Previous Winners

 

2017

The seventeenth winner of the D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Media is Shannon Taggart. Shannon has for the past 16 years been working on an expansive photography project about the religion of Spiritualism and the practice of mediumship. This body of work began at Lily Dale, New York in 2001, and has since taken her to France, Italy, and all over the United Kingdom in order to photograph mediums at work and to record contemporary Spiritualist practice.

The final realization of this work will be a lavishly illustrated 350 page book that combines her own documentary photographs, text, interviews and parapsychological media experiments along with historical research and vintage images that illustrate Spiritualism’s complex cultural history. Here is the link to a crowdfunding spot for SÉANCE:  Spiritualist Ritual and the Search for Ectoplasm. Shannon, in part with PF  support, traveled to Murcia, Spain to interview and photograph two of the most important figures in modern Spiritualism, Robin and Sandra Foy.

2007
The sixteenth winner of the D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature is Dr. Christine Simmonds-Moore, a Lecturer in Psychology and Parapsychology at Liverpool Hope University in England where she is an active member of the Parapsychology Research Group. Dr. Simmonds-Moore was also the 2004 Frances P. Bolton Fellow. At Liverpool Hope, Dr. Simmonds-Moore co-teaches a variety of psychology courses, including a year-long final-year undergraduate course on “perspectives on anomalous experiences.” She is also currently co-supervising a Ph.D. student whose dissertation topic is related to parapsychology.

In addition to teaching, Dr. Simmonds-Moore is also involved in a collaborative Fundação Bial-funded research project with Nicola Holt of the Universities of Northampton and York which addresses ESP from a cognitive perspective, that is, treating psi as the unattended stimulus. Simmonds-Moore has also just completed a project on gender roles and ESP as well as a project on Virtual Reality and ESP with colleagues at the University of Manchester. A considerable portion of the research Dr. Simmonds-Moore has conducted, including her Ph.D. project, has focused on personality, altered states of consciousness, and anomalous experiences, and, in particular, on the personality construct of schizotypy and such related variables as transliminality and boundary thinness.

Dr. Simmonds-Moore plans to use the D. Scott Rogo Award to support the writing of a book on these topics entitled, Psychic Personality: An Exploration of Individual Differences and Anomalous Experiences. Structured in two halves, the first half of Psychic Personality will look at the relationship between personality types and a range of anomalous experiences. Both normal and paranormal explanations of the experiences and their personality correlates will be examined. For example, Psychic Personality will explore pseudo-psychic experiences, hallucinatory experiences, extra-sensory and psychokinetic experiences, and how such personality variables (creativity among them) relate to genius and exceptional human experiences. The second half of the book will address the reasons for, and implications of, the relationships between anomalous phenomena and personality, taking into account psychophysiology, psychopathology, and the possible evolutionary significance of the relationship. Dr. Simmonds-Moore will take an open-minded but skeptical perspective, weighing the evidence for different explanations of each experience

2006
The winner of the Fifteenth Annual D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature was Dr. Simon Sherwood. At the time of the award, Dr. Sherwood, who was also the 2003 Frances P. Bolton Fellow, was a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Northampton and a member of its Centre for the Study of Anomalous Psychological Processes (CSAPP). He coordinated part of the final-year undergraduate module entitled “Parapsychology and Anomalous Experiences,” supervised undergraduate and post-graduate research in the field, was a member of two investigation teams, ParaScience, based in Wirral and the Paranormal Site Investigators (PSI) based in Wiltshire in England, an accredited investigator for the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP), and a member of the Spontaneous Cases Committee of the Society for Psychical Research. The project for which Dr. Sherwood was awarded the Rogo was tentatively entitled Apparitions and Hauntings. In this book Sherwood hoped to both draw on and inspire more cross-methodological expertise in parapsychology, recognizing the value of different approaches such as spontaneous case collections and fieldwork, as well as experimentation. His book was planned to outline what each of these methods are and evaluate the contributions from them, and in particular, to examine the increasing use of electronic equipment in field investigations of hauntings. Additionally, he planned to analyze a collection of first– and second–hand accounts from various methodological and theoretical perspectives.

2005
The winner of the fourteenth Annual D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature was Michael Jawer, a highly articulate, published author who has written on diverse subjects for trade and professional associations as well as for the U.S. Federal government. At the time of the Award, Mr. Jawer planned to use the Rogo to help fund the writing of a book called The Emotional Gateway in which he hoped to make the case that a variety of psi perceptions are actually permutations of bodily feeling. The Emotional Gateway was to argue that psi has much in common with other little-understood conditions and perceptions, including migraine headache and fibromyalgia, phantom pain and synesthesia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and post-traumatic stress disorder. For Jawer, the dynamics of feeling in the brain and the body hold the key to a fuller understanding of these phenomena. The idea came to Jawer while preparing indoor quality guidance for office building owners and managers. In the course of that work, Jawer had occasion to speak to people who considered themselves to be suffering from environmental sensitivities and who also reported apparitions and other seemingly paranormal perceptual experiences. As he conducted his research, Jawer began to suspect that a range of odd sensitivities could stem from a common neurobiological foundations.

