Before explaining how Serios probably produced his strange images I will describe how he demonstrates his so-called talent. This information is gleaned from from the book The World of Ted Seriosand is presented along with my personal experience in addition to information that I obtained from others I interviewed who attended one of the numerous demonstrations in the mid '60s.

Serios does not have a typical performance. Each one is different and the audience is new. Apparently only a few people have seen him produce thought photographs in more than one session. However, sessions do have common happenings.

Sessions last as long as eight hours. Usually Serios becomes quite drunk, and is sometimes uncontrollable. Most of the time he is wild and erratic. He runs around the room, yells and curses and makes foolish demands to his audience to which many participants acquiesce. He may take off his clothes or sometimes just his shoes or shirt. He always appears to empty his pockets.

He violently distorts his face when attempting to obtain photographs; he becomes frenzied, snapping his fingers or feeling his pulse. He usually plays continually with one of the several gismoshe uses.

A gismois a rolled piece of black paper about one inch in diameter and an inch or so long. Serios holds the gismoto the lens of a Polaroid camera while usually a member of the audience holds the camera and trips the shutter at his command.

The number of photographic exposures during each session varies in an unknown but relatively large quantity. More than one hundred exposures were made during the five-hour session that I attended. Most of the exposures produce failures.

All of these distractions along with the failures make it difficult for one who knows little about magic tricks to discover at what moment Serios makes a deceptive move to produce an image.

Often black prints are developed, called blackies by Dr. Eisenbud. Sometimes the print is white or near white and is called a whitie. Dr. Eisenbud considers blackies and whities paranormal, therefore, to him, successful thought images.

See the next page ---