In American

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...

of the 1950s and 1960s, psionics was a proposed discipline that applied principles of engineering (especially

electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...

) to the study (and employment) of

paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. No ...

psychic A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, ...

phenomena, such as

telepathy Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic ...

and

psychokinesis Psychokinesis (from grc, ψυχή, , soul and grc, κίνησις, , movement, label=ㅤ), or telekinesis (from grc, τηλε, , far off and grc, κίνησις, , movement, label=ㅤ), is a hypothetical psychic ability allowing a person ...

. The term is a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordspsi'' (in the sense of " psychic phenomena") and the -' from ''

''. The word "psionics" began as, and always remained, a

term of art Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a partic ...

within the science fiction community and—despite the promotional efforts of editor John W. Campbell, Jr—it never achieved general currency, even among academic parapsychologists. In the years after the term was coined in 1951, it became increasingly evident that no scientific evidence supports the existence of "psionic" abilities.

Etymology

In 1942, two authors—

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual cell, a multicellular organism, or a community of interacting populations. They usually speciali ...

Bertold Wiesner and psychologist

Robert Thouless Robert Henry Thouless (15 July 1894 – 25 September 1984) was an English psychologist and parapsychologist. He is best known as the author of '' Straight and Crooked Thinking'' (1930, 1953), which describes flaws in reasoning and argument. Ca ...

—had introduced the term "psi" (from ψ ''psi,'' 23rd letter of the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as ...

) to parapsychology in an article published in the ''

British Journal of Psychology The ''British Journal of Psychology'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed psychology journal. It was established in 1904 and is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the British Psychological Society. The editor-in-chief is Stefan R. Schweinberger ( ...

''. (This Greek character was chosen as apropos since it is the initial letter of the Greek word ψυχή 'psyche''��meaning "mind" or "soul".) The intent was that "psi" would represent the "unknown factor" in

extrasensory perception Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke Univers ...

and

, experiences believed to be unexplained by any known physical or biological mechanisms. In a 1972 book, Thouless insisted that he and Wiesner had coined this usage of the term "psi" prior to its use in science fiction circles, explaining that their intent was to provide a more neutral term than "ESP" that would not suggest a pre-existing theory of mechanism. The word "psionics" first appeared in print in a novella by science fiction writer

Jack Williamson John Stewart Williamson (April 29, 1908 – November 10, 2006), who wrote as Jack Williamson, was an American science fiction writer, often called the "Dean of Science Fiction". He is also credited with one of the first uses of the term ''genet ...

—''The Greatest Invention''—published in '' Astounding Science Fiction'' magazine in 1951. Williamson derived it from the "psion", a fictitious "unit of mental energy" described in the same story. (Only later was the term retroactively described in non-fiction articles in ''Astounding'' as a portmanteau of "psychic electronics", by editor John W. Campbell.) The new word was derived by analogy with the earlier term radionics. (“Radionics” combined ''radio'' with ''electronics'' and was itself devised in the 1940s to refer to the work of early 20th century physician and pseudoscientist Albert Abrams.) The same analogy was subsequently taken up in a number of science fiction-themed neologisms, notably bionics (''bio-'' + ''electronics''; coined 1960) and

cryonics Cryonics (from el, κρύος ''kryos'' meaning 'cold') is the low-temperature freezing (usually at ) and storage of human remains, with the speculative hope that resurrection may be possible in the future. Cryonics is regarded with skepticis ...

(''cryo-'' + ''electronics''; coined 1967).

Background

In the 1930s, three men were crucial to inciting John W. Campbell's early enthusiasm for a "new science of the mind" construed as "engineering rinciplesapplied to the mind". The first was mathematician and philosopher

Norbert Wiener Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American mathematician and philosopher. He was a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher ...

—known as the "father of cybernetics"—who had befriended Campbell when he was an undergraduate (1928–31) at MIT. The second was parapsychologist

Joseph Banks Rhine Joseph Banks Rhine (September 29, 1895 – February 20, 1980), usually known as J. B. Rhine, was an American botanist who founded parapsychology as a branch of psychology, founding the parapsychology lab at Duke University, the '' J ...

whose parapsychology laboratory at Duke University was already famous for its investigations of "ESP" when Campbell was an undergraduate there (1932–34). The third was a non-academic: Charles Fort, the author and paranormal popularizer whose 1932 book ''Wild Talents'' strongly encouraged credence in the testimony of people who had experienced telepathy and other " anomalous phenomena". The

idea In common usage and in philosophy, ideas are the results of thought. Also in philosophy, ideas can also be mental representational images of some object. Many philosophers have considered ideas to be a fundamental ontological category of be ...

that ordinary people only utilize a small fraction of the (potentially enormous) capabilities of the human brain had become a particular "pet idea" for Campbell by the time he first published his own science fiction writings as a college student. In a 1932 short story he asserted that "no man in all history ever used even half of the thinking part of his brain". He followed up on this notion in a note to another story published five years later:

The total capacity of the mind, even at present, is to all intents and purposes, infinite. Could the full equipment be hooked into a functioning unit, the resulting intelligence should be able to conquer a world without much difficulty.

