Nicolle Morock 0:29 

Welcome to the podcast. I'm your host, Nicolle Morock. My friends call me Niki. For those who wonder if this is a show about those marshmallow chicks and bunnies, I'd like to assure you that it's not. P-E-E-P stands for people experiencing everyday paranormal. And the show is all about connecting everyday experiences of the things that we have difficulty explaining, based on our current knowledge of how the world works, to the researchers working to expand that knowledge. According to dictionary.com, the definition of paranormal is, "adjective: Of or relating to the claimed occurrence of an event or perception without scientific explanation, as psychokinesis extrasensory perception or other purportedly supernatural phenomenon." So there you have it. To be paranormal, the occurrence or event must be without scientific explanation. Nothing in that definition says it has to be unusual or rare. Nothing says it has to be spooky, scary, or horrific.

I submit that more people than not have had at least one paranormal experience in their lives. Whether that be a flash of intuition, a moment of telepathy, or even an encounter with an unseen spirit, synchronicity, physical empathy - meaning actually being able to feel another person's physical pain in your own body - near-death experiences, prophetic dreams, and even having technology failures during moments of high anxiety. The things we call psi, spelled P-S-I, all fit into the realm of the paranormal. And all are being researched and studied by people who want to understand the what, how, and why it all happens.

Have you ever given thought to how you'd even study psychokinesis? Or intuition? Have you ever wondered what kind of scientist would even spend time on it? My goal is to introduce you to the people who are looking into the paranormal from the perspective of science, observing, creating hypotheses, designing experiments, recording and analyzing results, trying to find some answers to the questions that have haunted humans since the beginning of time. And each episode will look at a research study about a paranormal or parapsychological topic, and then talk to someone with related real life experiences. I want to share my passion about science and psi, and help everyone understand that the paranormal is more normal than we tend to believe. We're really just waiting for the science to catch up.

By now you might be wondering exactly who I am. I'm a meteorologist, a writer and a paranormal investigator. I got into the paranormal at an early age because I've had experiences as far back as I can remember. I've had dreams that came true, experiences with what most people would call ghosts, and telepathic encounters. I've seen unidentified aerial phenomenon, the new term for UFOs. I've learned to bend silverware without using force. Most people call it spoon bending, but I've used forks. I'm an empath, meaning that I can feel other people's physical aches and pains as well as emotions. A lifetime of experiences leads me to search out explanations, and my logical brain requires me to look for them in a scientific way whenever possible.

If you're listening to this podcast, I'm guessing you listen to other paranormal podcasts like I do. I have my favorites, Astonishing legends, Into the Fray, Our Strange Skies, Jim Harold's The Paranormal Podcast, The Mad Scientist, and even and That's Why We Drink. One thing that drives me a little nuts though, is when there's no mention or very little mention of scientific investigations into parapsychology. Occasionally, it's mentioned in passing or something that someone did decades ago, but it's happening today around the world, and for some of us, around the corner.

I live in the triangle area of North Carolina, and we're lucky to have the Rhine Research Center right here in our backyard. I've taken part in some studies there, and I've made some friends attending the Rhine's events and talks. It has a long history of being a place where a parapsychologists study psi. Tonight, I'm grateful to be able to introduce you to Mr. John Kruth. John is the executive director of the Rhine Research Center, and the founder and education director of the Rhine Education Center. His 20-plus years of professional technology experience and 10-plus years as a professional researcher, provide unique insight into the integration of technology and parapsychological research. His research includes explorations into subtle energies of the body, including psychic healing, the energy behind psychokinesis, poltergeist activity, and other unconscious effects on electronic devices and measurements of bio photons, ultraviolet light from energy healers. He has numerous publications and has spoken at professional conferences and other forums regarding scientific parapsychology, the history of the Rhine, the nature of energy healing, poltergeists, and other topics related to parapsychology in the paranormal. Besides his research, John's current projects include the development of a community of psi experiencers at the Rhine and worldwide through the use of technology to provide online courses, broadcasts of parapsychology speakers and events, and the development of online resources for scientists and those who are looking for reliable and professional information about scientific parapsychology. Without further ado, here's my interview with John.

Hi, John. Thanks for joining us today.

John Kruth 7:08 

Hi Niki, it's great to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Nicolle Morock 7:12 

Can you give us a brief history of the Rhine Research Center?

John Kruth 7:17 

Sure, well, I think you know a little bit about the Rhine because you've been around for a while. But the Rhine Research Center is the oldest operating parapsychology lab in the country. It started back in 1935 at Duke University as the Duke parapsychology lab. This is when they were starting to test what they had just discovered and just named ESP or extrasensory perception. I don't know if you've ever seen the ESP cards that they used to use for testing.

Nicolle Morock 7:49 

I do remember seeing them.

