In her lab at City College, Gertrude Schmeidler immediately began
designing the protocols and physical set-up for the thermistor experiments. The
physical set-up was examined by a number of electrical, thermistor, and computer
and affiliated scientists -- all of whom finally approved of everything.
It
took a number of preliminary and "informal trials" to iron out all of the
details, major among which was that I had difficulty in "psychically locating"
the thermistors sealed inside the thermos bottles in order to "probe"
them.
After the preliminary trials, there was to be a "rest period" for
me, because Schmeidler had to write up the protocols and controls step-by-step
-- and then to submit them to an advance peer review process so as to discover
and correct any loop-holes in the integrity of the experiments.
After all,
there is no use in doing a "controlled experiment" only to find the experiment
invalid because of some missed flaw.
Additionally, the sealed thermistors had
to run by themselves for a long time so as to establish their base lines and
ensure that no other errant temperatures were affecting them.
This involved
miles of graph paper and computer analysis of the temperatures inside the
thermistors to determine that they were working properly.
Meanwhile, I
began responding to an invitation of Dr. Karlis Osis to become a test subject at
The American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) -- which I'll begin narrating
in the next chapter.
Also meanwhile, the gossip lines were running hot and
heavy, and various complex situations were building up.
For one thing,
my emergence as a "psychic" seemed to mean in the minds of the public that I WAS
one. Via Buell Mullen's circle and Zelda's, many requests for "readings" came
in. Both Buell and Zelda first took it as a matter of course that I would give
such readings, if only to buttress my vapid economic circumstances.
And
here we run across the equation that if one is psychic then one is expected to
do everything science fiction attributes to them, which is to "know
everything."
Both Buell, Zelda and others were somewhat confused when I
declined across the boards. I had no idea of how to give readings, and didn't
want to, anyway. As I explained, most people only want to know how to make more
money, find a mate, get laid, communicate with their departed, or be made to
feel good about their circumstances and their hopes for their future.
And,
indeed, these are the traditional, long-standing interests of most people --
even in antiquity where, as I already knew, the SAME questions were
preponderantly asked of the oracles.
I have never given readings.
For
another thing, parapsychologists themselves have a fair share of fixed ideas
about what a psychic is, and certain rather opinionated confusions were emerging
along these lines.
I found, for instance, that some parapsychologists who
had never talked with me were venturing to introduce opinions about me into the
gossip lines.
Although I thought I understood the basis for parapsychology,
I now began to discover that I didn't completely understand PARAPSYCHOLOGISTS --
who, as a group, can demonstrate a range of behavior some of which is quite
remarkable and mystifying.
I decided that I needed an experienced and
knowledgeable mentor to help me out. Schmeidler, of course, was one such
mentor.
But I also had met the insightful Dr. Jan Ehrenwald, a prominent
American psychiatrist born in Hungary, who was also a recognized and highly
gifted parapsychologist.
I had also met Mr. Martin Ebon, author of over
thirty books on the paranormal. Ebon had also once been, for twelve years, the
administrative assistant of the Parapsychology Foundation. He had the long
opportunity to work with its founder, the very famous and formidable medium and
psychic, Eileen Garrett -- who had passed away just before I "entered
parapsychology."
Both Ehrenwald and Ebon knew everything about
parapsychologists, their foibles, stupidities, sexual orientations, mistakes --
and their successes, giftedness, and history. Martin especially knew "where all
the dead bodies were buried."
Then there was my wonderful Zelda. She really
didn't know a whole lot about the technical aspects of parapsychology. But she
knew practically everything about parapsychological personalities.
However,
she never condemned any of them even in her own mind. "All of them," she used to
say, "are just people." And if Zelda loved anything, it was "people."
So
when I was flummoxed and wanted to comprehend what the hell was going on, I had
four wonderful mentors to help me out this way or that. I figured that all of
this LEARNING was part of diplomacy.
But were it not for my mentors, I
think I would have been dead and buried almost from the start.
The world of
parapsychology may be a small one compared to the enormous vistas of science
proper.
But it is a microcosm of the larger scientific worlds, overfilled
with matters of status, who's who, competition, backbiting and backstabbing --
and, as well, the thefts of discovery. And, it may as well be mentioned, concern
and jealousy regarding who gets what money for which purpose.
There were
to be much beauty and wonder ahead, of course, but a dizzying variety of
ugliness as well.
Between the beauty and the ugliness were to exist all
sorts of circumstances and situations -- many of which caused one to roll on the
floor laughing. Such types of circumstances are even on-going today regarding
remote-viewing.
Once Schmeidler's experiment protocols had been approved
by her peer review processes, considered stringent, the formal thermistor
sessions commenced in the lab at City College.
There were to be five formal
sessions on separate days with me as the "subject," plus two post-sessions in
which student volunteers tried to influence the thermistors.
All of the
sessions were held in the City College laboratory. The Dynograph (the chart
recorder) connected to a computer was placed where I could see the read-out --
to see if I was on-target or not as a form of feedback.
One of
Schmeidler's colleagues, Larry Lewis, took charge of all of the apparatus,
including the computers which stored and counted the temperature-fluctuation
information. At first he was somewhat dubious that the experiment would produce
anything -- but was soon blown away as I was also to be.
There were four
target thermistors plus additional non-target ones, the latter placed in direct
line with the target ones.