In 1939, he wrote in an editorial in the magazine '' Unknown'', which he edited:

Is it so strange a thing that this unknown mass
he human brain He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
should have some unguessed power by which to feel and see beyond, directly, meeting mind to mind in telepathy, sensing direct the truth of things by clairvoyance?

Along with Charles Fort, Campbell believed that there were already many individuals with latent "psi powers" among us unwittingly and he took this belief a step further in considering development of such powers to be the "next step" in human evolution. Throughout his career, Campbell had sought grounds for a new "scientific psychology" and he was instrumental in formulating the brainchild of one of his more imaginative science fiction writers—the " Dianetics" of L. Ron Hubbard.Westfahl, Gary (2005), ''The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy'', Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, p. 167. Campbell's enthusiasm for Dianetics—which later morphed into the

Church of Scientology The Church of Scientology is a group of interconnected corporate entities and other organizations devoted to the practice, administration and dissemination of Scientology, which is variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religious ...

—was red hot in 1949 and 1950, but had considerably cooled by 1951 when he saw Hubbard for the last time.

History

With Campbell's encouragement, or at his direction, "psionic" abilities began to appear frequently in magazine science fiction stories in the mid-1950s, providing characters with supernormal or supernatural abilities. The first example was

Murray Leinster Murray Leinster (June 16, 1896 – June 8, 1975) was a pen name of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an American writer of genre fiction, particularly of science fiction. He wrote and published more than 1,500 short stories and articles, 14 movie ...

's novella ''The Psionic Mousetrap'' published in early 1955. Examples of psychic abilities in fiction, whether attributed to supernatural agencies or otherwise, predated the "psionics" vogue. But the editors of ''

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' (SFE) is an English language reference work on science fiction, first published in 1979. It has won the Hugo, Locus and British SF Awards. Two print editions appeared in 1979 and 1993. A third, contin ...

'' describe and define a post-war "psi-boom" in genre science fiction—"which he ampbellengineered"—dating it from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s. They cite

James Blish James Benjamin Blish () was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is best known for his '' Cities in Flight'' novels and his series of ''Star Trek'' novelizations written with his wife, J. A. Lawrence. His novel '' A Case of Consc ...

's ''Jack of Eagles'' (1952),

Theodore Sturgeon Theodore Sturgeon (; born Edward Hamilton Waldo, February 26, 1918 – May 8, 1985) was an American fiction author of primarily fantasy, science fiction and horror, as well as a critic. He wrote approximately 400 reviews and more than 120 sho ...

's '' More Than Human'' (1953), Wilson Tucker's ''Wild Talent'' (1954) and

Frank M. Robinson Frank Malcolm Robinson (August 9, 1926 – June 30, 2014) was an American science fiction and techno-thriller writer. He was a speechwriter for gay politician Harvey Milk and Milk's designated successor in the event of his death but decli ...

's '' The Power'' (1956) as examples. Alfred Bester's '' The Demolished Man'' (1953) is a pioneering example of a work depicting a society in which people with "psi" abilities are fully integrated. Since the "psi-boom" years coincided with the darkest and most paranoid period of the Cold War, it is natural that many examples of the utility of telepathy in espionage (for example those of Randall Garrett) would be produced. In terms of literary continuity, the editors of ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' point out that:

All the psi powers, of course, used to be in the repertoire of powerful magicians, and most are featured in occult romances.

In 1956, Campbell began promoting a psionics device known as the Hieronymus machine. It faced skepticism from scientists who viewed it as

pseudoscientific Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claim ...

and even as an example of

quackery Quackery, often synonymous with health fraud, is the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. A quack is a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, ...

. Some of the wind was taken out of the sails of psionics in 1957 when

Martin Gardner Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of L ...

, in the updated edition of his book ''

Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science ''Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science'' (1957)—originally published in 1952 as ''In the Name of Science: An Entertaining Survey of the High Priests and Cultists of Science, Past and Present''—was Martin Gardner's second book. A survey ...

'', wrote that the study of psionics is "even funnier than Dianetics or Ray Palmer's Shaver stories", and criticized the beliefs and assertions of Campbell as anti-scientific nonsense.

Etymology

Background

History

See also

References

Further reading