Jim Marrs - PSI Spies - Amazon S3

Sciences Cutting Edge 73studied. One such study was described by RichardBroughton:In 1988, Alan Vaughan, one of the participantsin the dream project, and Jessica Utts, a University ofCalifornia statistician, performed a statistical appraisalof the entire project. Using the Maimonidesdefinition of a hit as a mean ranking by the judges thatfell in the upper half of the possible range, Vaughan andUtts found there were a total of 233 hits in 379 trials, oran accuracy rate of 83.5 percent (where chance wouldbe 50 percent). The odds against chance for thisare better than a quarter of a million to one. Psychicdreams—about the present and the future—had beenbrought into the laboratory. 2It was from the Maimonides experiments that one teammember, Charles Honorton, a former student of J.B. Rhine,developed an interest not only in dreams, but in altered statesof consciousness. Honorton theorized that ESP signals mightbe overwhelmed by signals from our conventional senses.After studying the historical record, he came to believe thatone must achieve “a quietness,” almost a meditative state, toproduce psychic results on demand.During a period of years, Honorton developed GanzfeldTechniques including the placement of ping-pong ballhalves over the subject’s eyes and earphones over the ears,and sitting the subject in a soft reclining chair and riddingthe test environment of any distracting noises. 3While Honorton was perfecting his Ganzfeld Technique,a second technique was being developed that has broughtparapsychology much closer to scientific acceptability.