In 1927 J. B. Rhine and his wife, Louisa Rhine, moved to College Station, North Carolina, where they had found the support of William McDougall, chairman of the psychology department, in pursuing parapsychology. By the time McDougall died in 1931 they were settled in and working on the experiments that would lead to J. B. Rhine's early important work, Extra-Sensory Perception (1934). The next year, with the cooperation of McDougall's successor, a separate division of parapsychology was established in the psychology department and designated the Parapsychology Laboratory. Rhine was placed in charge. For the next 30 years, the Parapsychology Laboratory was the primary scene of major experiments in parapsychology. Among them were those of the well-known medium, Eileen J. Garrett. She conducted a series of experiments there, known as the Zner Card Experiements, studying the phenomenon of ESP.
The laboratory's controversial work made ESP a household word. It also met with mixed reactions from the faculty at the university, mostly critical. In 1950 it was made an autonomous unit, and in 1962, when Rhine formerly retired, the laboratory was discontinued altogether and support of this field by Duke came to an end. That same year Rhine created the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man to continue the work of the laboratory and established the Institute for Parapsychology as a new laboratory.
Sources:
Garrett, Eileen J. Adventures in the Supernormal. New York: Creative Age Press, Inc., 1949.
——. Many Voices, The Autobiography of a Medium. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1968.
Rhine, J. B. New World of the Mind. New York: William Sloane, 1953.
Rhine, Louisa E. ESP in Life and Lab: Tracing Hidden Channels. New York: Macmillan, 1967.
