MISCHO, JOHANNES. ARE PSYCHIC PHENOMENA WHEN TREATED ACCORDING TO QUANTITATIVE AND STATISTICAL MODELS A 'ROULETTE' FOR 'SUPERNATURAL

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CIA-RDP96-00792R000700660006-3
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?vad+iFertAl 12000/08/11: CIA-RDP96-00792R000700660006-3 cecd a .during it 1,000 .Willem ed his reason- _s who at her -ved 32 le had Dry ill. k care rise of given in the g (two nething e a lot ad was Nleurs. money angry fraud. thentic title of pen to tion or h mat- at Pij- ts were for her house s fami- n hys- tmation rted to started k some ,iece of .sterical se were ,e on it rops of isit her drink. r to be Engclt jc ple had it. On ,pointed ingelt je, he four written tje had ng. En- ay food .yrs. GERMAN LANGUAGE Psychologie, 1975, 17(1), 41-49. 1 ref A 34-year old schizophrenic is described. Under the impact of incestuous ideas she imagines her father being re-born in her own son; she also reports a number of al- legedly psychokinetic phenomena which partly appeared ZEITSCHRIFT FUR PARAPSYCHOLOGIE UND spontaneously, partly in connection with performances by GRENZGEBIETE DER PSYCIIOLOGIE Uri Geller on television. This case description forms the Note: The first abstract below was inadvertently omitted from Vol. 4(1), which covered Vol. 15 of this journal. - Ed. 01910. Hammers, Alwin J., and Rosin, Ulrich. Parapsy- chology as judged by German theologians. Zeitschrift fur Parapsychologie and Grenzgebiete der Psychologie, 1973, 15(1), 15-35. Selected results of a survey of a representative ran- dom sample of Catholic and Protestant theologians of the Federal Republic of Germany are reported which was taken in March, 1972. So far as the general attitude towards parapsychology is concerned, the questions about the value and scientific character of parapsychology and about the factuality of its phenomena were answered on the average very positively. The representatives of a general "occult believing" or "anti-occult believing" at- titude are only -indicated sporadically. All in all, the theologians prove to be the professional group most prob- ably best informed on the field of parapsychology. Accord- ing to the theologians, the main importance of parapsy- chology lies in the field of anthropology. In spite of the affinity of parapsychical phenomena to the religious ex- perience, the former is given its own meaning independent of the religious sphere. This affinity should be the reason, however, for a positive attitude of the theologians towards parapsychology. The expectation that parapsychical phe- nomena are readily drawn on as a support for the the- ' ological system is not confirmed. A clear skepticism of the theologians in regard to parapsychology only then appears when they suspect that parapsychology will break into their own field. There are definite differences between the theologians of the two confessions in the answers given to the questions. Although more Protestant the- ologians answered the questionnaire and also have a bet- ter knowledge of the literature at their disposal, their positive statements on parapsychology and its phenomena are generally somewhat more reserved than those of the Catholic theologians. - DA 01911. Mischo, Johannes. Are psychic phenomena when treated according to quantitative and statistical models a "roulette" for "supernatural" consequences? Pt. Ii: A critical examination of call sequences. Zeitschrift fir Parapsychologie and Grenzgebiete der Psychologie, 1975, 17(1), 1-28. 13 refs; 19 tables In this article the objections to the quantitative and statistical model of ESP experiments are summarized as follows: (1) in ESP card-guessing experiments subjects are not able to produce random call sequences, (2) it has not been shown that target sequences are stochastic se- quences, (3) dependence on calls and target sequences leads to pseudosignificant results due to its bordering on hit sequences and is thus wrongly interpreted as a para- psychic phenomenon. Extensive empirical material for calls (closed decks, open decks, experiments with random number generators) is analyzed. Even in RNG experiments subjects are not able to produce stochastic sequences. According to these results the first thesis is fully verified. - DA 01912. Bjarsch, Hubert. Case history relating to pr- oblems of paranormal faculties in schizophrenia. Zeitschrift fur Parapsychologie and Grenzgebiete der basis for a discussion of special factors of uncertainty which are concomitants of schizophrenia and that have to be taken into consideration, if necessary, when judging reports on allegedly paranormal occurrences. After the author had finished this paper the schizo- phrenic committed suicide. - DA/G.H. 01913. Lucadou, Walter von, and Kornwachs, Klaus. Fundamentals of a theory of paranormal phenomena. Zeitschrift ftir Parapsychologie and Grenzgebiete der Psychologie, 1975, 17(2/3), 73-87. 32 refs In this article a basis for a new understanding of psi phenomena is outlined. It is centered in the fundamental discussion of how complex systems can be described in terms of positivism. By these considerations the authors are led to demand a macroscopic function of probability, phi, by means of which psi phenomena can be explained as being dependent on physical and psychological condi- tions. Although a concept of a function of probability cannot be fully understood within the categories of classi- cal ontology it is shown tq be able to make possible a formal and thus quantifiable theory of parapsychology. Al- though, moreover, psychological effects cannot be reduced to physical descriptions the concept of a psi function enables us to establish a relation and connection between psychological and physical data. This is illustrated by an analysis of psychokinetic phenomena. The theory discussed here is not a physical theory in the traditional sense but is based on a concept of physics that is able to take psychological variables into account. - DA 01914. Brand, Illo. The spectrum of UFO sightings. Zeitschrift fftr Parapsychologie and Grenzgebiete der Psychologie, 1975, 17(2/3), 89-124. 2 figs; 78 refs The author demonstrates that the prejudices prohi- biting scientific research on UFO phenomena are based on sociopsychological reasons. Most reports come from laypersons, are of anecdotal character, and do not reach scientific journals. The UFO problem, on the other hand, fulfills the requirements claimed by a science-theoretical view. The personality structure of the UFO witnesses is different from that of the witnesses of paranormal phenomena. A paranoia that could be induced by the UFO theme is not observed (in contradiction to the opinion of the press). Resistance of scientists to UFO re- search is based on the difficulty encountered in the acqui- sition of reliable data, in the premature declaration of public opinion that UFOs are extraterrestrial space ships, in the allegedly reduced reliability connected with the engagement in obscure observations and observers, and in the shortage of getting well-founded information. The aim of the examination by E. Condon and his co-workers in 1969 was to trace back all the UFO observations to natural phenomena, frauds, or illusions and hallucinations. In the spectrum of UFO sightings, in which the author had put the sizes of the objects versus the physical reac- tion on the environment in a diagram, the Condon-UFO cases reveal the smallest degrees of significance and are cancelled out by definition from "physical UFO phenome- na." Only when the distribution of frequencies of sight- ings in a spectrum based on 50,000 computerized data is known can it be decided without any doubt whether the UFO phenomenon is primarily a physical or a parapsy- chological phenomenon. - DA P96-00792R000700660006-3