Van de Castle, Robert L(eon) (1927-)

Clinical psychologist and parapsychologist. He was born on November 16, 1927, at Rochester, New York, and studied at Syracuse University (B.A., 1951), the University of Missouri(M.A., 1953), and the University of North Carolina (Ph.D.,1959). While in North Carolina he was a research associate at the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University (1954-55). Following graduation in 1959 he joined the faculty in psychology at the University of Denver where he remained until he became the director of the Sleep and Dream Laboratory at the University of Virginia in 1967. He is now a psychologist at the Blue Ridge Hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia.

While in Denver he did research with members of the Cuna tribe as part of research on whether people from a non-technological society would score significantly on ESP tests. He went on to conduct dream research with Calvin Itall at the Institute of Dream Research in Miami, publishing a joint work The Content Analysis of Dreams (1966). He also studied personality correlates in extrasensory perception and psychokinesis, and conducted experiments relating psychological tests to extra-sensory ability, on grants from the Parapsychology Foundation.

He was a charter member of the Parapsychological Association, since 1969 a council member, and was elected its president in 1970.

Sources:

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

Pleasants, Helene, ed. Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology. New York: Helix Press, 1964.

Van de Castle, Robert L. "Development and Validation of a Perceptual Maturity Scale Using Figure Preferences." Journal of Consultative Psychology 29 (1965).

——. "An Exploratory Study of Some Personality Correlates Associated with PK Performance." Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 52 (1958).

——. "The Facilitation of ESP Through Hypnosis." American Journal of Clinical & Experimental Hypnosis 12 (1969).

——. "An Investigation of Psi Abilities Among the Cuna Indians of Panama." Journal of Parapsychology 38 (June 1974).

——. Our Dreaming Mind. New York: Ballantine, 1995.

——. "Psi Abilities in Primitive Groups." Proceedings of the Parapsychological Association 7 (1970).