Extra-Sensory Perception: Foreword

This is the foreword to J.B. Rhine's 1934 book *Extra-Sensory Perception*, written by psychologist William McDougall, who supervised the research at Duke University. McDougall argues that conducting psychical research within a university setting both legitimizes the field and benefits students through rigorous scientific training, positioning Rhine's experiments as the first serious academic fruit of this approach. The bulk of the foreword is a character testimony for Rhine and his wife Louisa, both former biologists who abandoned conventional academic careers to pursue parapsychology — a sacrifice McDougall frames as evidence of extraordinary intellectual integrity and scientific seriousness rather than occult enthusiasm. McDougall directly addresses the obvious objection that collaborators may have deceived Rhine, dismissing it on the grounds that the number of participants, the extended duration of the experiments, and the deliberately controlled conditions make coordinated fraud implausible. The foreword's most distinctive feature is its explicit argument that a researcher's personal character is a legitimate and necessary criterion for evaluating anomalous scientific claims — McDougall openly states his credence in any psychic research report depends heavily on his assessment of the author's honesty. Readers considering the full text should know this introduction functions as a credentialing document as much as a scientific preface, setting up Rhine's ESP card-testing experiments as both methodologically sound and morally trustworthy.

Extra-Sensory Perception: Foreword

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