I was supposed to influence only the targets
selected by Schmeidler. Some of the target thermistors were placed behind glass
to see if it acted as a "psychic shield." All of the thermistors, whether target
ones or not, were sealed inside thermos bottles.
During the second
session, both I and Schmeidler moved into a separate room so that a wall
intervened between me and the targets. Some of the target thermistors were then
twenty-five feet away, some closer, the closest being the thermistor five feet
away in its sealed thermos bottle.
Unknown to me, Schmeidler utilized
preselected sequences which would follow the counterbalanced order ABBABAAB,
which equated to her various verbal commands of rest, hot, rest, cold, rest,
cold, cold, rest, hot, cold, etc.
All I had to do was to try to focus on the
selected thermistor inside its thermos bottle, and try to do what SHE commanded
and IN THE ORDER SHE DID.
As to the results.
Only the target
thermistors were influenced, albeit sometimes weakly so, but majorly so in the
preponderance of the trials. Glass, walls, nearness or farness from the targets
made no difference.
In the abstract of her formal paper, Schmeidler
phrased the success as: "Significant PK changes in continuous, automatic
recordings of temperature were repeatedly produced." Embedded in the paper's
text is presented the fact that the experiment was repeatable at the direction
of the experimenter. [See PK EFFECTS UPON CONTINUOUSLY RECORDED TEMPERATURE
published in THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH, Vol.
67, October 1973, No. 4.]
Drafts of her paper were almost immediately in
circulation in December 1971, since the paper was widely circulated for peer
review and Xerox copies of which were distributed by the peer reviewers in all
sorts of directions.
And a tremendous ruckus now ensued, one which reached
from the bowels of parapsycholgy to the guts of science proper -- and from those
venerable, if murky, realms -- into the guts of the MEDIA!
The focus of
the ruckus had not much to do with the experiment itself. What the focus was can
best be explained as follows.
A confirmed example of controlled psychokinetic
effects had been demonstrated by a subject in a laboratory. If he can trigger a
thermistor could he not also trigger a nuclear bomb?
Schmeidler's experiment
didn't come even close to implying any such thing, of course. But this
hysterical wave grew, as one might imagine it would.
I began
understanding the gist of all this when so-called "investigative reporters" from
TIME, NEWSWEEK, LIFE and lesser media, etc., began trying to get me on the phone
for interviews -- as was likewise the case regarding the delightful Dr. Gertrude
Schmeidler.
Affecting a thermistor inside a thermos bottle was NOT news, of
course, but the imaginative, sci-fi potentials of doing so were. Psychokinetic
powers, if they existed, were dangerous!
And therein was the story which
could be pumped and hyped.
And, of course, the extensive gossip lines
from and back into Buell Mullen Central and Zelda Central were overheated and
smoking and blowing things out of all proportion.
Thus, barely six
months after "entering parapsychology," I discovered, and very much to my
amazement, that introverted little me needed a PRESS POLICY -- of all
things!
Now, it was not for nothing that I had worked in the Office of Public
Information at the United Nations. I understood quite well what press policies
AND THE PRESS were -- including their pitfalls.
I hastily consulted all
my mentors by telephone and chewed over the situation with them. All of them
felt that I should grant media interviews because Schmeidler's experiment was an
important one, and all of them felt that Schmeidler herself should issue a press
release.
In the end I decided to go against their advice -- and that MY
press policy would be NEVER TO TALK WITH THE MEDIA, and certainly never with
mainstream versions of it.
Having thus decided, I telephone Schmeidler
and pointed out my greatest suspicion -- that mainstream science, academe, and
media were very ill-disposed to anything positive about psi. Therefore, to
attempt to cooperate-operate with the media probably would turn out to be
nothing more than shooting oneself in one's own feet.
After all, when the
venerable magazine, TIME, reported on anything parapsychological, they put the
report in their long-standing and disgusting FRAUD BOX occasionally published
within black borders meaning "death."
Even the very great parapsychological
luminary, Dr. J. B. Rhine (and his wife) had found himself featured in the
infamous Fraud Box.
I don't remember that Schmeidler was planning to issue a
press release, but I do remember asking that no one should. There was only one
place one would end up -- either in someone's fraud box or victimized by
skeptical "hit men."
Everyone felt that I should work to do my part in
convincing our psi-negative culture that psi did exist. Alas for that. I had
researched how psi, etc., had been treated during the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. Herein is one of the very ugly stories of "our times."
Only two
people fully and immediately approved of my decision --Bill and Vy Bennitt. All
of the rest learned to live with it. And here, perhaps for the first time, some
few recognized two factors which were to play significant roles in the future.
That I had a mind of my own, and that I could be STUBBORN.
Zelda,
however, long accustomed to media exposure because of her nudist camps, said
that any publicity IS publicity. "Just make sure they spell your name
right."
Zelda found the whole of this absolutely wonderful and exciting. Said
she: "I've never met anyone who DID NOT WANT media attention."
One evening
while we were eating and playing Scrabble, I giggled to her: "I'm gonna to make
TIME get rid of its god damned FRAUD BOX."
Her eyes widened in astonishment.
"Don't be silly. You can't do that. No one can."
"Well, we'll
see."
Inflated Ego? Probably. (This particular little story will be continued
in chapters ahead.)