Soal, S(amuel) G(eorge) (1889-1975)

Mathematician and important figure in British parapsychology whose credibility has been attacked. He was born on April 29, 1889, at Kirby Moorside, Yorkshire, England. He received his degrees at London University (B.S. first class honors mathematics, 1910; M.A. mathematics, 1914). He was for many years a lecturer in mathematics at Queen Mary College, University of London (1911-54). After his retirement he was a part-time lecturer at Queen Mary College (1954-58) and an examiner at London University (1960-62).

Soal was one of the shining stars of British parapsychology. From 1919 onward he conducted parapsychological studies, in mediumship (1919-24), automatic writing (1923-28), and statistical experiments in telepathy and clairvoyance (1927 on). He collaborated in quantitative research with Kathleen M. Goldney, Frederick Bateman, and J. G. Pratt. He lectured widely on parapsychology in Britain and the United States.

He was the Myers Memorial lecturer (1947); Perrott Student in Psychical Research, Cambridge (1948-49); Fulbright Research Scholar in Parapsychology (1951); and president of the Nottingham University Society for Psychical Research (1938). In 1950 he was elected president of the Society for Psychical Research.

Soal, at first critical of J. B. Rhine 's early work, carried out some very successful experiments with Basil Shackleton. The Soal-Goldney experiments became one of the foundation stones of the emerging field. As early as 1949 critics began to complain that the results were too good, that they had to have been produced by error or fraud. In 1960, C. E. M. Hansel criticized the claimed precognitive findings in the card-guessing experiments and suggested a number of ways in which there might have been conscious or unconscious falsification of the evidence.

A March 1971 article in the Journal of the SPR by R. G. Med-hurst initially pointed out inaccuracies in the method of constructing quasi-random series in the experiments. By 1974, such criticism had become hostile, with papers by other experimenters suggesting that Soal had deliberately falsified or manipulated his data.

It was also suggested that experimenters J. G. Pratt and J.B. Rhine, who had checked Soal's statistical evaluation, had failed to disclose in detail a glaring error in the assessment of probability, using instead the vague term "very significant." There may, of course, have been a number of quite valid reasons for Pratt and Rhine to have failed to be specific. Soal himself ascribed his initial error to an assistant.

Soal died in 1975. Three years later Betty Markwick, a computer expert, published a complex technical paper in which computer analysis indicated that Soal was guilty of fraud. Other researchers have attempted to defend Soal from the charge of conscious deception, but their arguments have been unconvincing. The effect has been to destroy whatever value had been attached to the Shackleton experiments and, more significantly, to call into question Soal's lifetime of contributions to the field.

Sources:

Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. The Encyclopedia of Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York: Paragon House, 1991.

Markwick, Betty. "The Soal-Goldney Experiments with Basil Shackleton: New Evidence of Data Manipulation." Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 56 (1978).

Medhurst, R. G. "On the Origin of the 'Prepared Random Numbers' Used in the Shackleton Experiments." Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 46 (March 1971).

Pleasants, Helene, ed. Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology. New York: Helix Press, 1964.

Soal, S. G. "Experiments in Supernormal Perception at a Distance." Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 123 (1932).

——. "Fresh Light on Card Guessing." Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 46 (1940).

——. "A Report on Some Communications Received Through Mrs. Blanche Cooper." Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 35 (December 1925).

Soal, S. G., and F. Bateman. Modern Experiments in Telepathy. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1954.

Soal, S. G., and H. T. Bowden. The Mind Readers. London: Faber and Faber, 1959.

Soal, S. G., and K. M. Goldney. "Experiments in Precognitive Telepathy." Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 47 (1943).

Soal, S. G., and J. G. Pratt. "ESP Performance and Target Sequence." Journal of Parapsychology (September 1951).

——. "Some Relations Between Call Sequence and ESP Performance." Journal of Parapsychology (September 1952).