◆ SpookStack

Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP96-00789R001001420001-3 tainted by . sensationalism and some charlatanism....The dramatic and the absurd overtones of the popular culture aspect of ESP has [sic] led even the more conservative elements of the popular press ta treat ESP as a novelty....Major centers of ESP research in the West, at Utrecht, London and Duke University, have come under suspicion from many scientists. As a result, researchers...have labored to prove an effect which the Soviets accept and attempt to explain--and control (12:40). Dr. Beaumont’s comments are certainly proven true when one considers the continued skepticism of the scientific. community in view of the extraordinary potential Soviet. threat. According to Russell Targ, one of the reasons psi research has suffered is that critics suggest any acceptance of scientific data in the field of psychic research would be inherently irrational (24:77). A survey of America’s elite scientists, which elicited 353 responses from 497 council members and committee members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), was published in June 1982. The study states: Although recent studies hint that belief in ESP may be increasing among the general population and among the scientific community, the elite scientific group polled by this study demonstrated the highest level of skepticism of any major group surveyed within the last twenty years (32:127). Also mentioned in this report was a movement started in 1979 that sought to disaffiliate the Parapsychology Association from the AAAS. It is interesting to note that “among this elite group, believers in ESP tend to cite personal experience as grounds for their belief. Skeptics tend to cite a priori reasons as grounds for disbelief" (32: 128). Th prevailing concepts" and negative peer Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA- RDP96- 60789R001001420001 -3 a1