Pa ry Journal of the Society for Psyc t the Society for PsychiAppovOved For Release 2000/08/11 ¥° CIA-RDP962007S2R000700650007 -3 Randi and others. Another remarkable psychic investigated by Benson Herbert was Suzanne Padfield, the British clairvoyant whose ability in ps chometr led to the discovery of a child-killer 1700 miles away in Moscow In the velar a experiment involved the displacement of a polarised light beam. s Padfield, together with the designer of much i equipment (Brian Baily), placed her hands around the One eee he and sucessfully ‘distorted’ the light path in a consistent manner “ ore recent projects at the Paralab have includ i igation i psychic healing, experiments with bacteria and vituses and the stud oot dermo-optics, including the ability to sense colours and writing throu i the fingers. This latter work in collaboration with Yvonne Duplessis (Paris) ma assist blind and colour-blind people in their daily lives. Over the last t n years I have been involved with the Paralab as a member of technical and experimental support teams, designing and building equipment when necessar which would be used for the biophysical measurement of subjects duri a variety of daivoyane and PK psi-related experiments “ms is paradoxical, I think, that such a character provoke controversy from the spiritualist and physicist ond of the Der eoomal investigation community alike, He would be pleased perhaps to think 50 ; enson . quest, I believe, was not to explain away paranormal phenomena in terms 0 physical-particle theories or cause-and-effect relationships, but t investigate the nature of psi phenomena in the hope that his findin to ether with the problems left by classical and theoretical physics, could be c ‘bi d to allow a fuller understanding of the Universe around us. _ ee dew International Journal of Paraphysics has been published com to the 1990s and has included Paralab reports periodically. by he ie your ioe correspondence on behalf of the SPR has been taken up Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscienc University of Edinburgh ° Tomy resinson 7 George Square, Edinburgh. EH8 9]Z HANS BENDER: “FRONTIER SCIENTIST” — A PERSONAL TRIBUTE Professor Bender’s death—he died in Freiburg on 7th M has closed an important chapter of German post-war rapaychology Cin my opinion, any future historian who finds it worthwhile to pay a closer look at parapsychology in general will surely rank Hans Bender among the pioneers ° fermen psi research who, like Albert von Schrenck-Notzing or Rudolf ischner (among others), spent most of their professional lives stru ling f the advancement and recognition of our field. ou 50, let me first recapitulate some data of Be ’s bi iv an impression of Bender’s personal «oat ohne’ his eek eee shen ge Hans Bender was born in 1907 in Freiburg. In 1987 he wrote a short autobiographical note for Rosemarie Pilkington’s book, Men and Women in Parapsychology, which repgesents 1 i ibuti i Approved Fo his last contribution to the field gaan aaa naman ne Sanu aarti Obituaries that he was able to finish. In that piece, Bender describes how, as a seventeen- year-old boy staying in London with a family with spiritualist leanings, h« took part in automatic spelling by using the Ouija board: “I was impressed,’ he wrote, “by the obvious ‘intelligent’ production of the messages bu skeptical in regard to their alleged origin, namely ‘discarnate’ entities. Thi primary experience influenced my life.” ' In the years between 1925 and 1933 Bender studied French literature philosophy and psychology in Paris, Heidelberg and Bonn. It was especial after attending the lectures given by the French psychiatrist Pierre Janet < the Collége de France in Paris and after studying Janet’s classic work 0 L’Automatisme Psychologique that Bender decided to study experimental] the dynamics of subconscious processes at the Psychological Institute : Bonn University, supported by the head of the Institute, the philcsoph: and psychologist Erich Rothaker. Bender was intrigued by the observatic that some of his subjects were able to exhibit ‘intelligent’ activities on ‘subconscious’ level (as documented by their automatic writing) while the ‘conscious’ self was seemingly unaware of such complicated processes. In su a state of dissociation, some of the automatic productions included traces information which their producers appeared not to have acquired