Escape from Wonderland Gerd H. Hövelmann, M.A.

1. HövelmannCommunication Escape from Wonderland Gerd H. Hövelmann, M.A.

2. Escape from Wonderland • Alice: "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" • Cheshire Cat: "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to." (Carroll, L.: Alice‘s Adventures in Wonderland. London: Macmillan, 1865).

3. Escape from Wonderland • The theme of the present conference, "Charting the Future of Parapsychology," likewise is about the question where parapsychology ought to go from where it currently is. And it also is about a prior general decision about where we actually want to get to. • We must realize, however, that the questions about the goals or the aims we want to pursue, or about or the destination we would like to get to, are not scientific ones at all. Rather, they are philosophical questions, or, if you prefer, ones of our intellectual preferences. Science cannot tell us where we ought to go. This is for us to decide. • But once we‘ve made that decision, once we‘re sure about our goals, science is the best way to go – methódos being the Greek word for "way".

4. Escape from Wonderland Three Traditional "Insider‘s" Attitudes There have been many different attitudes towards the aims of parapsychology both inside and outside the field. From the inside, I‘d like to briefly mention three perspectives: • Miracles for the Sake of Miracles • Disillusionment and Resignation • Leaving Alice Behind

5. Escape from Wonderland Miracles for the Sake of Miracles (I) One group of researchers have satisfied themselves that paranormal phenomena ultimately cannot be subjected to meaningful experimenting and theory building. They are content to enjoy miracles for their own sake. A few years ago, Carlos Alvarado has provided an apt characterization of that orientation. In Alvarado, C.S. (2002). Thoughts on the study of spontaneous cases. Journal of Parapsychology, 66, 115-125, he wrote:

6. Escape from Wonderland Miracles for the Sake of Miracles (II) "My impression … is that a segment of those concerned with the study of spontaneous phenomena are not interested in explaining or understanding the phenomena. They seem to be happy to maintain the mystery for its own sake. In their view, the phenomena is something sacred that should not be probed too much ... Some of those interested in ... conceptualizing psychic phenomena as manifestations that point toward nonphysical or spiritual aspects of human being are generally not interested in showing how cases relate to aspects of the natural world … These researchers ... do not want the topic associated with mundane physical, biological and psychological correlates because such correlates undermine the more spiritual views they prefer." (pp. 17, 19)

7. Escape from Wonderland Miracles for the Sake of Miracles (III) Those who share that attitude are deeply stuck in Alice‘s Wonderland, presumably enjoying themselves. They will next encounter the Hatter and the March Hare, one as mad as the other. “Miracles for the sake of miracles“ is not basically a scientific attitude. Those who have adopted it have entered a different intellectual game. It may be legitimate as a personal orientation, but does not, and cannot, form part of science.

8. Escape from Wonderland Disillusionment and Resignation (I) Those who, like myself, have been spending more than three decades in this difficult field of inquiry, will have experienced quite a few disappointments and disillusionments along the way. And we all have known persons who initially started off with a great deal of enthusiasm and a couple of nice ideas, but then where not seen or heard of anymore after it had become apparent that the phenomena flatly refused to fit their respective pet ideas. Science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick, in an interview on an entirely unrelated topic, provided what seems like a pertinent description of that feeling of disillusionment. He remarked:

9. Escape from Wonderland Disillusionment and Resignation (II) "Now how do you explain that? You're building a jigsaw puzzle, and you keep building it, and you have only one piece left, and you have one hole in the puzzle. You take the last piece and you start to put it in the last hole. And it doesn't fit. And since it doesn't fit, the whole puzzle is screwed up. You can never complete it. And while you're standing there looking at it, it just slowly falls into a million parts." (Philip K. Dick in Williams, P. [1986]. Only Apparently Real: The World of Philip K. Dick. New York: Arbor House, pp. 98-99).

10. Escape from Wonderland Disillusionment and Resignation (III) I guess there are few among us who haven‘t had that kind of experience once in a while. Some of those who have shared such experiences have turned their backs on Wonderland and its strange inhabitants, and they have devoted themselves to easier, more comfortable (and maybe more rewarding) tasks. Some of them may even have joined those who prefer the first approach, or they have become card-carrying skeptics instead (such as John Taylor and Sue Blackmore did in, respectively, the 1980s and 1990s).

11. Escape from Wonderland Leaving Alice Behind (I) Let me briefly mention a third attitude. The following is essentially adapted from Hövelmann, G.H., & Krippner, S. (1986). Charting the future of parapsychology. Parapsychology Review, 17, (6), 1-5, and from Krippner, S., & Hövelmann, G.H. (2005). The future of psi research: Recommendations in retrospect. In Thalbourne, M.A., & Storm, L. (eds.). Parapsychology in the Twenty-First Century: Essays on the Future of Psychical Research (pp. 167-188). Jefferson, NC & London: McFarland.

12. Escape from Wonderland Leaving Alice Behind (II) Those who prefer this third attitude are attempting to normalize the paranormal. They are trying to identify, isolate and describe wondrous phenomena and to present them to and discuss them with their scientific colleagues outside of Alice‘s Wonderland. My impression is that the vast majority of those who have addressed us during this conference and of those in the audience decidedly belong to this latter group that insists on having explanations according to the rules of science. However, this means that we ought to follow the phenomena and our experimental results and study the entire range of anomalies in conscious-ness wherever that may lead us, even if it may force us to adopt an increasing range of non-psi approaches and eventually bring us back into mainstream science. If we really are interested in scientific answers to the questions that have plagued most of us most of the time we will have to follow wherever our well-considered scientific methods will lead us.

13. Escape from Wonderland Leaving Alice Behind (III) Otherwise, parapsychology might turn into an ever-shrinking field with ever-shrinking competence and relevance, and it eventually might loose its subject matter altogether once the other scientific disciplines have taken over and provided the non-psi (or maybe even the sort-of-psi) explanations we have been searching for all along. • So let us first get very serious about answering the Cheshire Cat‘s question of where we want to get to. • And let us leave Alice to her fate.

14. Escape from Wonderland Concerted Efforts Adhering to the 1953 PF Conference model, build committee(s) or work group(s) that • Register and coordinate empirical research in prominent areas • Coordinate related activities (such as counseling / clinical parapsychology, which, since the 2007 “1st International Expert Meeting on Clinical Parapsychology,“ already is on a promising path) • Publish (and get our journals back on schedule) • Design adequate ways of presenting findings to the scientific community at large • Consider application issues No doubt, many of you will have additional suggestions for concerted actions, and we are eager to hear about them.