UPDATE:Michael Jawer announced that The Spiritual Anatomy of Emotion: How Feelings Link the Brain, the Body and the Sixth Sense, the book partially funded by Jawer’s Rogo Award, will be published in July of 2009 by Park Street Press. Jawer’s co-author, is MD/PhD Dr. Marc S. Micozzi. The book also has a preface written by Dr. Larry Dossey. Its title reflects the authors’ thesis that emotion is the great integrator: of body, mind, memory, sensation and perception. They also suspect that emotion has a great deal to do with unusual, anomalous experience. The book traces the neurobiology of emotion and of the heightened sensitivities that many people possess. An informational website, http://www.emotiongateway.com, has been set up that not only describes the book and its authors, presenting excerpts and contents, but also provides case histories and research results. A great deal of helpful information on environmental sensitivities is also available on the site for individuals who suffer from such sensitivies and for the doctors who treat them.

ADDITIONAL UPDATE: Michael Jawer will be presenting the PF Perspectives Lecture, “The Spiritual Anatomy of Emotion”s on Thursday evening, October 29th, at 7:00 p.m. at the Open Center in New York City. For more information, click here

2004
The winner of the thirteenth Annual D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature was Dr. Christopher Moreman who earned his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Wales at Lampeter. At the time of the Award, Dr. Moreman planned to use the Rogo Award to allow him to work on a textbook for use in survey courses on “Death and the Afterlife”. The book formed a natural extension to his doctoral research which was a comparative analysis of beliefs in life after death from the major world’s religions with special attention as to how certain seemingly paranormal experiences related to such beliefs. In the book, Dr. Moreman planned both to consider beliefs on the afterlife from several modern and ancient religious traditions and to cover the four areas of research into personal experiences that appear to be related to specific beliefs in the afterlife, that is, mediumship and possession, apparitions and hauntings (including poltergeist phenomena), near-death and out-of-body experiences, and past-life memories.

UPDATE:In 2008, Dr. Christopher Moreman published the book that was partially supported by the Rogo Award. It is Beyond the Threshold: Afterlife Beliefs and Experiences in World Religions. The publisher, Rowman & Littlefield, describes the book in this way: “Beyond the Threshold examines the afterlife through the lens of both world religions and metaphysical experiences. Christopher M. Moreman includes an introduction to the afterlife beliefs of ancient cultures, which are essential to understanding the roots of many modern ideas about death. He examines the folklore and doctrines of major world religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. He also discusses psychic phenomena across traditions, such as mediums, near-death and out-of-body experiences and past-life memories. While ultimately the afterlife remains unknowable, Moreman’s unique, in-depth exploration of both beliefs and experiences can help readers reach their own understanding of the afterlife and how to live.” Dr. Moreman is (in 2008) an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at California State University in East Bay, where he teaches courses in comparative religion. He is the founder and co-chair of the American Academy of Religion’s program unit, Death, Dying, and Beyond and is the editor of the book Teaching Death and Dying.

2003
The winner of the twelfth Annual D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature was Brazilian parapsychologist and semiotician Dr. Fátima Regina Machado. Having recently defended her doctoral dissertation in the Communication and Semiotics Graduation Program (COS) of the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC/SP), Brazil, Dr. Machado will use the award to transform her doctoral dissertation into a book tentatively titled “Poltergeists: Sua Função e Significado – Uma Abordagem Semiótica” [Poltergeists: Their Function and Meaning – A Semiotic Approach]. The main objective of Machado’s work will be to present an empirical study of reported poltergeist phenomena through semiotic analysis. Her intention is to contribute to the clarification of the communication process present in reported poltergeist cases, as well as to examine the significance of the reported phenomena. Both cases considered to be “real” and cases considered to be fraudulent will be included. Machado hopes to add to a deeper understanding of poltergeist phenomena through empirical analysis.

2002
The winners of the Eleventh Annual D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature was Dr. Michael A. Thalbourne and then post-graduate student Lance Storm. Working within the Psychology Department of the University of Adelaide in Australia, Drs. Thalbourne and Storm received the award for a book which they are editing. The book, called Parapsychology in the 21st Century: The Future of Psychical Research will explore future directions of parapsychology. The anthology will feature articles on experimental design, poltergeist research, altered states of consciousness, meta-analysis, chaos theory, temporal lobe research, and other topics integral to scientific parapsychology.

