Introduction

This topic was originally suggested for an AAAS Symposium by the late Professor Wilbur Franklin of Kent State University, and it was only after his recent untimely death that I agreed to take over as organizer and moderator of the panel. Unfortunately, I was not privy to Professor Franklin's original conception of the subject, nor to his plans for the membership of the panel. From his most recent research activities and articles in the field of psychokinesis, one might assume that he would have focussed fairly explicitly on the direct interaction of human consciousness with physical systems, but that is only my personal suspicion. Thus, the assembly of the panel and the circumscription of the topic had to be my own responsibilities and probably differ from those he envisaged.