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Experiments in mental suggestion – Professor L L Vasiliev

Appendix B - lntroduction by Professor V. P. Ossipov to the Report for the year 1933-1934 of the special Laboratory for the study of Mental suggestion attached to the Leningrad lnstitute for Brain Research (from records in the archives)

The work carried out by a group of collaborators at the Institute for Brain Research named after Bekhterev on the subject "Psychophysical researches into telepathic phenomena" is very extensive; it required a great output of energy and hard work because of the complexity of the essence of the problem and because of the immense difficulties in solving it either in a positive or a negative manner.

Although a very long time has elapsed since the question of telepathy was first raised, this question cannot be considered solved since the material collected is by no means immune to objections. In order to resolve the question one requires the experimental material to be studied scientifically and to prove the existence of a lawful connection of the phenomena in respect to some established principle. A negative solution must be equally strictly supported.

The group of workers at this Institute have not by any means in their researches solved the problem in either direction; the convincingness of successful experimental results is lessened by a series of unsuccessful experiments, although it would appear that inferences from statistics point in the positive direction. Furthermore, it was discovered that, in order to explain the positive results in a lawful context, it would be necessary to admit the existence of a new type of an as yet unknown energetic radiation-which also is contrary to the positive results of the researchers.

On the other hand, it would not be proper to judge the statistical preponderance of positive data to be due to chance.

Should the question eventually be settled in the negative, the negative solution would have to be strictly established.

In studying the research material obtained, it must be stated that, absolutely and without question, the researches conducted at the Institute for Brain Research were carried out in an entirely scientific manner, and that a strict research procedure was worked out involving a duly critical approach. It is necessary however, to do a great deal of further minute detailed work to obtain a further elucidation of the problem.

1934

V. P. Ossipov

Director of the Institute for Brain Research.