Sinclair, Mary Craig

Sinclair, Mary Craig (1883–1961) In the 1930s the psychic powers of novelist Mary Craig Sinclair came to the attention of the American public through the efforts of her husband, best-selling author and social activist Upton Sinclair. Though known as a skeptic, he became convinced that Mary had telepathic abilities, and he designed a series of tests, using controlled conditions, to prove it. The most common type of test required him and his wife to be alone in separate rooms, some distance apart. Upton would draw random pictures, and Mary would attempt to duplicate each drawing by connecting with Upton’s mind. Over the course of three years, Mary had produced 290 drawings in this manner. Of these, 65 were very accurate; 155 were partially accurate, in that some parts of Mary’s drawings duplicated elements of Upton’s; and 70 were in no way accurate. Since this result is far better than chance would allow, Upton felt that this experiment was proof that Mary was telepathic. As additional confirmation, on one occasion he arranged for Mary to try to receive an image from her brother-in-law over a distance of 40 miles (64.4km). The man drew a fork, and Mary wrote down, “Saw a table fork.” In 1930 Upton published a book about his experiments and his wife’s talents, Mental Radio, which convinced many people that telepathy was a real phenomenon.

SEE ALSO:

• Telepathy

SOURCE:

The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Paranormal Phenomena – written by Patricia D. Netzley © 2006 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning