The Bill Roll Lecture

The Bill Roll Lecture will be given by Sally Rhine Feather on “JB and Louisa E. Rhine’s Lifelong Partnership in Parapsychology”  and will take place at the University of West Georgia on Thursday 25th October at 7pm (in the TLC Lecture Hall 1305).  A reception will be held in Melson Hall with light refreshments at 6pm.

In honor of the late Dr. Bill Roll and his contributions to parapsychological research, the UWG Psychology Department annually hosts “The Bill Roll Lecture” presented by a researcher in the field of parapsychology. Dr. Sally Rhine Feather, a retired clinical psychologist, traces her lifelong interest in parapsychology to growing up as the daughter of JB and Louisa E. Rhine, founders of modern parapsychology. JB Rhine is generally considered the founder of modern parapsychology based on his systematic study of telepathy and other psychic phenomena using standard  research methods of his time. His wife Louisa Rhine is known primarily for her later extensive collection and study of case reports of spontaneous psychic experiences sent in by people around the world. Lesser known is the extent that JB and Louisa worked as a team from their initial interest in psychical research until the final stages of JB’s life in 1980. Relying in part on Louisa’s account of their collaboration written in her later years, Dr. Sally Feather will speak of the personal and cultural factors that seemed to make her parents’ partnership work so well, so that neither one admittedly would have achieved as much without the other.    

Dr. Rhine Feather worked as a researcher at the Duke Parapsychology Lab before and after earning a doctorate in experimental psychology from Duke University in 1967, later obtaining additional training to serve as a clinical psychologist. After retirement as a clinical psychologist in 2004, Dr. Feather returned to work at the Rhine Research Center including serving several years as Executive Director.  She co-authored a popular book featuring reports of ESP experiences (The Gift, 2005) and in 2010 received the Outstanding Career Award from the Parapsychology Association. She continues as an active volunteer at the Rhine Center, serves on their Board of Directors, and is currently co-editing a book of her father’s early letters that provide a window into the early years of how parapsychology got its start at Duke University.

Registration: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkyDepJ75fKR_c9NWg1as0xUSI3cM5rbErlk4GwHJ8Qivj3A/viewform?usp=sf_l