Parapsychology

Extra-Sensory Perception: Part III. Explanation and Discussion: Appendix to Chapter 15. Suggestions to Those Who May Care to Repeat These Experiments

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This is a practical methodology section from J.B. Rhine's foundational 1934 parapsychology monograph *Extra-Sensory Perception*, which established the laboratory study of ESP at Duke University and launched the modern experimental tradition in parapsychology. The passage consists of twelve procedural recommendations for researchers wishing to replicate Rhine's card-guessing experiments (using five-symbol Zener cards), covering subject selection, experimental atmosphere, pacing, and encouragement. Rhine's central practical argument is that ESP is a fragile, inhibition-prone faculty that requires relaxed, informal conditions, subject autonomy, and sustained trial runs — he warns that most subjects perform worst in their first 50–100 trials, so short experiments will systematically fail to detect the effect. Distinctively, Rhine treats ESP as a natural phenomenon to be coaxed rather than controlled, explicitly criticizing experimenters who "dictate conditions to Nature" rather than adapting methodology to the subject's comfort. He also suggests that subjects with prior "psychic" experiences or such family history, and socially bonded pairs for telepathy trials, are the most promising candidates — a claim that reflects both his empirical observations and the selection biases that critics would later target. The passage is valuable for anyone studying the history of experimental psychology, the sociology of parapsychology as a would-be science, or the methodological debates around Rhine's work.

Extra-Sensory Perception: Part III. Explanation and Discussion: Appendix to Chapter 15. Suggestions to Those Who May Care to Repeat These Experiments

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