Roundable: Parapsychology and children revisited; Children in the history of parapsychology - Brief Article

ABSTRACT: Children have played an important and interesting role in the development of parapsychology. Cases such as those of supposed clairvoyant Leonide Pigeaire and the Fox Sisters did much to construct and maintain ideas of psychic functioning and of the validity of certain explanatory concepts, namely, animal magnetism and communication with the dead. The first major experimental work on thought transference conducted by the Society for Psychical Research focused on the supposed abilities of the Creery sisters, who were caught using a code to fraudulently produce the effects.

Nonetheless, the Creery sisters gave impetus to early efforts to conduct experimental research. Similarly, early ESP card testing with children at the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University by Bond, Price, Pegram, and L. E. Rhine addressed some of the main concerns of the workers at the laboratory, mainly the distribution of ESP ability.

A great number of children have provided parapsychologists with cases that were influential in developing the ideas regarding different phenomena. Much was learned about poltergeist phenomena from the child cases of Angelique Cottin, Florrie C., Esther Cox, Eleonore Zugun, and James Herrman. The same may be said about reincarnation-type cases (e.g., Shanti Devi, Eduardo Esplugus-Cabrera, and Alexandrina Samona). Children have also provided parapsychologists with many important cases that are generally considered exemplars of specific phenomena. This includes cases of deathbed visions (Daisy Dryden) and mother-child ESP (Ilga K).

Some commentators have been impressed by the supposed innocence of children. A. A. Liebault believed at one point of his career that healing effects on children were caused by a nervous energy projected by the body and not by suggestion because infants could not be open to suggestion. In discussing deathbed visions, Ernesto Bozzano could not believe that young children knew enough about death to induce hallucinations on themselves. This aura of innocence may be what provides children with a particular ability to capture the imagination of the public and thus be active agents in the creation of views of the paranormal, a process seen in the movie The Sixth Sense.

In summary, children have been influential in the development of attempts to study psychic phenomena by providing parapsychologists with particular phenomena and performances. In addition, they have been used to argue both for the universal distribution of psychic powers and for countering the effect of expectations and the like in the production of phenomena. Their aura of innocence and inexperience, apparent or not, has been an important way by which society creates views about psychic functioning.

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