SECOND EDITION. In The World of Ted Serios, Jule Eisenbud, a Denver based psychiatrist and psychical researcher, examined anomalous "thoughtographic" phenomena ostensibly produced by Ted Serios, a Chicago hotel elevator operator who claimed he could mentally produce images on unused Polaroid film. Because "instant" Polaroids were developed immediately, skeptics could not easily attribute success to darkroom chicanery. Eisenbud, a seasoned investigator of anomalous phenomena, conducted thousands of trials with Serios over a three-year period between 1964 and 1967. Hundreds of images were produced as well as so-called blackies and whities-Polaroids that were massively under or overexposed, produced either when the film hadn't been unwrapped or under other conditions clearly ruling out under or overexposure. Eisenbud and multiple witnesses tested Serios in different locations, often under conditions that seemed clearly to rule out fraud-for example, separated at considerable distance from the film or camera. Nevertheless, the images continued to appear, and sometimes they bore striking similarities to sealed "target" images Serios had been challenged to duplicate with his mind. Magician and debunker James Randi, as expected, claimed it was all fraudulent. But despite Eisenbud's substantial financial incentives to magicians to produce the same phenomena under the same conditions, neither Randi or others accepted the challenge. More than fifty years on, Jule Eisenbud's investigation into Ted Serios' thoughtography is one of the most intriguing cases in the annals of anomalous phenomena.

For over thirty years, Stephen Braude has studied the paranormal in everyday life, from extrasensory perception and psychokinesis to mediumship and materialization. The Gold Leaf Lady and Other Parapsychological Investigations is a highly readable and often amusing account of his most memorable encounters with such phenomena. Here Braude recounts in fascinating detail five particular cases—some that challenge our most fundamental scientific beliefs and others that expose our own credulousness. Braude begins with a south Florida woman who can make thin gold-colored foil appear spontaneously on her skin. He then travels to New York and California to test psychokinetic superstars—and frauds—like Joe Nuzum, who claim to move objects using only their minds. Along the way, Braude also investigates the startling allegations of K.R., a policeman in Annapolis who believes he can transfer images from photographs onto other objects—including his own body—and Ted Serios, a deceased Chicago elevator operator who could make a variety of different images appear on Polaroid film. Ultimately, Braude considers his wife’s surprisingly fruitful experiments with astrology, which she has used to guide professional soccer teams to the top of their leagues, as well as his own personal experiences with synchronicity—a phenomenon, he argues, that may need to be explained in terms of a refined, extensive, and dramatic form of psychokinesis. Heady, provocative, and brimming with eye-opening details and suggestions, The Gold Leaf Lady and Other Parapsychological Investigations will intrigue both adherents and detractors of its controversial subject matter alike.

In the early days of photography, many believed and hoped that the camera would prove more efficient than the human eye in capturing the unseen. Spiritualists and animists of the nineteenth century seized on the new technology as a method of substantiating the existence of supernatural beings and happenings. This fascinating book assembles more than 250 photographic images from the Victorian era to the 1960s, each purporting to document an occult phenomenon: levitations, apparitions, transfigurations, ectoplasms, spectres, ghosts, and auras. Drawn from the archives of European and American occult societies and private and public collections, the photographs in many cases have never before been published. The Perfect Medium studies these rare and remarkable photographs through cultural, historical, and artistic lenses. More than mere curiosities, the images on film are important records of the cultural forces and technical methods that brought about their production. They document in unexpected ways a period when developing photographic technology merged with a popular obsession with the occult to create a new genre of haunting experimental photographs.

Set in the ‘90s, this lyrical autobiographical novel follows the relationship that develops between a recent college grad and a young widow during their nightly swims in Lake Michigan “[A] mosaic of uncanny photographs and rediscovered diaries, fresh correspondence between ex-lovers, meditations on childhood and parenthood, an amphibious dance between the past and the present”—Karen Russell “Swimming at night, to compare its slipperiness to that of a dream would be to ignore the work of staying afloat, the mesmerism brought on by the rhythm, the repetition of the strokes.” Beneath the surface of Lake Michigan there are vast systems: crosscutting currents, sudden drop-offs, depths of absolute darkness, shipwrecked bodies, hidden places. Peter Rock’s stunning autobiographical novel begins in the ’90s on the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin. The narrator, a recent college graduate, and a young widow, Mrs. Abel, swim together at night, making their way across miles of open water, navigating the currents and swells and carried by the rise and fall of the lake. The nature of these night swims, and of his relationship to Mrs. Abel, becomes increasingly mysterious to the narrator as the summer passes, until the night that Mrs. Abel disappears. Twenty years later, the narrator—now married with two daughters—tries to understand those months, his forgotten obsessions and dreams. Digging into old notebooks and letters, as well as clippings he’s preserved on the “psychic photography” of Ted Serios and scribbled quotations from Rilke and Chekhov, the narrator rebuilds a world he’s lost. He also looks for clues to the fate of Mrs. Abel, and begins once again to swim distances in dark water.

This groundbreaking volume on a boundary-stretching art form tackles unconventional approaches to photography and gives voice to forty marginalized and provocative artists from around the world. Photo Brut--a genre of Art Brut, or outsider art--spans photography, prints, photomontage, collage, and other combinations of media and techniques. This art form allows those living on the fringes of society to voice their unique perception of the world, offering unconventional approaches to issues of sexuality, identity, and reality. This visceral and intimate selection of 520 works offers profound insight into the realm of outsider art. Works focusing on private affairs address questions of sexuality, perversion, the femme fatale icon, the Madonna, and innocence. In other works, artists attempt to reappropriate and tame the world, bringing issues of modern society into sharp focus. Some artists use performance, role play, and blurred/fluid/plural identities as a mode of self-expression. Lastly, practices and rituals using pseudoscientific or magical explanations allow some artists to confront apparitions and terrifying truths, to understand mysterious forces, and to create order. This authoritative first book dedicated to the previously unpublished field is an important contribution to the history of art.

The importance of science and technology and future of education and research are just some of the subjects discussed here.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2017 SHORTLISTED FOR THE LONDON HELLENIC PRIZE 2017 WINNER OF THE PRIX MÉDITERRANÉE 2018 From the award-winning, best-selling writer: a deeply moving tale of a father and son’s transformative journey in reading – and reliving – Homer’s epic masterpiece.