It’s easy to have a laugh at the expense of all those ghost hunters you see on TV. With their flashy gadgets and dramatic reactions any time the night-vision camera captures a mote of dust in the air, it’s little wonder that the field of paranormal investigations has long been consigned to the garbage heap of pseudoscience.
And yet, over the decades, plenty of scientists and science-minded institutions have dipped their toes into the murky waters of the paranormal. Harvard’s own William James, who helped found the school’s psychology department, was obsessed with the supernatural throughout his career. Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle — a trained physician, don’t forget — spent the latter part of his life (and much of his credibility) as a defender of spiritualism.
In the 1920s, the venerable Scientific American was open-minded enough to offer a long-standing reward, up to $15,000 at one point, to anyone who could provide conclusive evidence of ghosts. Even Einstein once attended a séance (although he did not report any spooky action).
Today, a surprising number of colleges and universities offer opportunities to study and even conduct research in parapsychology. And some scientists, although not many, have devoted their own time and resources to studying the paranormal — by becoming ghost hunters themselves.
