The page features an excerpt from David Ray Griffin’s essay “Parapsychology and Philosophy: A Whiteheadian Postmodern Perspective” (Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 87 [1993]: 217–288). Griffin shows how, from a Whiteheadian perspective, phenomena such as levitation. and the materialization and dematerialization of objects in space, can be intelligible—should the evidence point toward their occurrence. His essay includes and introduction to Whitehead's philosophy, Click here for the whole essay, as found in the Anthony Flood website.
Following the excerpt I offer an appreciation of David Griffin's work in parapsychology as it expands our sense of the possible. Griffin's engagement with parapsychology is, to my mind, one of his more important contributions to scholarship and to the need for humanity to embrace a reenchanted view of the universe.
- Jay McDaniel
Following the excerpt I offer an appreciation of David Griffin's work in parapsychology as it expands our sense of the possible. Griffin's engagement with parapsychology is, to my mind, one of his more important contributions to scholarship and to the need for humanity to embrace a reenchanted view of the universe.
- Jay McDaniel
David Ray Griffin on Levitation and Materialization/Dematerialization
From The Journal of the American Society
for Psychical Research 87/3 (July 1993), 217-288.
retrieved from Anthony Flood: anthonyfood.com
"Levitation is a form of psychokinesis that tends to evoke either awe or incredulity. Because our experience of gravitation is so fundamental, levitation seems miraculous.
If we accept the idea of compound individuals, however, the possibility of levitation need not seem so remote. If the atom as a whole is a compound individual, then it has power to influence its subatomic parts (in which all the gravitational mass is embodied). The force of gravitational attraction is extremely weak, being 1043 times weaker than the electromagnetic force. Each atom in a body would, accordingly, have to exert only a miniscule counter-force upon its subatomic parts in order to neutralize the force of gravity and allow the body to levitate. The levitation of, say, a ball could accordingly be caused psychokinetically if a human psyche could induce the appropriate effect in the atoms making up the ball. One form of action at a distance would thereby overcome another (if gravitation is to be thus interpreted).
Another type of reported psi phenomenon that seems a priori impossible to most modern minds is materialization and dematerialization, in which a psyche causes a material object, such as a lamp, to spring either into or out of existence. Teleportation, in which an object disappears from one place and appears at another place, can be regarded as an example of both dematerialization and materialization. This phenomenon of dematerialization and materialization has been regarded as very unlikely because it has seemed to bear no analogy to any other processes. Thouless and Wiesner (1947) even gave it its own name, psi epsilon, because it seemed sufficiently different from ordinary psychokinesis, which they called psi kappa.
Whitehead’s philosophy can decrease the anomalous nature of this phenomenon somewhat. According to this philosophy, an enduring object, such as an atom, is really a series of occasions of experience. One occasion “perishes,” in the sense that it loses its subjectivity and hence its character of presentness,20 and is replaced by a new occasion, which repeats the same set of forms. The atom is, accordingly, popping in and out of existence all the time. It becomes less thinkable, therefore, that it might pop out of existence at one place and pop back in at another place.
This is what in fact occurs (by hypothesis) on a smaller scale in ordinary locomotion. An occasion of experience does not move from one spatiotemporal standpoint to another, but simply occurs when and where it begins. The concept of locomotion does not apply to an actual occasion but only to an enduring individual. The locomotion of the atom involves the differences among the spatiotemporal standpoints of its successive occasions relative to the standpoints of the successive occasions of other enduring individuals (Whitehead, 1929/1978, pp. 73, 80). Accordingly, an atom does sometimes pop out of existence at one place and pop back in at another. What happens is that the pattern of forms embodied in the one occasion is transmitted to the next occasion, which occurs at a more-or-less different location. The difference between this commonplace occurrence and what is usually meant by teleportation, or dematerialization and re-materialization, is only a difference in degree. Once it is granted that the human psyche exercises action at a distance on atoms, and that the way it does this is by getting one atomic occasion to exert a type of efficient causation upon a successive occasion that it would not have otherwise exerted, we cannot exclude the possibility that it can induce a set of atomic occasions (constituting, say, the lamp-at-the-moment) to get their successors to occur at a different place than they otherwise would have.
