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Excerpt from:
"States of Mind: ESP and Altered States of Consciousness"
by Adrian Parker BF1321.P37 (1975)
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(Chapter 7, Page 134)
ESP in the Psychedelic State
Whether or not psychedelic drugs are objectively conducive to extrasensory
perception, there seems little doubt that, following their use, individuals
are more open minded to such phenomena. 76 percent of a sample of marijuana
users believe in ESP (Tart 1971), and 75 percent of a sample of LSD users
reported they were more open minded after taking the drug than before (Harman
1964).
One can explain this in different ways. It may be that the experience of
'other worlds', with their transcendence of normal space-time relations,
breaks down our logical defenses against such experiences as ESP. Indeed,
this in turn may promote an increased frequency of ESP experiences associated
with the drugs. Alternatively, the sceptic can use the same argument - that
psychedelics break down 'ego boundaries' between the self and others, thereby
promoting regressive, animistic beliefs. Only empirical research can decide
which of the two views is correct.
In an excellent review of the difficulties involved in such research, the
psychotherapist Duncan Blewett (1963) has suggested that the psychedelic
experience must first be 'stabilised' before an attempt can be made to
utilise it. Usually the state is not stable but rather a kaleidoscope of
images and feelings which are being discovered and explored. The self
dissociates from this and as 'ego loss' ensues objectivity is impossible,
which can result in either self-acceptance or rejection, culminating in an
experience anywhere between the psychotic and self-realisation ends of the
dimension. Obviously such psychological problems and feelings must be worked
through and resolved before experimentation can be tried. Another problem
noted by Blewett is that the psychedelic experience is often a fusing of
empathy and telepathy, but a non-verbal one for which research may need new
methods, such as being able to identify the 'feeling style' of subjects.
Even this may be a generalisation from a psychotherapeutic context. As we
shall see later, subjects will experience levels varying from the purely
sensory to the mystical, depending on the situation and the support they
receive. At a sensory level subjects may be too fascinated by novel
perceptions to become involved in dull experimentation, while at mystical
levels, ESPs may seem too mundane and obvious so that experimentation appears
a waste of time!
It is a sad fact that three out of four pilot studies seem to have been
grounded by these problems. Karlis Osis, parapsychologist at the American
Society for Psychical Research, reported a study (1961) in which he gave LSD
to mediums and asked them to do 'object reading tests' - to give information
about the owners of objects that were presented to them. Unfortunately only
one medium showed any signs of being successful and the whole thing proved
unsatisfactory because the mediums became too involved with and distracted
by their own personal problems.
Another study, by biochemist Roberto Cavanna and psychoanalyst Emilio
Servadio (1964), became virtually an exploration of methodical difficulties.
LSD and psilocybin were used and strict screening was felt to be necessary to
eliminate any risks to the subject, which left then with only three, two of
whom were supposed to be the controls for the one remaining sensitive. No
preparatory adjustment or prior experience with the drugs was apparently
given to help stabilise the experience. 'Improbable' qualitative materials
were used as ESP targets; a picture of a foot, for example, combined with a
wrist watch. A rating assessment of the degree of correspondence between
responses and targets (which is open to personal bias) was employed instead
of the usual blind matching of responses and targets, but no quantitative
evidence of ESP was produced.
The latest and most extensive study reported was carried out by the Dutch
researchers S.R. Van Asperen de Boor, P.R. Barkema and J. Kappers (1966).
While this seems to have been conducted in a proficient and meticulous manner
it appears to have been at the expense of almost total neglect of
interpersonal factors.
Having first tried LSD, they gave it up as too disturbing to work with.
Instead they administered psilocybin, which is less severe in its effects, to
their thirty subjects and followed it by Zener card guessing tests (for ESP),
object reading tests, and travelling clairvoyance tests. While there was a
definite indication of ESP in the scores from the Zener card tests, this
showed no significant difference from scores in the control sessions without
the drug. The other tests also produced some evidence of ESP but the scores
again were little different from those obtained without the drug, and their
two best subjects had claimed previous paranormal ability. Unfortunately
assessments also used ratings of correspondences which are open to bias.
Symbolic reprensentation seemed to occur with the psilocybin as, for one
example, one subject in response to an object reading test said the owner of
the object had the name of an animal, 'Wolf', when his name was Wolfson.
The lack of success is understandable when we note that the authors reported
that more than half the subjects were distracted by their experiences and
many were said to make 'psychotic remarks'. Probably the most interesing
finding was that there were differences between the ESP scores associated
with the various 'target persons', or intended agents, for the ESP
experience. This also seemed to be true of the ESP scores associated with the
three experimenters themselves, although no formal assessment could be made
of these findings.
Besides the neglect of relationship and interpersonal factors, a major
deficiency common to these three studies is the absence of preparatory
experience with the psychedelic drug which would have helped to stabilise the
experience. Apparently no previous experience was given in the Osis and
Cavanna-Servadio investigations, and only two out of the thirty subjects in
the Dutch series took the drug more than once.
