Joseph Banks Rhine life and biography

Joseph Banks Rhine (September 29, 1895 – February 20, 1980) (usually known as J. B. Rhine) was a botanist who later developed an interest in parapsychology and psychology. Rhine founded the parapsychology lab at Duke University, the Journal of Parapsychology, and the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man. He also initiated the Parapsychological Association.

After briefly studying Psychology at Harvard he and his wife Louisa founded a new field which they dubbed "parapsychology" bridging both mainstream psychology and psychic research. They invented the term extrasensory perception (ESP) and defined the four varieties of psi. In 1935 he founded the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University. In 1962 he founded the independent Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man (FRNM) to further continue his studies into the paranormal. Later in 1995 (100 years after Rhine's birth), it was renamed as the Rhine Research Center.

Rhine ran large numbers of tests most of which centered around students attempting to guess symbols on "Zener" cards that they could not directly see. The percentage of correct guesses was occasionally significantly above chance, leading Rhine to hypothesize that some students were capable of mind-reading. Rhine's various experiments have attracted a great deal of criticism from other scientists, most notably from the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). Attempts to replicate the results of Rhine's experiments have largely failed. It is generally thought that his experiments were poorly designed and allowed for leakages of information between subjects and experimenter.

In skeptic circles Rhine is often used as the prime example of "it takes a crook to catch a crook", as Rhine was infamous for being fooled by the paranormal frauds of his day. In particular, he was allegedly snowed by the mind-reading horse Lady Wonder. As with similar "smart" animals of the past, the horse was later found to be responding to subtle signals from its owner.

Author of books:
-Extra-Sensory Perception (1934)
-New Frontier of the Mind (1937)
-The Reach of the Mind (1947)
-New World of the Mind (1953)

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