Episode 6: Pink Buckets (Part 2)

One of the real challenges for parapsychology today—and addressing this is vital to the field’s next leap forward—is devising a theory of conveyance. 

The field needs a persuasive theoretical model that pulls together the effects and posits how data and information are transferred in a manner unbound by time, space, distance, linearity, and common sensory experience. Researchers have made preliminary steps in this direction. Advances are overdue.

Is the absence of theory blinding our intellectual culture to the evidence? And does this blinkered vision finally matter? The public tends toward sympathy of ESP — not itself a valid measure of truth, but worth noting. 

Nobel Prize winner in physics Max Planck: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” This may be the position in which orthodox materialists find themselves today.

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Selected References

I wish to make special note of the Psi Encyclopedia (https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/), an online resource maintained by The Society for Psychical Research in London. This ongoing effort began in 2014 to provide scholarly reference material on the history and findings of parapsychology. Given the problem of systemic misrepresentation of parapsychology on Wikipedia, which I note in several episodes, the Psi Encyclopedia presents an important counter-source. In my experience, its more than 550 (and growing) entries are both judicious toward skeptics and appropriately critical toward parapsychological claims.

Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner (Oxford University Press, second edition, 2011)

Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness by Itzhak Bentov (Destiny Books, 1988) 

Time, Myth, and Matter: Essays on the Natures and Narratives of Reality by L.D. Deutsch (Sacred Bones, 2025)

“Has Science Developed the Competence to Confront the Paranormal?” by Charles Honorton, Extrasensory Perception, Vol. 2, edited by Edwin C. May and Sonali Bhatt Marwaha (Praeger, 2015)

See “Telepathy: Origins of Randomization in Experimental Design” by Ian Hacking, Isis, Sept 1988, Vol. 79, №3; “J. B. Rhine’s Extra-Sensory Perception and Its Background in Psychical Research” by Michael McVaugh and Seymour H. Mauskopf, Isis, June 1976, Vol. 67, №2; and “Charles Richet” by Carlos S. Alvarado, Psi Encyclopedia, London: The Society for Psychical Research, 2015.

Archive Clips

Dr. Dean Radin: A Quantum View of The World

Dr. Michio Kaku: Interpretations of Shrodinger's Cat

Russel Targ: Case of ESP

JB Rhine: 70 years at The Rhine

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Episode 6: Pink Buckets (Part 1)

In this episode, we take a byway from science, history, data, and personality to explore the host’s own experience. 

Every reasonable person who documents metaphysical or paranormal phenomena stands wary of the hour when he or she is asked: what experiences have you had? 

My answer: not many.

I do not collect or seek experiences. I wonder, sometimes, as William James did, whether possessing a hyper-rational or over-analytic mind deters them. Whatever the case, I do not box-check personal anomalies—nor reject them when they arrive. 

I encountered my own white crow, so to speak, when I went searching for something else: pink, heart-shaped buckets. 

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Archive Clips

Dean Radin "Science and the taboo of psi"

Deep Red

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Episode 5: Reincarnation, Randomness, and Retrocausality

Despite funding cuts, media evisceration, and the onslaught of skeptics and their muddying of data, parapsychology rises from the ashes. Into the twenty-first century, academic parapsychologists, sometimes working in isolation, make remarkable strides, even in areas that surpass traditional psi research.  

Serious studies of life-after-death, extra-physical survival, and reincarnation reenter the fold—sometimes with impeccable evidence and methodology. 

Other clinicians study the existence of a global “universal consciousness” and how psi figures into animal instinct. Still further innovators map out occurrences of precognition and even retrocausality, in which the future after the present. 

In virtually every case, professional skeptics deride—and sometimes misrepresent data that parapsychologists gather with clinical assiduousness Although the parapsychology field is growing and expanding, every square inch of intellectual territory must be defended, often multiple times

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Selected References

“Ian Stevenson’s Case for the Afterlife: Are We ‘Skeptics’ Really Just Cynics?” by Jesse Bering, Scientific American, November 2, 2013

In September 1977, The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease dedicated a full issue to Stevenson’s work, as did the Journal of Scientific Exploration in 2008

(volume 22, number 1).

Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology.

of Birthmarks and Birth Defects (Praeger, 1997) by Ian Stevenson

Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (University Press of Virginia, 1966) by Ian Stevenson

For the work of the PEAR lab see: 1 * 2 * 3

See www.sheldrake.org/reactions, which explores a variety of issues and resources pertaining to “professional skepticism.” 

