Letter from the editor: Illusions
Expensive reader,
Once you hear the phrase “Stanford,” what involves thoughts? You might consider Stanford’s cutting-edge analysis in fields like pc science or economics. However do you know that fifty years in the past, the Stanford Analysis Institute (SRI) was learning psychic actions?
Though SRI formally break up from Stanford College in 1970, it nonetheless used the Stanford identify after its break up. It’s arduous to think about a reputation now synonymous with world-class analysis connected to a subject that’s at finest taboo and at worst pseudoscientific. Nevertheless, in 1972, SRI researchers Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff have been decided to grasp psychics and the way they may leverage their mysterious powers. Oh, and did we point out that the CIA was in on the experiments too?
Targ and Puthoff centered on one psychic particularly: Uri Geller. Initially from Israel, Geller had Targ, Puthoff and the CIA satisfied that he had particular, paranormal powers. One CIA doc declared that because of Geller’s success of their experimental trials, Geller “demonstrated his paranormal perceptual skill in a convincing and unambiguous method.”
However not everybody was satisfied by Geller’s psychic powers. Ray Hyman, a psychologist on the College of Oregon, was invited to analyze Geller and SRI’s research. Hyman concluded that Geller was a fraud with no actual paranormal powers. However what Geller did have, in response to Hyman, was the ability to create an phantasm utilizing his skillful “public relations marketing campaign.”
This educational yr was one marked by many moments of phantasm and disillusion, from the autumn of the cryptocurrency buying and selling platform FTX to the story of Stanford imposter Will Curry. However what can we do as soon as we fall underneath phantasm or disillusion? The articles on this journal discover simply that.
Sophia Artandi ’26 takes us via current and previous points surrounding speech and activism by school to discover how our perceptions and worth judgments have modified over time. Employees author Sarayu Pai ’23 explores the historical past and cultural impacts of novelist Ken Kesey and the band The Grateful Lifeless. Information desk editor Oriana Riley ’25 talks to Stanford college students about duck syndrome and the way it persists regardless of most being conscious of its existence. Arts and Life managing editor Sofia Gonzalez-Rodriguez ’25 and information desk editor Itzel Luna ’25 look at the way forward for CSRE applications. Employees author Cameron Duran ’24 offers our brains a problem in her “Spot the Distinction” piece. Sebastian Hochman ’26 discusses how some disciplines are seen as hobbies at Stanford whereas others are seen as careers. Lastly, Michelle Fu ’24, Kris Nino ’25 and Judy Liu ’26 share with us a number of items of fiction.
We hope that the tales on this journal encourage you to consider the illusions in your individual life. Who is aware of, you could be residing underneath one proper now.
Thanks for studying —
Carolyn Stein ’24