Stacy Horn

Cold Cases and Seances

March 8, 2009April 1, 20090

I had planned to research the ghost story surrounding the 1955 unsolved murder of “financier” Serge Rubenstein because it brought together two things I love to do: play amateur sleuth and fact-check the information from a seance. (More below …)

Rubenstein’s murder was a big case at the time due to his supposed millions, the many beautiful women that surrounded him, and his connections to the New York underworld. A year after his murder, Rubenstein’s mother contacted ghost hunter Hans Holzer because there were disturbances in the New York apartment where Rubenstein lived (and where she continued to live). Holzer conducted a seance and Rubenstein’s spirit supplied Holzer with the names of people who were supposedly involved with his murder. Holzer wrote up what happened and ended his account with him handing transcripts of the seances over to the police, but without being able to say if the names had any relevance to the detective’s investigation. The case went cold and it and Serge Rubenstein were eventually forgotten.

It wasn’t always possible at the time to verify the information that came out of a seance. They didn’t have the internet and all the million tools, databases, etc., that we have now. So I planned to see if any of the names Holzer supplied were any good. I know where the police case files are. Also, Serge had a daughter, Diana Elizabeth, born May 12, 1945. I thought I’d try to find her. But for now it’s all still on my to-do list. I am working on another ghost/seance story that I’ll post about when I’m done. The dead person in this story got to me more than Serge Rubenstein did, her story was sadder and more poignant and so I started on hers first.

That’s Serge dressed as Napoleon in the picture. Doesn’t it have such a feel of old New York, of a time gone by?

Shirley Jackson and J. B. Rhine

March 5, 2009March 11, 20180

The end of this passage from my book sounds very melodramatic, I know, but if you read the book and see what happens next, I think you’ll agree that I did not over-state it. I’m describing an example of the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory work filtering out into art and popular culture:

A main character in Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House, Theodora, is portrayed as a Hubert Pearce ESP card-guessing star [Hubert Pearce was one of the lab’s star subjects]. “The name of Theodora shone in the records of the laboratory,” one passage reads. But in the next sentence Jackson writes, “perhaps the wakened knowledge in Theodora which told her the names of symbols on cards held out of sight urged her on her way toward Hill House …” implying greater ESP abilities than had been so far demonstrated. It was a leap into magical ESP territory, indicating that Shirley Jackson and the general public didn’t really understand what ESP was or what it could do, a misunderstanding that would soon have tragic consequences.

By the way, I learned that Rhine was offered a huge amount of money from the people promoting the 1963 movie version of the book, if they could film him saying at the beginning of the movie that these were like the kinds of things they studied at the Duke Laboratory. Rhine refused.

I found this clip from the movie on YouTube. The main character, a scientist named Dr. John Markway, is explaining psychokinesis. I wonder how many time paranormal investigators were portrayed as scientists before Rhine and the Duke Parapsychology Lab?

[Video removed because the link no longer works.]

J. B. Rhine and Carl Jung

March 1, 2009April 1, 20090

“I quite agree with you that once we are in possession of all facts science will look very peculiar indeed.” — Carl Jung to J. B. Rhine, November 5, 1942. Oh yeah. I didn’t write a lot about Rhine and Jung, there’s already a lot out there about their relationship, but I enjoyed reading their letters.

They first met over lunch in New York in October, 1937. They had the same publisher, who arranged the meeting, and it was described by their mutual editor, William Sloane. “It was exciting to watch him [Jung] and Rhine together … Jung the cosmopolite, the man of enormous erudition,” and Rhine, “a man whom only America could have produced—quiet, low-spoken, intense, with that slow-burning fuse of humor innate in his speech, gravely deferential to Jung, putting his problems before Jung without any plea for help, any servility, any expectation of praise, with the obvious feeling that the problem of man and his nature was so sacrosanct and vital a one that Jung was obliged to help him, as he was to tell Jung what he knew.”

Before she died though, Rhea White told me that she left the lab because she was interested in Jung, and Rhine had said that when it came to parapsychology, Jung “was not helpful.” Which seemed odd to me since Jung was very open about parapsychology, but Rhea said it was a just a difference in approach. Rhine was more focused on lab experiments. I found out about a video interview of Jung where he talks about Rhine, and I’m trying to get a hold of it. In the meantime, here’s a YouTube video of Jung talking about the extra-physical aspects of the psyche.

