Thoughtography

(religion, spiritualism, and occult)

Thoughtography is a term for thought photography, coined by Dr. Tomokichi Fukurai, President of the Psychical Institute of Japan. In 1913, he published a book about his experiments with Ikuko Nagao and Chizuko Mifune, attesting to the validity of clairvoyance. This publication brought about his resignation from a professorship at the Imperial University of Tokyo. Fukurai continued working with a number of Japanese mediums and conducted experiments in thought photography. In 1921, he published Clairvoyance and Thoughtography.

Thoughtography has been more recently demonstrated by Ted Serios, working with Dr. Jule Eisenbud. Serios would look into the lens of a Polaroid camera concentrating on a “target” image, the shutter being tripped when he gave the word. The resulting photograph would frequently show the picture that Serios had in his mind.

Sources:

Eisenbud, Jule: The World of Ted Serios: “Thoughtographic” Studies of an Extraordinary Mind. New York: William Morrow, 1967

Fukurai, Tomokichi: Clairvoyance and Thoughtography. London: Rider, 1931

Shepard, Leslie A: Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology. New York: Avon Books, 1978

Tomorrow see Garrett, Eileen Tongues, Speaking In see Glossolalia

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References in periodicals archive

The issue for 1912 carried the article Les mains fluidiques et la photographie de la pensee, which included photographs of fluidic hands in various degrees of materializations and in various degrees of deformation, and examples of thoughtography in the form of photographs of a full moon (Ochorowicz, 1912) .

Julian Ochorowicz and His Contribution to Psychical Research/Julian Ochorowicz et sa contribution a la recherche psychique/Julian Ochorowicz und sein Beitrag zur parapsychologischen Forschung/Julian Ochorowicz y su Contribucion a la Investigacion Psfquica

My explanatory scheme, when generalized from the limited domain of Serios thoughtography to the possible thoughtographing of the world, may help scientists understand the nature of time and of the self obscuring the supranatural in our world.

Abstracts of presented papers from the Parapsychological Association 57th Annual Convention, Concord, California, USA, August 14-17, 2014

He is also very well known for his research with Ted Serios, a psychic claimant who was tested by Eisenbud for his claims of thoughtography (thoughts being psychically represented on photographic film).

Advances in Parapsychological Research 9

Poltergeist phenomena, thoughtography, levitation, and a host of intriguing other phenomena are covered in this chapter.

The Outline of Parapsychology

Explanations for Serios's "thoughtography" are just as elusive (and always have been) as explanations for the Gold Leaf Lady herself, and Braude does not really offer any speculations.

The Gold Leaf Lady and Other Parapsychological Investigations