BettyMac Takes on John Archibald Wheeler

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 Posted in Scientists Comment on Paranormal | No Comments »

In 1986, Dr. Elizabeth A. McMahan, a former Duke Parapsychology Lab scientist, confronted the preeminent physicist John Archibald Wheeler, motivated in part by a wrong Wheeler had done J. B. Rhine six years before. Dr. McMahan, aka BettyMac, gives ...

My Take on Edison and Talking to the Dead

Monday, September 14th, 2009 Posted in People in Parapsychology, Scientists Comment on Paranormal | 5 Comments »

In my book I briefly mention the interview Thomas Edison had with Scientific American about a machine he wanted to build to talk to the dead. While I was researching this section I talked to Jack Stanley, the curator ...

The Natural History of a Prejudice

Monday, August 31st, 2009 Posted in General, People in Parapsychology, Scientists Comment on Paranormal | 6 Comments »

In 1934 the famous medium Eileen Garrett came to the Parapsychology Laboratory and allowed the scientists there to conduct experiments with her while she was in a trance. When she went into her trances another personality who called himself ...

The Parapsychology Laboratory and the Russian Secret Police

Saturday, August 1st, 2009 Posted in People in Parapsychology, Scientists Comment on Paranormal | 2 Comments »

“We will have a part-time relationship with a number of graduate students in psychology at Duke this year—more than before. Including a former Russian Intelligence officer, Nikolai Khokhlov.” - J. B. Rhine, September 13, 1965. When I came across the letter ...

Dr. Arthur Holly Compton

Friday, July 24th, 2009 Posted in People in Parapsychology, Scientists Comment on Paranormal | No Comments »

On June 21, 1937, J. B. Rhine wrote Dr. William McDougall, the head of the Duke Psychology Department: “I had a talk yesterday with Arthur Compton, the Nobel physicist from the University of Chicago. He is agreed that ...

Notice from Yale University

Monday, June 22nd, 2009 Posted in Scientists Comment on Paranormal | No Comments »

I plan to write a post about the Parapsychology Laboratory Records at the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University, and the fact that there is still so much there that is untapped. I couldn't read it ...

Freeman Dyson

Friday, May 22nd, 2009 Posted in Scientists Comment on Paranormal | No Comments »

"If one believes, as I do, that ESP exists but is scientifically untestable, one must believe that the scope of science is limited." - Freeman Dyson, in a Foreword to Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the ...