Joseph Francis Rinn (1868–1952) was an American
magician and skeptic of
paranormal
Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Nota ...
phenomena.
Career
Rinn grew up in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. He coached
Harry Houdini
Harry Houdini (, born Erik Weisz; March 24, 1874 – October 31, 1926) was a Hungarian-American escape artist, magic man, and stunt performer, noted for his escape acts. His pseudonym is a reference to his spiritual master, French magician ...
as a teenager in
running
Running is a method of terrestrial locomotion allowing humans and other animals to move rapidly on foot. Running is a type of gait characterized by an aerial phase in which all feet are above the ground (though there are exceptions). This is ...
at the Pastime Athletic Club.
He remained a friend to Houdini and exposed many fraudulent
medium
Medium may refer to:
Science and technology
Aviation
*Medium bomber, a class of war plane
*Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data
* Medium of ...
s throughout his career. His sister, Bridgette, was a Catholic nun.
He was a former one year member of the
American Society for Psychical Research
The American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) is the oldest psychical research organization in the United States dedicated to parapsychology. It maintains offices and a library, in New York City, which are open to both members and the gener ...
and a lifelong inquirer into
psychic
A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, ...
matters. He was a member of the
Society of American Magicians
The Society of American Magicians (S.A.M.) is the oldest fraternal magic organization in the world. Its purpose is "to advance, elevate, and preserve magic as a performing art, to promote harmonious fellowship throughout the world of magic, and t ...
. Rinn was notable for describing the tricks of physical mediums. He exposed the
billet reading of
Bert Reese
Bert Reese (1851–1926) was an American-Polish medium and mentalist, most well known for his billet reading demonstrations.
Biography
Reese was born Berthold Riess in Posen. He was a spiritualist and friend of Aleister Crowley. He claimed to ...
. Science writer
Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of Lewis ...
has noted that Rinn had provided "good description of one of Reese's billet-reading performances, with an explanation of how he did it."
Rinn would offer huge amounts of
money
Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are as ...
, up to $10,000 to anyone who could demonstrate a psychic event; however, as nobody ever did, the money went unclaimed. He was friends with another debunker of spiritualism the magician
John Mulholland.
Rinn's work in debunking psychic phenomena has been praised by psychologists in the field of
anomalistic psychology
In psychology, anomalistic psychology is the study of human behaviour and experience connected with what is often called the paranormal, with few assumptions made about the validity (or otherwise) of the reported phenomena.
Early history
Accordin ...
.
One claim that Rinn investigated that turned out to be true was the Mynah bird of
Emma Cecilia Thursby that could sing in different languages and play the piano. According to Rinn an autopsy of the bird revealed an extraordinarily large brain and this was responsible for the bird's great abilities.
Rinn was an
anti-vaccinationist
Vaccine hesitancy is a delay in acceptance, or refusal, of vaccines despite the availability of vaccine services and supporting evidence. The term covers refusals to vaccinate, delaying vaccines, accepting vaccines but remaining uncertain abou ...
. In 1911, he denounced smallpox vaccination.
Metropolitan Psychical Society
Rinn became disillusioned with the
American Society for Psychical Research
The American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) is the oldest psychical research organization in the United States dedicated to parapsychology. It maintains offices and a library, in New York City, which are open to both members and the gener ...
as he believed they had failed to expose cases of psychic fraud so in 1905 he formed a skeptical group known as the Metropolitan Psychical Society. Notable skeptical members who were also magicians included Winfield S. Davis and James L. Kellogg.
In January, 1910 a series of séance sittings were held in the physics laboratory at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
with the medium
Eusapia Palladino
Eusapia Palladino (alternative spelling: ''Paladino''; 21 January 1854 – 16 May 1918) was an Italian Spiritualist physical medium. She claimed extraordinary powers such as the ability to levitate tables, communicate with the dead through he ...
