Moss, Thelma (1918-1997)

Contemporary parapsychologist and medical psychologist at the Neuropsychiatric Institute of the University of California in Los Angeles. Her special interests have included telepathy, radiation, Kirlian photography, energy fields, and skin vision, which is akin to eyeless sight.

Moss was a professional actress who left the stage after her husband's death. An experience with psychedelic drugs in the 1960s led her into psychology, and after receiving her doctorate she joined the staff at UCLA. The psychedelic experience also opened her to parapsychological insights and she began to experiment. In one early experiment in the relationship of creativity and psychic ability, she found artists were scoring higher in ESP ability than her control group.

She visited the USSR to investigate Kirlian photography and experimented in the field with a modified high-energy photography system, until it proved a dead end as controls were tightened. She also investigated a haunted house in Los Angeles with Gertrude Schmeidler. Moss died February 1, 1997.

Sources:

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

"Interview: Thelma S. Moss." Psychic 1, no. 1 (1970). Moss, Thelma. The Body Electric. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher Inc., 1979.

——. "ESP Effects in 'Artists' Contrasted with Non-Artists." Journal of Parapsychology 33 (1969).

——. The Probability of the Impossible. New York: Dutton/ Plume, 1975.