Society Hurls Dice, Grows Plants in Psychic Research

Armed with several sets of dice, a few thousand spores, and a collection of neurotic paramecia, the College's new Society for Parapsychology is trying to find out if mere mental concentration can make physical objects act funny.

Tucked off in a corner of the Biology Lab, the group has plunged into the occult science of "psycho-kinesis." This study touches on the possibility that "the physical environment can be affected by other than known physical means."

In order to see if "P-K" is truth or fantasy, the Society soberly tries to think spores into sprouting faster, think paramecia into moving right or left, and think dice into coming up all sevens.

Kahn is Cautious

But President S. David Kahn '50 won't say if the parapsychologists have proved anything. A cautious man, he only states, "Preliminary investigations indicate that it may be possible to obtain positive effects."

Psycho-kinesis, Kahn says, is only half of the Society's job. The other half is extra-sensory perception, the legitimate cousin of spiritualism and cetoplasmic quackery.

Last month, for instance, Kahn and some 40 associates hooked up with Duke University for a clairvoyance experiment. A huge chart of symbols was tacked up at 5 p.m. every day in Durham, North Carolina, and starting at 5 p.m. the Harvard crew tried to reproduce the symbols on post cards.

Clairvoyance has worked amazingly in other experiments but the Society doesn't know about this one. Its members are still waiting for Duke to tell them if they have a future to ESR.