Dr. Louisa Rhine's letters revisited: The children

Journal of Parapsychology, The, Dec, 2002 by Athena A. Drewes

Dr. Louisa E. Rhine (1891-1983) along 'with her husband, J. B. Rhine, noted founder of the field of experimental parapsychology, helped bring credibility to the study of psychic phenomena. Having earned BS, MS, and PhD degrees in botany while at the University of Chicago, she and her husband moved to Durham at the invitation of John Thomas, a student of Dr. William McDougall, to study psychic phenomena at Duke University. Dr. Louisa E. Rhine (LER) was actively involved in the daily functioning of the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory and carried out experiments of her own. Her major contribution and recognition, however, is as the foremost researcher of spontaneous psychic experiences, leaving a legacy of over 30,000 letters sent to her by "everyday individuals" from across the world. "The focus of her study of spontaneous cases was not to prove the existence of psi but to see whether these cases would throw any light on the psi process and provide ideas that might form the basis for research under controlled c onditions" (Rao, 1986b, p. 2)-Her first book, Hidden Channels of the Mind (1961), incorporated summaries of her study of spontaneous cases. Her book The Invisible Picture (1981) allows the reader an even richer overview of her life's work. Dr. Rhine's final book, Something Hidden (1983), offers a poignant view of her life with J. B. Rhine.

Over her lifetime, Dr. Rhine not only published six books on parapsychology for the layperson but also wrote numerous scholarly journal articles, with 18 separate articles on her cases between 1951 and 1967. These became the landmark work for understanding spontaneous psychic experiences. She observed that such real-world psi experiences fell into intuitions, hallucinations, unrealistic dreams, and realistic dreams. Dr. Rhine's accumulation of over 30,000 cases, as well as the categorization and analyses of more than 15,000 usable spontaneous cases, remains the most extensive collection in existence (Rao, 1986b).

The letters received were written mainly by adults about their spontaneous psi experiences and were mailed to her at the Parapsychology Laboratory (now Rhine Research Center). Once research results were publicized, unsolicited letters poured in from individuals wanting to report personal experiences that puzzled and concerned them. "The letters came, it appeared, from the 'high' and the lowly, the rich and the poor, the obviously well educated and those who, often by their own account, had little schooling" (Rhine, 1961, p. 20). As LER wrote,

[M]any individuals seemed hesitant and even a bit apologetic to be writing about a personal matter and admitting that such an inexplicable thing should have happened to them....The most frequently expressed motive for writing, in literally thousands of letters, was "I hope this will help in your researches." (Rhine, 1961, p. 20)

Advice and information was sent out personally by LER to each of the writers.

By 1948, LER had accumulated an "entirely amorphous and unorganized collection" of letters (Rhine, 1961, p. 20). Over time, articles written by herself or by her husband in popular magazines of the time would include requests for the readers to share any experiences and stimulated many submissions, mainly from adults and some school-age children. By the 1970s the collection had grown substantially, to over 15,000 usable letters. The "Rhine collection" (Schouten, 1982), as it is often referred to, is considered "the largest collection of spontaneous paranormal experiences existing today" (Schouten, 1982, p. 116). In responding to each letter, Rhine devised over time a personal strategy for attempting to classify and categorize the variety of experiences reported. Some critics (Stevenson, 1970; Stokes, 1997) contend that because these letters and experiences were not independently verified or validated, they cannot count as proof of ESP phenomena. Rhine, however, accepted these letters assuming they were writt en "in good faith and by apparently sane individuals" (Rhine, 1951, p. 166). The letters were seen as being useful in suggesting how researchers should proceed and were never meant to be used to establish the existence of psychic phenomena, deferring instead to the laboratory research being conducted by J. B. Rhine and others. However, she was clear in her view that spontaneous phenomena had a place in the scientific literature as well.

It is also true that raw experimental data need to be observed against the richer background of the natural situations in which they occur.

Although in parapsychology, as in any science, nothing final can be proven by case studies without controlled experiments, still something can be gained by noting the way the established law or fact fits into the processes of the natural world (Rhine, 1961, p. 19).

She also felt that an even more important reason to study spontaneous experiences was that "the people who have experienced ESP need to understand what has gone on" (Rhine, 1961, p. 20).

LER separated those letters that "had experiences that could have involved ESP from those that could not" (Rhine, 1961, p. 20). She required that the experience written about explicitly stated what the experience was like, and just as clearly supplied the real event and surrounding circumstances. In response to critics who commented on the lack of validation of material, LER wrote: