Unbelievable: Investigations into Ghosts, Poltergeists, Telepathy, and Other Unseen Phenomena, from the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory
This is a fond look at J. B. Rhine and his colleagues and protégés in the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory, which, no longer affiliated with Duke University, lives on as the Rhine Research Center Institute for Parapsychology. Rhine and the lab were dedicated to scientific study and quantification of ESP and related phenomena. They got results such that, in the 1930s, the head of Duke’s psychology department declared Rhine’s work to be “the first hard evidence that the elusive proof of life after death might be out there.” Rhine’s results weren’t universally accepted, though, and the academic warfare over the lab and Rhine constitutes a major plotline here. Writing crisply and fairly objectively, Horn sympathizes enough with Rhine and his work to give her account a perhaps unjustified sunniness. But then, as many incidents she reports indicate, hardly anyone approaches the paranormal without bias. A dandy sources list and frequent references to Rhine’s colleagues and rivals point the way to more information. --Mike Tribby