Interview: Professor Stanley Krippner
Stanley Krippner, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at Saybrook University, San Francisco, is a Fellow in four APA divisions, and past-president of two divisions (30 and 32). Formerly, he was director of the Kent State University Child Study Center, Kent OH, and the Maimonides Medical Center Dream Research Laboratory, in Brooklyn NY. He has authored scores of articles, papers and books. In 2002, Stanley received The American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology.
1. Stanley, you have enjoyed a long and distinguished career in parapsychology. What have been the highs and the lows?
There have been as many lows as highs. The end of funding for our dream research at Maimonides Medical Center was certainly a low. The refusal of the Brazilian psychic claimant Amyr Amiden to engage in a confirmatory series of sessions to videotape his alleged PK abilities (apparently on the advice of his physician) was a low. One high was the publication of Irving Child’s summary of the Maimonides experiments in the American Psychologist, the flagship journal of the American Psychological Association. Another was the two experiments with the English psychic claimant Malcolm Bessent on precognitive dreams, experimental series performed under the most rigorous conditions we could design, with highly significant results occurring each of the two times. Working with the esteemed psychoanalyst at Maimonides, Dr. Montague Ullman was a high, and we received a joint award from the International Association for the Study of Dreams.
Among the “lows” was the failure of David Foulkes and his University of Colorado dream lab to replicate the dream telepathy studies with our star participant, Robert Van de Castle, as the recipient. Bob has written about his experience, one which he felt lacked the collegiality and rapport that he experienced at Maimonides. For whatever reason, this “failure to replicate” should certainly be considered one of the “lows.”
2. Your most recent book - Debating Psychic Experience: Human Potential or Human Illusion? link here – represents a dialogue between advocates of psychic functioning and counter-advocates. In other words - it centres around a good old debate. What was the thinking behind the project?
I was on our high school debating team and have arranged various debates over the years in one setting or another. This book is unique in that both the advocates and the counteradvocates of the psi hypothesis state their positions — and then give rejoinders. This is followed by separate chapters by a few additional advocates and counteradvocates. Harris Friedman, my co-editor, and I tried to allot each side the same number of pages. The chapter authors take off their gloves, and there are many body blows, not merely polite sparring. The thinking behind the project was to provide readers with informed perspectives on the psi hypothesis in a single volume, allowing them to draw their own conclusions.
3. And how did it turn out?
The reviewers and the readers will need to decide how it all turned out. All the authors seem quite satisfied with their contributions — but they will not see the second half of the book until they receive their copies. Harris Friedman and I are quite satisfied with the results, although in our concluding remarks we conclude that advocates and counteradvocates are not ready to synthesize their approaches. We hope that the book will encourage detente and a continuing exchange of position papers and critiques. There are some surprises in the book, and some of them may stimulate further debate in other venues.
4. Thinking more generally - are you optimistic for the future of parapsychology and paranormal research?
Psi phenomena, whatever they may turn out to be, represent complex systems. Perhaps science has not yet developed the technology or the methodologies to detect them in a replicable manner. However, the development of chaos and complexity theory in psychology as well as new developments in quantum physics and quantum biology might bode well for the future. Hence, I would say I am pessimistic in the short run but optimistic in the long run.
Thanks Stanley.
