Ghosts - By Hans Holzer Page 0,25

I had to start my life over again I would rather be a parapsycholo-gist than a psychoanalyst.” And toward the end of his life he confessed to his biographer E. Jones that he would not hesitate to bring upon himself the hostility of the professional world in order to champion an unpopular point of view. What made him say this was a particularly convincing case of telepathy that he had come across.

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In June of 1966 the German physicist Dr. Werner Schiebeler gave a lecture concerning his findings on the subject of physical research methods applicable to parapsychology. The occasion was the conference on parapsychology held at the city of Constance in Germany. Dr. Schiebeler, who is as well versed in atomic physics as he is in parapsychology, suggested that memory banks from deceased entities could be established independently of physical brain matter. “If during séances entities, phantoms, or spirits of the deceased appear that have been identified beyond a shadow of a doubt to be the people they pretend to be, they must be regarded as something more than images of the dead. Otherwise we would have to consider people in the physical life whom we have not seen for some time and encounter again today as merely copies of a former existence.” Dr. Schiebeler goes on to say that in his opinion parapsychology has furnished definite proof for the continuance of life beyond physical death.

This detailed and very important paper was presented in written form to the eminent German parapsychologist Dr. Hans Bender, head of the Institute of Borderline Sciences at the University of Freiburg, Germany. Since it contained strong evidence of a survivalist nature, and since Dr. Bender has declared himself categorically opposed to the concept of personal survival after death, the paper remains unanswered, and Dr. Schiebeler was unable to get any response from the institute.

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Despite the fact that several leading universities are doing around-the-clock research on ESP, there are still those who wish it weren’t so. Dr. Walter Alvarez writes in the Los Angeles Times of January 23, 1972, “In a recent issue of the medical journal M.D., there was an interesting article on a subject that interests many physicians and patients. Do mediums really make contact with a dead person at a séance?” He then goes on to quote an accusation of fraudulence against the famous Fox sisters, who first brought spirit rappings to public attention in 1848. “Curiously, a number of very able persons have accepted the reality of spiritualism and some have been very much interested in what goes on in séances,” Dr. Alvarez reports. Carefully, he points out the few and better-known cases of alleged fraud among world-famous mediums, such as Eusepia Palladino, omitting the fact that the Italian medium had been highly authentic to the very end and that fakery had never been conclusively proven in her case. There isn’t a single word about Professor Rhine or any research in the field of parapsychology in this article.

Perhaps not on the same level, but certainly with even greater popular appeal, is a “Dear Abby” reply printed by the same Los Angeles Times in November 5, 1969, concerning an inquiry from a reader on how to find a reputable medium to help her get in touch with her dead husband. To this “Dear Abby” replied, “Many have claimed they can communicate with the dead, but so far no one has been able to prove it.”

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Perhaps one can forgive such uninformed people for their negative attitude toward psychic phenomena if one looks at some of the less desirable practices that have been multiplying in the field lately. Take, for instance, the publisher of Penthouse magazine, an English competitor to our own Playboy. A prize of £25,000 was to be paid to anyone producing paranormal phenomena under test conditions. A panel consisting of Sir George Joy, Society for Psychical Research, Professor H. H. Price, Canon John Pearce-Higgins, and leading psychical researcher Mrs. Kathleen Goldney resigned in protest when they took a good look at the pages of the magazine and discovered that it was more concerned with bodies than with spirits.

The Psychic Register International, of Phoenix, Arizona, proclaims its willingness to list everyone in the field so that they may present to the world a Who’s Who in the Psychic World. A parapsychology guidance institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, advised me that it is preparing a bibliography of technical books in the field of parapsychology. The Institute of Psychic