Blur of the Otherworldly: Contemporary Art, Technology and the Paranormal

Ted Serios. "...Ted Serios came to the world’s attention, briefly, upon the 1967 publication of The World of Ted Serios: Thoughtographic Studies of an Extraordinary Mind, by Jule Eisenbud. Eisenbud was a psychiatrist interested in the paranormal powers of the mind; Serios was an unemployed alcoholic bellhop from Chicago who could allegedly project images on unexposed film by staring into the lens of a camera with intense concentration. In 'carefully controlled' experiments, while chugging quarts of Budweiser, the oftentimes shirtless Serios would work himself into a sort of ritualistic froth, snapping his fingers at the moment of telepathic impact and then falling back into his chair exhausted. The results were mixed, but he did sometimes inexplicably produce imagery of buildings, people walking down the street, Neanderthal families, and space ships." From Blur of the Otherworldly: Contemporary Art, Technology and the Paranormal.