Example of a thoughtograph. (All thoughtographsin this essay are by Nile Root)

Dr Eisenbud had been unsuccessful in obtaining formal support of his local scientific community after a few inconclusive demonstrations by Serios.

He then had Serios begin performing in private homes in Denver where most of the so-called successes occurred (described in his book published in April, 1967, The World of Ted Serios).

My experience one March evening in 1966:

Seven guests assembled the evening I was involved, a typical number for a group to witness a demonstration according to Dr. Eisenbud. Each guest was asked to bring at least five rolls of 3000 speed Polaroid film.

Dozens of exposures were made in the two cameras brought by Dr. Eisenbud. Serios would hold what he called a gismo(a black paper tube about one inch in diameter and one and one half inches long) to the camera lens. He would scream obscenities, contort his face and sometimes yell "now!" - - - the signal for whoever was holding the camera to trip the shutter.

He became quite drunk and obnoxious. He was chastised often by Dr. Eisenbud but the doctor still continued to supply beer to Serios.

The frenzy continued. The evening wore on; still no thoughtographs emerged from the multitude of developed images.

Then, amazingly, after five long hours, three strange images arrived (after the one minute to process each exposure). Altogether, with the two cameras, he produced six blurry images unrelated to the room's environment. I was puzzled.

He often displayed the gismoso we could see that it was empty but in his drunken condition he finally slipped up.

Serios became careless: as he was waving his arms and yelling, I saw a shiny object reflect from inside the paper gismothat he always held to the camera lens.

Fortunately, I kept my mouth shut when I saw the foreign object in the gismo. I found out a week or so later that trying to debunk a hoax can make the debunker more the culprit than the perpetrator of the hoax.

l Introduction l 1 l 2 l 3 l 4 l 5 l 6 l 7 l 8 l 9 l 10 l 11 l 12 l 13 l 14 l 15 l 16 l 17 l 18 l lContents l Homel