Chapter 25 Chapter 25 Extrasensory perception and telekinesis

For as long as human beings have existed, there have been people who believe in the supernatural.Those of the nobler faith call this Psychology.However, it was not until the last century that some attempts were made to give it a scientific basis that had been tested in the laboratory.These studies include.From apparently whimsical quests to the work of sane, reputable psychologists.Such psychologists include Dr. Joseph Laing of Duke University and Gardner Murphy of the City College of New York.In this chapter we will focus on the work of Laing, who has done more than anyone else in history to give the study of the occult scientific dignity.

It should be unequivocally stated that Laing is clearly not a pseudoscientist, even if he resembles most of the people in this book to some degree.He was a very sincere man, too serious and capable to be dismissed so easily, and deserved to be taken more seriously than a cursory study like this one.He is discussed in this book only because his work has attracted great interest as a new and controversial "heresy" in modern psychology, and because he is an excellent example of an ambiguous scientist, His research cannot be said to be a whim, but he is far from the outer edge of orthodox science.

Most psychologists in the United States apparently have a very strong irrational preoccupation, for example, much greater than in England, and they object even to the possibility of extrasensory psychic powers.The author himself also has this bias to a certain extent.Just as the reader must be aware of Laing's strong convictions when reading his highly persuasive work, so must the reader be aware of the author's prejudices when reading the arguments that follow. Dr. Laing was born in Waterloo, Pennsylvania in 1895, but spent most of his childhood in a small town in Ohio.He served two years in the Marine Corps as a young man before attending the University of Chicago, graduating in 1922.He earned a Ph.D. in botany from the University of Chicago and for a time taught botany at West Virginia University.As a young man he had wanted to be a Protestant priest.During those few years his orthodoxy disappeared, and he began to look elsewhere for support to maintain the broad religious views he has maintained to this day.

It was in this state of mind that he and his wife heard Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lectures on spiritualism in the early twenties.The speech left a deep impression on them.Laing writes, "...it is clear that if there is any truth in what Conan Doyle believed, even though it might go astray in detail, it would have its own extraordinary importance. The mere possibility It’s the most exciting thought I’ve had in years.” This feeling led Rhine and his wife to bury themselves in the writing and practice of spiritualism for a long time. The term "paranormal exploration" was what Reing used to describe this early work of exploration. In 1927, he became an assistant researcher at Duke University, where he worked on various occult studies under the direction of Professor William McDuck (formerly a professor at Oxford and Harvard). In 1928 he joined the faculty of Duke University, and since 1940 he has served as the director of the school's psychic laboratory.

Laing's first experimental report was published in 1934, entitled "Extrasensory Perception".Later, he published "The New Frontier of the Spirit" (1937), "Extrasensory Perception 60 Years Later" (co-authored with others in 1940), and "The Spiritual Kingdom" (1947).Since 1937 he has edited The Miscellany of Psychology, perhaps the most important journal in the history of scientific occult studies, and he has also written numerous articles for popular magazines. In his books and articles, Rein proposed that extrasensory perception (ESP for short, including telepathy and clairvoyance) has been proved by millions of FSP card experiments, and there is no room for doubt.There are 5 easily identifiable symbols on these cards, namely squares, circles, crosses, stars and several wavy lines.There are usually 25 cards per pair, 5 cards for each symbol.In recent years, Laing has turned his attention to another so-called Psi phenomenon, which he calls "psychokinesia," or PK for short.This is the ability of the mind to control matter, such as psychic ascension, faith healing, and haunted houses.Let the subjects focus on one side of the dice, roll the dice by hand or use a machine, and let the subjects concentrate on one side of the dice.Laing claimed that the dice came up this side more often than chance.