But the remaining pilot study seems to have overcome many of these
deficiencies. This was a study of telepathy during LSD sessions conducted by
Robert Masters and Jean Housten at the Mind Research Foundation in New York.
Masters and Housten were experienced in the use of psychedelic drugs, having
spent about fifteen years in their research, and during this time they came
across occasional instances of what looked like ESP, which they found
sufficiently intriguing to inaugurate a pilot study.
One instance described by them involved an apparent travelling clairvoyance
experience in which a subject reported seeing 'a ship caught in ice floes
somewhere in northern seas', its name being given as the 'France'. Two days
later newspapers recorded that a ship named 'France' had been freed from ice
near Greenland.
Masters and Housten's pilot investigation had two parts; an ESP card guessing
series in which subjects attempted during their psychedelic experience to
identify the cards the 'guide' was looking at, and an image test in which the
'guide' tried to imagine a scene described on a piece of paper and the
subject also tried to experience it. Masters and Housten reported the results
of the card guessing separately for high- and low-scoring subjects, twenty
three of whom averaged 3.5 hits or less over their ten runs each. This is far
below what could be accounted for by chance, and since they describe these
subjects as bored and poorly motivated, it may have been a case of
'psi-missing' - where ESP is used to avoid giving the correct repsonse. The
remaining four subjects produced enormously high scores averaging a total of
8.5 hits for their ten runs each. These subjects were described as close
friends of the guide, better motivated and with a high degree of empathy.
Whether these scores are looked at separately or together, they could not
arise by chance except statistically at less than once in ten million times.
The only alternative to ESP is to claim that non-verbal or subliminal forms
of communiciation were responsible since the guide was often in the same room
as the subject.
The image tests were unfortunately carried out under the same conditions,
but these also produced an extraordinary high level of correspondence.
Forty-eight of the sixty-two subjects 'approximated' to the guide's image on
at least two occasions out of ten. The remaining fourteen were all persons
not well known to the guide, and they experienced anxiety or were bored with
the test. But on several occasions, subjects appeared to identify correctly
what the guide was experiencing even when he was unable to imagine the
target. Masters and Housten give a remarkable example of this in the
following case.
Paper in the envelope reads Guide imagines Subject reports
----------------------------- --------------------- ----------------------
1 Viking ship tossed in storm Same Snake with arched head
swimming in tossed seas
2 A rain forest in the Amazon Same, with some exotic Lush vegetation, exotic
flowers growing flowers, startling
greens, all seen through
watery mist
3 Atlas holding up the world Same Hercules tossing a ball
up and down in his hand
4 Greek island with small Same, but with an A circus
white houses built in earthquake, houses
terraced hills falling down
5 A sail boat off a rocky Same Sail boat sailing around
coast a cliff
6 Ski slope in New England A forest fire. A forest fire
white, with skiers Guide was unable to
sliding down imagine the ski scene
7 New York City traffic Same but with very Geisha girl in full
scene brilliant colours oriental regalia
8 A plantation in the Many images relating A Negro picking cotton
old South to pre-Civil war in a field
plantation life,
including a Negro
picking cotton
9 An arab on a camel Same Camel passing through
passing a pyramid the inside of a vast
labyrinthine tomb
10 The Himalayas - Same A climbing expedition
snow-capped peaks in the Alps
Whether or not we accept the Masters and Housten study as providing evidence
of ESP in the psychedelic state, it does illustrate the importance of the
quality of the relationship - especially in terms of motivation and empathy -
in this kind of research. Another distinctive feature of this study is that
it used guides who had helped subjects through their psychedelic experiences,
and therefore empathy was presumably high.
Because of the prohibition on psychedelics no further experiemental research
using LSD to induce ESP has been reported, so the only remaining approach is
to observe it in subcultures where psychedelics are used illicitly. Stanley
Krippner, psychologist in the Maimonides team, and anthropologist Don Fersh
(1968, 1971) have made an innovative field study of ESP in hippie communes.
They visited twenty-two communities in the south-western USA and noticed that
'one common element which permeated them was the report of paranormal
experience'. Although Krippner and Fersh did not observe any of these events
at that time, six members of one commune paid a visit to the Maimonides Dream
Laboratory. They went into the laboratory sound room while an assistant chose
a target to look at. The group consensus opinion was that it was 'a machine
on which there were a lot of buttons'; the target was a typewriter. During
the second attempt the assistant tried to sense an image of a bridge and each
member of the commune was questioned individually. This time two of the six
said 'bridge' and a third said 'suspension bridge'.
This kind of research can possibly throw light on whether or not the frequent
use of psychedelic drugs in a free life style does promote an openness to
ESP, but it seems doubtful whether much more can be learned about the nature
of the relationship of the psychedelic experience to ESP without further
controlled experimentation.
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LSD-ESP.TXT 14-JUL-90