Psi and the nature of abilities

Journal of Parapsychology, The, Sept, 1992 by Stephen E. Braude

The general line of reasoning behind this position is as follows. Mere information or propositional knowledge is the sort of thing that can be acquired simply through a process of communication, normal or paranormal, but skills, such as playing a musical instrument or speaking a language, cannot be accounted for so easily. Granted, obtaining information is often a necessary part of skill development; but it is hardly sufficient. That is because skills are the sorts of things that persons develop only after a period of practice. And since the subjects in survival cases who display anomalous skills have had no opportunity to practice them first, it is reasonable to reject explanations in terms of super-ESP and to resort to survivalist explanations instead.

This familiar argument is superficially appealing; but it is defective nevertheless. To see why, consider first how the argument has been applied to the evidence for responsive xenoglossy. Many have felt that if a person can carry on a conversation in a language never learned through normal means, and if that is the language of an ostensible communicator expressing himself through that person, then this would constitute good prima facie evidence for survival (see Gauld, 1982; Stevenson, 1974, 1984). Now as Stevenson has observed, this bit of reasoning rests on a crucial and usually tacit principle--namely, that "if skills are incommunicable normally, if follows that they are also incommunicable paranormally" (1984, p. 160). According to Stevenson, it was Ducasse (1962) who first applied this principle to the evidence for survival, and Stevenson apparently considers it to be self-evident, or at least not worthy of a defense. But in fact, Ducasse's principle is not nearly as obvious as Stevenson suggests.

Consider: if Ducasse's principle is true, that is not because it is an instance of the more general principle "if any bit of knowledge |chi~ is incommunicable normally, then |chi~ is incommunicable paranormally." That general principle, in fact, seems to be clearly false. Indeed, if we accepted it, we could conclude a priori that ESP is impossible. It is reasonable to assume, then, that Stevenson (and others) do not accept this more general principle.

Hence, if Ducasse's principle is true, it would presumably be true only of skills. But why? Every time we learn a new skill we must do a considerable bit of unlearning, if only of acquired motor and cognitive habits that would infere with manifesting that skill. Moreover, learning of any kind (whether of skills or information) is often heavily resistance-laden. It can be hampered by an endless number of interfering beliefs, insecurities, and other fears. But these sorts of physical, cognitive, and emotional obstacles are often overcome relatively easily in hypnotic or other profoundly altered states. In that case, learning a skill might even be facilitated if the process bypasses the normal states in which our resistances to learning are strongest.

Actually, there are two crucial sets of issues here. The first concerns the possibility of expressing and acquiring skills by side-stepping our customary resistance-laden modes of cognition. The second concerns the difficulty in generalizing about skills or abilities, including the ability to speak a language. These two sets of issues overlap somewhat, but I will try to keep them distinct.