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J.B. Rhine
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J.B. Rhine

American parapsychologist
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Also known as: Joseph Banks Rhine
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Quick Facts
In full:
Joseph Banks Rhine
Born:
September 29, 1895, Waterloo, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died:
February 20, 1980, Hillsborough, North Carolina (aged 84)
Also Known As:
Joseph Banks Rhine

J.B. Rhine (born September 29, 1895, Waterloo, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died February 20, 1980, Hillsborough, North Carolina) was an American parapsychologist who was credited with coining the term extrasensory perception (ESP) in the course of researching such phenomena as mental telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance.

Rhine initially studied to be a botanist but became fascinated with "psychic occurrences." In 1930, with psychologist William McDougall, he helped to establish the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. There Rhine held some 90,000 experiments, using a wide variety of human subjects. In 1934 his book Extra-Sensory Perception created a sensation with the general public but was greeted with skepticism by the scientific community. His New Frontiers of the Mind (1937) further explained his experiments. Rhine left Duke in 1965 and formed his own research centre, the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man. That same year Rhine and McDougall cofounded the Journal of Parapsychology.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.