests and retests produced some remarkable and persistent scoring above the maximum possibilities of chance. In the preliminary work more than 85,000 cards were called. The general average score was seven perfect identifications per 25 cards. Some subjects scored as high as 15 correct identifications per 25 cards. These results have convinced some investigators that clairvoyance is one of the manifestations of extrasensory perceptions, and that ESP is a reality.
In testing for telepathy (thought transfer) the same cards were used, the operator choosing a card (or later merely thinking a symbol, no card being used), and trying by thought to convey to the subject what the symbol was. Here again in many tests the scores were above chance. In some instances operator and subjects were placed in different rooms, and even in different buildings, and finally the distance between them was increased to 1,000 miles. The scores remained as good, and in some cases were even better, as the distance was increased.
In a further effort to determine whether ESP could account for precognition in a definite perception of the future, the same cards were used. The problem in these tests was to predict the order of symbols in the pack after they were shuffled. This prediction was made prior to the shuffling of the cards. As in the former tests, the persistent scoring ranged above chance possibilities, providing additional evidence of paranormal perception, as manifest in precognition.
Additional experiments were conducted to ascertain the power of the mind to influence the movement of material objects (psychokinesis). One or more dice were used in these tests. The subject would concentrate on the desired number as the dice were being thrown, in an effort to influence the dice to turn up the desired number of dots. Again the scores were above the range of chance, and seemed to imply that in certain phenomena of ESP a nonphysical force of the mind was great enough to influence the movement of physical objects. (Psychokinesis has been credited with the movement of heavy objects. When such phenomena appear it must, of course, be determined whether invisible nonhuman spirits are responsible.)
Psychic phenomena have now made their appearance in the university laboratory. In graduate classrooms our youth study ESP and PSI phenomena—telepathy, precognition, psychokinesis, and other paranormal phenomena. These experiments are not conducted under the auspices of spiritualism. There is no trance, no seance, no medium—only the experimenter with his students chosen at random without reference to psychic experience.
The Bible records the operation of supernatural powers working through human beings—powers which are not an inherent capacity of the human mind, but which come from an extraphysical source. Certain phenomena of parapsychology, which may appear to be paranormal operations of the human mind, partake of the nature of a spirit invasion of the mind.
Divine or Satanic Manifestations
How shall the psychic phenomena of parapsychology be judged? Paranormal phenomena exhibit the workings of a supernatural power that transcends the human mind. What is the source of such power? Would God be interested in participating in such tests as these? Would it be compatible with His mission to mankind to use His power to demonstrate precognition in predetermining the order of symbols in a pack of ESP cards? Would He choose to exercise His power to upturn the desired faces of the dice as in these tests? We believe not.
Could it be that these paranormal demonstrations are a manifestation of the power of Satan? There are some cogent reasons why Satan would care to participate in such experiments. In his first deceptive promise to the human family he asserted, "Ye shall be as gods." 2 Could it be that Satan endeavors through supposed ESP phenomena to prove his false premise by making men believe that they have inherent paranormal abilities capable of producing the higher perceptions of the gods? What a subtle way to induce man to presumptuously assume that his mind possesses powers it does not possess. When men believe they are capable of performing the supernatural, they deify themselves. To what does this spiritual egotism lead?
If Satan can so befog and deceive the human mind as to lead mortals to think that there is an inherent power in themselves to accomplish great and good works, they cease to rely upon God to do for them that which they think there is power in themselves to do.3
Parapsychology provides favorable conditions for the deceiver to achieve his ends in misleading man. Psychic investigators erroneously believe that by means of the rigidly controlled conditions of the scientific laboratory they have eliminated the possibility of fraudulent phenomena. They are led to believe that they are witnessing paranormal activities of the mind, uninfluenced by the occult phenomena of magic.
The power Satan has over the human mind is wonderful. He labors most earnestly to keep the heart bound up in self.'