Strangely, neither extrasensory perception nor telekinesis is bound by space and time, Laing reported.For example, when subjects were separated from the playing cards by a large distance, ESP still worked.The subjects were able to call out the suit order of the cards before shuffling the cards, which is called "prediction".Reing writes, "...there is no significant difference in the scoring records whether the subjects call the order of the cards they are playing now or the order they will play in the future." A pure telepathy experiment.Instead of passing on the thoughts of the experimenter, the subject may have "seen" the final result of the experiment through the predicted supernatural vision!Since each trial must at the end be tabulated in some way, it is of course difficult to rule out foreknowledge.

Since paranormal phenomena are not limited by space and time, it is impossible to explain them by any known theory of nature.This leads to the idea that at least some parts of the mind are disconnected from the physical world, Laing said.This fact supports the belief in the soul, free will, and the existence of the soul after death.Moreover, if ESP and telekinetics exist, then behind the apparent deceit and falsity of spiritualism there is proven to be a solid core of truth.For example, Laing believes that the messages sent by psychics, Ouija board operators, and shamans are often obtained through telepathy, clairvoyance, and foreknowledge.

Laing's work also supports the common belief that animals have supernatural abilities.He published an article in the June 1951 issue of American Magazine entitled "Does Your Pet Know Your Mind?" ".His article exemplifies the above point of view.Laing believed that a spy horse named Lady in Richmond, Virginia, had supernatural abilities.He also told of a dog in California that howled for a day that stopped just as the Long Beach earthquake struck, and a collie that whimpered under a bed just before a nearby factory explosion killed its owner.In both cases, Laing argues, the dogs had precognition of upcoming events (see his article "The Mystery of the Animal Brain," Us Weekly, March 30, 1952).

What should people think of these astonishing reports?Did Dr. Laing and his colleagues establish a sound empirical basis for the paranormal, or is his research questionable by scientific standards?Since examples in favor of his research abound in his books and articles, and examples against him are buried deep in scholarly publications, this book will synthesize the skeptical psychologist's A summary of the key criticisms raised by them. Worst of all for Laing was the fact that the subjects who could confirm his experimental results were almost without exception people who believed in the supernatural as strongly as he did.Skeptical psychologists have also conducted hundreds of experiments with the opposite result.Laing attributed this fact to the fact that the attitude of the experimenter had a significant effect on the subjects.If the scientist doesn't believe in supernatural abilities, it disturbs the subtle workings of the subject's supernatural abilities.Laing's critics accused him of conducting experiments under loosely controlled conditions and of selecting only a portion of the total for publication. HL Ken summed up the latter criticism (an article on Laing published in the Baltimore Sunset newspaper on December 6, 1937) by saying, "Professor Laing, frankly speaking, is the one who puts those who guess the cards in succession. separate, and then cite those good fortunes as proof of their magical abilities..."

This so-called "choice" is not done intentionally, but subtly and unconsciously.As an example, let us assume that 100 students are tested in a classroom in order to decide which students to retest.According to normal odds, about 50 of these students scored above the average and 50 below the average.The experimenters concluded that those with good grades were most likely to have supernatural abilities, so they were called for further testing.In the second trial, those with low scores were eliminated again, and those with high scores continued the trial.In the end, there was one man left who scored above average on 6 or 7 consecutive trials.As an isolated instance, this is unlikely to happen, but it is to be expected in view of the selection process just described.

