Eisenbud, Jule (1908-1999)

Physician, psychiatrist, and parapsychologist. Eisenbud was born November 20, 1908, in New York, New York, and studied at Columbia College (B.A., 1929), Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons (M.D., 1934), and Columbia University (D.Med.Sc., 1939). In 1950 he became a professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado Medical School and an attending psychiatrist at the U.S. Veterans Administration Hospital in Denver.

Eisenbud was a charter member of the Parapsychological Association and wrote numerous articles on psychiatry and psychoanalysis based on his experiments on telepathy and the psi faculty. His first paper on a parapsychological subject led to a move (unsuccessful) to have him expelled from the New York Psychoanalytic Society. He attracted even more attention with his book The World of Ted Serios: "Thoughtographic" Studies of an Extraordinary Mind (1967), which deals with his investigation of Ted Serios, a former Chicago bellhop who claimed to imprint mental images on photographic film. His support of Serios provoked a controversy about his claimed abilities that in the end left a variety of unanswered questions amid charges of Serios's producing the effects by fraud.

Eisenbud died on March 10, 1999.

Sources:

Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. The Encyclopedia of Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York: Paragon House, 1991.

Eisenbud, Jule. Paranormal Foreknowledge: Problems and Perplexities. New York: Human Sciences Press, 1982.

——. "Paranormal Photography." In Handbook of Parapsychology, edited by B. B. Wolman. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1977.

——. Psi and Psychoanalysis. New York: Grune & Stratton, 1970.

——. "Psychic Photography and Thoughtography." In Psychic Exploration: A Challenge for Science, edited by Edgar D. Mitchell and John White. New York: Putnam, 1974.

——. The World of Ted Serios: "Thoughtographic" Studies of an Extraordinary Mind. 2d ed. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1989.