“Rationalists are wrong about telepathy” by Rupert Sheldrake, Unherd, Nov 22, 2021

“Heads I Win, Tails You Lose” by Chris Carter, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 74, 2010

“A Dog That Seems to Know When His Owner Is Coming Home: Videotaped Experiments and Observations” by Rupert Sheldrake and Pamela Smart, Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 14, No. 2, January 2000

“Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect” by Daryl J. Bem, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2011, Vol. 100, №3

“Journal’s Paper on ESP Expected to Prompt Outrage” by Benedict Carey, New York Times, Jan. 5, 2011

“Failing the Future: Three Unsuccessful Attempts to Replicate Bem’s ‘Retroactive Facilitation of Recall’ Effect” by Stuart J. Ritchie, Richard Wiseman, Christopher C. French, PLoS ONE, March 2012, Volume 7, Issue 3

“Bem’s response to Ritchie, Wiseman, and French,” posted 15 Mar 2012

“Authors’ response to Bem,” posted 15 Mar 2012

“Daryl Bem Proved ESP Is Real: Which means science is broken” By Daniel Engber, Slate, June 7, 2017

“REVISED: Feeling the future: A meta-analysis of 90 experiments on the anomalous anticipation of random future events” [version 2; peer review: 2 approved] by Daryl Bem, Patrizio E. Tressoldi, Thomas Rabeyron, Michael Duggan, first published: 30 Oct 2015, latest published: 29 Jan 2016, last updated: 23 Jul 2020, F1000Research

“The Unbearable Fear of Psi: On Scientific Suppression in the 21st Century” by Etzel Cardeña Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 29, №4, December 15, 2015

 “The Case Against Psi” by Douglas M. Stokes, Parapsychology: A Hand- book for the 21st Century edited by Etzel Cardeña, John Palmer and David Marcusson-Clavertz (McFarland, 2015)

Archive Clips

Dr. Ian Stevenson * Dr. Roger Nelson * Dr. Daryl J. Bem * Dr. Rupert Sheldrake

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Episode 4: The Empire Strikes Back 

Alarmed by intelligence that the Soviets are using “psychic spies,” the CIA inaugurates its own distance-spying program, Project Stargate in 1972. 

Stargate’s key researchers, physicists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, coin the term “remote viewing.” The controversial program, whose subjects include psychic-artist Ingo Swann, lasts more than 20 years and wins over President Jimmy Carter. 

For skeptics, however, it’s knives-out. Disgusted with the popularity of parapsychological themes in American life—and resiliently unwilling to distinguish between serious efforts like the Rhine Lab and Stargate versus the media showmanship of psychic Uri Geller and like performers—in 1976 a cohort of ideological skeptics, including stage magician James “The Amazing” Randi, organize Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal or CSICOP.

Unconcerned with scientific verities, data replication, or meta-analyses, the professional skeptics grease a soundbite machine that disparages academic parapsychologists and misleads the public through misrepresentations of psi research and suppression of the skeptics’ own confirmatory retrials. 

Media fallout leaves parapsychology in near-tatters and starved for funding. 

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Selected References

“The Crisis of Professional Skepticism: Leading skeptics fail the test of ‘extraordinary evidence’” by Mitch Horowitz, Medium, February 27, 2023

“The Man Who Destroyed Skepticism: Scourge of psychics James Randi was no skeptic; our culture is poorer as a result” by Mitch Horowitz, Boing Boing, October 26, 2020

“Anomalous Experiences and the Crisis of Skepticism: Why we need better skeptics” by Mitch Horowitz, Medium, October 24, 2022

“Is Precognition Real?: Skeptics Eviscerated a Cornell Psychologist Whose Published Evidence Said Yes. A Decade Later, His Data Has Stood Up” by Mitch Horowitz, Boing Boing, August 17, 2022

“Has Science Developed the Competence to Confront the Paranormal?” by Charles Honorton, Extrasensory Perception, Vol. 2, edited by Edwin C. May and Sonali Bhatt Marwaha (Praeger, 2015)

“Rhetoric over substance: the impoverished state of skepticism” by Charles Honorton, Journal of Parapsychology, June 1993

“The Experimental Evidence for Parapsychological Phenomena: A Review” by Etzel Cardeña, American Psychologist, 2018, Vol. 73, №5, 663–677

“Does Psi Exist? Replicable Evidence for an Anomalous Process of Information Transfer” by Daryl J. Bem and Charles Honorton, Psychological Bulletin, 1994, Vol. 115, №.1

“Replication and Meta-Analysis in Parapsychology” by Jessica Utts, Statistical Science, Vol. 6, №. 4, 1991

“Federal research funding for psychology has not kept up with inflation” by Luona Lin, MPP, Peggy Christidis, PhD, and Jessica Conroy, BA, apa.org

“Rationalists are wrong about telepathy” by Rupert Sheldrake, Unherd, Nov 22, 2021

“Heads I Win, Tails You Lose” by Chris Carter, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 74, 2010

“A new case of experimenter unreliability” by J.B. Rhine, Journal of Parapsychology, 38, 1974

“Comments: A second report on a case of experimenter fraud” by J.B. Rhine, Journal of Parapsychology, 39, 1975

