Allan Angoff - Eileen Garrett and the world beyond the senses

by
Allan Angoff

Helix Press
New York

Eileen Garrett
and the World Beyond
the Senses

Copyright 2009 by Allan Angoff
All rights reserved

This book, or any part thereof, must not be
reproduced in any form whatsoever
without written permission from the Publisher,
except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

Published by Helix Press
An imprint of the
Parapsychology Foundation, Inc.
PO Box 1562
New York, New York, 10021, USA

TEL: 212-628-1550 / FAX: 212-628-1559

Printed by
BookMasters, Inc.
Ashland, Ohio, USA

Cover art designed by
Illuminations, Inc.
Greenport, New York, USA

ISBN 10: 1-931747-26-1
ISBN 13: 978-1-931747-26-4

For Florence, Jay, and Naomi

AS THE GRANDDAUGHTER of Eileen J. Garrett and Executive Director of Parapsychology Foundation the organization she founded, it gives me great pleasure both professionally and personally to bring Eileen Garrett and the World Beyond the Senses back into print. Interest in Garretts life, the people she touched, her psychic abilities and her own work and the work of many that she came into contact within the many facets of her eclectic lifes experiences remains high.

Many have attempted to describe her...few successfully captured her essence. It fell to Allan Angoff who knew her and worked with her in various capacities to successfully tell her story. Many dropped in and out of Garretts continually evolving and oft times frenetic orbit with very few surviving for great lengths of time able to keep up with her. Allan Angoff managed for over twenty-five years to survive her mercurial moods and her insatiable curiosity which led her in so many diverse directions. Allan though, always maintaining a life and career outside of Garretts influence, managed very pragmatically to add greatly to the work and goals of Parapsychology Foundation as its Chairman of Domestic and International Programs and of course his literary background was of invaluable help in many of Garretts publishing ventures in and out of the psychic world in both Tomorrow Magazine, Creative Age Press and Garrett Publications as well as the Foundations scholarly monograph and conference series.

Personally I literally grew up around him and owe him a debt as he patiently suffered my growing pains and very much helped to formulate my learning curve with office procedures, business affairs and secretarial and editorial work. Both my parents Robert and Eileen Coly, Parapsychology Foundations current President and myself have countless fond memories of Allan during our varied meetings and conferences as we were all drawn by Eileen Garrett into the support of parapsychologys researchers the world over.

The academic world of parapsychology owes Allan Angoff a debt of gratitude for his efforts in supporting their research through the auspices of the Foundation and the public as well for his support and growth of the magnificent Eileen J. Garrett Research Library specifically addressing the world beyond the senses. Parapsychology Foundation owes gratitude to his familywife Florence and children Jay and Naomiwho have graciously allowed us to bring back this biography within which he captured with affection the personality of a rather remarkable woman.

Lisette Coly
New York City
September 2008

THE AUTHOR IS grateful to Eileen Coly and the Estate of Eileen J. Garrett for permission to quote material from the published works and other writings of Eileen J. Garrett.

He thanks the following for sharing with him some of their recollections of Mrs. Garrett: Frances P. Bolton, Lester E. Buckland, Bob Brier, Eileen Coly, Robert R. Coly, Eric J. Dingwall, Muriel W. Hankey, Robert W. Laidlaw, Lawrence LeShan, William Martin, Ira Progoff, J. B. Rhine, Emilio Servadio, and Harold D. Vursell.

The librarians of the College of Psychic Studies and of the Society for Psychical Research, London, have been most helpful in permitting free access to their pertinent resources.

Two American librarians have been the authors constant and cooperative companions and guides through so many research thickets, and he must note here his very great debt to them: Florence Angoff, his wife; and Grazina Babusis of the Eileen J. Garrett Library, Parapsychology Foundation, New York.

EILEEN GARRETT TALKED with the dead, healed the sick, predicted the future. She performed miracles for fifty years with undiminished and frightening accuracy. She made no claims to having supernatural powers, and said that she was not a miracle worker but merely had a sensitivity, very highly developed perhaps, which enabled her to see and do things impossible for most people. That was all. She also said that most people could, with training, become equally sensitive. There was no magic to it, and those who claimed magic for similar gifts in themselves were frauds or just too gullible about the whole matter.

She wasnt even so sure that her giftsclairvoyance, telepathy, psychometry, trance mediumshipwere good gifts. She often said to me, These could be dangerous when controlled by people without compassion. These gifts are dangerous unless they are used to help people.

At other times she told me, I dont even know if these are gifts. All our investigations have been inconclusive. Ive taken part in so many experiments and have worked with so many investigators. I really wonder if they have just been footling around and getting nowhere. All the scientists may have discovered nothing about mediumship and extrasensory perception. And maybe there was nothing to discover, absolutely nothing.

After thousands of seances and the extraordinary results which made her one of the most celebrated mediums of the century, she remained dubious to the end about the nature of her powers. The admiration and gratitude of her sitters left her unmoved. But she had a vague feeling that good scientists might find some answers. If the whole, strange, mystifying psychic gift could be snatched out of the darkness of seance rooms and put into the capable probing hands of science, she said, everybody would feel much better about the subject and the world of science and philosophy could be enriched.

That is why, in 1951, she established the Parapsychology Foundation. Up to that time there had been only the sparsest scientific investigation of psychic phenomena. Parapsychology was a field cluttered with researchers who were clearly biased, either looking for answers to personal problems, or committed spiritualists, survivalists, or reincarnationists. Her Foundation would encourage, with funds, with conferences, with its library and its publications, the most promising work of the most promising scientists studying the paranormal everywhere in the world.

She saw many scientists fail, she watched many wander off into cults, she became familiar with those who, enveloped by the psychic and occult boom of recent years, found popularity more stimulating than research and experiment and study. But she was not disillusioned. She laughed them off as weaklings or as rogues who had amused her. But it had been worth taking a chance on them.

Not only did she question her psychic powers, she was also quite irreverent about them. Too much parapsychology was a bore, she said, and sought relief in running a restaurant, a hostel, a book publishing firm, a literary magazine.