Chapter 57
COGNITIVE AFTERMATH OF
THOUGHTS THROUGH SPACE
As a result of studying (not just reading) THOUGHTS THROUGH SPACE, a number of realizations began to dawn on me. When these were integrated with one another, the outlines of a bigger picture began to form up. It was NOT an attractive one.
The first of the realizations had to do with the out-bound experiments at the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR). The details of those experiments, which took place in February, 1972, have been described in chapter 26.
But briefly here, they involved person A who goes somewhere in distance unknown to person B, with person B then attempting to "see" something of where person A is at. In February, 1972, this idea was thought to be original and never before tested.
Although those directly involved with the experiments were enthusiastic, it turned out that they upset a number of trustees on the ASPR’s Board, and Dr. Osis was soon the recipient of their demand that such experiments cease.
The best reason given was that there was no precedent for such experiments, and that the overall work of the ASPR had to be confined only to what was "scientifically presentable." Or, as more simply put, confined to what was approved by the dominant influences within the Board. As was soon learned, the FULL Board of Trustees was about equally divided on whether the experiments should proceed.
Beyond this squabble, however, the insistence that there was no precedent was not the case at all. But this became apparent only after I inadvertently discovered (in the Library of Congress in late June, 1972) the existence of the Wilkins/Sherman book (see chapter 50).
Since Mr. Sherman’s "impressions" were quickly put into the hands of Dr. Gardner Murphy, a long-term Member of the ASPR’s Board of Trustees, it became impossible to think that veteran parapsychologists were totally ignorant of the Wilkins/Sherman effort.
In fact, the Wilkins/Sherman experiments were a full, completely fleshed out, and tested model for the out-bound experiment procedure.
And as it was later to turn out, other kinds of out-bound experiments had taken place prior to 1937-38, some of them dating back to the turn of the century.
It is perhaps too much to say that lies about this precedent were involved, but clearly misdirecting and suppression of earlier evidence was.
This, in turn, (1) aroused the spectre of what did or did not constitute ethical behavior among parapsychology researchers of various mind-sets; and (2) the connived and convenient editing, diminishing, marginalizing, rewriting, and bleeping-out of certain meaningful and pregnant aspects of PSI research history.
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Having achieved the foregoing realizations, I could now place them in, shall we say, a world overview context, and in the contexts of societal power interests, in which the development of ANY format of PSI was anathema and not wanted, so it was officially said PSI didn’t exist.
In that regard, statistical parapsychologists had seized upon "scientific" statistical methods to demonstrate and prove in scientific terms that PSI existed.
This presumed goal was myopic and naive in the extreme, in that anyone (including skeptics) with enough smarts to do so already understood that PSI existed.
But it was also understood that PSI represented something like a Pandora’s Box which, if significantly opened, not only could but WOULD introduce undesired practical-applications elements such as telepathic and psychokinetic invasiveness.
Indeed, it was for THIS reason that parapsychology had consistently experienced considerable trouble in acquiring not only mainstream societal interest but, more importantly, FUNDING.
After all, there ARE those in the world who do realize that if they do not want something "developed," then it must be deprived of funding.
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In my own mind, the whole of this now represented an overall impossible and pointless situation that fluctuated somewhere between the ridiculous and the futile. Yuk! and several times over.
So, as my recovery from pneumonia proved well underway, I said to wonderful Zelda, my nurse-attendant: "I’ve decided to quit research."
"Don’t be silly," she smiled, "you can’t."
"Why not?"
"They won’t let you."
None the less, I got out of bed determined to telephone Puthoff at SRI to explain why I was terminating taking part in research, and to tell him not to count on me for the project he was cooking up.
As I picked up the telephone to do so, something dawned on me.
Even though what he was cooking up was supposed to be hush-hush, word about the forthcoming project had been leaking out, and would continue to do so. Indeed, Ruth Hagy Brod had it from some horse’s mouth in Washington that the go-ahead was in the works.
If I did withdraw, doing so would be interpreted as failure on my part to produce product under Puthoff’s scientific auspices -- and this would have direct implications to my earlier work.
So, I put the phone down -- and in order to think this through, decided to take a shower.