Rhine, Joseph Banks (1895–1980)

US parapsychologist who carried out many groundbreaking laboratory experiments in parapsychology. Some are described in his book Extra-Sensory Perception (1934), which made ESP a common term.

Rhine conducted this work from 1927 onwards at Duke University, North Carolina. He was the first to make use of Zener cards in card-guessing experiments to investigate telepathy and precognition. They were named after K E Zener, a psychologist colleague, and each shows one of five simple graphic symbols. Rhine also investigated psychokinesis in experiments where subjects tried to influence the fall of dice. This work is described in The Reach of the Mind 1947.