Lawrence Leshan - The Medium, the Mystic, and the Physicist: Toward a General Theory of the Paranormal

Dedicated to Edgar N. Jackson, who was my guide and comrade-in-arms on this adventure.

Acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to quote.

E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.: From the book Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill.

Published by E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., and used with their permission.

Journal of Transpersonal Psychology : Physicists and Mystics: Similarities in World View by Lawrence LeShan. Reprinted by permission, Transpersonal Institute, from Volume 1, No.2, 1969, of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology , 2637 Marshall Drive, Palo Alto, California 94303.

Main Currents in Modem Thought : Human Survival of Biological Death by Lawrence LeShan. November-December 1969 issue.

Open Court Publishing Company: From Albert Einstein: Philosopher. Scientist by P.A. Schilpp.

Perceptual and Motor Skills : Krippner, S., and Ullman, M., Telepathic Perception in the Dream State: Confirmatory Study Using EEG-ECG Monitoring Techniques, Perceptual and Motor Skills , 1969, 29, 915--918.

Kenneth Rexroth and Saturday Review : From The Works of Rimbaud by Kenneth Rexroth. Copyright 1967 by Kenneth Rexroth. First appeared in Saturday Review . Used with permission.

The Society for Psychical Research: A Spontaneous Psychometry Experiment with Mrs. Eileen Garrett by Lawrence LeShan. Journal of Society for Psychical Research, 1968 .

Blanche Stace: From The Teachings of the Mystics by W.T. Stace.

1966, 1973, 1974, 2003, 2012 by Lawrence LeShan

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Cover design by Joan OConnor

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Library of Congress Cataloging In-Publication Data

LeShan, Lawrence L., 1920

The medium, the mystic, and the physicist: toward a general theory of the paranormal/Lawrence LeShan

p. em.

Originally published: New York: Viking Press, 1974.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 1-58115-27:1-6 (pbk.)

1. Parapsychology. 1. Title.

BF1031.L43 2003

133.8--Jc21

2003041682

eISBN: 978-1-62153-146-3

ISBN: 978-1-58115-273-9

T his work was made possible by a grant from Dr. Frederick Ayer II, who has the writers profound gratitude. It would not have been possible without the patience and help of Mrs. Eileen J. Garrett, who let me question her and work with her for many hundreds of hours.

It is also a pleasure to thank those who took the time and energy to read this manuscript in its various stages of development and to give me the benefit of their reactions. These include Anne Appelbaum, Graham Bennette, Gotthard Booth, Roberto Cavanna, Douglas Dean, Martha Gassmann, Max Grossman, Rosalind Heywood, Ensor Holiday, Edgar Jackson, Douglas Johnson, Robert Laidlaw, Eda LeShan, John Levy, Henry Margenau, Abraham Maslow, Lewis Mumford, Jacob Needleman, Fraser Nicol, Bob Ornstein, Karlis Osis, A. R. G. Owen, Bram Pais, J. B. Rhine, Nina Ridenour, Henry Rosenthal, Gertrude Schmeidler, Raymond Van Over, Rebecca Waldinger, and Richard Worthington.

Much of the research on psychic healing reported in was made possible by a grant from Life Energies Research, Inc. Their encouragement and support has my deep gratitude.

I n 1964, a curious coincidence occurred. I met Mrs. Eileen Garrett, and it turned out that each of us was exactly the person that the other one needed. Eileen Garrett was one of the most outstanding psychics of all time. She was a woman who had spent her adult life trying to understand the meaning and implications of her paranormal abilities. There had never been the slightest hint or trace of chicanery about her. She worked in trance or fully awake, depending on the problem. She knew that she never cheated or fished for information when awake, but had recently decided that she needed someone trained in scientific methodology to monitor her trance sessions to make sure of their honesty.

My own basic training and my professional experience had been in the application of scientific methods to the study of human behavior. And Mrs. Garrett was exactly what I needed at that time.

I had only recently come to the study of psychic phenomena. I had started from a position of extreme (to put it mildly) skepticism, being certain that there were no (and could not be any) such things as telepathy or deathbed apparitions, and that all reports of such phenomena were either fakery-for-profit or bad observation. I had set out to do a study of why and how such hardheaded scientists as William James, Gardner Murphy, and the odd dozen or so of Nobel Laureates could have believed in them. Not only had they believed in what was to me obvious nonsense, but they continued to do serious, tough-minded work, showing that the belief was not due to brain damage or psychological decompensation!

This was the original focus of my study. Then I made a mistake! I asked myself what had fooled these people I so much respected into believing in such obvious nonsense. To find the answer to this question, I looked at the data . This is a mistake you must never make if you wish to hold onto your beliefs and prejudices. The data were tighter than a drumhead. From dozens of laboratories and people of otherwise unquestionable probity came reports of experiments and of carefully investigated incidents that clearly revealed the existence of the phenomena I had so confidently derided.

I believe that conspiracies do exist. I am still not sure who assassinated President Kennedy. But this would have required the greatest conspiracy in human history. Under the scientific principle of parsimony (roughly, Choose the explanation that includes all of your data and is the least mind-boggling one you can find), I came to the conclusion that the hundreds of experiments and incidents showed the existence of a phenomenon, not of conspiracy.

To further strengthen my conclusion was the fact that the quality of the scientific experiments reported was very high. Under the pressure of strong, and often irrational, criticisms, those working in this field had been very careful to follow the rules of scientific methodology. The standards for publication in their journals was at least as high, and often higher, than in the physics and chemistry journals.

So, I needed a psychic to observe and to leave from. And I met Eileen Garrett.

Working with her, it often seemed as if the paranormal was walking around the room. I have described some of my experiences with her in this book and reported others in various professional journals. And these are only a few of those I observed personally. Often, these were in situations where I intimately knew (or had set up myself) the conditions; there could have been no transfer of information to her through the senses and no possibility of extrapolation from information gained in this way. Thus, from personal experience, as well as from the professional literature in this field, I could no longer doubt the existence of telepathy, clairvoyance, and other paranormal phenomena.