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Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2 _Notatall. The details in this paragraph, and Expect?” and it repeatedly speaks of “cult phuds,” even moréin Romm's article, point unmistakably, meaning people with PhDs who are interested in though inaccurately, to the fifth night of the first pre- parapsychological problems. Alcock’s repetition of cognitive series at Maimonides. The actual details of Romm's misstatements in a context lacking these target and response would alone deprive it of much clues may well be taken by many a reader as scholarly of its value as an example of shoe fitting. As reported writing based on correct information and rational by Krippner, Ullman, & Honorton (1971), the target thought. Paradoxically, both Alcock’s paragraph and was a morning experience that included being in a Romm's article are excelient examples of the shoe- room that was draped with white sheets. The subject's fitting error that both decry in others who are in fact first dream report had included the statement, “I was carefully avoiding it. . oe just standing in a room, surrounded by white. Every ~ The last of the five books that bring, or fail to imaginable thing in that room was white" (p. 201). bring, the Maimonides research to the attention of There is more similarity here than Romm and Alcock psychologists and their students is Anomalistic Psy- acknowledged in mentioning from this passage only chology: A Study of Extraordinary Phenomena of Be- the single word “white.” havior and Experience, a 1982 volume by Leonard More important, however, is the fact that the ex- Zusne and Warren H. Jones. This is in many ways periment they were referring to provided no oppor- an excellent book, and it is also the one of the five tunity for shoe fitting. The procedures followed in the that comes closest to including a general review of experiment were completely misrepresented ina way important recent research in parapsychology. Its brief that created the illusion that the possibility existed. account of the Maimonides dream experiments, how- There was no panel, in the sense of a group of people ever, misrepresented them in ways that should seri- gathered together and capable of influencing each ously reduce a reader's interest in considering them other. The judges, operating independently, separately further. judged every one of the 64 possible combinations of Zusne and Jones’s description of the basic pro- target and transcript yielded by the eight nights ofthe cedure made three serious errors. First, it implied that experiment, not just the eight correct pairings, and one of the experimenters had a chance 1o know the they had no clues to which those eight were. Their identity of the target. (“After the subject falls asleep, responses are hardly likely to have been immediate, an art reproduction is selected from a large collection as they required reading the entire night's transcript. randomly, placed in an envelope, and given to the Because each judge was working alone and was not agent” p. 260). In fact, precautions were taken to en- recording times, there would have been no record if sure that no one but the agent could know the identity a particular response had been immediate, and no_ of the target. Second, the authors stated that “three record of what particular element in the transcript judges. .- . rate their confidence that the dream con- led to an immediate response. tent matches the target picture” (p. 260), leading the I looked up in a 1977 issue of The Humanist the reader to suppose that the judges were informed of article by Romm that Alcock cited. The half page on the identity of the target at the time of rating. In fact, shoe-fitting language gave as examples this item from a judge was presented with a dream transcript and a “the Maimonides research and also the SRJ_semote-. pool of potential targets and was asked to rate the : rere ee a nemanel viewing experiments (Puthoff & Targ,.1976)done at - degree of similarity between the transcript and each “SRI International. _[n both cases what was said was member of the pool, while being unaware of which “pure fiction, based on failure to note what was done member had been the target. Third, there was a sim- in the experiments and in particular that the experi- larly, though more obscurely, misleading description “menters were well aware of the danger of shoe-fitting of how ratings were obtained from the dreamer. language and that the design of their experiments in- This misinformation was followed by even more _ Corporated procedures to ensure that it could not oc- serious misrepresentation of the research and, by im- ‘cur. Romm’s ignorance about the Maimonides re- plication, of the competence of the researchers. Zusne search and her apparent willingness to fabricate false- and Jones (1982) wrote that Ullman and Krippner hoods about it should be recognized by anyone who (1978) had found that dreamers were not influenced had read any of the Maimonides research publica- telepathically unless they knew in advance that an tions. Yet Alcock accepted and repeated the fictions attempt would be made to influence them. This led, as though they were true. His presentation inthe con- they wrote, to the subject's being “primed prior to “text of a“bodk apparently in the scientific tradition going to sleep” through the experimenter’s secms to me more dangerous than Romm’s original preparing the receiver through experiences that were related article, for anyone with a scientific orientation should to the content of the picture to be telepathically transmitted be able to recognize Romm’s article as propaganda. during the night. Thus, when the picture was Van Gogh's Its utle, for example, is “When You Give a Closet Corridor of the St. Paul Hospital, which depicts a lonely Occultist a PhD, What Kind of Research Can You figure in the hallways of a mental bospital, the receiver. (1) November 1985 « American Psychologist . 1227 Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2