What Was Walter J. Levy's Parapsychology Scandal

Faked Experiment’s Results at Rhine’s Institute for Parapsychology

May 25, 2009

J. B. Rhine was a founder of modern parapsychology. Director Levy tampered with laboratory equipment and resigned. More emphasis was placed on data verification.

Parapsychology, the scientific study of psychic phenomena, psi, done without bias, has more than its share of frauds. Even critics who were overtly skeptical about phenomena reported by the Institute for Parapsychology rarely, if ever, doubted the earnestness or integrity of Dr. Joseph Banks Rhine, the organization’s founder, or his staff.

In August 1974, Rhine was prepared to acknowledge publicly a scandal that shocked the parapsychological establishment.

Levy’s and Rhine’s Affiliation

Rhine pioneered Extrasensory Perception, ESP, research in the 1930s. He recognized that sophisticated scientific techniques, including using computers, were needed to gather reliable information about psi.

Levy, a medical student, began working at the institute during a summer vacation in 1969. He showed an extraordinary skill for automating experiments and recording data. After Levy graduated from the Medical College of Georgia, Rhine hired him as a researcher and soon promoted him to director.

Levy’s Research

Levy's research was testing the ability of rodents to anticipate events by ESP or to effect physical changes by psychokinesis (PK), the ability of the mind to affect matter. He implanted electrodes into rats’ brain areas where the animals experienced intense pleasure. Stimuli were delivered at computerized random intervals that were keyed to decay atoms in a sample of radioactive strontium 90.

Without outside influence, the system stimulated the rats' pleasure zones 50% of the time. If the rats could anticipate the computer by ESP or influence the decay of the radioactive source by PK, their pleasure scores would be above 50%. Levy reported 54% scores, indicative psychic powers in the rats.

Levy’s Downfall

Jim Davis, an electrical engineer who did the computer programming and hardware design for the experiment, noticed, more than once, Levy pulling a plug out of the back of the random generator, causing the equipment to record only hits during that time. Davis had two colleagues assist him. He secretly set up a duplicate set of recordings that confirmed only random stimulation. One watched from a hiding place while the others helped Levy run a test. They saw him tamper with the recorder. His scores ran high. The secret set of instruments confirmed their suspicions by the expected 50% score.

Rhine Confronts Levy with Fraud

Davis and his colleagues reported Levy’s equipment tampering to Rhine who confronted Levy. He confessed and resigned. Later Levy told friends he’d been under tremendous pressure to produce positive results and was overburdened by administrative responsibilities. He averred that this was the only time he had falsified data. He failed to reproduce earlier positive tests and felt he had to force data to reflect his expected results.

Levy Scandal Aftermath

Rhine directed staff members to check on Levy's earlier findings and cautioned them not to rely on any data until it was verified. He wrote that all of Levy’s work had to be validated and authored a list of his former protégé’s experiments in “A Second Report on a Case of Experimenter Fraud” in the December 1975 issue of The Journal of Parapsychology.

Rhine revealed that, in his early research days, he caught experimenters in falsifications and noted that parapsychology is a young science and fraud has been committed in medicine, physics, biology and other fields.

Shortly before the Levy affair, another researcher was falsifying results. Dr. William Summerlin was an immunologist at the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research. He grafted skin from incompatible strains of black and white mice and claimed they were overcoming the rejection of the grafts, when, in fact, he was actually using a pen to color grafted areas of skin.

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