Parapsychology and the Reconstruction of Humanity - (editorial)

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1948_September_v12n3-p 0001
Several book reviews bound together in a red book entitled Sorokin Reviews, PARAPSYCHOLOGY AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF HUMANITYObviously if we waited until we knew more about psi abilities, we could better interpret their human value, their social significance. But the very spur to investigate depends largely upon the importance we see in them at this point. Without a compelling vision of their potential role in human life, there is no adequate impulse to do the research itself. It is this impulse to investigate the realm of psi phenomena and the degree to which it catches the scientific imagination of the day that will determine how fast we are to advance toward an understanding of man's nature through the important channel of parapsychological research.Among those primarily concerned with human values and social issues today there is perhaps no one* who is more energetically and more directly calling attention to the basic needs of humanity to develop the means of reconstructing itself than the distinguished Harvard sociologist, Professor P. A. Sorokin. It occurred to us to call across our imaginary boundary to Professor Sorokin to ask him for an exchange of views and to inquire what significance he can discern for his area of inquiry in the studies that are going on in parapsychology. The letters themselves are self-explanatory.
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Several book reviews bound together in a red book entitled Sorokin Reviews, June 9,1948Dear Professor Sorokin :In your new book, The Reconstruction of Humamty,1 you have taken a great step; you have cut boldly and firmly through all the pretty talk, vaporous theories, and comfortable beliefs concerning the basic problem of human relations and have laid open before us the central need of society today—the development and social implementation of the natural, altruistic energies of men.This development is to be achieved through a conversion, a cultural swing, from the sensate culture of today, as you refer to it, which is based on a materialistic and cerebrocentric view of man, over to a superconscious or idealistic (psychocentric) culture, in which the social values and concepts of the great spiritual leaders of the past are dominant.Your diagnosis and ideology appear to me the only possible ones a scientist could accept. You have done a brilliant service in so forcefully clarifying this critical situation.Now, however, we want to start the therapy; we want to reestablish the superconscious in an effective role in our culture and recreate man in a truer image than the one in which our sensate. materialistic beliefs have molded him during recent centuries. How shall we proceed? Where shall we get our medicine? Not from an authoritarian ruling, a philosophical argument, or even a sociological one (for example, that it would be good for us as a society). No, it should be as scientific as can be. It is a question for psychological research whether a man has a superconscious factor; and since such a factor would, by definition, involve nonphysical properties, it is a parapsychological problem. As you know, the problem of the existence of nonphysical properties in man has been the subject of long experimental research in parapsychology. Definite conclusions have been reached which have met the toughest critical demands of an antipathetic psychological profession.In the view of the parapsychologist, then, here is your medicine. We have the prescription you are waiting to write. Not the whole of it; no. only the beginning. But at this state, with all the doubts there are of your getting your remedy accepted by the patient, would
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Several book reviews bound together in a red book entitled Sorokin Reviews, you not do well to offer the "pharmacologist's" report in support of it?The evidence we have from parapsychological researches dealing with such capacities as extrasensory perception has compelled us to recognize the existence of principles in mental life that do not show the same dependence upon time-space-mass relations that material systems have been found to do. These findings have definitely opened our minds to the possibility that there lies beyond the frontiers of the physical sciences a realm of processes peculiar to personality, having properties of its own and potentialities unique to the mental life of the individual. You associate altruism with these higher realities of the mind, yet except for our few challenging discoveries in parapsychology the scientific world has no acceptable evidence that they exist.Have you not, then, a crucial interest in this parapsychological research, and above all, in the vigorous pursuit of it to see what greater and more transcendent truths lie beyond the fragments we have thus far sifted out? If you can agree to this common purpose it will add greatly to the appreciation of the immediate significance of psi phenomena to mankind and its well-being. It is for want of adequate appreciation of their significance that these phenomena are among the most neglected of scientific data today. The appearance of a great and challenging book such as yours must make every intelligent reader eager and ready to turn to the search for what can now be done. What solid spot lies ahead on which a forward step can be taken? We can, I think, by assembling all our soundest evidence, help provide such a stepping stone for the advance to which you are pointing the way.Sincerely yours,J. B. RhineJune 12, 1948Dear Dr. Rhine:I am in complete agreement with you on the paramount importance of a scientific study of the "superconscious" or "parapsychological" energies of man. For several years I have followed your pioneering work with great appreciation. You, your collaborators.
