Stanley Krippner
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Stanley Krippner (born October 4, 1932) is an American
psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...
and parapsychologist. He received a B.S. degree from the
University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...
in 1954 and M.A. (1957) and Ph.D. (1961) degrees from
Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...
. From 1972 to 2019, he was an executive faculty member and the
Alan Watts Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was a British and American writer, speaker, and self-styled "philosophical entertainer", known for interpreting and popularising Buddhist, Taoist, and Hinduism, Hindu philosophy for a Wes ...
Professor of Psychology at
Saybrook University Saybrook University is a private university in Pasadena, California. It was founded in 1971 by Eleanor Camp Criswell and others. It offers postgraduate education with a focus on humanistic psychology. It features low residency, master's, and ...
in
Oakland Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...
,
California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
. Formerly, Krippner was director of the
Kent State University Kent State University (KSU) is a Public university, public research university in Kent, Ohio, United States. The university includes seven regional campuses in Northeast Ohio located in Kent State University at Ashtabula, Ashtabula, Kent State ...
Child Study Center (1961-1964) and director of the
Maimonides Medical Center Maimonides Medical Center is a non-profit, non-sectarian hospital located in Borough Park, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, in the U.S. state of New York. Maimonides is both a treatment facility and academic medical center with 711 ...
Dream Research Laboratory in
Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
,
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...
(1964-1972).


Biography

Krippner has written extensively on
altered states of consciousness An altered state of consciousness (ASC), also called an altered state of mind, altered mental status (AMS) or mind alteration, is any condition which is significantly different from a normal waking state. It describes induced changes in one's me ...
, dream telepathy,
hypnosis Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.In 2015, the American Psychological ...
,
shamanism Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...
, dissociation, and parapsychological subjects. Krippner was an early leader in Division 32 of the
American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychologists in the United States, and the largest psychological association in the world. It has over 170,000 members, including scientists, educators, clin ...
(APA), the division concerned with humanistic psychology, serving as President of the division from 1980–1981. He also served as president of division 30, the Society for Psychological Hypnosis, and is a Fellow of five APA divisions. Krippner has conducted experiments with Montague Ullman into dream telepathy at the Maimonides Medical Center. In 2002, Krippner won the
APA Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology The American Psychological Association's Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology is awarded for "distinguished and enduring lifetime contributions to the international cooperation and advancement of kno ...
.


Reception


Dream telepathy

In 1973, Krippner co-authored a book ''Dream Telepathy'' with Montague Ullman and Alan Vaughan, which detailed among other studies the results of dream telepathy experiments he conducted along with other researchers at
Maimonides Medical Center Maimonides Medical Center is a non-profit, non-sectarian hospital located in Borough Park, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, in the U.S. state of New York. Maimonides is both a treatment facility and academic medical center with 711 ...
. The summary of the Maimonides chapter concludes that the "procedure produced statistically significant results indicating the telepathic effects had been produced in the subjects' dreams". Krippner followed this book up with other writings on the Maimonides experiments, for example a 1993 article in the ''Journal of Parapsychology''. The experiments have not been independently replicated. Wiseman, Richard. (2014). ''Night School: Wake Up to the Power of Sleep''. Macmillan. p. 202. Wiseman writes regarding Krippner and Ullman's experiments "Over the years, many researchers have failed to replicate their remarkable findings and, as a result, the work is seen as curious but not proof of the paranormal." In a review of the research published in
American Psychologist ''American Psychologist'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the American Psychological Association. The journal publishes articles of broad interest to psychologists, including empirical reports and scholarly reviews covering science ...
, professor Irwin Child, former head of the Department of Psychology at Yale University, concluded that 'the tendency toward hits rather than misses cannot reasonably be ascribed to chance'. But this favorable commentary has been criticized by a number of reviews and respondents, who argued that Krippner's work like most
parapsychology Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, teleportation, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry (paranormal), psychometry) and other paranormal cla ...
severely lacked in rigor and instituting proper controls against bias. In 1985, psychologist C. E. M. Hansel criticized the picture target experiments that were conducted by Krippner and Ullman. According to Hansel, there were weaknesses in the design of the experiments in the way in which the agent became aware of their target picture. Only the agent should have known the target and no other person until the judging of targets had been completed, however, an experimenter was with the agent when the target envelope was opened. Hansel also wrote there had been poor controls in the experiment as the main experimenter could communicate with the subject. In 2002, Krippner denied Hansel's accusations claiming the agent did not communicate with the experimenter. An attempt to replicate the experiments that used picture targets was carried out by Edward Belvedere and David Foulkes. The finding was that neither the subject nor the judges matched the targets with dreams above chance level. Results from other experiments by Belvedere and Foulkes were also negative. In 2003, Simon Sherwood and Chris Roe wrote a review that claimed support for dream telepathy at Maimonides. However,
James Alcock James E. Alcock (born 24 December 1942) is Professor emeritus (Psychology) at York University (Canada). Alcock is a noted critic of parapsychology and a Fellow and Member of the Executive Council for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He is a m ...
noted that their review was based on "extreme messiness" of data. Alcock concluded the dream telepathy experiments at Maimonides have failed to provide evidence for telepathy and "lack of replication is rampant." However, in 2017 the same authors, along with Lance Storm, Patrizio E. Tressoldi, Adam J. Rock, and Lorenzo Di Risio, published an expanded meta-analysis of dream studies from 1966-2016, concluding with much the same wording as their 2003 review that "Combined effect sizes for both Maimonides and post-Maimonides studies suggest that judges may be able to use dream mentations to identify target materials correctly more often than would be expected by chance."


