OCR Text |
Show "Parapsychology" New Approach to Old Problem Search for Truth of Thought Transmission PARAPSYCHOLOGY! A a new scientific term to describe de-scribe a new scientific approach ap-proach to an old subject. Making its bow at Duke unver-sity, unver-sity, a new journal, and the first in its field to appear under the sanction sanc-tion of a recognized university, will be devoted to clairvoyance, telepathy telepa-thy and other arts of mind-to-mind communication without benefit of the inventions of science. "Para" means beside. In the Greek from which it comes, it also had such meanings as "amiss, faulty, irregular, disordered, improper, im-proper, wrong," according to the Oxford dictionary. These latter meanings are probably not intended by the sponsors of the new journal devoted to parapsychology, however, howev-er, for the editors, Prof. William McDougall and Dr. J. B. Rhine, are convinced that men can transmit trans-mit ideas without recourse to wires, radio, postal facilities or even speech "extra-sensory perception" they call the art. Man Seeks to Pierce the Veil. For many centuries man has sought the means for looking into the minds and hearts of his fellow men. Perhaps it is because communication com-munication arts, amazing as the radio and telephone, telegraph and television are today, lag still behind be-hind the fieetness of human thought. Perhaps it is because of the truth of the saying that words are but a cloak to hide thoughts. Man has need to supplement the clumsy inadequacy in-adequacy of his language skill; he needs also to pierce the veil of human hu-man deception. Science is always the balance wheel that can protect men against wishful thinking and what the mental men-tal physician calls a flight from reality. Scientific research, careful care-ful and unemotionally conducted, should set aside doubts and blast unfounded hopes in this emotionally charged field just as it has to so large an extent in the physical and biological sciences. If there exists a way to reveal our thoughts to others without the medium medi-um of voice or post or printing press, then the persistent conscientious conscien-tious research of enthusiasts In the field of parapsychology should demonstrate dem-onstrate it |