The notion of materialization not based upon a prior dematerialization is more difficult because it seems to involve the creation of something out of nothing, but even here Whitehead’s scheme can be helpful. For Whitehead, as explained earlier, the world is a plenum of actual occasions. The difference between what we call “empty” and “filled” space is that in the latter the actual occasions incarnate particular sorts of eternal objects, such as those we call mass and charge, which they pass along from occasion to occasion so as to form enduring individuals. The origin of our universe would have involved not the creation of finite things, such as electrons, out of a total absence of finite actualities, but getting certain eternal forms incarnated in series of actual occasions.
Whitehead’s suggestion is that God, who works solely by persuasion, did this by envisaging the desired sets of forms with appetition—with the appetite that they become incarnate in finite actual occasions. A set of finite occasions, feeling the divine aim with conformity, incarnates these forms, first in their mental poles, as appetitions, and then, by means of hybrid physical prehensions, in the physical poles of later occasions. In this fashion photons, electrons, protons, neutrons, neutrinos, mesons, and so on could have been formed as a first step in cosmic evolution. In later stages of the evolutionary process, more complex forms were incarnated, so that molecules, macromolecules, procaryotic cells, eucaryotic cells, and then still more complex individuals were formed. Each stage involved a new level of materialization, in which forms not previously realized in the world became incarnate, creating a new species of actual existence. Each new incarnation involves a response to the psyche of the universe, which, as the “eros of the universe,” lures creatures to embody novel forms.
The psyches of human beings and other animals are analogous to the divine psyche in being embodiments of creative power. Human beings embody more creative power than other animals, and are especially analogous to the divine psyche in having the capacity to imagine novel possibilities and to prehend them with strong appetition.
Because they have this trait, and also because they (unlike the divine psyche) are localized centers of creative power, an especially powerful human psyche might, by evoking a sympathetic response to its appetition, be able to induce the incarnation of desired forms in a particular spatiotemporal region quite abruptly. Something would not be created out of nothing; rather, forms that were not previously incarnate in a region would suddenly begin characterizing a set of occasions there. This might well involve a prior dematerialization from another region, filled perhaps with molecules of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and other atmospheric gases, so that energy was only transferred, not created.
Psychic photography, which has received considerable attention in recent years, thanks primarily to Jule Eisenbud (1967), is somewhat of a bridge between simple forms of PK, in which locomotion is caused, and full-blown materializations. But it is a form of materialization, insofar as a psyche induces a piece of film to incarnate a complex set of forms.
Materialization, incidentally, is more interesting than the simpler forms of expressive psi that the term “psychokinesis” suggests, because it more clearly shows the power of the psyche to induce a pattern, not simply locomotion."
= David Ray Griffin
Expanding our Sense of the Possible
David Griffin (1939–2022) was, at heart, a rationalist. He believed that ideas should be grounded in evidence rather than wish-fulfillment, and that they should be internally coherent as well as adequate to experience. This makes his serious engagement with parapsychology all the more striking. He does not approach the subject with pre-established enthusiasm or with dogmatic resistance, but with openness and curiosity.
One of the lasting contributions of his philosophy is that he invites readers into new possibilities for understanding the world—what he called a re-enchanted world. This re-enchantment includes recognitions that come naturally to many: the intrinsic value of all forms of life, our radical interdependence, and the presence of a divine spirit at work in the world. For Griffin, all of this is thoroughly rational. Yet his openness reaches further, extending to possibilities that are metaphysically possible, but that many self-styled rationalists dismiss as irrational - the continuation of the soul’s journey after death, out-of-body experiences, telepathy, psychokinesis, memories of past lives, levitation, and the materialization (and dematerialization) of objects in space. What he emphasizes is that such experiences are intelligible if they occur, that there is strong evidence for some of them, and that genuine rationality requires openness to such evidence. What he critiques is a refusal to look at evidence, grounded in a mechanistic approach to reality that denies the possibility of action at a a distance, and that masquerades as sophistication.
