cetera.)

* * * * *

Letter from Dr. Karl Thurn, University of Laibach, to Professor Albrecht
Aigen, Brunn University.

My dear friend:

Your information about the elder Schweeringen received. The information
about his prediction is interesting. I could wish that it were complete,
but that would seem to be hopeless. Your question, asked in a manner
suggesting great disturbance, is another matter. I will answer it as
well as I can, my friend, but please remember that you asked. I
volunteer nothing. The question of the rise and power of The Leader is
your research, not mine.

Here is my answer. Years back an American researcher named Rhine
obtained seemingly conclusive proof that telepathy took place. Tonight
he would have a "sender," here, attempt to transmit some item
telepathically to a "receiver," there. Tomorrow morning he would compare
the record of what the "sender" had attempted to transmit, with the
record of what the "receiver" considered he had received. The
correspondence was far greater than chance. He considered that telepathy
was proven.

But then Rhine made tests for precognition. He secured proof that some
persons could predict with greater-than-probability frequency that some
particular event, to be determined by chance, would take place tomorrow.
He secured excellent evidence for precognition.

Then it was realized that if one could foresee what dice would read
tomorrow--dice not yet thrown--one should be able to read what a report
would read tomorrow--a report not yet written. In short, if one can
foreknow what a comparison will reveal, telepathy before the comparison
is unproven. In proving precognition, he had destroyed his evidence for
telepathy.

It appears that something similar has happened, which our correspondence
has brought out. Young Schweeringen predicted what a computer would
report from unknown numerals and instructions. In order for the computer
to match his predictions, it had to err. It did. Therefore one reasons
that he did not predict what the computer would produce. The computer
produced what he predicted. In effect, what appeared to be foreknowledge
was psychokinesis--the same phenomenon as the movement of crumbs of
cheese by my rat. One may strongly suspect that when young Herr
Schweeringen knew in advance what the computer would say, he actually
knew in advance what he could make it say. It is possible that one can
consciously know in ad