A Joint Communique: The Psi Ganzfeld Controversy

Ray Hyman, a psychologist and prominent skeptic of parapsychology, and Charles Honorton, a parapsychology researcher, jointly authored this peer reviewed article in the Journal of Parapsychology after years of public dispute over ganzfeld telepathy experiments, an unusual case of two opposed researchers publishing a shared statement of where they agreed and disagreed. Its strength is exactly that structure, both sides state plainly which statistical points they accept and which interpretive questions remain open, rather than either side's account standing unchallenged. Its limit is that it is a snapshot of one negotiated position from 1986, and both authors state that later, more rigorously controlled experiments would be needed to settle the underlying question, so it should be read as a documented moment in an ongoing methodological debate, not a final verdict.