A capable experimenter is naturally not so clumsy as the above said.Such an example merely shows how precarious the matter of choice is.To give a better example, let us imagine that 100 psychology professors across the country read Laing's work and decided to conduct an experiment on a subject each. The 50 professors who failed to discover ESP in their separate initial tests probably got frustrated and gave up trying, but the other 50 professors were encouraged to keep going.Among the 50 people, more people stopped the experiment after the second trial, while the rest will continue the experiment because they have tried good results.In the end, there was only one experimenter left, and the subjects performed 6 or 7 consecutive trials in front of him, and achieved very good results.Neither the experimenter nor the subjects cared about the situation of the 99 trials inside and outside, so both parties had a strong illusion that ESP was effective.The chances of this happening were not great.But in terms of the whole process, this kind of chance is possible (the chance of winning in the Irish lottery is even less, but someone still draws it).The experimenter then wrote an impassioned report and sent it to Lein, who published it in his journal and made a strong impression on the readers. At this point, one can't help but ask, "Would the experimenter not be disappointed if he went on with his subjects?" The answer is yes.However, Laing also tells us that the subjects almost always had a marked decline in their abilities after their initial success.Moreover, he writes, "...the experimenter may fail after a single success. There have been cases where some research workers found evidence of supernatural abilities during one or several experiments, and later Even under the same experimental conditions, the experiments did not go so well. This failure, . Very elusive." One should add that failure is understandable in terms of odds. Rhein also had a number of ways to "get out" when an individual's test scores happened to be good or bad, using good scores to support ESP rather than disadvantage it with others.For example, what the subject guessed was not the card (called the "target"), but the previous card.This phenomenon is called "anterior shift".Or, he may have guessed the last card, which is called a "back shift".This displacement of supersensory perception may even occur on the first two or three cards or the last two or three cards!Clearly, if these situations counted, the odds of hitting one of them would be higher than average.However, if the shots were missed including the displacement, it may have been down to the subject's poor mental state.He may be apprehensive about the test, or bored, distracted by the visitor, angry at the experimenter, sick, tired, skeptical of the test, low IQ, nervous, or in a mood swing .Even the experimenter himself, if in any of these regrettable states, disturbed the subject by unconscious telepathy.All of these factors were individually used by Laing to explain the poor results of the trial.According to him, in the dice roll test.Poor results could even be due to a person "hating" a particular set of dice (he did not tell us whether the person said he hated the set of dice before or after the experiment).As Laing puts it, "The most subtle influences seem to interfere with the exertion of these supernatural abilities." Of course, if the effect is good, no one will look for "subtle effects".But if the effect is diminished, it's time to start looking for the cause.It's certainly not hard to find.If the results continue to be poor, the trial will be stopped.If the effect is extremely poor, it is considered a negative form of ESP, which is called "target avoidance".In the chapter on wands earlier in this book, Henry Gross' poor results in his experiments with Ryne were reported.But, as recently revealed by Laing (see Us Weekly, March 23, 1952), Henry hadn't failed at all!"He's just avoiding it automatically," Laing wrote, adding, "It's not just a coincidence that he's making so many mistakes." "Target avoidance" can occur even in the trial of moving the dice.Laing wrote. "In extrasensory perception and telekinesis, target diversion has a common feature... under certain conditions, there will be a tendency not only to avoid the target, but sometimes to fixate on the target close to the original target. Let us assume that the subject Wanted the dice to face up on the 3 side. The result was wrong. But when I checked the result carefully, I found that I wanted the 4 side. The 4 is close to the 3 in a certain way, because it is after the 3. Similarly, the 2 is also close, Because it came before the 3. Or a 6 was rolled, which was the number the subject wanted in the previous trial. This is a "delayed effect." Choose a number for the next experiment. Who can fail with such a knack? I myself have often noticed the irritating tendency of the dice when playing "blackjack" in Chicago, Always roll extremely high odds on ideas you don't want. Obviously, unless all the "shifted" results are averaged into the total result, a distorted statistical result will be obtained.It proves nothing at all if one trial is published to show that the subject "hit the target" and the next trial is published to show that the subject hit another target than was required.When you look at all the results together, the number of mistakes is close to the number of successes.This is strongly illustrated by the following statement: "This off-target phenomenon reduces the success rate below the mean line, and if the rate keeps falling, as often happens in many experiments, the total negative margin reaches irreducible By a little chance." A gambler would put it more simply.He will say that his luck is often very good, but often bad in the middle. The following is a description of an ESP card experiment. "...when one dealer looks at the cards, the displacement is both forward and backward, but when another dealt, there is only forward movement; whether one card or two is moved, it depends on the speed of experimentation." No wonder Laing describes ESP as "incredibly elusive," with a "mutability," "unstability," and "unreliability," making it one of the "most capricious Ability". In addition to data selection, attention must also be paid to "recording errors" when evaluating the Duke trial.Several experiments in several other universities in recent years have also demonstrated the fact that people who believe in extrasensory perception are prone to errors in their records, and errors are always in favor of extrasensory perception.For example, an experiment was done at Stanford University with 1,000 ESP playing cards.The call was recorded by a man who believed strongly in extrasensory perception.According to the probability, 200 cards should be guessed correctly.The final result showed that 229 guesses were correct.However, this person did not know that the test was properly recorded.When the records were checked, 46 guesses were found to be false.This brings the grade down to slightly below the probability level.When the comparison was repeated, and the person knew to be taking notes, errors were only found twice. Throughout Laing's research work rife with the possibility of recording errors.His experiments were carried out under hundreds of extremely different conditions, and the description of the experimental conditions is usually very vague.There is little clarity about who is recording, how it is being recorded, or what the recorders believe.It was only in the later stages that Reing tightened the controls to prevent mistakes like this.It is noteworthy that the tighter this control, the less sensory perception was found.He writes, "...elaborate precautions take their toll. Experimenters who have worked in this field for a long time have found that success rates suffer because experiments are complicated, large, and slow. The various precautions themselves often You can't concentrate." all in all.Elaborate precautions interfered with the subject's occult abilities.Sensory perceptions and telekinesis could only be discovered if the experiments were conducted in a casual manner and under the supervision of a tester who believed in supernatural abilities.While Laing found many subjects he believed to be highly psychic, he could not find a single subject who could demonstrate ESP to skeptical scientists at other universities.Of course he has an explanation for this, but isn't it surprising that "orthodox" psychology has been slow to admit that the existence of the supernatural has been proven? Regarding Laing's dice-throwing experiment, Clayton Lawson pointed out (see "Skalln on Dice", 1945) that to make a spinning die turn to the other side (Line said that the size of the dice and the weight does not affect the result), there must be some sort of considerable telekinesis thrust.Such a power, Lawson wrote, was easily demonstrated by placing a lightly balanced arrow under a vacuum jar, which the subject could mentally cause to spin.If a psychic can lift a heavy table by telekinesis, surely a psychic can also make such a simple experimental device turn.Lawson and Skaer wondered why Laing ignored such an obvious experiment and instead went to the dice-rolling experiment.This kind of experiment, like the card guessing experiment, is prone to fall into the trap of statistical error and unconscious choice. There is another tricky problem.Chicagoans have enjoyed playing "blackjack" in bars and taverns for years.Roll out 10 dice hands from a