Studying the unbelievable

But no one really knew what telepathy was or how it worked, including Rhine. All he did was establish that it was there, and to this day, many would argue that he hadn't accomplished even that.

Stacy Horn, Unbelievable

Many people might be surprised to learn, as I was, that for decades Duke University was home to a department dedicated to the study of telepathy, ESP, poltergeists and other forms of parapsychology. All this seems, as the title of Stacy Horn's 2009 book suggests, Unbelievable.

For half a century, J.B. Rhine, whom Horn describes as "the Einstein of the paranormal," headed the Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory and performed countless experiments to try to demonstrate that such extrasensory powers could be proven scientifically. In fact, the laboratory still exists, sort of. After Rhine's death in 1979, it was incorporated into The Rhine Center: An Institute for Consciousness Research and Education, mostly involved in other forms of psychological research.

Rhine did identify a few individuals who, at least for a brief period of their lives, were able to perceive images shown on special ESP cards even from another room with remarkable consistency. But what did that prove? Other scientists remained skeptical, whatever Rhine's experiments showed. And in most cases, of course, they showed nothing.

Rhine angered even his supporters with his insistence that telepathy must be demonstrated in the laboratory, even though most examples of the paranormal — suspected haunted houses, for example — happened elsewhere.

Among the surprising aspects of Horn's book are the prominent names of those who took an interest in his work. These include people like Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Richard Nixon, Timothy Leary, Jackie Gleason, Upton Sinclair, Rod Sterling, Helen Keller, B.F. Skinner and Carl Jung. But then, isn't everyone at least a little bit interested? Scientists now suggest there might actually be several dimensions other than the ones we know about. Might some of these unbelievable things be evidence of these suspected dimensions and thus worthy of scientific study?