Ted Serios

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ted Serios, holding the "gizmo".

Ted Serios (c. 1920—December 30, 2006) was a Chicago bellhop, who gained notoriety in the 1960s by producing "thoughtographs" on Polaroid film. He claimed these were produced using psychic powers.

1 History and method
2 Psychology
3 Media
4 Criticism
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] History and method

Serios' psychic claims were bolstered by the endorsement of a Denver based psychiatrist, Jule Eisenbud (1908-1999) who wrote a book called The World of Ted Serios: "Thoughtographic" studies of an extraordinary mind (1967) in which he argued for the reality of Serios's feats.

Many of Serios's photographs were produced while Serios was drunk or at least drinking. Serios' images, which often appeared surrounded by dark areas on the film, were often of typical postcard scenes. Serios eventually was only able to produce his photographs while holding "a small section of tubing fitted with a piece of photo squeegee" to his forehead.^[1]

In the 1980s, Eisenbud claimed that previously unidentified thoughtographs were images of Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter. Pictures of Ganymede had only become available a year before thanks to Voyager 2. "Unfortunately," wrote Eisenbud, "I couldn’t get an astronomer or optical scientist to agree."

[edit] Psychology

According to Eisenbud, "Ted Serios exhibits a behavior pathology with many character disorders. He does not abide by the laws and customs of our society. He ignores social amenities and has been arrested many times. His psychopathic and sociopathic personality manifests itself in many other ways. He does not exhibit self-control and will blubber, wail and bang his head on the floor when things are not going his way."^[2]

[edit] Media

Recently, it was alluded to in the fourth season episode of The X-files, Unruhe, and in 1999, The X-Files producer Chris Carter signed a deal to base an entire movie on Dr. Eisenbud's book.^[3]

According to his son Leonardo's home page, Ted Serios died December 30, 2006. ^[4]

[edit] Criticism

Stage magician and noted debunker James Randi took an interest in discrediting and debunking Serios. Though he produced photographs similar to Serios's, Randi stated that he refused Eisenbud's request to perform the trick with the same degree of blood alcohol that Serios had when producing his photographs and wearing a rubber suit. ^[5]

Randi's Website comments: "If Mr. Serios did not use a trick method, all the rules of physics, particularly of optics, everything developed by science over the past several centuries, must be rewritten to accommodate Eisenbud's opinion. No such revisions have been found necessary." ^[6]

In an New Scientist article 'The Chance of a Lifetime' (24th March 2007), an interview appears with the noted mathematician and magician Persi Diaconis. During the interview Persi mentioned that Martin Gardner had paid him to watch Ted Serios perform, during which Persi caught Ted sneaking a small marble with a photograph on it into the little tube attached to the front of the camera he used. 'It was', Persi said, 'a trick.'