Psi Wars by Craig Weiler (White Crow Books, 2013/2020) 

“Postscript: Skeptics at Cal Tech,” Travels by Michael Crichton (Knopf, 1988)

“ESP Debate: Is Belief in ESP Irrational?” by Steven Pinker vs. Brian D. Josephson, Skeptic Magazine, Reading Room, July 26, 2022

“The Case Against Psi” by Douglas M. Stokes, Parapsychology: A Hand- book for the 21st Century edited by Etzel Cardeña, John Palmer and David Marcusson-Clavertz (McFarland, 2015)

Archive Clips

The Case of ESP

Uri Geller on Johnny Carson

James Randi Talk Back to NOVA

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Episode 3: Mushroom X

The Age of Aquarius intermingles uneasily with the Parapsychology Revolution. The two cultural currents, like many in the Western world, both interweave and repel. 

This symbiosis and friction appears within the relationship of J.B. Rhine and the young scientist who seems his natural protégé: Charles Honorton. But J.B. and the researcher clash, resulting in Honorton departing the Rhine lab to pioneer an extraordinary series of trials testing for telepathy. They are called the ganzfeld experiments.  

Honorton’s findings prove so remarkable that, for a time, he even bridges the seeker-skeptic divide. The new comity is short-lived. Struggling with lifelong health issues, Honorton dies at 46, leaving the parapsychology field rudderless and easy prey for media skeptics.

In other facets of psi research, dreams, psychedelia, magick mushrooms, and the Grateful Dead come together. 

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Selected References

Extrasensory Perception, Vols. 1 & 2, edited by Edwin C. May and Sonali Bhatt Marwaha (Praeger, 2015)

The Enchanted Voyager: The Life of J.B. Rhine by Denis Brian (Prentice-Hall, 1982)

Daydream Believer: Exploring the Ultimate Power of Your Mind by Mitch Horowitz (G&D Media, 2022)

“Federal Grant Supports ESP Dream Research at Maimonides” by Gordon T. Thompson, New York Times, November 25, 1973

“What Is the Link Between Hallucinations, Dreams, and Hypnagogic-Hypnopompic Experiences?” by Flavie Waters, et al., Schizophrenia Bulletin, 2016 Sept, 42(5)

“Neuro-hypnotism: prospects for hypnosis and neuroscience” by John F. Kihlstrom, Cortex, vol. 49, 2, 2013

“Does Psi Exist? Replicable Evidence for an Anomalous Process of Information Transfer” by Daryl J. Bem and Charles Honorton, Psychological Bulletin, 1994, Vol. 115, №.1 

“Chapter 4: Experimental Research on Extrasensory Perception,” An Introduction to Parapsychology, fifth edition by Irwin and Watt (McFarland, 2007): “In an assessment of the literature by Honorton (1978), 23 of 42 experiments conducted in ten different laboratories had yielded significant ESP performance under ganzfeld conditions; this success rate of 55% was far beyond that expected by chance.”

“A Joint Communiqué: The Psi Ganzfeld Controversy” by Ray Hyman and Charles Honorton, Journal of Parapsychology, vol. 50, December 1986

“Replication and Meta-Analysis in Parapsychology” by Jessica Utts, Statistical Science, Vol. 6, №. 4, 1991

Archive Clips

One Step Beyond: The Sacred Mushroom (January 24th, 1961)

The Case of ESP

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Episode 2: Institute for Experimental Religion

As the twentieth century dawns, parapsychology is divided between ghost

hunters—like Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle—and psi

seekers—like a young Sigmund Freud, who takes deeper interest in ESP and

telepathy than is commonly understood.

Early parapsychologists made strides with the British and American branches of

the Society for Psychical Research. William James and colleagues probe mysteries,

expose fakes, and generate controversies. But they function largely on mediums’

own turf: lace-curtain settings of Victorian séance parlors.

Enter two young, driven, and deeply ethical clinicians: J.B. and Louisa Rhine. “It

would be unpardonable,” J.B. announces in 1926, “for the scientific world today to

overlook evidences of the supernormal in our world,”

Wooed to Duke University, the Rhines in the late 1920s inaugurate the Institute for

Experimental Religion, later called the Parapsychology Laboratory. The lab

formally introduces psi research into academia. The Rhines’ efforts—involving

“guess” hits on Zener cards—prove simple, rigorous, and extraordinary. They

make extrasensory perception or ESP a household term. Stats and studies from the

Parapsychology Lab, including evidence for psychokinesis, withstand decades of

withering scrutiny.

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Selected References

The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud by Ernest Jones, Vol. 3 (Basic Books, 1957)

The Future of the Body: Explorations Into the Further Evolution Of Human Nature

by Michael Murphy (Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1992)

The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol.

