The leading article in this issue of the Journal is a scholarly and carefully reasoned thesis on Field Theory and Survival, by Dr. Gardner Murphy. Dr. Murphy points out that among the very early investigators in parapsychology, Mrs Henry Sidgwick took the position that the concept of a fusion of the agent's and percipient's ideas offers a better approach to understanding of paranormal processes than the habitual assumption of transmission from one mind to another. Einstein and Infeld have presented a similar view in the Evolution of Physics, showing that the entire classical attempt to work from parts to wholes has broken down in relation to many fundamental problems.

In lieu of the time-honored method, Dr. Murphy proposes to utilize in the search for further evidence of survival, the "field", accepting the following definition: "Field = a distribution of energy in space and time; this distribution conceived as a unitary and structural whole, is a field." (Murphy, following Clerk-Maxwell). And Dr Murphy adds, "Knowledge of what one particle alone is doing, added to the Knowledge of what another particle is doing, will not in any way predict what will happen in the total interaction. The structural whole is not the sum of the parts, and the attempt to state its problems in terms of parts confuses the issues . . . With the change called death, there is every reason to believe that in so far as psychical operations continue, they" (that is, the field properties of personality) "must, as aspects of larger fields, take on new qualities, new structural relationships."

The contention is presumably, or at least possibly correct; yet it should be considered that the Clerk-Maxwell formula was a concept of the nature of electro-magnetic activity, and that it was worked out wholly on the basis of sidereal space and time. It seems almost a certainty that in the post-mortem environment "space" and "time" do not connote exactly the same conditions of existence that we are accustomed to associate with those terms. (Refer to The Unobstructed Universe, Stewart Edward White, for an extended discussion of these topics).

The succeeding article, Plan for Securing Survival Evidence, by Lydia W. Allison, is in fact a sequel to Dr. Murphy's thesis; and it presents a vivid illustration of the difficulties encountered in the attempt to reduce theory to practise in this field of research. Dr. Murphy designed the procedure, as per his letter published as a part of Miss Allison's article; and Miss Allison made a brave attempt to carry it out through the medium, Mrs Leonard, and her well known Control, Feda. In brief, the plan was to make contact, through Feda and the group of entities who have been understood to be cooperating with her in maintaining that channelled communication, with some three or four ex-carnate individuals who had no personal acquaintance during [5] their terrestrial life, but who, after comparing notes in their present sphere of activity, had discovered that they had some common factor of experience which could be reported back, via the medium, and verified through further investigation. (The common experience suggested, that all of these gentlemen during their earthly life should have been smokers of the type of pipe known as a "3-B Milano" must surely have been offered for purposes of illustration only. To this reviewer it seems to have been of too minor importance as a common factor to sustain, either in the letter or in the spirit, the Clark-Maxwell conception of a "field" as "a distribution of energy in space and time, conceived as a unitary and structural whole." Imagine four respectable residents of California, Arkansas, Maryland, and Maine respectively, who became acquainted after their departure from the plane of physical incarnation, and who discovered that in their earthly life they shared one common experience -- they all wore "B-V-D's". Would such a group constitute a "field"? If so, a field of what?)

Be that as it may, the requested conditions of experiment were blandly ignored by the group of purported collaborators in the psychic environment. These persons were, ostensibly, the surviving intelligences who were known in physical life as Professor J. H. Hyslop, Dr. Arthur Verrall, and Mr. F. W. H. Myers. These men were intimately acquainted during their physical lives, engaged for many years in psychical research, and should have understood as well as any individual now within the scope of human consciousness the importance, for purposes of collaboration, of abiding by proposed conditions of experiment. Apparently, however, no attempt was made to comply with the most important condition - the assembling of a group of communicators who had not been acquainted with each other during earthly life. Instead, these eminent gentlemen offered themselves as the proposed group; and as evidence of identity they presented through "Feda", a demonstration of one of their number (apparently Dr. Verrall) "moving things about" on a "board like a square, and covered with little squares". Further inquiry among surviving friends of the demonstrators developed the fact (which might have been anticipated) that all of them had been accustomed, from time to time, to play chess, checkers (Anglice, "draughts"), and / or backgammon. The value of the evidence thus secured seems to be unconsciously summed up in the hopeful suggestion offered by one of the verifying witnesses, that practically all young Englishmen play some or all of these parlor games. It is obvious that this suggestion, if correct, as probably it is, would stultify the evidential value of the reported proceedings.

All that can be said for the experiment is that it was a valiant attempt on the part of Dr. Murphy and Miss Allison to carry their theory into practise; and if the attempt failed - as certainly it did - it was less their fault than that of collaborators in the psychic realm who ignored the stated conditions of collaboration.

W. G. R.

References

  1. Murphy, Gardner. "Field Theory and Survival." Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research. 39.4 (1945): 181-209. Print. [Issue may be available from aspr.com directly; article is also included in ASPR collected edition, "Three Papers on the Survival Problem" (1945) <http://amzn.to/1nYqc9V>]
  2. Einstein, Albert, and Leopold Infeld. The Evolution of Physics: The Growth of Ideas from Early Concepts to Relativity and Quanta. London: Cambridge University Press, 1938. Print.
  3. White, Stewart Edward. The Unobstructed Universe. 1st. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co, 1940. Print. <http://amzn.to/1cPRDAH>
  4. Allison, Lydia Winterhalter. "Plan for Securing Survival Evidence." Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research. 39.4 (1945): 210-215. Print. [May be available from aspr.com.]