The Ghost Hunters - Deborah Blum [172]
What changed? I had the pleasure and privilege of spending three years in the company of genuinely brilliant thinkers—William James and his colleagues who questioned and explored possibilities so acutely that it was impossible not to reevaluate my assumptions. I participated in a slightly unnerving ESP experiment. I read reports by psychical researchers that I couldn’t explain away. I thought all over again about the shape of the world, about science, about the limits of reality and who sets them, illuminated by history, philosophy, theology as well as science. There were days when I could feel the hinges of my brain, almost literally, creaking apart to make room for new ideas.
Before I get into specific thanks, I want to first express my gratitude to the many people who, in the most casual and everyday sense, also forced me to look beyond the accustomed horizons of my life. I would like to thank the secretary in my department at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who trusted me with the story of her haunted house. The scientist from Stanford who believed in and practiced ESP, the prenatal care nurse who regularly consulted a medium, the physicist from a Florida university, who fled a ghost-ridden laboratory, the music store clerk who saw a specter, the countless people who told me their stories, once they heard the subject of my current book. Ordinarily, science writers don’t get told personal ghost stories. I suspect that’s because we are regarded, rightly, as an unsympathetic audience. But once I took on this particular subject, I realized—as the people I write about also learned—how strong and true this current of belief and experience runs in our society. I won’t tell you that I suddenly believed in every ominous shadow that loomed in these encounters. But they formed a very curious pattern. I would specifically like to thank my terrific father-in-law, David Haugen, who experienced—and recently told me—the best “crisis apparition” story I ever heard.
I would also like to thank my editor, Ann Godoff, who believed in this story from the beginning, propped me up through all the worst parts of the telling, and made the work better at every turn. The people at Penguin Press are amazing to work with and I would especially like to thank Liza Darnton and Beena Kamlani, who made me look smarter than I am, and Sarah Hutson. As ever, I am grateful to Suzanne Gluck, who combines being the best agent I know with being one of the smartest and nicest women in my life.
I would like to thank the patient and welcoming staff of the American Society for Psychical Research, who set me up at a library table in their beautiful brownstone and allowed me to read through letters from the early history of their organization. I would especially like to thank ASPR executive director, Patrice Keane; archivist, Colleen Phelan; librarian, Jeremy Shawl; and former librarian, Grady Hendrix, for their kindness and meticulous research help in this regard. I appreciate the permission to quote from those letters, also the kindly permissions from the British Society for Psychical Research, and its helpful librarian, Willis Poynton; the Houghton Library of Harvard University, with special thanks to Leslie Morris and Peter Accardo at Harvard, the Bodleian Library of Oxford University, and particular thanks to librarian Colin Harris and the Trinity Library of Cambridge University.
I had a hardworking group of University of Wisconsin students who helped with the research in various stages and I would particularly like to thank Ben Sayre and Rena Archwamety for their help in tracking down nineteenth-century newspapers and magazines; Christine Lagorio, for her study of psychologist Joseph Jastrow; Edna Francisco, Amanda Novak, and Margaret Menge for their investigation