Psychics

Krippner has drawn criticism for endorsing the feats of a Russian psychic Nina Kulagina. Science writer
Martin Gardner Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing magic, scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writin ...
found it surprising that Krippner took interest in Kulagina despite knowing that she was a "charlatan" who was caught on two occasions using tricks to move objects. Krippner took issue with this statement believing it to be an attack on himself and wrote there was "no suggestion of trickery." However, psychologists Jerome Kravitz and Walter Hillabrant have noted that she was "caught cheating more than once by Soviet Establishment scientists." Gardner later commenting on Kulagina stated that she utilized invisible threads to move objects. Krippner has contributed to and co-edited ''Future Science: Life Energies and the Physics of Paranormal Phenomena'' (1977). It included an essay from the parapsychologist Julius Weinberger, who claimed to have communicated with the dead by using a
Venus flytrap The Venus flytrap (''Dionaea muscipula'') is a carnivorous plant native to the temperate and subtropical wetlands of North Carolina and South Carolina, on the East Coast of the United States. Although various modern hybrids have been created ...
as the medium. Philosopher
Paul Kurtz Paul Kurtz (December 21, 1925 – October 20, 2012) was an American scientific skeptic and secular humanist. He has been called "the father of secular humanism". He was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Bu ...
criticized the book for endorsing
pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable cl ...
. Magician and noted skeptic Henry Gordon has written:
A reading of Krippner's book, ''Human Possibilities'', published by Doubleday, convinced me that there is a man sincere in his beliefs in the paranormal and bending over backward to be fair and open minded but incredibly naive. In his book he endorses the feats of several psychics who have already been exposed as frauds.
Krippner co-edited and contributed to ''Debating Psychic Experience'' (2010). He also co-edited and contributed to '' Varieties of Anomalous Experience'' (2013) which has received positive reviews.MacHovec, Frank. (2002). ''Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence (Review)''. Cultic Studies Review. Vol. 1, No. 2.


Selected Bibliography

Krippner's writings span around sixty years, beginning in the 1960s. He has both authored and edited titles, as well as contributed chapters to edited volumes. He has written on various topics, including altered states of consciousness, hypnosis, shamanism, dissociation, psychedelics and parapsychological subjects.


References


External links

*
Articles on ResearchGateArticles on the Dream Network Journal
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krippner, Stanley Living people 1932 births American parapsychologists Humanistic psychology Kent State University faculty Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy alumni American psychology writers American male non-fiction writers People from Edgerton, Wisconsin Writers from Wisconsin Psychonautics researchers