Joseph Banks Rhine

Joseph Banks Rhine (born 29 September 1895 in Waterloo, Pennsylvania, † February 20, 1980 in Hillsborough, North Carolina) was an American botanist and parapsychologist.

Life

He studied at the University of Chicago biology and worked as a biologist at West Virginia University. In 1927 he went to Duke University in Durham, where he taught as a professor since 1929. Together with William McDougall, he founded there in 1935 the world's first parapsychology laboratory, of which he was. Many research on extrasensory perception (ESP ) and psychokinesis he ran with his wife Ella Louisa Rhine. He explored ESP phenomena not arbitrary but media used any test subjects for his experiments. Rhine developed standardized procedures that could be statistically evaluated. So he invented together with his colleague Karl Zener the so-called Zener cards, which should demonstrate potential telepathic abilities of a subject. The conceived by Rhine and Zener cards still find use in parapsychological investigations. At the time of his death Rhine president of the Society for Psychical Research was (followed by his wife ).

Works

• The range of the human mind, in 1947, German in 1950
• Parapsychology. Frontier science of the mind, in 1957, German in 1962, along with JG Pratt
• Uncharted territory of the soul, Stuttgart 1938