XVIII (1920-1922) edited by James Strachey, Anna Freud, Alix Strachey and Alan

Tyson

Unbelievable: Investigations into Ghosts, Poltergeists, Telepathy, and Other

Unseen Phenomena from the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory by Stacy Horn

(Ecco, 2009)

Something Hidden by Louisa E. Rhine (McFarland, 1983)

J.B. Rhine: Letters 1923-1939: ESP and the Foundations of Parapsychology

by J.B. Rhine edited by Barbara Ensrud and Sally Rhine Feather (McFarland,

2021)

“Chapter 6: Psychokinesis,” An Introduction to Parapsychology, fifth edition, by

Harvey J. Irwin and Caroline A. Watt (McFarland, 2007)

Extra-Sensory Perception by J.B. Rhine (1934, Boston Society for Psychic

Research)

Extra-Sensory Perception After Sixty Years by J.G. Pratt, J.B. Rhine, Burke M.

Smith, Charles E. Stuart, and Joseph A. Greenwood (Henry Holt, 1940)

“Telepathy: Origins of Randomization in Experimental Design” by Ian

Hacking, Isis, Sept 1988, Vol. 79, №3

“J. B. Rhine’s Extra-Sensory Perception and Its Background in Psychical

Research” by Michael McVaugh and Seymour H. Mauskopf, Isis, June 1976, Vol.

67, №2

J.B. Rhine: On the Frontiers of Science edited by K. Ramakrishna Rao

(McFarland, 1982)

“Who Was J.B. Rhine?” by Rick Berger, Ph.D., February 14, 2020, at

parapsych.org, website of the Parapsychological Association

ESP and Parapsychology: A Critical Reevaluation by C.E.M. Hansel (Prometheus

Books, 1980)

“Rhetoric over substance: the impoverished state of skepticism” by Charles

Honorton, Journal of Parapsychology, June 1993

The Enchanted Voyager: The Life of J.B. Rhine by Denis Brian (Prentice-Hall,

1982)

Daydream Believer: Exploring the Ultimate Power of Your Mind by Mitch

Horowitz (G&D Media, 2022)

Archive Clips

Fairytale (1997)

Ghostbusters (1984)

Scooby Doo, Where Are You! (TV Series)

Charles Tart on The Case of ESP

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Episode 1: Moonrise

For millennia, humanity has pursued higher knowing. In antiquity, soldiers and statesmen turned to oracles such as the prophetess at Delphi and pictogrammatic language of the I-Ching. 

Seen from a certain perspective, nearly all religion predates science as the wish to know first causes. In that vein, nineteenth-century séances treat gawkers to floating pianos, viscous “ectoplasm” spilling from the orifices of (mostly female) mediums, and ghostly figures materializing. Even Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln host table-rappings in the White House. Is any of it real? 

One moonlit night at Cambridge University in 1870 a handful of scientists determine to find out. Their efforts become the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), which attracts Victorian luminaries such as William James, Sigmund Freud, and Arthur Balfour, Britain’s prime minister. 

Some of the finest scientists and philosophers of the era begin probing the verity of the supernatural.

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Selected References

The Elusive Science: Origins of Experimental Psychical Research by Seymour H. Mauskopf and Michael R. McVaugh (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980) 

TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information by Erik Davis (Harmony, 1998) 

The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry by Henri F. Ellenberger (Basic Books, 1970)

From Mesmer to Freud: Magnetic Sleep and the Roots of Psychoanalytic Healing by Adam Crabtree (Yale University Press, 1993)

Abnormal Hypnotic Phenomena, vols. 1–4, edited by Eric J. Dingwall (J. & A. Churchill/ Barnes & Noble, 1968)

Modern Occultism: History, Theory, and Practice by Mitch Horowitz (G&D Media, 2023)

Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation by Mitch Horowitz (Bantam, 2009)

Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women’s Rights in 19th Century America by Ann Braude (Beacon, 1989)

Phantasms of the Living by Edmund Gurney, F.W.H. Myers, and Frank Podmore, 2 vols. (1886)

“Charles Richet” by C.S. Alvarado, Psi Encyclopedia, London: The Society for Psychical Research, 2015

Archive Clips

JB Rhine | 70 years at The Rhine

Carrie Chapman Catt on Suffragism

Russel Targ on The Case of ESP

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Coming This Fall - Extraordinary Evidence | ESP Is Real is a limited series on the history, struggles, and proofs of parapsychology and the science of studying the supernatural. Mitch Horowitz—today’s leading independent scholar of the occult—uses revealing, stringently documented historical and scientific data, interviews, and archival recordings to explore the dramatic rise, attacks on, and revolutionary findings of parapsychology in areas from ESP and precognition to after-death survival and reincarnation.

Original Score by Dean Hurley, Produced by Jim Perry & Jon Mcedward for SpectreVision Radio

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