Psychical Research and Its Implications
The keynote of what I want to say tonight is this: we are opening up a new world view—but we must remain true to certain old-new principles and values that are coming clear only today, precisely in the clash between science and religion.
We are discovering that religion, at its best, is not a matter of belief or theory. It is a matter of feeling, of attitude toward the actual here and now. It involves attitude toward two things: first, toward something worth while—what we might call "spirit"—and second, toward the Whole, the superhuman, whatever that may be.
This is moral championship combined with what I call agnostic piety: commitment to values without metaphysical certainty.
The past gave us religious experience—profound, transformative—but confused with theoretical claims that could not withstand scrutiny. The modern age gives us the scientific spirit, intellectual integrity, modern logic, and the realization of the limitations of thought and language. From this emerges agnosticism combined with what I call natural piety or cosmical piety.
My aim tonight is to assess the interim findings of paranormal psychology—telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and the rest—in relation to other modern experience, especially religious experience.
What difference does the paranormal make? To our practical prospects, here and perhaps hereafter? To our understanding of self and cosmos? To religion at its best?
What do the experts in psychical research agree upon? First, that psi does happen—something genuinely anomalous occurs that cannot be explained by known physical processes. Second, that mind is not merely an epiphenomenon of physical processes. Third, that the physical world, as ordinarily conceived, is not ultimate reality. Fourth, that our spatial and temporal experience may be "superficial"—not illusions exactly, but partial perspectives on something deeper.
Where do experts disagree? About which psi powers are genuine: telepathy certainly, but what of clairvoyance, telekinesis, precognition? About the nature of the self: is there a substantial ego, or only a system of psychic processes? About survival after death: is the evidence convincing, and if so, does it suggest partial or complete survival? About the "common ground" underlying individual minds: is it personal, impersonal, or suprapersonal? About time itself: fully real, wholly illusory, or merely superficial? About whether ultimate reality is in principle open to scientific investigation.
I accept the evidence provisionally, but with real caution. First, there is always the possibility of systematic error—some hidden factor we haven't identified. Consider the ether theory in physics: for decades, scientists were certain that light waves required a medium, and they built elaborate theories around this "perfect fluid." Then relativity appeared, and the whole framework collapsed. Something similar might happen here.
Second, we must never underestimate human gullibility. In a sufficiently complex field, almost anything can be "proved" given an obsessive will to prove it. Consider the Bacon-Shakespeare theorists, the British Israelites, the Flat Earth believers. All have marshalled impressive-seeming evidence.
Therefore, reserve final judgment. Accept the paranormal provisionally, but do not stake your life on it. Do not found a faith on the paranormal. Do not use it as a prop for crumbling religious doctrines. That way lies self-deception.
Telepathy: Is it direct contagion of experience from mind to mind? Or does it work indirectly, through some "other sphere" underlying individual consciousness? What appears in consciousness may be a symbolization of unconscious contagion—like dreams, tangled with repressions and personal associations.
There may be much undetected telepathy operating beneath the threshold of awareness—"tilting" our conscious thinking, creating fashions of thought and feeling like war fever. It may play a role in artistic inspiration, in reverie, in those hypnogogic visions between waking and sleep.
Telekinesis—mind acting directly on matter—requires even greater caution. If genuine, its scope seems very restricted. Yet consider the ages of reported miracle-working, the reality of autosuggestive cures. Perhaps telekinesis is a special case of psychokinesis: after all, ordinary voluntary action involves mind affecting matter every time we move a muscle.
What does the paranormal suggest? That mind is not reducible to brain. That personality may extend further than we ordinarily assume. That reality is deeper than physical appearances. That time may not be the simple stream we experience.
What does it not prove? The existence of God. The immortality of the soul. The validity of any particular religion. The goodness of the universe. None of these follow from the paranormal evidence.
The right attitude is openness without credulity, agnosticism without premature closure. We must learn to live without certainty—trusting our deepest experience while distrusting our theories about it.
Religion does not need the paranormal as its foundation. Religion at its best is response to experienced value—the recognition of "spirit" and attitude toward the Whole. This does not depend on telepathy or survival or any paranormal claim.