The world of Ted Serios : "thoughtographic" studies of an extraordinary mind

Product Information

James Randi. (1982). Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-0879751982 In addition to his analysis of historical cases, Braude has also conducted fieldwork investigating ostensible PK agents. The majority of these subjects (but not all) have been disappointing, though Braude has found the process of investigating them informative in various ways. In addition to the Gold Leaf Lady and the Felix Experimental Group described below, Braude investigated other subjects described in his 2007 book The Gold Leaf Lady. He also reports in that book on some casual observation he did of psychic thoughtographer Ted Serios and describes how he found a home for the Jule Eisenbud collection on Ted Serios at UMBC. The Gold Leaf Lady

Indeed, Braude says that ‘what makes the best cases [of mediumship] so impressive is both the amount of correct material and the consistency with which subjects provide it’. 34 Braude began teaching at the University of Maryland Baltimore College (UMBC) in 1971 as an assistant professor of philosophy and was appointed full professor in 1987. He chaired the department from 1998-2005 and again from 2009-2011. Theodore Judd Serios (November 27, 1918 – December 30, 2006) [1] was a Chicago bellhop known for his production of " thoughtographs" on Polaroid film. [2] He claimed these were produced using psychic powers. Serios's psychic claims were bolstered by the endorsement of a Denver-based psychiatrist, Jule Eisenbud (1908–1999), who published a book named The World of Ted Serios: "Thoughtographic" Studies of an Extraordinary Mind (1967) arguing that Serios's purported psychic abilities were genuine. [3] However, professional photographers and skeptics have argued that Serios and his photographs were fraudulent. [4] [5] History and method [ edit ] Thoughtography, also called projected thermography, psychic photography, nengraphy, and nensha ( Japanese: 念写), is the claimed ability to "burn" images from one's mind onto surfaces such as photographic film by parapsychic means. [1] While the term "thoughtography" has been in the English lexicon since 1913, the more recent term "projected thermography" is a neologism popularized in the 2002 American film The Ring, a remake of the 1998 Japanese horror film Ring. [2] History [ edit ] Unlike all other psychic materializations of which Braude was aware, Katie’s foil had the unique property of not dematerializing afterward. This made it available for laboratory analysis, which showed it to be brass – copper and zinc in a ratio of roughly 4:1.

Access Conditions

Thoughtography (also known as psychic photography) first emerged in the late 19th century due to the influence of spirit photography. [1] Thoughtography has no connection with Spiritualism, which distinguishes it from spirit photography. [3] One of the first books to mention "psychic photography" was the book The New Photography (1896) by Arthur Brunel Chatwood. In the book Chatwood described experiments where the "image of objects on the retina of the human eye might so affect it that a photograph could be produced by looking at a sensitive plate." [4] The book was criticized in a review in Nature. [5] Yet aside from their parapsychology interest, and disbelief, the photographs are also worth looking at for their connection to the history of 20th-century art and the unconscious having a proclaimed role.“One approach within the movement of Surrealism, was to try to produce imagery by tapping into the unconscious mind. Based on Ted’s description of how he was making the images, he was working in a similar vein; his imagery came from his unconscious mind or at least passed through it,” Hauver says. a b Chéroux, Clément (2005). The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. p.155. ISBN 9780300111361. Randi, J. (1990). The Mask of Nostradamus: The Prophecies of the World ’ s Most Famous Seer. Charles Scribner's Sons. Republished 1993 by Prometheus Books, Buffalo.

Taylor, G. (2017). The One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge. Psi Encyclopedia. London: The Society for Psychical Research. Colin Brookes-Smith. (1968). Review of The World of Ted Serios by J. Eisenbud. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 44: 260-265. As to the usually blurry nature of Serios’s images, Eisenbud himself reasoned that this may have been the effect of the workings of Serios’s unconscious on the transmission of the images. At any rate, nearly all experiments in extrasensory perception (ESP) produce some degree of distortion on the subject’s part—the target image of a cat produces a drawing that looks like a dog, or the target letter “E” looks like an “F” when drawn by the experimental subject.Braude, however, was unwilling to conclude from this that none of Mügge’s phenomena were genuinely paranormal, as he felt there were several occurrences during the sittings he had witnessed that defied normal explanation. Though Nahm chose no longer to work with Mügge after the revelation of fraud, both Nahm and Braude agree that genuinely gifted mediums sometimes fake phenomena. In fact, Braude says that ‘some of the best evidence for macro-PK comes from cases of mixed mediumship’, because of the way it elicits stricter controls from investigators. 21 Hoping to get better evidential documentation of Mügge, Braude decided to return to Germany in October 2015 for a follow-up investigation, in which he was assisted by journalist Leslie Kean. In addition to the paranormal photographs and ‘normals,’ the archive contains photographs that Dr. Eisenbud and others took to document the experimental sessions, as well as 16mm films of certain experimental sessions,” Hauver says. “If you don’t believe in the paranormal, these other materials depicting the rather compelling way in which Ted made his images, allow for appreciation of these events, at the very least, in terms of performance — an authentic, very powerful performance.” Serios was not the first thoughtographer. In 1910, Tomokichi Fukurai, a psychology professor at Tokyo University, conducted public experiments with Mifune Chizuko, an alleged psychic. One of his fascinations was what he termed nenshu, or psychography - Serios's thoughtography. But Fukarai's demonstrations with Chizuko were considered a failure, the psychic was branded a fraud, the professor a dupe, leading to her suicide and his resignation, events that would inspire the Japanese Ring films. Fukarai continued his investigations, however, and in 1931 they were published in English as Spirit and Mysterious World.

Jule Eisenbud. (1983). Parapsychology and the Unconscious. North Atlantic Books. p. 132. ISBN 978-1556431388 Ted Serios and thoughtography were highlighted in a 2014 episode of Mysteries at the Museum (Season 6, Episode 13). Jule Eisenbud collection on Ted Serios and thoughtographic photography, 1931–2001, bulk 1964–1989 at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Navigation menu

In Immortal Remains, Braude concludes that ‘the evidence most strongly supports the view that some aspects of our personality and personal consciousness, some significant chunk of our distinctive psychology, can survive the death of our bodies, at least for a time’. 24 Thalbourne (1995). See also Phillips (2022). Randi’s account of Project Alpha can be found in Randi (1983a) and Randi (1983b). Watson, R (2020b). No, James Randi didn’t ‘destroy skepticism’ by being skeptical. [Blogpost, 3 November.]