The Gift: ESP, the Extraordinary Experiences of Ordinary People

Journal of Parapsychology, The, Fall, 2004 by Rhea A. White

THE GIFT: ESP, THE EXTRAORDINARY EXPERIENCES OF ORDINARY PEOPLE by Sally Rhine Feather and Michael Schmicker. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005. Pp. xv 284. $23 (hardback)

For those who are not familiar with the senior author, Dr. Sally Rhine Feather is an experimental and clinical psychologist. She is also the daughter of the founder of the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University. The lab became well known worldwide and served as a major training ground for researchers into extrasensory perception and psychokinesis using the quantitative experimental approach, including new testing techniques and methods of analyzing results statistically, making possible the comparison of results obtained under different laboratory conditions.

The Parapsychology Laboratory later evolved into the Rhine Research Center with Dr. Feather as its Director of Development. Not only is she overseeing the research of others but she is carrying on the studies made by her mother, Dr. Louisa E. Rhine, who pioneered in collecting and analyzing accounts of psychic experiences that were sent to the Parapsychology Laboratory from all around the world. Her primary aim was to classify the types and forms of the experiences looking for patterns that could be investigated further and more reliably by means of laboratory experiments.

Dr. Feather has also chosen to collect and study accounts of ESP and other parapsychological experiences contributed by the general public worldwide. Parapsychology research is now conducted in laboratories in many countries in both hemispheres. A professional society, the Parapsychological Association (PA), was founded at the instigation of the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory by J.B. Rhine and a group of parapsychologists who met there in 1957. The PA became affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1969. Researchers come together at the annual conference of the PA to report and discuss research. Grants from the Parapsychology Foundation have also fostered research on an international basis, brought researchers together from parapsychology and several other disciplines at international conferences, and provided financial aid to graduate students for parapsychological research projects. When these students join the staffs of universities and colleges located in many countries, they direct the research of those students who are interested in parapsychology and sometimes form parapsychology laboratories or societies associated with these institutions. Thus, the research tradition in parapsychology continues to grow and expand. The Rhine Research Center also has played an important educational role in this process through its annual summer studies programs in which Dr. Feather has also been involved.

In this book she not only continues her mother's work in particular, but her own analyses and discussion of the ESP experiences she describes are informed not only by her work in parapsychology but by what she has learned from her clinical psychology training and practice. This is reflected in the observations she makes, the questions she asks, and the insights she has into the experiences.

The Gift accomplishes three important things. It illustrates the various types of psychic phenomena using experiences people have actually had. There also are chapters describing experiences of several real life situations with which psychic experiences often are associated: love, the mother-child relationship, children's experiences, and premonitions of disaster and death, including a chapter on experiences concerning the terrorist attack of 9/11. She also devotes a chapter each to the question of whether or not fate is inevitable, experiences associated with war, and communications from the dead.

Dr. Feather closes by sharing with "the sixty-five million Americans who personally have had ESP experiences" the perspective on the experiences she has gained from her research and first-hand acquaintance with experiencers. She offers several reality checks experiencers can use to assess the reality of what they have experienced and points out how they can test their ESP in their own homes. In an important chapter, she discusses the fears that are sometimes associated with ESP experiences and how they may be allayed. As she concludes:

   In the end, my goal in sharing these stories with you is to
   help you accept, understand, and embrace any ESP
   experiences that you or someone you love may have, to
   view them as a gift, and to integrate them into your life in
   a psychologically positive way. (p. 277)

She adds that if that goal is achieved, she will feel that "the work of my father and mother will truly be done" (p. 277).

But as I have heard her parents say, and as they both wrote in their books, the journey of learning more about psychic (or psi) phenomena will continue in a way similar to climbing a vast mountain range. When one peak is climbed, it reveals still others stretching beyond, even as the basic sciences of physics, biology, astronomy, and medicine are deeply rooted in our past yet still continue to expand with new discoveries today and into the future. So, one hopes, it will be with parapsychology.