Louisa Rhine

     MUCH OF Dr Louisa Rhine's lifelong work has been inextricably blended with that of her husband, Professor J. B. Rhine. Together they experimented, discussed, planned and carried out new methods - with all the careful detailed work that this entailed - together surveyed and considered the results obtained. It is impossible to assess her contribution separately; possible only to guess at its immense supportive value. It is characteristic that, on her husband's death, she should have accepted the SPR's invitation to take over the Presidency for the remainder of his term of office in 1980. Her individual achievement has been to go through the great number of spontaneous cases sent in to them from widely different sources and places; to assign these to various categories - telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis - and to see whether they fell into recognisable patterns, in which the same contributory causes seemed to be involved. Particularly interesting is her study of ESP in childhood and old age.

Her first book, Hidden Channels of the Mind (London, 1961) dealt with cases received from 1948 onwards, examined these matters, and cited many individual instances to illustrate the general argument. A second, The Invisible Picture (Jefferson, USA 1981) analysed another 150 cases out of a total of 10,000 received. Her SPR Presidential Address surveyed her husband's long, determined, persevering and successful life and work.

Source (with minor modifications): The Society for Psychical Research, 1882-1982: A History by Renée Haynes (1982, Macdonald & Co (Publishers) Ltd, London).