Mina Crandon aka Margery

February 26, 2009April 1, 20090

I’ll be posting more about the sad story of Mina Crandon later, she was a well-known medium who lived in Boston (and in New York for a time). But I found a reference to Margery (the name she went by in order to protect her identity) in a May 10, 1947 Saturday Evening Post article about Bell Labs by Milton Silverman titled, Ma Bell’s House of Magic.

“In a purely extracurricular study, they observed the famous medium, Margery, as she attempted to send thought messages from New York to another medium on Boston.” After the seance the engineers dryly reported, “As a means of communication, the method does not hold much promise at this time. It will probably not replace the telephone in the foreseeable future.”

Before writing this book I would never have believed that Bell Labs would have shown an interest in Margery, (even as a matter of idle curiosity, as they seem to imply in this article) but I was always on the lookout for things like this—any interest in the paranormal from labs, universities, the military and businesses—and I found them often.

The photograph is courtesy of the The Libbet Crandon de Malamud Collection.

Life at the Parapsychology Lab

February 23, 2009April 1, 20090

The presence of the women in the Lab changed everything. The affection that had always been there, but largely repressed, blossomed. Gaither Pratt and Charlie Stuart, for instance, had always addressed their letters very formally to “Dr. Rhine.” Betty Humphrey, however, addressed hers with appellations like, “Dear Puny, I mean Bully,” or “You Poor Little Folks.” The 1940’s was when the small group at the Lab truly became a family.

The was from chapter four in Unbelievable. After I wrote my book I couldn’t wait to talk to Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne at the PEAR laboratory at Princeton, where they came up with different experiments to look at the same effects. I wanted to see how much their experiences matched the Rhine’s (very). The thing I picked up on immediately was their description of life in the lab in The PEAR Proposition. One section reads:

“At this point let us again interrupt the technical reportage to weave in a few of the softer interpersonal fibers of the composite PEAR tapestry that in our opinion have not merely embellished, but significantly strengthened it, and very possibly have enabled our continuing progress in constructing this intellectual web. We refer here to the cheery, relaxed, even playful ambience that has characterized the laboratory operations from its beginning. Under the intuitive conviction that the anomalous phenomena being sought are somehow nurtured in the childlike, limbic psyche and therefore could well be suppressed or even suffocated by an excessively clinical or sterile research environment, the facility has been decorated with homestyle furniture, symbolic and entertaining visual art, including many cartoons, and an exponentially expanding assortment of stuffed animals, most of which have been gifts from our operators and visitors. Most of the experimental devices themselves embody attractive, stimulating, sometimes whimsical features, not only in their feedback characteristics, but in the operational apparatus, as well. Casual reading material, background music, and light snacks are available for the operators, who are frequently invited to participate in the ongoing technical, philosophical, and social conversations among the staff. In short, the laboratory presents itself more as a scientific salon than as a clinical facility, and many of its operators, interns, and visitors have remarked on the comfort, sense of welcome, and resonance they feel with the place and the work that is being pursued therein.”

The picture above is a group shot of the Parapsychology Lab staff at one of their many weekend softball games. It wasn’t dated, but because one of the men is in uniform I’m guessing it was taken sometime in the 40’s.

Parapsychology Foundation Host Book Presentation/Launch Party

February 21, 2009April 1, 20091

In case you haven’t heard, the Parapsychology Foundation is hosting a presentation/party for my new book. We had such a good response we had to change the location in order to get a larger room. This also resulted in a different time. The new details:

March 13, 6 – 7:30pm
New York Open Center
The Teahouse
83 Spring Street

It’s early enough that you can stop by after work and then go off to party or home to relax! Please note this is Friday the 13th. Woo! (That’s a picture of me at the book party for my last book.)

This event is sponsored by the nonprofit Parapsychology Foundation as part of their Perspectives Lecture Series. It’s free, but donations to the fully tax deductible Parapsychology Foundation will be very gratefully accepted.

Trumpet Mediums

February 18, 2009May 23, 20112

This is a photograph I scanned at the Rhine Research Center. I didn’t know what was going in this picture at the time, but the name Ed Wood was attached to it. When I later read about trumpet mediums, I guessed that this might be the explanation for that thing in the picture leaking ectoplasm. Trumpets were primarily used to amplify what was believed to be the voices of the dead, but they were used in a variety of ways, so maybe.

UPDATE: I’m told that the medium in this picture is Leonard Stott.