Unless there is a gigantic conspiracy involving some thirty University departments all over the world, and several hundred highly respected scientists in various fields, many of them originally hostile to the claims of the psychical researchers, the only conclusion the unbiased observer can come to must be that there does exist a small number of people who obtain knowledge existing either in other people’s minds, or in the outer world, by means as yet unknown to science.
HANS EYSENCK
”In 1932, Dr. J. B. Rhine, Assodate Professor of Psychology, and his wife, Dr. Louisa Rhine, were permitted to establish officially their Parapsychological Laboratory in the Psychology Department headed by Professor William McDougall,” skriver Arthur Koestler i sin bog fra 1972, THE ROOTS OF COINCIDENCE. ”It was an event of great symbolic importance: research into the dubious subjects of telepathy and clairvoyance had for the first time been recognized as academically respectable.
Rhine and his collaborators introduced rigorous scientific methods into the investigation of these elusive phenomena. The popular image of the psychic investigator as an uncritical believer and willing prey to fraudulent mediums has become an anachronism.”
I dag, halvfems år senere er hele den parapsykologiske ”videnskab” blevet en anakronisme, og Rhine selv skoleeksemplet på den forudindtagede og naive forsker, der sørgede for at give sine ”pålidelige” medarbejdere rig lejlighed til at snyde, og var diskret med at offentliggøre navnene på dem, han afslørede. Koestlers bog er imidlertid interessant ved at være skrevet af et intelligent, dannet menneske med et instinkt for magiens natur, hvad alene dens titel antyder, og således klart at demonstrere, hvor rent ud umuligt det er for selv de bedste hjerner at forstå denne.
Betegnelsen ”parapsykologi” er naturligvis velvalgt. Eysenck var psykolog, og parapsykologien er en pseudovidenskab, der er grundet i en anden pseudovidenskab, psykologien, Freud og Jung, der atter har rødder i Mesmers eksperimenter med velhavende damer.
Mennesket er ikke i besiddelse af nogen psyke eller sjæl, det kartesiske cogito ergo sum, og det er denne erkendelse – ikke af iagttagelsens iagttagerafhængighed, men af iagttagerens ikkeeksistens – der udgør kvantemekanikkens bidrag til forståelsen af magiens natur, ikke, at den er ”lige så underlig”.
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