cup, and the dice player bets that a certain idea will appear at least 26 times in 13 shakes.The tired and weary dice girl obviously didn't care what idea she was rolling each time the dice were counted.The money gamblers, on the other hand, were obviously desperate to shake out their bets.Why do these tally sheets, year after year, show exactly the percentage of winners that the laws of law allow?One would have thought that in this case telekinetics would play a big role. Sometimes the impossible, Aristotle wrote, is possible; or, as Charlie Chan put it, "The odd thing happens to be the easy thing." Card and dice experiments, but most of them without proper precautions against misrecording, it would be a wonder if he should not have had an astonishingly good luck.In some early instances, the subjects may have even been intentionally fake, as they were often paid for, and only those subjects who demonstrated supernatural abilities were retested (in a pair used to experiment with extrasensory perception). Among the cards, as long as a mark is made on 3 cards, such as using a fingernail to draw a mark on the edge of the card, a subject who guesses this deck can get an average score of 7 or more).By viewing good luck as evidence of extrasensory perception and telekinetics, and by making plausible excuses for occasional and poorly worked experiments, might Rein have been the victim of a grand self-defeating hoax? Proponents of ESP accuse orthodox psychologists of ignoring the paranormal, and the answer to this charge can only be: That's not true.People have made many serious experiments, the results are negative.To give a prominent example, Professor John Coover of Stanford University has done a large number of strictly controlled experiments.These experiments were published in detail in 1917 in a 600-page book, Experiments in the Research of the Mind.More recently, Laing and others have gone over Coover's stats again, looking for front shifts, back shifts, and so on.They insist that ESP lies hidden in these numbers.But other statisticians see this as akin to the process by which Bacon-Shakespeare scholars seek to unearth fantastic coded messages from Shakespeare's plays. Although the available evidence is far from sufficient to draw conclusions, many talented and prestigious modern figures have embraced extrasensory perception.Among philosophers and psychologists, prominent ones are William James, Henry Sickwich Jr., William McDuck, Henri Bergson, and Hans Durisch.Among authors, one may cite Conan Doyle, Aldous Huxley, Gerald Herd (whose book Preface to the Prayer explores the full realization of extrasensory perception in prayer), Zhu Ernes Romans, HG Wells, Maurice Maeterlinck, Sir Gilbert Murray, Upton Sinclair, Arthur Koestler and many others.Koestler, in his recently published book Insights and Opinions, says that Laing's research has set off a new "Copernican revolution." I have heard that there is a strong tendency on the part of psychoanalysts to accept extrasensory perception.This may come as a surprise to many.Freud himself wrote several articles on this inscription, pointing out that dreams made by telepathy are usually out of shape, and fortune-tellers may occasionally learn the inner wishes of the parties; The analyst's telepathy creates confusion of mind.Jung and Steck are two other prominent psychoanalysts who acknowledged telepathy.Some contemporary Freudians, like the New York City psychoanalyst Nandoll.Fodor, to combine psychoanalysis with outright mysticism, the result is grotesque.Fodor's 1949 book Finding Love is a good example.The book discusses a mother's telepathic influence on her unborn baby's mind and body, and even speculates that the fetus's mental state may be transmitted to the mother through extrasensory perception.Fodor also defended the age-old birthmark superstition, arguing that mothers' frightened experiences could be transmitted telepathically to their children.He cited such an example: "A beautiful woman has a brown spot on her neck because her mother spilled hot coffee on her when she was pregnant." The twin sister of the twin sister, but this fact does not bother Fodor, he pointed out that, "...we don't know anything about the relative susceptibility of twins." This book was published by the same publishing house that later published "The Word of Mind".Interestingly, Fodor, who anticipated much of Hubbard's work, also emphasized the damage that attempted abortions can do to the minds of unborn babies.In Fodor's view, though, the damage was primarily caused by telepathy from the mother's desire to abort her child.In the chapter "The Unborn Love Life" of his book, he traces the causes of nymphomania, eroticism and other psychological disorders to the influence of the mother's sex