Eileen Garrett and the world beyond the senses

More than 50 years ago, when I was still a college student, the world's most famous medium and foremost supporter of research in parapsychology, Eileen Garrett, gave me my first research grant, one hundred dollars. That was a small fortune to a poor boy like me, but allowed me to buy the needed tape recorder and tapes for my experiment of using hypnotic suggestion to try to induce out-of-body experiences in several fellow MIT students. The results of the experiment were ambiguous (they are reported in my recent The End of Materialism book The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal Is Bringing Science and Spirit Together (IONS/ New Harbinger) (Ions / Nhp) ), but the boost to my desire to work in parapsychology was not, and since then about a third of my professional time has been devoted to it. Who was this formidable, sophisticated Irishwoman who took a chance on me? She was a successful businesswoman, publisher, and laboratory tested psychic (with many significant results) who, in spite of being declared the best spiritualist medium in the world by many, still kept an open mind and burning curiosity as to what was really going on. As her granddaughter once explained to me, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, she felt the psychologists who had studied her were right, her "spirit guides" were aspects of her own unconscious, impersonating the deceased, but showing psychic abilities. On Tuesday, Thursdays and Saturdays she felt the spiritualists were right, she really did contact the spirits of the dead. On Sundays she tried not to think about it.... She founded the Parapsychology Foundation to stimulate scientific research on psychic questions. Allan Angoff worked for her there for many years and knew her intimately. This book is a fascinating account of Eileen Garrett's life and work.