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The Journal
Parapsychology
Parapsychology in the Ibero-American World
195
minished by increasing communication and collaboration with for-
eign parapsychologists.
Puerto Rico10
Early psychical research in Puerto Rico was strongly influenced
by the nineteenth-century Spiritualist movement that had also
spread to other countries. Mediumistic séances in which raps and
communication with the spirits were common drew attention mostly
from people with a religious interest.
It was perhaps this influence that led Agapito Morales to publish
in 1904 a more critical examination of these phenomena. In his
booklet Breve Tratado de Hipnotismo, Magnetismo, Espiritismo y Suges-
toterapia, Morales contended that all those occurrences could take
place without assuming the action of spirit agencies. He interpreted
possession as being autosuggestion and attributed paranormal phe-
nomena to our own psychic faculties. He considered that all of the
experiments made until today demonstrate that there is an invisible
force in our being that is capable, for instance, of playing a guitar,
lifting a table, or lifting our own bodies. According to him this force
is under our control. He also believed that mediumistic communi-
cation could be explained by means of telepathy between the me-
dium and the sitter.
Another major influence in the formation of a more empirical
and critical approach to parapsychology was the work of Francisco
Ponte, a dentist who became president of the Puerto Rican Feder-
ation of Spiritists. Ponte visited Europe in 1912 to familiarize him-
self with the work of several Spiritualistic centers, as well as psychi-
cal research centers. He had had the opportunity to participate in
mediumistic séances in Italy with famous mediums such as Lucia
Sordi and Eusapia Palladino. During these séances he witnessed
manifestations of apparent telekinesis and materializations (Alva-
rado, 1987; Ponte, 1914).
Later Ponte returned to Puerto Rico and tried to reproduce the
same phenomena with local mediums. He reported some of his find-
ings on materializations of body parts during séances to Walter
Franklin Prince, then Research Officer of the ASPR. Ponte's work
was important because of the critical and empirical approach he
brought to his research on séance phenomena (Alvarado, 1979a).
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The theoretical ideas of Ralph U. Sierra are also interesting.
Sierra, who was interested in the psychology of ESP, believed that
to develop telepathy it was necessary to develop first an internal
state of tranquility so that the electrical activity of the brain did not
interfere with the telepathic process (Sierra, 1966).
Some of the most important developments, however, took place
during the last two centuries. At the educational level, it is impor-
tant to note the work of Celinda Madera who, during the 1970s,
offered a series of courses and lectures at different campuses of the
University of Puerto Rico. Madera's courses focused on the human-
istic and transpersonal aspects of psi. She herself had received train-
ing at Duke University's Parapsychology Laboratory (Alvarado,
1979a).
In 1974, Nestor A. Rodríguez Escudero, a lawyer, published a
series of essays about parapsychology and Spiritualism in his book
Los Caminos de Dios. He discussed a great variety of paranormal phe-
nomena. His main objective was to show that parapsychology dem-
onstrates the spiritual aspect of man (Rodríguez Escudero, 1974).
Another development in 1977 was the creation of the Instituto
de Investigaciones Psicofísicas at the University of Puerto Rico, May-
agüez campus. Founded to conduct investigations in parapsychology
and related areas, the Institute carried out studies of various param-
eters of Kirlian photography and of the effects of hypnosis on ESP.
However, these research investigations were never made available
for publication. During this period Alfonso Martínez Taboas began
to publish a newsletter Explorando lo Paranormal, a semipopular mag-
azine later edited by Carlos Alvarado starting in 1976.
Martínez Taboas and Carlos Alvarado wrote articles on parapsy-
chology in Spanish for the Spanish journal Psi Comunicación; they
also published in other journals. Their articles covered a wide range
of topics. Among these, Alvarado wrote on experimental studies of
OBEs (1976), historical precedents of the so-called psychic discov-
eries behind the Iron Curtain (1978), the use of historical knowl-
edge (1979b), and on J. B. Rhine (1980). Martínez Taboas published
a review of the problem of repeatability in parapsychology (1979),
critiques of psychological and physiological concepts of poltergeist
research (1977, 1980, 1984; Martínez Taboas & Alvarado, 1981),
and a discussion of the concept of parsimony applied to parapsy-
chology (1983).
The work of Martinez Taboas and Alvarado has been very im-
portant in the effort to bridge the language barrier between the
Spanish researcher and the non-Spanish-speaking researcher. This
10 This section on Puerto Rican parapsychology partly summarizes information
contained in an article by Alvarado (1979a).
