HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

In American
science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
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 or psychic phenomena, such as telepathy and psychokinesis. The term is a
portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordspsi'' (in the sense of "
psychic phenomena 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 l ...
") and the -' from ''
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 ...
''. 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 specialize ...
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''. (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 and psychokinesis, 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 John Wood Campbell Jr. (June 8, 1910 – July 11, 1971) was an American science fiction writer and editor. He was editor of ''Astounding Science Fiction'' (later called ''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'') from late 1937 until his death ...
.) 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 Albert Abrams (December 8, 1863 – January 13, 1924) was a fraudulent American physician, well known during his life for inventing machines, such as the "Oscilloclast" and the "Radioclast", which he falsely claimed could diagnose and cure almost ...
.) The same analogy was subsequently taken up in a number of science fiction-themed neologisms, notably
bionics Bionics or biologically inspired engineering is the application of biological methods and systems found in nature to the study and design of engineering systems and modern technology. The word ''bionic'', coined by Jack E. Steele in August 1 ...
(''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 skeptic ...
(''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—known as the "father of
cybernetics Cybernetics is a wide-ranging field concerned with circular causality, such as feedback, in regulatory and purposive systems. Cybernetics is named after an example of circular causal feedback, that of steering a ship, where the helmsperson ma ...
"—who had befriended Campbell when he was an undergraduate (1928–31) at MIT. The second was parapsychologist Joseph Banks Rhine 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 bei ...
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 Unknown or The Unknown may refer to: Film * ''The Unknown'' (1915 comedy film), a silent boxing film * ''The Unknown'' (1915 drama film) * ''The Unknown'' (1927 film), a silent horror film starring Lon Chaney * ''The Unknown'' (1936 film), a ...
'', which he edited:
Is it so strange a thing that this unknown mass he human brainshould 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 Dianetics (from Greek ''dia'', meaning "through", and ''nous'', meaning " mind") is a set of pseudoscientific ideas and practices regarding the metaphysical relationship between the mind and body created by science fiction writer L. Ron H ...
" of
L. Ron Hubbard Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986) was an American author, primarily of science fiction and fantasy stories, who is best known for having founded the Church of Scientology. In 1950, Hubbard authored '' Dianetic ...
.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—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'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 Award, Hugo, Locus Award, Locus and BSFA Award, British SF Awards. Two print editions appeared ...
'' 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's ''Jack of Eagles'' (1952), Theodore Sturgeon'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 decline ...
'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 The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
, 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 A Hieronymus machine is any of the patented radionics devices invented by electrical engineer Thomas Galen Hieronymus (21 November 1895 – 21 February 1988). Hieronymus received a U.S. Patent for his invention in 1949, which was described in the ...
. It faced skepticism from scientists who viewed it as pseudoscientific 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, in the updated edition of his book '' Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science'', wrote that the study of psionics is "even funnier than
Dianetics Dianetics (from Greek ''dia'', meaning "through", and ''nous'', meaning " mind") is a set of pseudoscientific ideas and practices regarding the metaphysical relationship between the mind and body created by science fiction writer L. Ron H ...
or Ray Palmer's Shaver stories", and criticized the beliefs and assertions of Campbell as anti-scientific nonsense.


See also

* Extrasensory perception * List of psychic abilities *
Psionics (role-playing games) Psionics, in tabletop role-playing games, is a broad category of fantastic abilities originating from the mind, similar to the psychic abilities that some people claim in reality. Common features Psionics are primarily distinguished, in most popu ...
* Psychotronic harassment * Psychotronics (parapsychology) * Radionics *
Supernatural Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...


References


Further reading

* * * * * Williamson, Jack (1984), ''Wonder's Child: My Life in Science Fiction''; New York: Bluejay Books. {{Pseudoscience Paranormal terminology Parapsychology Pseudoscience Psychic powers Discovery and invention controversies Fringe physics Pathological science Hypothetical technology Fictional technology 1951 introductions American inventions Science fiction themes 1950s neologisms