Parapsychology

Extra-Sensory Perception: Part II. The Experimental Resul...

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This is a chapter from J.B. Rhine's 1934 academic monograph *Extra-Sensory Perception*, reporting the early experimental work at Duke University that founded modern parapsychology as a laboratory science. Rhine describes his dual goals: producing mathematically rigorous proof of ESP's existence and understanding its psychological and physiological conditions. The chapter chronicles the actual experimental progression — beginning with hypnotic trance-telepathy trials (using numerals, hand-raising, and octant-circle methods), then shifting to waking-state clairvoyance tests using sealed envelopes — with Rhine presenting raw trial counts, hit rates, and deviations from chance expectation in statistical tables. Results across all early experiments were marginal and inconclusive by his own admission, hovering near chance (the strongest result was 2.6 times the probable error), yet Rhine frames continued experimentation as justified by the cumulative trend. A notably distinctive feature is Rhine's candid, exploratory methodology: he openly acknowledges improvised procedures, evolving conditions, and the difficulty of controlling for human variability, arguing that rigid experimental design is incompatible with early-stage psychical research. The text reads as a scientist's honest field log rather than a triumphant proof, making it valuable to anyone interested in the history of experimental psychology, the contested boundary between science and parapsychology, or the methodological challenges of studying anomalous cognition.

Extra-Sensory Perception: Part II. The Experimental Resul...

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