Rhine, J. B.

Extract

Rhine, J. B. (29 September 1895–20 February 1980), parapsychologist, was born Joseph Banks Rhine in Waterloo, Pennsylvania, the son of Samuel Ellis Rhine, an itinerant shopkeeper, schoolteacher, and farmer, and Elizabeth Vaughan. Starting in 1915, Rhine attended Ohio Northern University for two years and then switched to the College of Wooster, where his childhood friend (and future wife) Louisa Ella Weckesser was a student. Rhine’s intended vocation was the ministry, but he abandoned this after less than a semester at Wooster and dropped out of college. He served in the marines in World War I and then decided to pursue a science-related career. His initial choice was forestry, in preparation for which he followed Weckesser to the University of Chicago to study botany. Rhine completed his undergraduate degree there and continued on to do graduate work in plant physiology, as had his wife. They were married in 1920. They had three daughters and adopted a son. Louisa Rhine received her Ph.D. in 1923; Joseph Rhine received his M.S. in that year and his Ph.D. in 1925. Louisa Rhine was J. B.’s intellectual partner and a major researcher in parapsychology in her own right. After they briefly held research positions at the Bryce Thompson Institute in Yonkers, New York, Rhine accepted a post at West Virginia University in 1924. They remained there until 1926....