Letters to the Lab

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010 Posted in Letters to the Lab | 5 Comments »

Now and again I think about this one paragraph from an August 30, 1944 letter of J. B. Rhine's. I wish I could research it more. Apparently Rhine was having some sort of exchange with one of his ...

Oliver Lodge

Monday, April 26th, 2010 Posted in Letters to the Lab, People in Parapsychology | No Comments »

One June 29, 1940, just under two months before he died, the physicist Oliver Lodge wrote J. B. Rhine. The first half of the letter is typed and the rest is handwritten with a very shaky hand. Dear Dr. Rhine, I ...

Commander McDonald to Captain Rickenbacker

Monday, April 5th, 2010 Posted in Letters to the Lab, People in Parapsychology | 2 Comments »

On November 1, 1943, Commander Eugene F. McDonald, the founder and president of the Zenith Radio Corporation, sat down and wrote WWI hero Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, who was then working for Eastern Airlines. My Dear Eddie: "... I am enclosing a copy ...

IBM and ESP Part One

Sunday, February 21st, 2010 Posted in ESP and other Phenomena, Letters to the Lab, Science Experiments | 1 Comment »

One of the most fun finds I made while going through the Parapsychology Laboratory's correspondence was a 1938 exchange between J. B. Rhine and IBM. Rhine contacted them first. "I am writing you concerning the possibility of adapting the Test ...

Forgotten Mediums of New York

Thursday, February 4th, 2010 Posted in Hoaxes, Letters to the Lab, People in Parapsychology | No Comments »

In 1945, J. B. Rhine started corresponding with the widow of Lt. Ernest D. Wenberg, an Army doctor who died on December 23, 1944, while a POW of the German government. Like so many other widows who wrote J.B., ...

A Letter to the Lab from Denis Conan Doyle

Saturday, January 16th, 2010 Posted in Letters to the Lab, People in Parapsychology | 4 Comments »

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and J. B. Rhine were not friends. When J.B. and Louisa Rhine published a report in 1927 denouncing the medium Mina Crandon, (aka Margery) Doyle slammed them in the press. Only the year before ...

Whatever happened to Jackie Merkle?

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 Posted in Letters to the Lab, People in Parapsychology | 23 Comments »

While I was researching my book I constantly came across these former psychic superstars. For a time there'd be a flurry of activity around them, lots of press, letters, and public appearances to either demonstrate their talent or expose ...