General – Page 7 – Unbelievable

What is the deal with the ASPR?

November 20, 2011November 20, 20113

While I was researching my book about the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory I repeatedly tried to explore the ASPR archives (American Society for Psychical Research) but I was never granted access. For a year and a half they put me off and I finally accepted that they just didn’t want me to see anything. They wouldn’t even tell me what they had. I’ve since learned I’m just one in a long line of people who had similar experiences with the ASPR.

Why? What a shame it is, because I imagine they house a valuable treasure trove of parapsychology history. Why don’t they want anyone (or few people?) to actually use their collections? Maybe there’s a problem. When I wrote about the NYPD’s cold case squad it also took a long time to be given access to the Property Clerk Division warehouse, and when I finally got inside I could see why. Much of what was supposed to be there was missing, and some of what was there was poorly maintained.

My dealings with the ASPR is so contrary to every other experience I had researching parapsychology. The people at the Rhine Research Center, the Parapsychology Foundation, the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia, and of course the Special Collections Library at Duke, couldn’t have been more professional, encouraging and helpful. They want people to use their collections.

What is going over there at the ASPR? Their website looks like it hasn’t been updated in years. Perhaps someone who has made it inside or who used to work there can explain why the ASPR is so determined to prevent researchers from accessing their archives?

This is me at the Special Collections Library at Duke doing what I love best.

Rhine Research Center is Looking for Research Volunteers

November 10, 20110

Title of Study: ESP and Motor Automatisms.

“Our aim in this study is to explore ESP in dissociated states of consciousness. The word ‘dissociation’ is often linked to mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality), but all of us experience milder versions of it in everyday life. A simple example is keeping your car on the road while talking to the person sitting next to you. It is this more normal type of dissociation that we are interested in for the study.” For more information go here.

In other news: Segments of Eileen J. Garrett’s 1954 Haitian Diary have been published in the October issue of Paranthropology: Journal of Anthropological Approaches to the Paranormal and can be downloaded for free here. The Diary describes her experiences with practitioners of Vodun in Haiti.

From the Paranthropology website About section: “The journal aims to promote an interdisciplinary dialogue on issues of the paranormal, so as to move beyond the sceptic vs. advocate impasse which has settled over the current debate, and to open new avenues for enquiry and understanding.”

And, ICRL Press has just published, Mediumistic Phenomena. “This is a fascinating account of the investigations performed by the distinguished Italian physiologist, Filippo Bottazzi and a number of his professional colleagues, with the famous medium, Eusapia Palladino. Originally published in Italian in 1906, it has now been translated into English for the first time by Prof. Antonio Giuditta and Ms. Irmeli Routii.”

Long Island Ghost

October 3, 2011October 3, 20112

In the paperback version of my book, in a “P.S.” section at the back, I briefly tell the story of my one and only personal experience with the unexplained.

“When I was six or seven, I had wandered off from home and lost my way. I wasn’t afraid. I was always drifting off to explore and getting lost, but I always managed to find my way home. This time I passed by an elderly woman in her yard with a bunch of cats. I love cats and I asked if it was alright if I pet them. She said of course, and after a few minutes she very kindly invited me inside for milk and cookies. When I was done she walked me home. Turns out I was only a few blocks away from my house. My mother punished me for straying too far and that was that.”

“A year later I decided to go back and visit the lady and her cats. But when I got to the house the whole place was in complete disrepair. The roof was partially caved in and the front yard was wild and overgrown. I stood there trying to understand what I was seeing. I knew even at that young age that this was a lot of damage, and that the place had been neglected for a long time. I also knew this meant that something was off about my visit with the lady. So I just stood there, completely flummoxed …”

The rest is in the book! I was out on Long Island recently and I took a picture of the house. I’d written to the current residents while I was working on the book to find out if they ever had any weird experiences there, but they didn’t respond.

Through the Wormhole

September 22, 20111

The Science Channel has a show called Through the Wormhole and I watched the episode Is there a sixth sense? It was so well done. The show focuses on current research so there isn’t anything about the Rhines and their pioneering work, alas, but they still did a great job. It’s well worth watching.