. Scientists such as
Robert W. Wood
Robert Williams Wood (May 2, 1868 – August 11, 1955) was an American physicist and inventor who made pivotal contributions to the field of optics. He pioneered infrared and ultraviolet photography. Wood's patents and theoretical work inform ...
and
Edmund Beecher Wilson
Edmund Beecher Wilson (October 19, 1856 – March 3, 1939) was a pioneering American zoologist and geneticist. He wrote one of the most influential textbooks in modern biology, ''The Cell''.
Career
Wilson was born in Geneva, Illinois, the so ...
attended. Davis, Kellogg, Rinn and John W. Sargent, a past-president of the Society of American Magicians were present in the last séance sittings in April. They discovered that Palladino had freed her left foot to perform the phenomena. Rinn gave a full account of fraudulent behavior observed in a séance of Palladino.
![Joseph Rinn](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Joseph_Rinn.png)
Reception
Rinn's book ''Searchlight on Psychical Research'' (1954) was described in a review as the "death knell of spiritualism" as it exposed the fraud and tricks involved in
spiritualist
Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century
The ''long nineteenth century'' i ...
activities.
In the book ''A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology'' (1985), authors Gerd H. Hövelmann,
Marcello Truzzi
Marcello Truzzi (September 6, 1935 – February 2, 2003) was a professor of sociology at New College of Florida and later at Eastern Michigan University, founding co-chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Para ...
and
Piet Hein Hoebens Piet Hein Hoebens (29 September 1948, Utrecht – 22 October 1984) was a Dutch journalist, parapsychologist and skeptic.
Hoebens is most well known for debunking the claims of psychic detectives. He worked as a Dutch journalist and investigated cl ...
described the book as:
A flawed but nonetheless very important critical work by a man prominent in conjuring circles (Rinn was a successful businessman and part-time magician and exposer/ investigator of spirit mediums) who has given us material in this that today appears nowhere else. Because Rinn deals with his own direct experiences and, especially, because he quotes at length from now obscure and forgotten newspaper records, the book is invaluable. It is a book full of opinions, gossip, and anecdotes, and it needs to be read that way — not as a work of objective scholarship. Aside from its wealth of detail, the book is also an important document showing the outlook of a strong skeptic.
Biographer
William Lindsay Gresham
William Lindsay Gresham (; August 20, 1909 – September 14, 1962) was an American novelist and non-fiction author particularly well-regarded among readers of noir. His best-known work is '' Nightmare Alley'' (1946), which was adapted to film i ...
noted that the book did contain inaccuracies but is valuable for its reprinting of clippings dealing with Harry Houdini.
Skeptic
Melvin Harris
Melvin is a masculine given name and surname, likely a variant of Melville and a descendant of the French surname de Maleuin and the later Melwin. It may alternatively be spelled as Melvyn or, in Welsh, Melfyn and the name Melivinia or Melva may b ...
wrote that the book has "many faults and inaccuracies, but for all that, it offers many hints to investigators and points researchers in many fruitful directions."
[ Harris, Melvin. (2003). ''Investigating the Unexplained: Psychic Detectives, the Amityville Horror-mongers, Jack the Ripper, and Other Mysteries of the Paranormal''. Prometheus Books. p. 221. ]
Commenting in 2013,
Daniel Loxton
Daniel Loxton (born 1975) is a Canadian writer, illustrator, and skeptic. He wrote or co-wrote several books including ''Tales of Prehistoric Life,'' a children's science trilogy, and '' Abominable Science!'', a scientific look at cryptozoology. A ...
has described the book as the "deepest and most important sources of skeptical literature on paranormal investigation from about 1890–1950."
Publications
*''Sixty Years of Psychical Research: Houdini and I Among the Spiritualists'' (New York: Truth Seeker Company, 1950). Reprinted in England as ''Searchlight on Psychical Research'' (London: Rider and Company, 1954)
References
External links
*William Henry Salter. (1952)
''Sixty Years of Psychical Research'' Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 36: 431-438.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rinn, Joseph
1868 births
1962 deaths
American anti-vaccination activists
American skeptics
American magicians
American male writers
Critics of parapsychology
Critics of Spiritualism
Entertainers from New York City
Harry Houdini