Category: General

I came across this short article in British Archeology.  The piece is titled, The Bizarrest Bottle Ever Found.  I love stuff like this.  What is in there?? From the article:

“Witch bottles were commonly buried to ward off spells. Some 200 have been found in Britain, most of them glazed jars made in the late 16th or 17th centuries. Not one, however, was still sealed when it came to be analysed. Until now.

“We report the discovery and analysis of a witch bottle from Greenwich that had its contacts intact – and its cork in. Inside were bent nails and pins, a nail-pierced leather “heart”, finger nail clippings, navel fluff, hair, human urine and brimstone. Analysis of the urine indicated a smoker, and the state of the nail clippings a person of some social standing.”

Okay, ew.  But not too ew.

Okay, I’m plugging my own event. It’s on June 28, at 3:00 pm and I’ll be giving a presentation about my book and the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory at:

Polaris North Theatre
245 West 29th St, 4th Floor
$15 in advance.
$20 at the door.

Please call 646-373-6868 for more info or go here.

If you went to my book event at the Open Center, this one is going to be very similar. It will be somewhat more in depth, but if you went to that one, don’t go to this one. It will feel too much the same, I think.

But if you didn’t go, by all means you should go to this one if you’re into this subject! I worked hard on the presentation, pulling out some of the best stories and pictures I have, and I found out things even the people who worked there didn’t know.

(That’s me at the Open Center in the picture above.)

I love doing then and now shots, but the Duke University Campus is so unchanged! This was the West Duke Building which housed the lab then:

And this is the building now:

A view from the other side then, where they always took their yearly group shots:

And the other side now (I know, the shots aren’t really comparable):

Finally, here is a shot of the building they into moved across the street on Buchanan Boulevard, after Rhine retired and Duke closed the lab. I can’t find my now shot! But I assure you it’s pretty unchanged as well.

I was excited to find this picture when I went back down to Durham. From left to right: J. B. Rhine, (head of the Duke Parapsychology Lab) Don Adams (psychology professor, tried to sabotage the lab, but felt remorse about it later) Karl Zener, (psychology professor, designed the ESP cards that the lab made famous, and joined in Adams in trying to bring down the lab) William Stern, (psychology professor, invented the concept of IQ) I don’t know who this guy was, and Helge Lundholm, (psychology professor who, with Adams and Zener, tried to get William McDougall, the head of the psychology department, to do something drastic about J. B. Rhine and his Parapsychology Laboratory).

I’m going back down to Durham tomorrow.  I’m going to be giving two presentations, one for Duke and one for the Rhine Research Center.

I’m also going back to Special Collections to go through some new boxes of archives, and then back to the Rhine Research Center to scan more photographs. 

I’m so excited. Who knows what new surprises I might find? Hopefully I will be back with parapsychology presents for everyone.  

That’s a picture of me at the Special Collections Library at Duke when I was researching this book.  Ohmygod.  I just looked to see when I posted that. March 16, 2006.  Almost three years ago to the day.

Two things I have to apologize for!  One, more people showed up than I expected so I’m sorry there weren’t seats for everyone.  Two, I saw a ton of unused bottles of wine after everyone left and I couldn’t figure out why no one drank.  Then I realized people may not have spotted the two cases of wine behind the table waiting to be opened.  I opened a few bottles and figured people could open the rest for themselves, but I don’t think they realized the cases were there.  I’m such an idiot!  I’m sorry!  More after the first pic.

But I really appreciated seeing all your friendly faces in the crowd.  Thank you so much for coming.  The big fear when you have a party is that no one will come, so the turn-out really did my heart good, and it was a great start to my book launch.  Thank you everyone and thank you especially Parapsychology Foundation, the host of the event!