2001
The winner of the Tenth Annual D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature was Matthew D. Smith, Ph.D. Teaching within the Department of Psychology at Liverpool Hope University College in Liverpool, England, Dr. Smith realized first-hand the need for an up-to-date parapsychology textbook which would draw upon psychological research on teaching and learning. Presenting a balanced overview of the field, at the time of the award, Dr. Smith’s textbook was tentatively titled Parapsychology: A Student’s Guide,. It will introduce the main approaches to research and will review the main research findings. The main methodological and conceptual issues in contemporary parapsychology will also be covered, as will be the potential implications of parapsychological research.

2000
The winner of the Ninth Annual D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature was Madelaine Lawrence, Ph.D. A nurse with an avid interest in clinical research who was, at the time of the Award, doing freelance research consulting and college teaching while conducting her own research, Dr. Lawrence is the author of In a World of Their Own: Experiencing Unconsciousness. The Rogo Award was granted for preparation of a manuscript entitled “Understanding Paranormal Experiences Triggered by Medical Conditions.” In it, Dr. Lawrence hoped to provide a new framework for patients, family members and health care professionals for interpreting such parapsychological experiences as near-death experiences, near-death visits, out-of-body experiences and so on, as they are associated with such medical conditions as cardiac arrest, unconsciousness, shock, severe pain, chemotherapy, AIDS, death and dying and bereavement.

1999
The Eighth Annual D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature was Chris A. Roe, PhD. Currently with University College Northampton in Northampton, England, Dr. Roe planned to extend the research undertaken for his dissertation, Persuasion in the Context of Psychic Readings. The book he planned would provide an overview of the claims of psychic readers and the relevant laboratory research related to those claims. The book would also draw attention to the extensive literature circulated among members of magic and conjuring societies concerning the techniques employed by pseudopsychics.

1998
The winner of the Seventh Annual D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature was the author Barbara Weisberg. Using the Fox sisters as a backdrop, Ms. Weisberg planned a book which will explore the world of America’s social and religious history. Designed for young readers, the book will focus on the process of discovery emphasizing the importance of thinking analytically about the world of psychic phenomena.

UPDATE: Weisberg’s book evolved over the course of her research and is now intended for adult readers. To purchase a copy of Barbara Weisberg’s new book, Talking to the Dead, click here!

1997
The winner of the Sixth Annual D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature was George P. Hansen. At the time he received the Award, Mr. Hansen was working on a book length manuscript on the trickster figure of mythology and folklore and its implications for understanding the paranormal. The manuscript proposed an integration of psychical research data with anthropology and sociology.

1996
The winner of the Fifth Annual D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature was Dr. Patrick McNamara, the Director of Research and Development at Vision House (a program for adults with brain injury). Dr. McNamara was selected on the basis of his upcoming book, Memory and Experience. Utilizing Henri Bergson’s selectionist theory of memory, the author hoped to demonstrate how special abilities and talents, including psi, are linked to various aspects of the mnemonic senses.

1995
The winner of the Fourth Annual D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature was Dr. Eugene I. Taylor, a lecturer on psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a clinical associate in psychology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and an instructor of the history of psychology at the Saybrook Institute. Dr. Taylor was selected on the basis of his upcoming work, William James on Psychology as a Person-Centered Science which was scheduled to be published by Princeton University Press in 1996. As Taylor noted: “The theme of the work is that although James is not read by psychologists after his Principles of Psychology (1890), he did, indeed, have a vibrant psychology after 1890. In fact, his metaphysics of radical empiricism, which was essentially a critique of experimentalism in psychology, challenged the reductionistic subject matter of the laboratory and required psychologists to take seriously claims of the paranormal, spiritual healing, and experiences of awakened religious consciousness.”

1994
The winner of the Third Annual D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature was Dr. Alfred S. Alschuler, Dean and Professor, Reich College of Education, Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. Dr. Alschuler’s proposed work on The Nature of Inner Voices would explore the lives of such notables as Mohammed, Mizra Husayn Ali (Baha’u’llah), and Catherine of Sienna. By utilizing the biographies of these individuals supplemented by modern examples, Dr. Alschuler proposed to define how inner voices can be experienced as inner teachers conducting a transcendent education. This guidance can then lead to both mystical awareness and courageous action for peace and the enrichment of humanity.

1993
The winner of the Second Annual D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature was Dr. Justine E. Owens, then an assistant professor of psychiatric medicine at the University of Virginia, Health Sciences Center. Dr. Owens’ proposed manuscript, Consciousness Near Death, would address the issue of NDEs from a multi-dimensional perspective. The research in which she was involved at the time of the Award incorporated physiological, psychological, and transcendental approaches to the experience. It was her contention that “by embracing the importance of these more mundane factors, the paranormal aspects of the NDE become more credible.”

1992
The winner of the First Annual D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature was Professor Frank B. Dilley of the Philosophy Department of the University of Delaware, in Newark, Delaware. At the time of the Award, Professor Dilley was working on a manuscript, collecting the works of H. H. Price, the emeritus professor of logic who was interested in the field of parapsychology with emphasis on telepathy, apparitional phenomena, mediumship and survival.