More than kind of *amazing*.

I came across this because of a piece on Atlas Obscura about the Rhine's and their work.... which 1) pointed me towards this book and 2) my library had a Kindle edition and I burned through it.

This book has everything - both the quixotic quest of the Rhines, ghost stories, poltergeists (even the case that inspired the Exorcist) and much more. On top of that, Albert Einstein, Upton Sinclair, Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley and more luminaries put in appearances. A good read, and kind of mind-blowing. ( )

This book wasn't really what I was expecting based on the title and description. I expected a more fascinating story about the the investigations that occurred at the lab, but got a dry biography about J.B. Rhine. I appreciate that the author was clearly trying to balance the sensationalism of paranormal investigations with the science to present a balanced, journalistic work. However, in attempting to do so, the book had too much detail on the intricacies of the experiments and studies that J.B. Rhine conducted, which resulted in a dry, fairly dull book.

Some of the more frustrating aspects was the fact that the Duke Parapsychology Lab really wasn't even a main part of the store. The book did discuss how the lab came to be, but that part of the story was a bit convoluted. The author also spent too much time on what seemed to be extraneous details, such as Louie (J.B.'s wife) sorting through letters and inane detail about Rhine's experiments, which did not add any value to the story. The middle of the book got bogged down and I really had to push through to finish it. It's too bad, because I think with a different approach and maybe different structure, this could have been a really interesting book. ( )

First three and last three chapters are rather fascinating. The middle bit is a muddle pot. But seriously though, there are times you just smack your head and go, "huh!" like srsly? And the author is all like SRSLY! ( )

Before beginning this book, I was vaguely aware of the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory...as in I was aware that it had been a thing, wasn't sure if it still was a thing or anything that might have come out about it. As a reference text about Dr. J.B. Rhine, who founded the Laboratory, and the work of the Lab, this is a very solid work. But much like the Lab and its refusal to trade in sensationalism, the book's steadfast sticking to a "just the facts, ma'am" approach means that it doesn't really go anywhere.

Things like ghosts and poltergeists are the kind of juicy stuff that makes for page-turning reading. It's also the kind of thing that donors gave money to the Lab to research. But Dr. Rhine's primary interest wasn't keeping dollars flowing, it was establishing parapsychology as a legitimate field of research and scientific thought. Seances, mediums, telekinesis...those kind of talents, even if there was some intriguing anecdotal evidence to support them, weren't able to be performed on demand and couldn't stand up to scientific scrutiny. So while they were dutifully investigated, the Lab focused mainly on ESP research and mind-reading with the famous Zener cards. They did have success at these experiments, enough so that that the Parapsychological Association was eventually able to join some scientific groups, but that was about the total of what they were able to achieve.

At the end of the day, I just didn't really enjoy reading the book. It's not really about parapsychology or mysterious happenings, it's about Dr. Rhine and his struggle to gain scientific legitimacy for his work. That's why the rating is so low: it's not poorly written, it's just that ultimately, it's not very interesting. ( )

This was a well-researched book about the Duke Parapsychology Lab and the major players in parapsychology research at the time. Since I love good ghost stories--but don't believe in ghosts, I was intrigued by the topic of this book and wondered if it would help me believe in ghosts and such. That didn't happen, but it wasn't Stacy Horn's purpose in writing this book. I was surprised by the number of well-known people who consulted J.B. Rhine and the Duke Parapsycholoy Lab staff. I think I enjoyed this book most as a history of something that was part of the Duke campus. I also enjoyed hearing Stacy Horn talk about [b:Unbelievable Investigations into Ghosts, Poltergeists, Telepathy, and Other Unseen Phenomena from the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory|4863441|Unbelievable Investigations into Ghosts, Poltergeists, Telepathy, and Other Unseen Phenomena from the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory|Stacy Horn|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1224877005s/4863441.jpg|4928772] at Duke earlier this year. ( )