Ted Serios

August 21, 2011August 31, 201164

I don’t really know a lot about Ted Serios. He was said to be able make images appear on Polaroid film by using his mind. He called them “thoughtographs.” Gaither Pratt, a scientist formerly associated with the Duke Parapsychology Lab, tried to replicate the phenomenon under controlled conditions at the University of Virginia, but ultimately was unable to do so (Exploratory Investigations of the Psychic Ted Serios, 1967).

Serios had to get a little drunk in order to function and it was funny to read Gaither write about something like this in a sober, serious and professional manner. “A session would begin with Ted imbibing a portion of alcohol in the form of a beer or dry martinis until he felt he was ready to begin ‘shooting’ … Sessions usually continued until about fifty or more trials had been made. A session ended when we felt that Ted was too intoxicated to continue …”

Serios and Pratt couldn’t be more different but they liked each other. Ian Stevenson, the co-author of the paper, described Serios as “the most lovable subject with whom we had ever worked …” and when Gaither died, “Ted wrote me a touching letter about him.” I’d love to see this letter.

There’s a wonderful video of an experiment with Ted Serios on YouTube. The picture is a screen grab from this video. For more information, Michael Prescott has an informative post here.

Rest in Peace Garrett Husveth

July 2, 2011July 29, 201112

I only just heard today that Garrett Husveth, a long time paranormal researcher, died on April 30, 2011. He was only 43! According to the Bernardsville News he died at home, after a long illness.

Garrett was one of the first people I met when I started researching my book about the Duke Parapsychology Lab. He’s been investigating the unexplained, particularly in New Jersey, for a long time, and I went to him to learn about EVP (electronic voice phenomena, thought by some to be the voices of the dead). He was just so kind and generous. From my book:

Skeptics answer that the recordings are in fact white noise that only sound like voices. However audio engineers and linguistics experts and others have been working for decades on speaker identification and evaluation systems and they know what human speech looks like. A forensics audio examiner was once hired to determine whether a sound from a recording of a fatal accident was a door loudly squeaking or a woman screaming (it was, sadly, a woman screaming). Garrett Husveth, the President of Latent Technologies, who conducts forensic audio analysis for corporate clients and who also records examples of EVP says, “Forensically, we can prove that they are voices.”

I also learned from the Sturges Paranormal website that Garrett was a contributing editor of Ghosts of Central New Jersey: Historic Haunts of the Somerset Hills, by Gordon Thomas Ward. A book on paranormal investigating based on his 21 years of field work.”

In fact, the last time I saw Garrett was in 2009, when he and Gordon generously interviewed me for their Haunted New Jersey podcast series.

I had no idea that he was ill and this is just so shocking to me. According to the Bernardsville News, Garrett “is survived by his wife, Krista, and their two daughters, Elisabeth and Katherine; by his parents, Ray and Susan; and by his two brothers, Jason and Ted, and two sisters, Kate and Lara … In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be given in support of the children’s future education. Checks should be made payable to Barbara Oberding, with ‘Husveth Children’ written in the memo portion, and sent to Peapack Reformed Church, Box 253, Gladstone, N.J., 07934.”

Parapsychology and Consciousness Conference

June 21, 2011June 21, 20112

From October 14th to 16th, Atlantic University in Virginia Beach is hosting a Parapsychology and Consciousness conference titled, The Best in Parapsychology: From Our Minds to Yours.

The list of speakers is a who’s who of current parapsychology, including:

Julie Beischel, PhD, Edwin C. May, PhD, Roger Nelson, PhD, Dean Radin, PhD, Doug Richards, PhD, Carlos S. Alvarado, PhD, Christine Simmonds-Moore, PhD, Nancy L. Zingrone, PhD, Henry Reed, PhD, John Palmer, PhD, James Carpenter, PhD, Robert Van de Castle, PhD, Ginette Nachman, MD, PhD, Frank Pasciuti, PhD, Loyd Auerbach, MS, David McMillin, MA, and Stephen Braude, PhD.

From the brochure: “These dedicated men and women are seeking the answers we need. Some study the relationship of psychic experiences to psychological well-being. Others focus on the intersection of psychic phenomena and modern physics. All are working to get an unbiased understanding of what we know out to the people who need it the most. Our speakers think deeply about the scientific underpinnings of psychic functioning and about what these phenomena say about interconnectedness, entanglement and the meaning of life.”

To see the conference brochure with a complete list of the speakers and talks, click here.