He who was cast out of heaven has come down with great power. With every conceivable artifice and device he is seeking to take souls captive. Unless we are constantly on guard we shall fall an easy prey to his unnumbered deceptions.3
Through educational processes he is doing all in his power to obscure heaven's light!
Satan welcomes the environment of the parapsychology laboratory so conducive to the intrusion of his truth-obscuring "educational processes." Here in concealment he can work his craft. Psychic phenomena produced under laboratory conditions have converted a number of psychic scientists to belief in parapsychological phenomena as a paranormal achievement of the human mind. Spiritualistic concepts are spreading apace among those classes characterized by high levels of learning. They are reshaping the teachings of the mental sciences and extending their influence into all the related fields of education.
References
1 J. B. Rhine, The Reach of the Mind (New York: William Sloane Associates, Inc., 1947), p. 10.
2 Genesis 3:5.
3 Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church (Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association), vol. I, p. 294.
4 Ibid., vol. 5, p. 150. vol. 8, p. 100. Ibid., p. 305.
EDITORAL NOTE
Brand Blanshard, in an article in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, January, 1957 (vol. 51), p. 12, offers the following comment on the findings of Dr. Rhine's experiments:
"Now consider the degree of success achieved by some of Rhine's subjects. One of these, a young man named Linzmayer, had a run of 9 successes on one day, a similar run of 9 on the following day, and a run of 15 on the third day. The odds against this latter run alone are more than 30 billion to 1. Another subject, Hubert Pearce, actually achieved a run of 25 successes, against which the odds, on a basis of pure chance, are (if you are interested) 298 quadrillion, 23 trillion, 223 billion, 876 million, 953 thousand, 125. Of course such results are exceedingly rare: most of the successes are much less impressive, such as getting 6 to 10 hits in 25 attempts. But even a score of 7, maintained over a long series of runs, is hardly compatible with chance."
Dr. Gertrude R. Schmeidler over a research period of some fourteen years has conducted extensive investigations to determine the relationships of mental attitudes toward ESP scoring. More than 10,000 test responses were obtained from over 1,100 subjects. She found that subjects who accepted the possibility that they might experience ESP phenomena under the conditions of the experiments obtained significantly higher scores than those who rejected the possibility of the manifestation of ESP phenomena under the test conditions.
In her experiments with agent-percipient relationships of the subject teams submitting to the tests, Dr. Schmeidler felt that the findings indicated that generally the initiative in spontaneous telepathy comes from the percipient, but that in some few instances the agent's initiative can determine the percipient's paranormal response. In summarizing her findings Dr. Schmeidler interpreted the data to mean that "there is an effective agent-percipient relationship in ESP," and that "the agent can transmit target content to the percipient."—The Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, April, 1958 (vol. 52, no. 2), pp. 62, 63. Many scores above mean chance expectation were received in these tests; however, no consistent patterns were found in the results when subjects whose ESP scores were high or very low returned for retests.
Various opinions on the present status of ESP were exchanged at the CIBA Foundation Symposium on Extrasensory Perception held in London in May of 1955. Some scientists have raised the question as to the "misapplication of probability procedures" in ESP experiments. In defense of these procedures, S. G. Soal affirmed that "once one has discovered one of these outstanding scorers, there is as much difference between his or her performance and that of the ordinary guesser as between chalk and cheese. The genuine ESP subject cannot be mistaken."—Ibid., p. 77.
Other factors should be taken into consideration: (1) Certain phenomena commonly attributed to ESP abilities are of a pseudo-ESP nature. (2) Psychic science has not yet reached a consensus of opinion regarding the nature and existence of ESP phenomena. (3) Investigators believe that the superior results in ESP tests cannot be accounted for on the basis of natural human abilities. (4) There are weaknesses in the available evidence for extrasensory perception—the lack of repeatability; the rarity of high-scoring subjects; personnel problems in the test situations; and the fact that investigators ignore alternate interpretations that attribute to spirit invasion the paranormal occult phenomena of the mind.
J. A. B.