Here Whitehead is his guide. Whitehead’s philosophy makes room for such possibilities without granting them uncritical acceptance or for that matter, uncritical dismissal. It encourages us to remain open, to seek evidence, and to test claims. This intellectual openness is one of Griffin’s most significant contributions. Indeed, the very willingness to entertain the possibility of such experiences is an advance in the cause of civilized life—where we live with openness to one another, to the Earth, and to possibilities for enchantment that modernity too often forecloses. It is no surprise, then, that Griffin speaks of the need for a constructive postmodern approach to life. That is exactly what he offers.
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In They Flew: A History of the Impossible (Yale University Press, 2023), the historian Carlos M. N. Eire offers accounts of seemingly impossible phenomena that abounded in the early modern era—tales of levitation, bilocation, and other extraordinary occurrences.
"Using as his case studies stories about St. Teresa of Avila, St. Joseph of Cupertino, the Venerable María de Ágreda, and three disgraced nuns, Eire challenges readers to imagine a world animated by a different understanding of reality and of the supernatural’s relationship with the natural world. The questions he explores—such as why and how “impossibility” is determined by cultural contexts, and whether there is more to reality than meets the eye or can be observed by science—have resonance and lessons for our time."
"Using as his case studies stories about St. Teresa of Avila, St. Joseph of Cupertino, the Venerable María de Ágreda, and three disgraced nuns, Eire challenges readers to imagine a world animated by a different understanding of reality and of the supernatural’s relationship with the natural world. The questions he explores—such as why and how “impossibility” is determined by cultural contexts, and whether there is more to reality than meets the eye or can be observed by science—have resonance and lessons for our time."
David Ray Griffin would agree with the spirit of this last sentence. In his work on process philosophy and psi phenomena, Griffin argues that what we take to be “possible” is deeply shaped by the cultural assumptions of our era. In particular, he suggests that a scientific prejudice against the idea of action at a distance - one entity affecting another across space or time without any visible medium or intervening mechanism- blocks genuine openness to experiences such as telepathy, clairvoyance, retrocognition (remembering lives from a distant past), levitation, bilocation, and other anomalous phenomena.
Griffin would not use the term "supernatural" to describe such phenomena, because the term can wrongly suggest two ideas. One idea he rejects is unilateral intervention on the part of an omnipotent God, as if all psi phenomena are controlled by God or are the work of God, The second is a sharp dualism between what "natural" and what is "unnatural," as is psi phenomena are occurring in a realm utterly outside our own. But he might well speak of such phenomena as ultra-natural, in that they are part of the way things sometimes work, if we recognize the plausibility of action at a distance. And would likewise affirm that, sometimes, the very occurrence of such phenomena can be means by which the non-coercive yet ever present lure of God is at work. For Griffin, God does not intervene supernaturally, but God does indeed work naturally, and sometimes in amazing ways.
Griffin makes his case strongly in his book Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality: A Postmodern Exploration (1997) and also in an earlier essay, “Parapsychology and Philosophy: A Whiteheadian Postmodern Perspective” (Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 87 [1993]: 217–288).
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In Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality: A Postmodern Exploration, Griffin deals extensively with accounts of mediumistic messages, cases of possession, cases suggestive of reincarnation, apparitional experiences, out-of-body experiences, telepathic communication, and moving objects at a distance (psychokinesis) - situating them all within a Whiteheadian framework. He concludes with a powerful claim: paranormal experiences do in fact occur, they can be understood rationally and scientifically, and they reshape how we understand the world, ourselves, and our ethical responsibilities toward one another. The book also makes a strong case for a continuing journey after death, explaining how souls might survive without being supernatural. His argument is extended in a more recent book: James and Whitehead on Life After Death (Process Century Press, 2023). For Griffin, souls are thoroughly natural, part of the ongoing creative process that constitutes reality.
*
In the essay “Parapsychology and Philosophy: A Whiteheadian Postmodern Perspective” Griffin likewise argues that phenomena paranormal phenomena can be rendered intelligible when reframed through the categories of Whitehead’s process philosophy. He distinguishes between two kinds of psychic phenomena, explaining them in Whiteheadian terms:
Receptive PSI in which one entity receives influences from another at a distance (e.g., telepathy, clairvoyance, psychometry, retrocognition)
Expressive PSI in which entity influences another at a distance (e.g., psychokinesis (moving objects at a distance) thought transference, levitation, materialization and dematerialization)
For many people, the form of PSI that makes the most intuitive sense are telepathy, whereby a person feels or senses what another person is experiencing at a distance, and thought transference. whereby one entity sends thoughts then felt by another. Both instantiate direct mind-to-mind connection at a distance.