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Several book reviews bound together in a red book entitled Sorokin Reviews, and other workers investigating extrasensory perception, psychokinesis, and related phenomena have already given to us some glimpses of the superconscious and some of its properties.Your researches have not merely established beyond question the existence of the parapsychological or superconscious faculties in man. Your investigations bearing upon the nature of these phenomena have shown that the superconscious energies play a part in normal, everyday experience.As you rightly state in your letter, however, these studies are "only a beginning." The realm of parapsychology is so complex and so little known that for the greatest possible advance of knowledge in this field innumerable further studies making use of a variety of approaches are needed. I would like to make a few suggestions pertaining to the manner in which this research may be broadened at the base if workers from various branches of science can be attracted to this new field in numbers commensurate with the importance of the problems it presents.First, we might expand the present research to include a careful assessment of all available accounts of experiences, past and present, which appear to faU within the scope of parapsychology. If we could sift out to some degree what is valid and what is mere mythology or superstition in these experiences, such a survey would yield a wealth of suggestions of value to the research regarding the nature of the superconscious energies. The experience of the founders of great religions, of the great moral educators of humanity, of prophets and mystics, of yogi and seers of all types may in some degree deal with and contain these superconscious energies.Second, we should carefully study the techniques used by men of genius in religion and philosophy, science and fine arts, ethics and technology, law and education. Since the epiphenomenon of genius means the highest form of creative activities, and since these activities seem to be impossible without the operation of the super-conscious energies, it may be that these rare examples of mental accomplishment are parapsychological par excellence. Since such men and women succeeded in becoming instruments of the superconscious, they evidently discovered somehow the right road to the highest psi powers. By a thoughtful analysis of the ways and means
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Several book reviews bound together in a red book entitled Sorokin Reviews, by which they became geniuses, we may stumble on some of the secrets of the superconscious and of the techniques for further opening this realm to rational, scientific exploration. Third, by experimental, clinical, statistical, historical, and other methods we should attack numbers of different problems concerning the nature of psi phenomena and their relation to the superconscious, altruistic energies of man. As a matter of fact, such attacks are already under way. Some scientists, like J. L. Moreno, are already studying experimentally the phenomena of creativity and spontaneity in relation to psi abilities. Others—like those who have studied men and women of genius statistically, clinically, sociologically, even biologically—have thrown some light on factors and properties of this group which is of such great potential importance to parapsychology. Still others, like William James and similar investigators of the phenomena of conversion, or yogism, of "miraculous" activities of great altruists, of prophets, of "healing mystics," and so on, have also contributed something to our meager knowledge of the parapsychological energies. Further on, several creative and pioneering scholars are now carrying on a series of experimental studies of a number of aspects of the superconscious. At this pioneering stage some of the studies are likely to miscarry, but a few lucky ones may give to us a tested and testable knowledge in this field. Personally I would welcome all such investigators and their valiant efforts. The more investigators and the more variety in the scientific attacks, the better. Though at the present moment these pioneering explorers are a minority in the large body of scholars and scientists, though they have to bear a great deal of unsound criticism on the part of "traditional and pedestrian" critics (hardly very creative), these pioneers have their own reward: the joy of creative pioneering, a certainty of the paramount importance of the problems studied, and a certitude that in the future their legion will grow and will become a majority. They can say about themselves what one of the early Christian fathers said of the small group of Christians: hestemi sumus, et vestra omnia implevimus. Sincerely yours, P. A. Sorokin