My Library

A confirmed example of controlled psychokinetic effects had been demonstrated by a subject in a laboratory. If he can trigger a thermistor could he not also trigger a nuclear bomb? Schmeidler's experiment didn't come even close to implying any such thing, of course. But this hysterical wave grew, as one might imagine it would. I began understanding the gist of all this when so-called "investigative reporters" from TIME, NEWSWEEK, LIFE and lesser media, etc., began trying to get me on the phone for interviews -- as was likewise the case regarding the delightful Dr. Gertrude Schmeidler. Affecting a thermistor inside a thermos bottle was NOT news, of course, but the imaginative, sci-fi potentials of doing so were. Psychokinetic powers, if they existed, were dangerous! And therein was the story which could be pumped and hyped. And, of course, the extensive gossip lines from and back into Buell Mullen Central and Zelda Central were overheated and smoking and blowing things out of all proportion. Thus, barely six months after "entering parapsychology," I discovered, and very much to my amazement, that introverted little me needed a PRESS POLICY -- of all things! Now, it was not for nothing that I had worked in the Office of Public Information at the United Nations. I understood quite well what press policies AND THE PRESS were -- including their pitfalls.