Ganzfeld Setting
A development in modern parapsychological techniques
popularized by Charles Honorton, director of research at the
Division of Parapsychology and Psychophysics at Maimonides
Medical Center, New York. The term Ganzfeld roughly translates
as total field, and the Ganzfeld Setting is basically a sensory
isolation situation used for testing ESP. The subject, wearing
earphones and blinders, sits in a comfortable chair in a
soundproof booth and is instructed to stare at a bold red light,
creating a diffused glow. Over the headphones comes a soft hiss
of white noise.
The subject normally stays in the isolation booth for about
35 minutes and is instructed to think aloud, describing mental
images, thoughts, and feelings. This monologue is monitored
by an experimenter on an intercom system. Meanwhile another
assistant (often a friend or associate of the subject) starts looking
at pictures (often on slides held to the light). Experimenters
have found frequent similarity between the images viewed by
the assistant and the reveries of the subject in the Ganzfeld Setting.
In the first 30 tests initiated by parapsychologists Honorton
and Harper in 1973, 43.3 percent of the subjects demonstrated
a match with selected targets, as against a 25 percent chance expectation.
In other cases, there was a suggestion of possible
clairvoyant or precognitive faculty. Remarkable results were
also achieved by parapsychologist D. Scott Rogo in California
with the gifted subject Claudia Adams, a Los Angeles actress.
During tests, Adams displayed such uncanny prescience that
problems arose in limiting her ESP faculty to the disciplines of
a given test. For example, in one test Rogo had prepared four
pictures in sealed envelopes, only one of which was to be used,
leaving the other three for later tests. However, Adams accurately
described all four pictures during one test.
Sources
Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. The Encyclopedia of
Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York Paragon
House, 1991.
Blackmore, Susan. A Report of a Visit to Carl Sargents
Laboratory. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 54,
no. 808 (July 1987).
Harley, Trevor, and Gerald Matthews. Cheating, Psi, and
the Appliance of Science A Reply to Blackmore. Journal of the
Society for Psychical Research 54, no. 808 (July 1987).
Rogo, Scott. ESP in the Ganzfeld An Exploration of Parameters.
In Research in Parapsychology 1975, edited by J. D.
Morris, W. G. Roll, and R. L. Morris. Metuchen, N.J. Scarecrow
Press, 1976.
. Free Response Ganzfeld Experiments With a Selected
Subject. In Research in Parapsychology 1975, edited by J.
D. Morris, W. G. Roll, and R. L. Morris. Metuchen, N.J. Scarecrow
Press, 1976.
