Category: General

Thanks to Guy Jackson for pointing me to The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena on YouTube, and thanks to ChortleNEOK, the person who uploaded it. In it are brief appearances from all sorts of people I learned about while researching my book.

It was uploaded in 8 parts. Part 6, for instance, has a small section about EVP which begins at 6:52. Raymond Bayless and medium Attila von Szalay (I wrote about them in my book) show up with writer/researcher D. Scott Rogo at 7:52.

[Videos removed because the link no longer works.]

I also liked the section about Ted Serios in part 3 (Jules Eisenbud also appears). Gaither Pratt, a Duke parapsychologist, wrote that Serios had to get drunk in order to perform. Apparently they all had to wait around while Serios drank and drank. It just made me laugh reading that, knowing how serious Gaither could be. So I laughed again when I saw the quick shot of a bottle on the table in the Serios section, which starts at 7:16.

[Videos removed because the link no longer works.]

The actress Kathryn Grayson, who recently died, was brought in to play a psychic in part 2. Anyway, it’s fun, for the history, and the people who made this really did a lot of research. Something interesting called the Central Premonitions Registry was mentioned in part 1. It comes up when I google it, but nothing to indicate that it’s still an active concern.

As part of the Parapsychology Foundation’s Perspectives Lecture Series, Walter Meyer zu Erpen, historian, Archivist and President of the Survival Research Institute of Canada, will give a talk based upon photographs of ectoplasm taken by Dr. T. Glen Hamilton during experiments conducted in Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1918-1935. From the press release:

“In trying to decide whether ectoplasm is myth or reality he will discuss the authenticity of the T.G. Hamilton archival collection and the question of photographic fraud highlighting the integrity of the Hamilton family and other researchers.”

The lecture will be held at the New York Open Center, 22 East 30th Street, New York, NY, 10016 with doors open at 6:45 p.m., the lecture begins at 7:00. Donations in support of non profit Parapsychology Foundation at the door of $10 are welcome.

(The photograph below is not from this series, this is from my collection and originally from the Rhine Research Center archives.)

I tried to find a picture with a holiday theme and this was the best I could do. I scanned this at the Rhine Research Center. Or was it at the Special Collections Library at Duke? Now I’m not sure!

But I found the single-mindedness of it charming. What does this image have to do with Christmas? Burke Smith was at the Parapsychology Laboratory in the very beginning, while still a graduate student at Duke University (where he was awarded his PhD in 1947). Smith was involved with the early key experiments, and was a co-author on some of the more important books, including Extra-sensory Perception After 60 Years. He was later Elizabeth McMahan’s advisor at what then was Appalachian State Teachers College, and he was the one who first got Dr. McMahan (aka BettyMac) interested in parapsychology. Smith moved to Charlottesville, Va. in 1961, where he taught at the University of Virginia for two decades. He died on Aug. 23, 1998.

Here is Burke himself.

A recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life provides yet more evidence that belief in things supernatural continues to rise.

“Roughly three-in-ten Americans (29%) say they have felt in touch with someone who has died. Nearly one-in-five say they have been in the presence of a ghost (18%), while 15% say they have consulted a fortuneteller or a psychic.”

In 1990, 17% said they were in touch with someone who had died, and 9% said they had seen a ghost. (The number of people going to psychics has not changed.)

There are other interesting findings about mystical and religious experiences, and those increases are even more dramatic. In 1962, 22% of the respondents said they had a religious or mystical experience and in 2009, the number had gone up to 49%. And 24% believe in reincarnation.

“In total, upwards of six-in-ten adults (65%) express belief in or report having experience with at least one of these diverse supernatural phenomena (belief in reincarnation, belief in spiritual energy located in physical things, belief in yoga as spiritual practice, belief in the “evil eye,” belief in astrology, having been in touch with the dead, consulting a psychic, or experiencing a ghostly encounter).”

The complete results can be found here.

[The picture came from the catalogue for the 2005 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art titled, “The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult.” It’s a 1938 shot of medium Colin Evans, photographed in complete darkness using infrared film.]

I should have posted this sooner, but I’m going to be on the radio tonight, at 8:10pm, EST, on the show Signs of Life, which is produced by the Forever Family Foundation. If you follow that link I’ve included you can listen live on your computer.

I imagine they will be asking me what evidence the scientists at the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory found for live after death.

I’m doing a live online chat on Thursday morning. More info here.

I’m doing this event tomorrow:

Opium Magazine and the Thorstein Foundation’s live interview series returns this month. Featuring Stacy Horn (author of Unbelievable), the multi-talentist Joseph Keckler, special guests and prizes.

Saturday November 7th
$5 USD
Bowery Electric at 8 p.m. (doors at 7:30)
327 Bowery (@ Joey Ramone Place)
(212) 228-0228.
B/D/F/V to Broadway/Lafayette or 6 to Bleecker.

Opium Live is a literary and artistic interview series that features interviews between artists, writers, musicians and filmmakers with plenty of twists (including audience participation), all followed by an exclusive 5-minute tribute to the guests’ work by other artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers.

Here’s the Facebook invite if you’d like more information and to RSVP.