PI - Past & Present - Gertrude Schmeidler

Gertrude Schmeidler

As a past President of Parapsychological Association in New York, USA, Gertrude Schmeidler has long been admired for her extensive career and balance with home life. A Professor Emerita of Psychology at City University New York, Gertrude is also a Mother and Grandmother

Gertrude started her career as an experimental psychologist with research into perception and memory, and in 1942, whilst working part-time at Harvard, Gertrude sat in on a seminar that completely changed her perspective and future.

Gardener Murphy was instructing on psychical research, and it was this seminar that changed the future for Gertrude, his explanations and recommendations for future readings would lead her on to a path of research, experiments and discovery.

Gertrude's experiments tried to address criticism that ESP is a fact without a theory, she divided her subjects into “Goats” (people who totally reject any type of ESP of being a possibility) and “Sheep” (people who had small to firm belief in the subject). She was able to ascertain that the “goats” would always have lower results in testing, as they chose not to believe that the test could work.

Through her work, and the rebuttal of criticism, Gertrude was able to establish 4 outcomes that rebutted criticism.

1.  – Different aspects of personality have differing results on personality, which as it turns out, is true also in psychological theory.
2.  – Telepathy can transmit information, but can also block information about ESP or block particular abilities.
3.  - Precognition is a reality, and people have a wide range of unexplored stimuli.
4.  – Psychokinesis is an effect that needs to balanced with physical changes elsewhere, in other words, we can influence things around us.

Gertrude did extensive experimentation with students on ESP and PK, some were financed by the company behind the invention of the Xerox machine, but, throughout all her experiments, she could never define one rigorous enough, but practical enough, to obtain the desired outcomes she hypothesised.
Often a lack of money into this area of research stalled her efforts as well.


Gertrude will always be remembered as a dedicated woman in this field, searching for answers to the unknown.

© 2013 Allen Tiller

www.eidolonparanormal.com.au