life on the unborn baby. One of the strangest of the various literatures of the German School.Fodor has written for many prominent psychoanalytic journals. Upton Sinclair's book "Psychic Radio" also deserves a review, as it is the most famous and compelling account of clairvoyance in paranormal writing in recent years.The book was published in 1930, and Einstein had written a preface for its German edition.This is the record of a series of extraordinary vision experiments performed by Sinclair's second wife.She experimented silently and drew 290 simple pictures, most of which were drawn by her husband at different times and under different circumstances.She was then in a period of depression, in which she developed a great interest in occult phenomena.This interest was sparked by Sinclair's friendship with Roman Ostoggia.Roman Ostoggia is a professional performer who can read other people's minds, and is referred to as "Jane" in the book.It is difficult to understand how the Sinclairs could seriously trust the young wizard, who possessed so many feats.For example, he can stay in a sealed coffin for hours.He performs what the magic industry calls "Hercules."Once, during a seance, he hoisted a 34-pound table 8 feet above Sinclair's head!The Sinclairs think these forces are real. Judging from the situation introduced in the book "Spiritual Radio", the environmental conditions of the Tianyantong test are extremely unsatisfactory.Sinclair has always been deceived by various psychics and wizards throughout his life.The first article he wrote when he was 20 years old was submitted to a Theosophy magazine.His most recent book is Ten Novels by Lenny Bard.This novel is full of supernatural stuff throughout.The last "Ah!The pastor has spoken! ", filled with tributes to Dr. Laing.It also features a faith therapy session and several seances performed by Lennie, in which Lennie addressed the spirits of Bergson and Franklin D. Roosevelt.The book takes its title from a Roosevelt seance.The seance in which Roosevelt apologizes for agreeing with Stalin at Yalta is undoubtedly the most embarrassing scene in all of Sinclair's novels. Sinclair and his wife used 290 pictures in the experiment, of which he confirmed that she silently drew 65 correctly, 155 were "partially correct", and 70 failed.These drawings, printed in contrast in the book, show that Mrs. Sinclair's sketches are very similar to her husband's drawings, although some have to be turned upside down.In fact, there is no need to bring out some kind of telepathy to explain these test results.First, an intuitive wife, who knows her husband well enough, can guess with considerable accuracy what he might draw, especially if the picture is newly thought of and related to something related to their shared experience. bingo.At first, I may have painted simple things such as chairs and tables, but after painting these things, the range of choices is narrowed, and the next painting may be associated with some recent experiences. "Partially correct" paintings are rarely printed.Are they as similar as Sinclair said?It is said that a total of 290 pictures were drawn in each experiment.Can you be sure that this is the exact total of all pictures tested?It's easy to come up with an excuse that doesn't count, like a headache, something bothering you, or whatever.There were always excuses for getting things wrong, and surely Sinclair had a way of undoing them and forgetting about it.If the painting is correct, of course it will be carefully preserved.The unconscious selection process probably works just that way. One can only hope that these experiments have been supervised by qualified psychologists who are familiar with the ingenious ways in which experiments can be led astray.Sinclair was as persuasive as Conan Doyle on matters of the supernatural, but he was as naïve as Conan Doyle about the precautions necessary to conduct experiments under controlled conditions.It is therefore impossible to rely on Sinclair's memory of key details any more than Conan Doyle's account of such research as psychophotography can be relied upon.Later, when Mrs. Sinclair's health improved, Professor William McDorrow conducted another experiment on Mrs. Sinclair under the condition of taking better precautions, and the results were far from satisfactory.Since Sinclair ran for governor of California in 1934, she stopped experimenting with ESP.Still, she surprised her husband by occasionally displaying apparently supernatural vision instinctively. Thomas Edison is another example of a self-proclaimed psychic.Not only did he believe in telepathy, but he was once duped by professional charlatan Dr. Burt Reese.The ability of this quack doctor to see into the human mind is no better than that of the spiritualists