Samuel Soal
Samuel Soal | |
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Occupation | Psychical researcher |
Samuel George Soal (1889–1975) was a British
Biography
Soal graduated with first class honours in mathematics from
Early qualitative studies
During this time, Soal demonstrated a personal as well as scientific interest in psychical research, becoming a member of the
Soal himself practised automatic writing at this time, and pseudonymously authored a much-discussed paper on the scripts he produced, which purported to be authored by the deceased Oscar Wilde. He later himself declaimed the evidentiality of these scripts, and considered that they were largely the product of cryptomnesia.[4]
Statistical studies
Soal moved to a more statistical and controlled approach, firstly by conducting an experiment in which up to a few hundred persons participated at one time.
Following popular and academic reports of
Next however, upon the hypothesis of
These studies, conducted in collaboration with K. M. Goldney and F. Bateman, were widely reviewed as among the most challenging proofs of precognition and telepathy. Not only were the significances of the studies - in terms of the correspondence between ESP guesses and random targets - extraordinary, the procedures appeared to allow no alternative hypothesis. There was also the testimony of 21 prominent observers who, individually, monitored Soal's work with Shackleton, that they were satisfied with the conditions, and could conceive of no means by which the results could be obtained by normal means other than ESP. Many leading academics, including C. D. Broad[10] and Sir Cyril Burt, were persuaded, largely or partly on the basis of these reports, to lend academic support to psi-related ideas and research.
Arguments against Soal's data have, however, been raised ever since their publication.
In 1978, it was reported that Soal evidently appeared to reuse some target sequences from an earlier test in a later one, often reversing, omitting or inserting one or more digits into the sequence before reusing them.[19] It was considered suspicious that a disproportionate number of "hits" occurred on the digits that appeared to interrupt some of the reused sequences. Betty Marwick discovered that Soal had not used the method of random selection of numbers as he had claimed. Marwick showed that there had been manipulation of the score sheets "all the experiments reported by Soal had thereby been discredited."[19][20]
For two of the 40 sessions with Shackleton, it was claimed that it was "virtually conclusive" that this practice amounted to fraud; and fraud in another six sessions was considered to be "suggestive only".[21] Soal was not able to replicate his earlier work while continuing to conduct telepathy experiments, at the University of London, after his retirement, from 1954 to 1958.
During these years, Soal conducted a long series of apparently successful experiments with a pair of young brothers, as participants, in Northern Wales. Soal reported that the brothers could transmit information to each other via extrasensory perception.[22] This work resulted in Soal's book The Mind Readers, which became a best-seller.[22] This work was immediately and severely criticised on methodological grounds;[22][7] simulations of the study suggesting that the boys, with their family, could have been successfully undetected in using a code in association with an ultrasonic whistle, perhaps blown by a secreted pump.
It was not until the 1970s, when Soal was already senile and no longer able to respond, that his data were finally deemed insupportable by his fellow parapsychologists. These concerned largely statistical challenges offered by members of the SPR on the basis of several novel analyses they conducted by computer searches of the data from the 1941-1943 study with Shackleton.
The psychologist C. E. M. Hansel has documented the fraud of Soal and the flaws in his experiments.[20][7]
Mediumship
Distinguished at this time for his contribution to studies of mediumship, Soal was the chosen author for a survey of "Spiritualism", in 55 pages, for the first 1935 publication of the Dictionary of the Occult.
During 1921-1922 Soal carried out a series of séances with the medium Blanche Cooper who claimed to have contacted the spirit of a soldier Gordon Davis and revealed the house he had lived in.[23] In 1925, his report about these séances was published in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. However, it was discovered that fraud was involved with the case. Davis was alive and Soal altered the records of the sittings after checking out the house.[23] Researcher Melvin Harris noted that:
- Mr. Soal was a devious character. And it's clear that in the six weeks at his disposal he had plenty of chance to find out things about number 54. I've visited the house myself and noted that all Soal had to do was walk past the place, then ride past on the double-decker bus and record everything that could be spotted through the plain glass windows.[23]
According to magician Bob Couttie, Soal's co-workers knew that he had fiddled the results but were kept quiet with threats of libel suits.[24]
See also
References
- ISBN 978-0816033515
- ^ Goldney, K. M. (1975, July–August). S.G. Soal: A personal tribute. Parapsychology Review, 21-24.
- ^ Soal, S. G. (1925). A report of some communications received through Mrs. Blanche Cooper. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 35, 471-594.
- ^ Soal, S. G. (1935). Spiritualism. In J. Franklyn (Ed.), Dictionary of the occult (pp. 213-268). London, UK.
- ^ Soal, S. G. (1932). Experiments in supernormal perception at a distance. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 40, 165-362.
- ^ Soal, S. G., & Bateman, F. (1954). Modern experiments in telepathy. London, UK: Faber.
- ^ a b c d e f Carroll, Robert Todd (2010). "Soal-Goldney experiment". The Skeptic's Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions.
- ^ Soal, S. G., & Bowden, H. T. (1959). The mind readers: Some recent experiments in telepathy. London, UK: Faber.
- ^ Soal, S. G. (1940). Fresh light on card guessing: Some new effects. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 46, 152-198.
- ^ Broad, C. D. (1944). The experimental establishment of telepathic precognition. Philosophy, 19, 261-275.
- ^ Spencer Brown, G. (1953). Statistical significance in psychical research. Nature, 172, 154-156.
- ^ Hansel, C. E. M. (1959). Experimental evidence for extra-sensory perception. Nature, 184, 1515-1516.
- ^ Price, G. R. (1955). Science and the supernatural. Science, 122, 359-367.
- ^ Soal, S. G. (1956). On "Science and the Supernatural". Science, 123, 9-11.
- ^ Soal, S. G. (1956). Some statistical aspects of ESP. In G. E. W. Wolstenholme & E. C. P. Millar (Eds.), Extrasensory perception: A CIBA Foundation symposium (pp. 80-90). New York, NY, US: Citadel.
- ^ Soal, S. G. (1960). Experimental evidence for extra-sensory perception. Nature, 185, 950-951.
- ^ Soal, S. G., & Bateman, F. (1954). Modern experiments in telepathy. London, UK: Faber
- ^ Wassermann, G. D. (1955). Some comments on methods and statements in parapsychology and other sciences. British Journal for Philosophy of Science, 6, 122-140.
- ^ a b Markwick, B. (1978). The Soal-Goldney Experiments with Basil Shackleton: New Evidence of Data Manipulation. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 56, 250-280.
- ^ ISBN 0-87975-516-4
- ISBN 0-87975-300-5
- ^ ISBN 978-0-312-15119-5.
- ^ ISBN 0-87975-367-6
- ISBN 978-0718826864