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

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The artist I was originally fascinated by, Kellyann Geurts, calls herself a thoughtographer as she takes her own rendering of the thought combined with the science of brain imaging from EEG’s to create a new a fascinating piece of scientific art. “Thoughtography” is practice originating in China and spreading to many other countries from there and gaining popularity as it went. The idea was that a psychic could project theirs or others’ thoughts onto film or photo paper using the power of their mind. One of the most famous “thoughtographic photographers” was Ted Serios, during the 1960s, who could place images from his mind onto film using only psychic energy. Serios was so renowned because many scientist came to watch him perform his “thoughtography” and try to figure out how he did it but even to this day we do not know. a b Krauss, Rolf H. (1995). Beyond Light and Shadow: The Role of Photography in Certain Paranormal Phenomena: An Historical Survey. Munich: Nazraeli Press. p.57. ISBN 9783923922383. So paranormal or not, the photographs with their strange murky images that emerge like a figure in a fog do have something strangely mesmerizing in their visuals. Eisenbud immediately responded on 23 October offering to waive the alcohol requirement and once again requesting that Randi reply to the original issue of meeting the challenge to duplicate Ted’s phenomena. At that point, since Randi had no excuse left, it’s not surprising that neither he nor his representatives appeared at a New York hotel for a meeting Eisenbud had repeatedly tried to arrange. 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]

When Serios was in his mid-30s and working as an elevator operator in a Chicago hotel, he began to experiment with hypnosis. During this period, he found that he could produce images onto film, at first using an ordinary box camera, and then eventually onto Polaroid film. After several years of demonstrating his apparent gift to various people and some researchers in the Chicago area, Serios came to the attention of Denver psychiatrist and psychical researcher, Jule Eisenbud. From May 1964 until June 1967 Eisenbud supervised thousands of trials, witnessed by at least one hundred different observers, most of them scientists and academics, and some of them experienced conjurors. These trials yielded around one thousand anomalous Polaroid photographs, the entire collection of which now resides in the Special Collections section of the Library at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Eisenbud reported this research in detail in his book, The World of Ted Serios. That work exists in two editions, which differ enough to make acquisition of both mandatory for students of the case. 2 Henry Gordon. (1988). Extrasensory Deception: ESP, Psychics, Shirley MacLaine, Ghosts, UFOs. MacMillan Of Canada. ISBN 978-0771595394 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. Most of Braude’s contributions to the field have been by way of analysis and theorization of existing case material, specifically with regard to macro-PK and the evidence for survival after death. Nevertheless, he has also undertaken a fair amount of fieldwork, almost exclusively concentrating on individuals who claim to be able to produce macro-PK with some regularity. He attributes this choice of specialty to his preference for ‘the drama and immediacy of seemingly paranormal physical phenomena’ as well as the fact that, as a philosopher who was also a professional musician after hours, 6 he did not have time for poltergeist or haunting cases, where investigators were frequently left sitting around for long stretches waiting for something to happen. 7

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In 1967, Denver psychiatrist Jule Eisenbud published an account of his detailed investigations of demonstrations of ‘thoughtography’ by Ted Serios. 27 Randi claimed on the Today morning television program that he could reproduce these feats by sleight-of-hand, and under the same conditions that Serios had been subjected to in controlled conditions. It is not clear whether Randi understood that this would have meant being strip searched, including a thorough examination of body orifices, then clad in a monkey suit and sealed in a steel-walled, lead-lined sound-proof chamber. Pressed to make good on his claim, Randi subsequently declined to be tested, as correspondence – suppressed by Randi at the time – now clearly shows ( see here). 28 Tina Resch W. A. H. Rushton. (1968). Serios Photos: If Contrary to Natural Law, Which Law? Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 44: 289-293. 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 ] Randi rejected religion from early childhood, saying ‘I have always been an atheist; I think that religion is a very damaging philosophy– because it’s such a retreat from reality’, 4 and, ‘a belief in a god is one of the most damaging things that infests humanity at this particular moment in history’. 5 He began sceptical activism aged fifteen, attempting to publicly expose fraudulent séance activity being carried out in a church. For the disruption he was arrested and briefly jailed. The incident caused him to yearn for more of a position of authority from which to carry out debunking activity. 6 Lists of publications for which Randi has written and places where he has spoken, up to 2009, can be found here. Awards

Leonard Zusne, Warren Jones. (1982). Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Extraordinary Phenomena of Behavior and Experience. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. p. 411. ISBN 978-0898590685Successful stunts created by Randi to fool investigators and the media are often cited by admirers. Project Alpha Lowenstein, Adam (2015). Dreaming of Cinema: Spectatorship, Surrealism, and the Age of Digital Media. Columbia University Press. pp.124–. ISBN 9780231538480 . Retrieved 6 December 2017. 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.