Page 182 - Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained Vol. 3

Mysteries of the Mind 163

distinguish research in psychic phenomena Dr. Stanley Krippner.
from the pursuits of mainstream psychology. (DENNIS STACY/FORTEAN
PICTURE LIBRARY)
Considered by many to be the “Father of
Modern Parapsychology,” Rhine first collabo-
rated with Professor McDougall, chairman of
the Department of Psychology at Duke Uni-
versity, on a series of experiments in the area
of extrasensory perception. Most of these tests
involved the use of Zener cards, a specially
designed deck of 25 cards that include five
cards each of five symbols—a cross, star, wavy
lines, circle, and square. The Rhines enlisted
hundreds of volunteer subjects to guess the
symbols of the cards or to determine the num-
ber of dots in rolled dice. Louisa Rhine
became a leading parapsychologist as a result
of her own studies in spontaneous psychic
phenomena, exploring such areas of ESP as
clairvoyance, precognition, and telepathy.
to Rhine’s New Frontiers of the Mind (1937),
Louisa Weckesser and Joseph Rhine had
been teenaged friends who married in 1920. which became a Book-of-the-Month Club
Although they had both earned doctorates in selection. Within a short time after achieving
botany from the University of Chicago and such a level of celebrity, Rhine had a prime-
had embarked on promising careers in the time radio program and was focusing attention
field, a lecture by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the work in psychical research that was
(1859–1930) on his research into psychic being conducted at Duke. Such attention did
phenomena changed their lives. The young little to earn the approval of many of the pro-
couple were so inspired by the prospect of fessors in the material sciences at the universi-
conducting serious investigations into the ty, who were dismayed that Duke was becom-
world of mediumship and the afterlife, that ing known as a center for pseudoscience and
they made the decision to abandon botany for weird research projects.
psychical research.
Some of their early experiences sitting
with spirit mediums were discouraging, for the DRS. J. B. and Louisa Rhine expanded their
Rhines felt that they caught the individuals
employing trickery to delude others into investigations of ESP and established the first
accepting their abilities to contact the realm scientific laboratory dedicated to research of
of spirit. In their opinion, psychical research
would best be examined in the laboratory psychic phenomena.
under controlled conditions. Learning of Dr.
William McDougall’s interest in the paranor-
mal, the Rhines contacted him at Duke Uni- After decades of conducting controlled
versity, and Professor McDougall invited them experiments in ESP, the Rhines offered their
to join him at Durham. conclusion that such psychic abilities as telepa-
thy, clairvoyance, precognition, and psychokine-
In 1934, after they had established the
sis did exist. Many scientists were unimpressed
parapsychology laboratory, J. B. Rhine wrote a
by the Rhines’ accumulated research and ques-
monograph entitled “Extra-Sensory Percep-
tioned the validity of their statistical analyses.
tion,” which managed to get noticed by the
media and subsequently gained wide attention In the summer of 1957, J. B. Rhine sug-
for the ESP lab at Duke. The monograph led gested that parapsychologists form an interna-

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