ESP and psychology

SIR CYRIL BURT, ESP and psychology, edited by Anita Gregory, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975, 8vo, pp. vii, 179, £4.50. Although Cyril Burt (1883-1971) is best known for his work on the application of psychology to education, to the development of children and to the assessment of mental qualities, he also contributed to ESP, as an obituarist had to point out (The Times, 15 October 1971). This book, stimulated by the same obituarist, contains eight carefully selected essays based on articles, lectures or reviews, all published except the last two. They range from 1935 to 1967, but most were written in the 1960s. Burt believed that consciousness is a central feature of psychology, and that the application of mathematics to psychology is likewise essential. These two extremes arose out of his work in educational and developmental psychology, which closely resemble para-psychology because in each an amalgam of personal experience and impeccable experimental and statistical data is essential. Burt's attraction to ESP is therefore understandable, and in the brief but informative introduction the editor explains this and other background features of his interest in, and approach to, what in his day was an unorthodoxy. However, his statement that ESP is a natural phenomenon that should be part of psychology, although held as heretical when made, may now, in view ofincreasing data, be more acceptable. The editor has chosen only papers intended for the general reader, and together they provide us with an excellent survey of Burt's work on ESP. Whether right or wrong, as may be judged in the future, there is no doubt that ESP forms an important part of the history ofpsychology in general.