Abstract

Suggests that parapsychologists in general have paid insufficient attention to the role of experimenter psi (e-psi) in parapsychology, arguing that the evidence dictates that the burden of proof should fall on those who maintain that e-psi is not at least a contributing factor in most successful psi experiments. E-psi is a special case of nonintentional and unconscious psi which has received strong support from Stanford\'s PMIR model. E-psi is also a special case of the source of psi problem. Psi sources must be limited to account for what reliability there is between psi scores and human intentionality, and it is proposed that this limit be psychological involvement in the experiment as such. The standard interpretation of so-called fieldREG effects precludes such a constraint, and partly for this reason they seem best interpreted as e-psi. Recommendations are offered for assessing e-psi which include orthogonal manipulation of the cognitive state of the principal inves!tigator with behavior of the experimenter toward the S, and direct comparisons of personal psi-test scores between psi-conducive and psi-inhibitory investigators.