Writing Begins and Birthday Countdown

I’ve done everything I wanted to do before beginning to write this book. I’ve still got tons of research to do, but it’s all the kind of research that needs to be done as I write.

It’s always a little scary, beginning. But exhilarating. I feel completely ready and absolutely the right person of all the people alive to write this book. A group of people came together from around the country to Duke University, driven to answer questions that science would barely acknowledge as legitimate questions. For a time the Parapsychology Lab was on intellectual fire — it was the place at Duke to meet interesting people and it was one of the most popular places on campus among the students. But for the scientists there, it was was also a battleground. While they tried to understand their findings, it was one fight after another, getting their peers to accepts the results of their experiments. And the whole world watched. Books that came out of the lab were best sellers and that made scientists outside the lab NUTS. They had trouble getting grad students to work on their research because no one could compete with the charismatic Rhine and the kinds of questions being asked over on the second floor of the West Duke Building.

I’m going to begin in Boston, with a woman who claimed to be able to talk to the dead. She was investigated by Harvard, people from Scientific American, and then by J.B. and Louie (his wife) Rhine. All hell broke loose. The Rhines knew how to make an entrance!

AND — and I know I’m making such a big deal about this — this week is also the count down to my birthday, which is on Saturday. Everyday this week I am going to try to do something pampering for myself, and, as per a suggestion from someone I knew in high school — everyday I will also try to do something I’ve never done before.

It’s a big deal week for me! Wish me luck!