throu conventional means. In 1933 Bender obtained his Ph.D. degree with a the on Psychische Automatismen [Mental Automatisms], in which he success{u linked subconscious productions with the problem of ESP. A seco contribution devoted exclusively to the study of clairvoyance um laboratory conditions followed shortly after and was published in ~ ous Zeitschrift fur Psychologie [Journal of Psychology] in 19 Just before he finished his paper, the philosopher Gerda Walther, acting ¢ clearing-house for relevant information, had sent him the recently-publis! book Extrasensory Perception by j. B. Rhine. Bender always stressed importance of that book in strengthening his desire to introduce parapsyc! ogical research into a German university in an institutionalised form—a de vigorously supported by a prominent German professor of philosophy those years, namely Hans Driesch, who had published in 1932 the - German methodological introduction to the field, his well-known b Parapsychologie : die Wissenschaft von den ‘okkulten’ Erscheinungen. In o to be as well equipped as possible to realise suc prestigi h an ambitious project, Ba 1 studies of medicine and began training as a psychia finished his additiona. without, however, completing that medical specialisation. After the outb of war, he had to finish off his ‘habilitation’ in 1941 with experimental + on eidetic imagery and crystal-gazing, and he was awarded a professorsh trasbourg University, where he founded an ‘Institute for Psychology Clinical Psychology, belonging to the Philosophical as well as the Me faculty, which he directed until 1944 when Strasbourg was liberated bs Allied forces. The ‘official’ beginning of German post-war parapsychology can be ti back with some justification to 1950. In that year, Bender was able to op his native town of Freiburg im Breisgau the doors of his somewhat miracul financed ‘Institut fir Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohyg [Institute for Fringe Areas of Psychology and Mental Health], whicl Oo Ao) r Release 2000/08/11 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000700650007-3 125
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000700650007-3 Approved For Release 2000/08/11 ” Jaurnal of the Society for Psychical Research [ Vol. 58, No. 825 substantially funded in the ensuing years by a legacy from the Swiss biologist and poltergeist researcher, Dr Fanny Moser, who died in 1953. One year later there followed the establishment of a Chair for ‘Fringe Areas of Psychology’ at Freihurg University. It was the first step towards the official recognition of parapsychology as a legitimate field of study. In 1967 the chair was extended to cover general psychology as well as fringe areas of psychology (parapsych- ology), and additionally a Department for Fringe Areas of Psychology was established at the Psychological Institute of Freiburg University. One year later, in 1968, Bender hosted the eleventh PA Convention in Freiburg, and he served as PA President for 1969. After his mandatory retirement from the university chair in 1975, his colleague Johannes Mischo took it over, whereas Bender remained until his death the Director of the independent Institut at Eichhalde 12. - In a sense, the ‘Eichhalde-Institut? was Bender’s most personal creation. For decades it represented in the Federal Republic of Germany an unrivalled centre for parapsychological research, information and advice, inspired by the tireless efforts of its founder. Quite a number of active workers in the field got their first impressions of psi research by visiting the Bender institute. An endless stream of visitors from all over the world were full of praise for its beautiful location overlooking the Rhine valley (I mean the river, of course) and the hospitality of its director. Among the visitors were mediums and magicians, astrologers and ufologists, dowsers and numerologists, witches and healers, gurus and charlatans, spiritualists and hostile sceptics, psychotics and serious scientists; classes of students, TV teams and hard-nosed journalists —they all came to Freiburg to see and to talk to the famous professor. Hans Bender’s university lectures, courses and seminars won legendary fame among generations of Freiburg students. ‘Wir gehen zur Benders Marchenstunde”’ [We are going to listen to Bender’s fairy tales] was a proverbial saying of those years. Bender’s regular lectures on Tuesday afternoons between five and six which he held for decades at the ‘Aula’ of Freiburg University (he invariably arrived late) were always overcrowded with hundreds of people; not only university students, from the humanities as well as the natural sciences, but also ‘ordinary’ people from the city of Freiburg who were interested in the ‘occult’ or paranormal. In general, Bender’s audience was enthralled, with mixed feelings of amusement and fascination, as the professor, with his face lit only by a reading lamp and the lecture theatre in pitch darkness, began to report on experiences, phenomena and events which seemed to transcend the usual categories of space and time—parapsychology at its best. It was on such public occasions that Bender’s charismatic personality could be felt with all its suggestive power —nobody was able to present his researches on certain poltergeist phenomena or metal-benders in such a convincing manner —and boring questions regarding trivial details could easily be compared to a crimen majestatis, a lése-majesté. Many of Bender’s audience had the feeling that the lecturer behind the reading desk was not just an ordinary professor presenting his usual subject-matter, but that, on the contrary, they were listening to somebody who was completely convinced of the apparently unbelievable that most of his fellow scientists would mock at. So, Hans Bender was the prototype of a ‘frontier scientist’. It is impossible to separate the man from 126 Obituaries October 1991] . . his work. His personal style of life determined his style of work and vice vers F Hans Bender’s ‘search for psi’ was not only a search for objective, ate ity i ‘ t for the grail’, a deep-seated Cure 5. it was also a personal “ques gt feo nenomena and experiences beyond the visible horizon or conventiona i ‘entific adventurer always in search © boundaries. He was a scien 1 Pot anormal isl i ‘ble for him to separate the paraps sing facts. It was impossib re Pp Sy ommenon he was after from the persons who were anna: ae ‘ i d for new encounters to learn a time and again, he was prepared for DEN © ( aranormal One of Bender’s basic convictions in dealing with he elu ness i , i ‘affektives Feld’ [emotional or a € psi was the importance of an ‘alte’ emot ve Fela Without such a positive ‘catalyst’, he often maintained, there Ses i ioni ful psi-experimentation. chic functioning, let alone success ‘ , pe Bender’s contributions to the field are multi-faceted, but foremost ong his research interests was qualitative and field work: I hare Y re oie PA j investi f dozens of RSPK cases— tne that he was the investigator © OP ase i 1 — them the famous Rosenheim p gewmg case Presidential Address — among poten on. i irical work on the problem o! p another important area was emPpinice Fe oe eo etch pigngnos i - ‘chair experiments’ witn the P : -d only point to the so-called ‘c 1th os Coratd Croiset, developed and performed frequently in ‘collaborate his friend Wilhelm Tenhaeff, or the study of the precognitive ar "S J: ctress Mrs Mylrus. - mers tH in an obituary to his friend Tenhaeff, Bender wrote: H@ryied t make visible the paranormal in its entirety to a scientific commun ide struck with blindness with regard to i , ich he l@f§ for h reality’ ”. May I say that that is also Hans Bender's legacy which he aS) friends and colleagues who are missing him. = EsERHARD BRUER Roémerstrasse 17 D-7814 Breisach 3, GERMANY. 2000/08 Books RECEIVED ® arian Press 1991 (first published 198). Light Aquarian Press 1991 (with T@rot pac ynchronicity State U@versity a The Heart of the Healer Arkana, London 196. Wild State Element Books, Shaftesbury 1991. go shat } The Circle of Sacred Dance Element Bogks. a @® Nathaniel Discover Palmistry Aqu Dolores The Servants of gh jung’s Psychology of Religion and S Altman, Ashcroft-Nowicki, Aziz, Robert C. G, New York Press, Albany 1990. Church, Dawson and Sherr, Alan Cowan, James Letters froma Deunov, Peter (ed. David Lorimer bury 1991. ; London 1991. . , Sasha Super Tarot Aquarian Press, ; ; 4. Gilehvist Cherry The Circle of Nine Arkana, London 1991 (first published 1% ) Griffin, David Ray The Re-Enchantment of Science State University of Newiork Pr Aon M London 01 G Gullan-Whur, Margaret published 1986). Hastings, Arthur With t Worth 1991. Discover Graphology Aquarian Press, he Tongues of Men and Angels Holt, Rhinehart & Winston, } 127