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Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789 not avoid was obtaining results that Hansel considered a priori impossible, hence evidence of fraud: but Hansel was not entirely frank about his reasoning. ——Amincidental paint warth nating is that Hanset _did not himself apply, in his critical he san dards "of eviderice_he demanded of the researchers, His conclusions were based implicitly on the assump- tion that the difference of outcome between the Mai- monides and the Wyoming experiments was a genuine difference, not attributable to random variation. He did not even raise the question, as he surely would have if, in some parallel instance, the Maimonides researchers had claimed or implied statistical signif- icance where it was questionable. In fact, the difference of outcome might well have arisen from random error, for the percipient's own judgments the difference is significant at the 5% level (2-tailed), but for the out- siders’ judgments it does not approach significance, Another 1980 book is The Psychology of Tran- scendence, by Andrew Neher, in which almost 100 Pages are devoted to “psychic experience.”” Neher dif- fered from the other authors I refer to in describing the Maimonides work as a “series of studies of great interest” (p. 145), but this evaluation seems to be ne- gated by his devoting only three lines to it and four lines to unsuccessful replications. A third 1980 publication, The Psychology of the Psychic, by David Marks and Richard Kammann, provides less of a general review of recent parapsy- chology than Hansel's book or even Neher’s one long chapter. It is largely devoted to the techniques of mentalists (that is, conjurors specializing in psycho- logical rather than Physical effects) and can be useful to anyone encountering a mentalist who pretends to be psychic.” Most readers are not likely to be aware that Parapsychological research receives only limited attention. The jacket blurbs give a very different view of the book, as do the authors in their introductory sentences: ESP is just around the next corer. When you get there, it is just around the next comer. Having now turned over one hundred of these Comers, we decided to call it quits and ‘aoe our findings for public review. (Marks & Kammann, 1980, p. 4) Given this introduction to the nature of the book, readers might suppose it would at least mention any comer that many Parapsychologists have judged to be an impressive turning. But the Maimonides dream. experiments received no Mention at all” ‘voliime, by psychologist James Alcock (1981), quite clearly purports to include a general re- view and evaluation of Parapsychological research. Alcock mentioned (p. 6) that Hansel had examined the Maimonides experiments, but the only account of them that Alcock offered (on p. 163) was incidental to a discussion of control groups. By implication he seemed to reject the Maimonides experiments because they incl no control groups. He wrote that “a Control group, for which no sender or no target was used, would a essenual” (p. 163). Later he added, “One could, ajternatively, ‘send’ when the subject was not in the dream state, and compare ‘success’ in this case with success in dream state trials” (p. 163). The first tements suggests a relevant use of con- $ atied . . . . oe trol groups but errs in calling it essential; in other psychological research, Alcock would have doubtless readily recognized that within-subjéct conirol’can, Where feasible, be. much moreeficient-and pertinent than’a separat¢ control group. His second statersent~ of experiment that is probably im- possible (because in satisfactory form it seems to re- quire the subject to dream whether awake or asleep and not to know whether he or she was awake or asleep). This s¢cond kind of experiment, moreover, has special perv ence only to a comparison between dreaming and waking, not to the question of whether ESP is manifested in dreaming. Alcock, in/short, did not seem to recognize that the design of the Maimonides experiments was based on controls exactly parallel to those used by innu- merable psychologists in other research with similar logical structure (and even implied, cunously enough, in his own second Suggestion). He encouraged readers to think that thd Maimonides Studies are beyond the Pale of acceptable experimental design, whereas in fact they are fihe examples of appropriate use of i within-subject control rather than between-subjects ! control. —: The quality of thinking with which Alcock con- fronted the Maimonides research appeared also in a Passage that did not refer to it by name. Referring to an article Potnistted in The Humanist by Ethel Grod- zins Romm, he ote, Romm (1977) arguéd that a fundamental problem with both the dream telepathy research and the remote viewing tests is that the reports suffer from what she called “shoe-fitting” language: she cited 4 Study in which the sender was installed in a room draped in white fabric and had ice cubes poured down his back. A receiver who reported ‘‘white™ was im- mediately judged td have made a “hit” by an independent Panel. Yet, as she bserved, words such as “miserable”, “wet"’ or “icy” would have been better hits... . Again. the obvious need is for 4 control group. Why are they not used? (p. 163) What Romm destribed as “shoe fitting’ (misinter- preting events to fil one’s expectations) is an important kind of error that is repeatedly made in interpretation of everyday occurtences by people who believe they are psychic. But the dream telepathy research at Mai- monides was well protected against this kind of error by the painstaking| controls that Alcock seemed not to have noticed. S irely Romm must be referring to some other and vely sloppy dream research? ee 126 + Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R006400 1400041 2sychologisi