The Gold Leaf Lady and Other Parapsychological Investigations

For over thirty years, Stephen Braude has studied the paranormal in everyday life, from extrasensory perception and psychokinesis to mediumship and materialization.The Gold Leaf Lady and Other Parapsychological Investigationsis a highly readable and often amusing account of his most memorable encounters with such phenomena. Here Braude recounts in fascinating detail five particular casessome that challenge our most fundamental scientific beliefs and others that expose our own credulousness. Braude begins with a south Florida woman who can make thin gold-colored foil appear spontaneously on her skin. He then travels to New York and California to test psychokinetic superstarsand fraudslike Joe Nuzum, who claim to move objects using only their minds. Along the way, Braude also investigates the startling allegations of K.R., a policeman in Annapolis who believes he can transfer images from photographs onto other objectsincluding his own bodyand Ted Serios, a deceased Chicago elevator operator who could make a variety of different images appear on Polaroid film. Ultimately, Braude considers his wife's surprisingly fruitful experiments with astrology, which she has used to guide professional soccer teams to the top of their leagues, as well as his own personal experiences with synchronicitya phenomenon, he argues, that may need to be explained in terms of a refined, extensive, and dramatic form of psychokinesis. Heady, provocative, and brimming with eye-opening details and suggestions,The Gold Leaf Lady and Other Parapsychological Investigationswill intrigue both adherents and detractors of its controversial subject matter alike.

Stephen Braude is professor of philosophy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is the author of some sixty journal articles and four previous books, including The Limits of Influence: Psychokinesis and the Philosophy of Science and, most recently, Immortal Remains: The Evidence for Life after Death.