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The Journal of Parapsychology
is particularly true of Alvarado's book reviews (1984a, 1985) and his
discussion of language-barrier problems in parapsychology (1989a).
Moreover, Alvarado, a former research assistant at the Division of
Parapsychology (now the Division of Personality Studies) at the Uni-
versity of Virginia, has maintained a constant flow of information
on parapsychological activities in Latin America to research centers
in the United States for the last eight years. In addition, among the
Ibero-American parapsychologists, he is the one who has published
most extensively in the English-language journals and the only one
ever to be elected a member of the Board of Directors of the Para-
psychological Association.
Mexico
Mexico has been known for a long time as the land of the sacred
mushroom or peyotl, a pint used by the Indian shaman to induce
Lan altered state of conscious ness, which allegedly facilitates de man-
ifestation of psychic power. This country has also been a major
source for many parapsycho agical researchers interested in unor-
thodox psychic healing practice Famous curandere (healers) such
as María Sabina and Doña Pachita have been utensively investi-
gated by Stanley Krippner and other famous parapsychologists
(Krippner & Villoldo, 1986).
Although Mexico has been a maior starce of study for many
parapsychologists from foreign countriespsychical research has not
flourished there as it has in other copies such as Argentina and
Spain. Moreover, even though the punti is located on the south-
gern border of the United States and has been subject to very strong
American cultural influence in a ghost every aspect of life, the dom-
inance of the United States Has not been a factor in the develop-
@ment of parapsychology. Even though in the United States there are
more parapsychological research centers than an where else in the
Oworld, very little is known in Mexico of their research. Most of what
is known about serio parapsychology comes from latin American
countries such as " azil. For example, the writings of Quevedo are
well known in Mexico, and also most of what is known generally
comes from paralar magazines.
Early eff s to study psychical research within a scientific frame-
work in Maaco began in 1919 with the isolated efforts of such re-
searchers the German-born medical doctor Gustav Pagen stecher,
the firstresearcher to conduct serious psychical research in Mexico.
Pagenstecher was a very well-known and respected physician in the
Parapsychology in the Ibero-American World
197
Mexican medical community as well as in political circles. In the
course of his career he delivered speeches before two presidents of
Mexico, Díaz an 1 Obregón (Allison, 1943).11
A respected member of the medical profession, Pagenst@her
said he had been a materialist for forty years when he had hisfirst
encounter with the paranormal. It wa during a hypnosis treatment
of one of his patients who had insonia that he discovered to re-
markable psychical gift of María Reyes de Zierold. Pagenstecher be-
gan a series of psychom tric experiments with her in 1919. THE re-
sults were so striking that he brought them to the attention @the
Mexican medical society, which appointed a commission to verify
them. Pagenstecher also decided to write to the ASPR and Send
some of the results he had sotained. The results induced Walter
Franklin Prince, Research Q cer of the ASPR, to go to Mexico to
investigate the case. After aserles of experimental sittings with Bier-
old, Prince was so impressed with the results that he decided to Sub-
lish them in the Journal of the A. PR in 1920 (Pagenstecher, 1220).
Prince later published another paper in which he discussed the'ex-
periments in which he participated (Prince, 1921b). Moreoversthe
ASPR published a monograph by Pagenstecher entitled Past Events
Seership: A Study of Pochometry (Pagen stecher, 1922).
According to William Roll (1967), Pagenstecher contribute
to
two major areas in varapsychology:
[He was], as far as I know the first investigator to use hypnosises a
means to cultivate ESP in a gifted subject .... Pagenstecher's studies Were
also, I believe the first to indicate that the (parapsychological) associa-
tion of objeds may be governed by the same ows that govern the
chological)association of ideas. (p. 238)
Pagenstecher showed great courage in undertaking these exper-
iments. H jeopardized his professional standing as well as his mod-
ical practice by trying to substantiate the claims for Zierold's psychic
abilities. The Medical Commission appointed to investigate the gse
was skeptical of the reported phenomena. Fortunate y, however, the
Commission's leading experts obtained successful results in thesex-
periments in which they participated (Gomezharpe de Trevino,
1990).
11 Obregón was a revolutionary military leader, later President of Mexico. Walter
Franklin Prince (1921a) relates an interesting psychic experience witnessed by Ob-
regon, about a precognitive dream Obregón's brother had about the death of their
mother.
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