on the modern stage like Dunninger.Dunninger's method is familiar to magicians.Edison was so impressed, however, that he wrote to the New York City Evening Illustrated that he believed Reese to be a true psychic.The later published "Edison's Diary and Observational Notes" revealed his view that human thought is related to Alfred Finson's intelligence formation and intelligence destruction (see Chapter 6 of this book-editor ) are strikingly similar!Edison expressed his conviction that in the human brain there are millions of "intelligence agents" invisible to ordinary microscopes, which he called "little demons".They run around to complete various intellectual functions, and are controlled by the "master" who "dwells in Broca's cortex".Before his death in 1931, Edison was working on a sensitive piece to communicate with the dead. Edison's friend Luther Burbank is an example of another type.Such a man, despite his great achievements in one field of applied science, has strange mystical views.Burbank often communicated with his sister via telepathy, had visions of his dead mother, and was adamant that plants had a sensitive nervous system that responded to love and hate.The Indian Yogi Paramhansa Yogananda quoted his friend Burbank in his autobiography, "Yes, I used to talk to my plants in order to create a vibration of love, ...One man plants a flower, takes good care of it, and the flower dies. But another man takes good care of it, and produces a flourishing plant. The secret...is love." A book worth noting in this regard is The Mysterious Story Behind the Miracle.The book was written by Max Lang and published in 1948 by Cosmond Press in Los Angeles.Long is the director of the Huona Research Foundation, which specializes in the mythical legends of the Kahuna people of the Polynesian and Hawaiian islands.The book deals with the effect of the energy of thought (called "magic power" by the Kahuna) on matter.Lang has experimented with this magic with growing plants in recent years.He found that if you talk to plants like Burbank, give them love and attention, they will grow faster and more abundantly than neglected plants.Dr. Laing recently revealed in Us Weekly (April 20, 1952) that a French doctor and his wife were able to stimulate plant growth with psychic powers.Dr. Littlefield's studies with evaporated saline solutions, described in Chapter 10, may be described as another telekinetic phenomenon. Charles Ford himself was a believer in extrasensory perception and telekinetics, although his experiments were not very successful.He made 1,000 attempts in a month to "see" what was in a shop window with superhuman vision before he got close enough to see the merchandise in it.Only three of his attempts were successful, the most astonishing being the first.Focusing on the front windows as he walked down West 42nd Street, he immediately thought of "turkey tracks in red snow" (red snow was what Ford was most interested in at the time).It turned out, he reports in The Gift of the Wild, that in the window there were several black lines drawn with a fountain pen that looked like footprints on a background of pink cardboard. Another time, Ford conducted telekinesis experiments.He wrote, "One of the things I want most in my life is to give orders to chairs and tables: 'Assemble! Ahead! Go!' and make them obey my orders. I have tried to make tables and chairs obey me. ,... But, that is a bunch of guys who lack military temperament." Still, Ford considered telekinetics to be a "wild gift."The term he uses is "teleportation," a term now common in science fiction.Objects, people, ships, anything can be moved (from one place to another) over long distances by a person with this ability. "Teleportation" can be used commercially to transport goods.Spaceships can travel long distances from one planet to another.Ford believes that intelligence agents on other planets often capture people, perhaps for research purposes, and then use teleportation to get them away.He wrote, "Our people were caught giving information, I think."His writings are filled with news reports of mysterious disappearances of men and women. In 1910, a girl goes missing in Central Park.同一天，福特发现在第79号街附近公园里的湖面上出现了一只天鹅。这中间有什么联系吗？得克萨斯州的安布罗斯·比尔斯失踪了。加拿大的一个安布罗斯·斯莫尔也失踪了。福特问道，“难道有人在收集安布罗斯家的人吗？” 福特认为，不只是地球上的人被远距离地弄走，也许其它星球上的居民也被远距离传送到地球上来了。他们一定是返祖性人，即受到我们原始风尚吸引的人。“他们将会入我们的教会……他们会放下架子，来当大学教授。一经堕落，便会自甘暴弃，最后会成为我们的国会议员。” “捉狭鬼”是一种恶作剧的鬼魂，据说他们在闹鬼的房子里造成种种骚扰（1952年达顿图书公司出版的南多尔·福多尔和赫里沃德·卡林顿所著《鬼魂缠身的人》一书，是弗洛伊德学派关于捉狭鬼及其有关现象的研究成果）。福特还“相信”捉狭鬼是具有远距离移动物体能力的儿童，或许在战争时期可以利用他们的。莱因博士曾在他的著作中推测，不断增加的超感官知觉足以废除战争（因为已无保守军事机密可言），但是他的这种臆测还比不上福特的想象力： 姑娘们在前线，正谈论着家常琐事。警报：敌人进攻了。捉狭鬼姑娘们受命施展魔力。她们把口香糖粘在椅子下面。一个团燃烧起来，士兵们烧成一个个火炬。马匹从燃烧的内脏里喷出烟来。从落矾山脉远距离摄来一片悬崖峭壁，敌人增援部队在峭壁之下摔得粉身碎骨。尼亚加拉大瀑布也被搬来，向战场倾泻而下。 捉狭鬼姑娘们伸手取下了她们的口香糖。