A Joint Communiqué: The Psi Ganzfeld Controversy
📄 Original study📌 Appears in:
Plain English Summary
Here's something you almost never see: a skeptic and a believer sitting down together and actually agreeing on something. In 1986, Ray Hyman (a leading critic of psychic research) and Charles Honorton (a parapsychologist) looked at 28 ganzfeld experiments — studies where people in a relaxed, sensory-deprived state try to receive mental images from a sender. Both sides agreed the results showed a real statistical effect that wasn't just cherry-picked data or sloppy math. Where they split was whether that effect was actually psychic. Instead of just arguing, they did something remarkable: they co-wrote six concrete rules for how future ganzfeld experiments should be run, covering everything from preventing sensory leakage to registering studies in advance so negative results couldn't be buried. These guidelines became the gold standard for the next generation of research and directly shaped the famous AutoGanzfeld experiments that followed. They even called for skeptics to roll up their sleeves and run experiments themselves.
Actual Paper Abstract
Instead of continuing with another round of our debate on the psi ganzfeld experiments, we decided to collaborate on a joint communiqué. The Honorton-Hyman debate emphasized the differences in our positions, many of these being technical in nature. But during a recent discussion, we realized that we possessed similar viewpoints on many issues concerning parapsychological research. This communiqué, then, emphasizes these points of agreement. We agree that there is an overall significant effect in this data base that cannot reasonably be explained by selective reporting or multiple analysis. We continue to differ over the degree to which the effect constitutes evidence for psi, but we agree that the final verdict awaits the outcome of future experiments conducted by a broader range of investigators and according to more stringent standards. We make recommendations about how such experiments should be conducted and reported. Specific recommendations are about randomization, judging and feedback procedures, multiple analysis and statistics, documentation, and the growing role we believe meta-analysis will play in the evaluation of research quality and the assessment of moderating variables. We conclude that psi researchers and their critics share many common goals, and we hope that our joint communiqué will encourage future cooperation to further these goals.
Research Notes
Landmark skeptic-proponent collaboration that directly shaped the AutoGanzfeld program (Bem & Honorton 1994). The six recommendations became the de facto standards for ganzfeld research design and reporting. Noteworthy that Hyman explicitly endorsed the existence of a database anomaly while declining to label it psi—an important concession from a leading critic. Marks the transition from first-generation ganzfeld controversy to the AutoGanzfeld era.
A joint methodological communiqué in which skeptic Ray Hyman and parapsychologist Charles Honorton replace their planned debate continuation with a collaborative statement of shared positions. Reviewing the existing ganzfeld database (28 studies), both authors agree that an overall significant effect is present that cannot be explained by selective reporting or multiple analysis, while continuing to disagree on whether this constitutes psi evidence. They issue detailed prescriptive recommendations across six domains: sensory leakage control, target randomization with full documentation, judging and feedback procedures, pre-specified multiple analysis corrections, file-drawer registration, and statistical reporting standards. They advocate for planning experiments with future meta-analysis in mind and call for skeptics to participate as investigators. Originally published Journal of Parapsychology 50, 351–364 (1986).
Links
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Extended By
Same Research Program
- Does Psi Exist? Comments on Milton and Wiseman's (1999) Meta-Analysis of Ganzfeld Research — Storm, Lance (2001)
- Stage 2 Registered Report: Anomalous Perception in a Ganzfeld Condition - A Meta-Analysis of More Than 40 Years Investigation — Tressoldi, P.E (2024)
- Evaluation of a Program on Anomalous Mental Phenomena — Hyman, Ray (1996)
- Why Is Psi So Elusive? A Review and Proposed Model — Kennedy, James E (2001)
- Statistical Problems in ESP Research — Diaconis, Persi (1978)
- Meta-Analysis That Conceals More Than It Reveals: Comment on Storm et al. (2010) — Hyman, Ray (2010)
Cited By
- Why Most Research Findings About Psi Are False: The Replicability Crisis, the Psi Paradox and the Myth of Sisyphus — Rabeyron, Thomas (2020)
- Decision Augmentation Theory: Toward a Model of Anomalous Mental Phenomena — May, Edwin C (1995)
- The Anomaly Called Psi: Recent Research and Criticism — Rao, K. Ramakrishna (1987)
- Anomaly or Artifact? Comments on Bem and Honorton — Hyman, Ray (1994)
- The Experimental Evidence for Parapsychological Phenomena: A Review — Cardeña, Etzel (2018)
- Does Psi Exist? Lack of Replication of an Anomalous Process of Information Transfer — Milton, Julie (1999)
- Does Psi Exist? Comments on Milton and Wiseman's (1999) Meta-Analysis of Ganzfeld Research — Storm, Lance (2001)
- Meta-Analysis of Free-Response Studies 2009-2018: Assessing the Noise-Reduction Model Ten Years On — Storm, Lance (2020)
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📋 Cite this paper
Hyman, Ray, Honorton, Charles (1986). A Joint Communiqué: The Psi Ganzfeld Controversy. Journal of Parapsychology. https://doi.org/10.30891/jopar.2018S.01.09
@article{hyman_honorton_1986_joint_communique,
title = {A Joint Communiqué: The Psi Ganzfeld Controversy},
author = {Hyman, Ray and Honorton, Charles},
year = {1986},
journal = {Journal of Parapsychology},
doi = {10.30891/jopar.2018S.01.09},
}