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''Extrasensory Perception'' is a 1934 book written by parapsychologist
Joseph Banks Rhine Joseph Banks Rhine (September 29, 1895 – February 20, 1980), usually known as J. B. Rhine, was an American botanist who founded parapsychology as a branch of psychology, founding the parapsychology lab at Duke University, the ''Journ ...
, which discusses his research work at
Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist Jame ...
.
Extrasensory perception Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke Universit ...
is the ability to acquire information shielded from the senses, and the book was "of such a scope and of such promise as to revolutionize psychical research and to make its title literally a household phrase".Craighead, E. D; Nemeroff, C. B. (2001). ''Rhine, Joseph Banks''. In ''The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science''. John Wiley. p. 1141.


Reception

The book received worldwide attention and became the focus of criticism and controversy when some objections were raised about the validity of Rhine's work. The parapsychology experiments described by Rhine received much criticism from academics itation neededand others who challenged the concepts and evidence of ESP. A number of psychological departments attempted to repeat Rhine's experiments with failure. W. S. Cox (1936) from
Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nin ...
with 132 subjects produced 25,064 trials in a playing card ESP experiment. Cox concluded, "There is no evidence of extrasensory perception either in the 'average man' or of the group investigated or in any particular individual of that group. The discrepancy between these results and those obtained by Rhine is due either to uncontrollable factors in experimental procedure or to the difference in the subjects." Four other psychological departments failed to replicate Rhine's results. Rhine's experiments were discredited due to the discovery that
sensory leakage Sensory leakage is a term used to refer to information that transferred to a person by conventional means (other than psi) during an experiment into ESP.Robert Todd Carroll. (2014)"Sensory Leakage in The Skeptic's Dictionary. For example, where the ...
or cheating could account for all his results, such as the subject being able to read the symbols from the back of the cards and being able to see and hear the experimenter to note subtle clues.


Extrasensory Perception After Sixty Years

In response, Rhine published ''Extrasensory Perception After Sixty Years'' in 1940 with a number of colleagues, to address the objections raised. However, critics have written the experiments described by Rhine and his colleagues contained methodological flaws. In the book Rhine and his colleagues described three experiments the
Pearce-Pratt experiment Joseph Gaither Pratt (August 31, 1910 – November 3, 1979) was an American psychologist who specialized in the field of parapsychology. Among his research interests were extrasensory perception, psychokinesis, mediumship and poltergeists. Much o ...
, the
Pratt-Woodruff experiment Joseph Gaither Pratt (August 31, 1910 – November 3, 1979) was an American psychologist who specialized in the field of parapsychology. Among his research interests were extrasensory perception, psychokinesis, mediumship and poltergeists. Much o ...
and the Ownbey-Zirkle series which they believed demonstrated ESP. The psychologist
C. E. M. Hansel Charles Edward Mark Hansel (12 October 1917 – 28 March 2011) was a British psychologist most notable for his criticism of parapsychological studies. Early life and education Hansel was born in 1917 in Bedford, England and attended Bedford ...
wrote, "it is now known that each experiment contained serious flaws that escaped notice in the examination made by the authors of ''Extra-Sensory Perception After Sixty Years''".
Joseph Gaither Pratt Joseph Gaither Pratt (August 31, 1910 – November 3, 1979) was an American psychologist who specialized in the field of parapsychology. Among his research interests were extrasensory perception, psychokinesis, mediumship and poltergeists. Much o ...
was the co-experimenter in the Pearce-Pratt and Pratt-Woodruff experiments at the Duke campus. Hansel visited the campus where the experiments took place and discovered the results could have originated through the use of a trick, so could not be regarded as supplying evidence for ESP. The Ownbey-Zirkle ESP experiment at Duke was criticized by parapsychologists and skeptics. Lamont, Peter. (2013). ''Extraordinary Beliefs: A Historical Approach to a Psychological Problem''. Cambridge University Press. pp. 206-208. Ownbey would attempt to send ESP symbols to Zirkle who would guess what they were. The pair were placed in adjacent rooms unable to see each other and an electric fan was used to prevent the pair communicating by sensory cues. Ownbey tapped a telegraph key to Zirkle to inform him when she was trying to send him a symbol. The door separating the two rooms was open during the experiment, and after each guess Zirkle would call out his guess to Ownbey who recorded his choice. Critics pointed out the experiment was flawed as Ownbey acted as both the sender and the experimenter, nobody was controlling the experiment so Ownbey could have cheated by communicating with Zirkle or made recording mistakes. Psychologist Carl Jung referred to Rhine’s work as scientific proof that part of the psyche is not subject to the laws of space and time.


See also

*'' Parapsychology: Frontier Science of the Mind'' (1957), book by J. B. Rhine and J. G. Pratt


References

{{Parapsychology 1934 non-fiction books Books about the paranormal Parapsychology