Griffin shows how Whitehead's philosophy helps us understand and interpret these experiences through his notion of hybrid physical feelings—feelings of the mental states of other actualities, human or more-than-human, that can occur across spatial or temporal distance. Such experiences may be either conscious or unconscious; we may "feel the feelings" of others unconsciously even if we are not consciously aware of it. Whitehead himself suggested that we feel the feelings of others quite often, on a daily basis, in ordinary conversation when we sense one another's moods through tone of voice.
Levitation and Materialization/Dematerialization
Still, there will be some phenomena with which Griffin deals with an open mind, that may seem utterly incredible to many others. In particular are two forms psychokinesis in the extreme forms of levitation and materialization/dematerialization.
I have added Griffin's own technical and Whiteheadian account of of their possibility at the outset of this page. Here I offer a brief summary:
- Levitation: Because gravity feels so fundamental, levitation seems to many impossible, However, it becomes more plausible if look at it in terms of physics and chemistry, and if we accept, with Whitehead, that atoms as compound individuals with the ability to influence their subatomic parts. Since gravity is extremely weak at the atomic level compared to electromagnetism, only a tiny counterforce would be required to neutralize it. Thus, if a human psyche could induce the right atomic effects, a body or object might levitate. Self-levitation, he notes, lies at the border between psychosomatic and parapsychological phenomena.
- Materialization/Dematerialization (including teleportation): These seem unlikely because they have no obvious analogy in normal processes. But Whitehead’s view—that atoms are series of momentary occasions of experience that constantly “perish” and are replaced—suggests otherwise. Since atoms already “pop” in and out of existence as they move, the difference between ordinary locomotion and teleportation is one of degree, not kind. There is a sense in which human beings pop out of existence, too, only to reappear at the next moment. If the human psyche can act at a distance to influence atomic successions, it may be possible to shift a set of atomic occasions (e.g., a lamp) so that they reappear in another place. And it may even be possible for human beings to transport themselves to other settings.
Supplement
"Accounts of seemingly impossible phenomena abounded in the early modern era—tales of levitation, bilocation, and witchcraft—even as skepticism, atheism, and empirical science were starting to supplant religious belief in the paranormal. In this book, Carlos M. N. Eire explores how a culture increasingly devoted to scientific thinking grappled with events deemed impossible by its leading intellectuals.
Eire observes how levitating saints and flying witches were as essential a component of early modern life as the religious turmoil of the age, and as much a part of history as Newton’s scientific discoveries. Relying on an array of firsthand accounts, and focusing on exceptionally impossible cases involving levitation, bilocation, witchcraft, and demonic possession, Eire challenges established assumptions about the redrawing of boundaries between the natural and supernatural that marked the transition to modernity.
Using as his case studies stories about St. Teresa of Avila, St. Joseph of Cupertino, the Venerable María de Ágreda, and three disgraced nuns, Eire challenges readers to imagine a world animated by a different understanding of reality and of the supernatural’s relationship with the natural world. The questions he explores—such as why and how “impossibility” is determined by cultural contexts, and whether there is more to reality than meets the eye or can be observed by science—have resonance and lessons for our time."
- Publisher (Yale University Press, 2023)
Eire observes how levitating saints and flying witches were as essential a component of early modern life as the religious turmoil of the age, and as much a part of history as Newton’s scientific discoveries. Relying on an array of firsthand accounts, and focusing on exceptionally impossible cases involving levitation, bilocation, witchcraft, and demonic possession, Eire challenges established assumptions about the redrawing of boundaries between the natural and supernatural that marked the transition to modernity.
Using as his case studies stories about St. Teresa of Avila, St. Joseph of Cupertino, the Venerable María de Ágreda, and three disgraced nuns, Eire challenges readers to imagine a world animated by a different understanding of reality and of the supernatural’s relationship with the natural world. The questions he explores—such as why and how “impossibility” is determined by cultural contexts, and whether there is more to reality than meets the eye or can be observed by science—have resonance and lessons for our time."
- Publisher (Yale University Press, 2023)