Ted Serios's thoughtography - an inexplicable reality or a cunning trick? (7 photos)

What does human thought look like when reproduced on a material medium?





The answer to this question was found by an ordinary messenger who discovered a new direction - thoughtography. Ted Serios (1918-2006) discovered an unusual hobby - transferring his own thoughts to film. Even the most fastidious skeptics have not yet been able to convict him of fraud.



Ted Serios during a session

He received his first unusual photos when he worked as an elevator operator in a Chicago hotel. One of the guy’s colleagues was interested in hypnosis and, after working with Ted, said that Serios was an excellent subject for research. He has clairvoyant abilities, which has been repeatedly confirmed in the form of finding lost objects.



Thoughts of Ted Serios

A friend suggested that Serios record places and objects that he sees thanks to his superpowers. Gave Ted a Palaroid. And unexpectedly the attempts were successful.

The World of Ted Serios



This is how the famous psychiatrist Jules Eisenbud found out about Ted. And he decided to work with an unusual patient to prove his abilities or confirm the fact of fraud.

Ted agreed. The sessions proceeded as follows: the man was immersed in a state close to trance. He often resorted to using alcohol. Then he put a metal tube to his forehead, brought the camera to it and took a picture. Some turned out blurry and unclear. But there were also those where objects and images were distinguishable that could be easily identified.



Eisenbud worked with Ted for three years, from 1964 to 1967. During this time I took more than 400 photographs. And he was never able to detect the fact of fraud. Based on the results of the work, the psychiatrist wrote the book “The World of Ted Serios: “Thoughtography”.

Experts brought in from outside - representatives of different fields of science - mathematicians, physicists, psychologists, who closely followed the experiment, could not prove the fact of the hoax. Moreover, they perfectly studied almost all the tricks that other “psychics” used. They replaced photographic plates, used double printing and double exposure, and applied chemical screens to the photos. However, the advent of Polaroid, which instantly produced images, made forgery almost impossible.



After completing the study, Ted's abilities began to weaken. As a result, he was generally declared a charlatan and gradually forgotten. In 1985, Serios took part in the show “The World of Strange Abilities.” But he was unable to repeat his trick in the studio and get at least one identifiable photo.

Perhaps the man really had some outstanding abilities. But their manifestation required compliance with a large number of factors.



Do you think Serios's thoughtography is truly a manifestation of an unexplored gift or nothing more than an elegant, carefully planned deception?