What I found most interesting in the article was the frank acknowledgement by J B Rhine that Walter Levy, director of the Institute for Parapsychology was committing fraud.

I view research into parapsychology with a background assumption that I understand the motivation. Reductionist materialism suggests that death is the end. Parapsychology may imply the existence of souls, a spiritual realm, life after death, and maybe the chance of heaven. What wonderful balm for existential angst!

Does this make me doubt research into parapsychology? No, quite the opposite. A researcher can only soothe the pain of existential angst with genuine results. If they fake the research, they know that they faked it, and it provides no consolation. My take is that I cannot dismiss positive results in parapsychology as fraud.

Grifters are real. It is possible in principle that researchers in parapsychology are faking results with an eye to making money selling pills that "boost your ESP". I think that I am able to spot and dismiss grifts without difficulty, and that it is not what is at issue here.

But now I learn that I'm wrong. Walter Levy's results are fake. I have to flip from modus ponens to modus tollens. Instead of saying "I understand the motivation, therefore Levy's results are genuine", I have to say "Levy's results are fake, therefore I don't understand the motivation".

I'm in a pickle. A central principle of how I understand the world is that fraud is motivated. No motive, no fraud. Now what? Since there is motiveless fraud, much of what I thought I knew about the world is on shaky ground.