"The...most striking fact about parapsychology," writes former Scientific American columnist Martin Gardner in the Foreword to this book, "is that after a hundred years of intensive investigation not one experiment has been produced that can be regularly replicated by skeptics. ... For every person who reads this valuable book there are hundreds of naive souls who would prefer to have their spine tingled by a sensational but worthless pot boiler by some hack journalist of the paranormal. You who now read these sentences thoughtfully join a small but wiser minority."
Written by two psychologists who, at the time of original publication in 1980, taught at the University of Otago in New Zealand, this book is a thorough refutation of the claims of serious researchers such as Targ and Puthoff, and the conjuring methods of modern "mentalists" such as The Amazing Kreskin and Uri Geller. Professors Marks and Kammann conducted their research at a time when the growth of acceptance of pseudoscience and the occult was still in its infancy. With regard to ESP, the authors note that, "Everywhere we turned we found the public, our students, the media, even noted scientists all talking as if it were true. If there was going to be a revolution in our concept of the mind we wanted to get involved." After five years of searching, after intensive studies of Kreskin, Uri Geller, and the famous remote viewing ESP experiments at the Stanford Research Institute, the authors were astounded by their observations and tests. They uncovered a long trail of deception, conjuring tricks, and scientific bungling. In spite of the public mania for all things occult, they found no new evidence for ESP.
Included in this fascinating book is a discussion of why so many people today are prone to believe in the reality of psi phenomena, astrology, extraterrestrial UFOs, palmistry, biorhythms, dowsing, and all the other popular myths. A final chapter on "The Art of Doubt" explores the positive role of skepticism in the progress of genuine science. Not just a book for professionals in the social sciences, The Psychology of the Psychic will be of interest to students and laymen interested in psychic claims.
When he wrote this book David Marks was senior lecturer in the department of psychology at the University of Otago in New Zealand. He is now professor of psychology at Middlesex University in the United Kingdom, co-editor of the Journal of Health Psychology, and a Fellow of The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), publishers of The Skeptical Inquirer.
The late Richard Kammann, an American by birth, was associate professor of psychology at the University of Otago and a Fellow of CSICOP.
232 pages