My Library

Each of the Gang-Of-Five ladies knew this quite well, and so it was understood that my "mission," if it can be called that, was to challenge the high editorial policies that trashed all PSI developments. I was quite intimidated in attempting this prospect. But the Gang thought it might work out because I was already known for not mincing words. And what the hell, I was going to quit research anyway, and so I didn’t have much to lose. * Two other factors of significance in 1972 need to be narrated into this record, because both of them have been forgotten. The first of those factors was that in 1972, the growing media interest was not stimulated by PSI in general, but precisely by the REPEATABLE thermistor experiments of Dr. Gertrude Schmeidler at the City College of New York. (Please refer back to chapters 8, 9 and 10 in this regard.) Her experiments equated to an EVENT, because previous to them parapsychology research "had not produced a repeatable experiment" -- and until it did, parapsychology research "need not be taken seriously," because it was otherwise only composed of random and fortuitous phenomena requiring "interpretation." In the broader actuality of parapsychology, this condemnation was true or not true, depending on the mind-set judging it. But from the skeptical and thus the media point of view it WAS true, since it provided the loophole that could be thought to justify trashing. Schmeidler’s experiments had two advantages most other PSI experiments did not have.