John Kruth 7:51 

Yeah, the cards like with a circle and the square the wavy lines. And they used to use these cards to test people to see if they could do if they could achieve ESP. There's a man named JB Rhine, who was ... who started the Duke Parapsychology Lab and coined the term extrasensory perception. And he was using these cards for about 30 years at Duke University to test these phenomena to determine whether they were real or not. Besides ESP, which includes things like telepathy, mind-to-mind communication, clairvoyance, which is getting information about objects or events from a distance. Usually, people are calling ... something called remote viewing is often a form of clairvoyance, the term people use now and also precognition which is getting information through time. Besides those three phenomena, which are all encompass ESP, they were also studying psychokinesis or mind-matter interaction. All these became the foundation for the field of parapsychology. Well, after being at Duke University for 30 years, JB Rhine, had reached 70 years old, he had reached what they called mandatory retirement age, he had to leave Duke at this time. And his question was, how am I going to leave the laboratory and all my work at Duke University to be followed up with whoever comes along, or maybe I'll take it with me and form a nonprofit off campus. That's what he did. He moved off campus in 1965 and formed a nonprofit organization called The Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man. This included an institute for parapsychology research. In 1995, we renamed the organization the Rhine Research Center. And we still do research on the same phenomena that JB was looking at. We still do premier work in parapsychology, and we've expanded to incorporate some other work into our field as well.

Nicolle Morock 10:02 

What other work would that be?

John Kruth 10:04 

Well, we besides just doing the research, and just working within the laboratory, which we still do, we still do publish the Journal of parapsychology, which is a premier peer-reviewed journal, on the science in the world. Besides publishing the journal and doing the research, we also have a component where we include education, or we present present events, where we have speakers come in from different areas and talk about their research that they're doing a parapsychology, we have people come in and talk about their experiences. For example, we had people come in and talk about their experiences as an energy healer, or as a medium. We also have people come in and discuss like how different cultures experience psi phenomena. For example, how is psi ... if somebody has a side experience in Bali, or in Italy? How is that different from what we experienced here in the states and how we describe it. We have the events, we also have the Rhine education center now, which is an online school. And it doesn't teach people to be psychic, but we teach people about how to be a parapsychologist, the whole idea is to make little parapsychologists, you know, we want to try to help people to learn as much as they can about the different phenomena, and learn about how to do the research and do the science behind it. Research, education, and then finally, our third peer that we usually talk about is community. We try to create a community of people and provide a place where they can have a safe space to explore these phenomena, discuss them, because you know, Niki, a lot of people, whenever they have these types of experiences, have ESP experiences, and try to talk to someone about it, they'll often find that they're not, they're not getting a very warm reception from them. Sometimes people will say, oh, you're imagining it, or maybe you're crazy, or you know, you're the devil or something. And what we try to do is we try to provide an environment where people can feel safe to express it, and help them to learn what we have learned through the scientific research.

Nicolle Morock 12:15 

I think that's wonderful. So what is your background? And how did you get involved with the Rhine Research Center?

John Kruth 12:25 

Boy, that's an interesting question. You know, I've done so many different things in my life. You know, I've had jobs everywhere, things from being a paper boy to working in a funeral home to doing painting houses to working in technology for - I worked in technology for over 20, almost 20 years, doing software development. And after doing that, for 20 years, I've always had an interest in what what I now call parapsychology before I call it, you know, I knew it was ESP, but I didn't know the details of what it was. But I've been studying it and learning about it since I was a teenager. And about, oh about 15 years ago, I realized that was time for me to go back to school and get the education I needed so that I could actually become a parapsychologist. It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time in my life. So I went back and got a degree in research and analysis and psychology. Unfortunately, there is no pair of psychology degree in universities. But I was able to study parapsychological literature, while getting a degree in research and analysis. And I was able to write on this and all my assignments at school and use it for all of the - all the papers I was writing. And about 2009 I joined the Rhine research team and starting to do some basic research at the Rhine. And about two years later, in 2011, I became the executive director, mainly because I had a background in technology, they needed a lot of technology help. I had a background in management, they had a lot of volunteers that they were trying to pull together and trying to get different work out of and I was able to offer a lot of - a lot of things that I had done through the earlier part of my life just all kind of came together and met to help me to achieve what I had been wanting to do for most of my life. And that is to work in the parapsychology lab. So the Rhine needed needed as executive director, I had some experience and I've been doing it for almost 10 years now.

Nicolle Morock 14:44 

That is amazing. I love it when the universe seems to conspire to make the right things happen for the right people. So currently, I know the Rhine has moved past zero Cards although they are still around, how does the Rhine study ESP and PK and other psi phenomenon?

John Kruth 15:11 

Well, we have a number of different research we're doing right now. And you know, originally when JB was doing his work with the cards over Duke University, he was doing what we call proof-oriented research. He was trying to determine is this - is there any phenomena that we can actually study here? He really wanted to study mediumship. That was his initial entry interest. Mediumship is where people say they're speaking to spirits. And back in the 1930s and 1920s, mediumship was very popular in the States. People would go out on a weekend night and go to a medium's house and they'd sit around and they'd have a seance where they'd all sit around the table in a dark room, and objects would appear and drop, the coins would drop on the table. And JP realized very quickly that couldn't really study mediumship and determine whether people were people were speaking to spirits, until we realize what are the limits of human ability. So he started to look at whether people were able to communicate mind-to-mind whether they were able to get information about objects from a distance. And whether they were able to get information through time. He was trying to determine is there something to study here? We found very quickly that this phenomenon did seem to be prevalent in many people. He did test with with hundreds of students at Duke University. And he published his first book, which was called "Extrasensory Perception" with his findings. There were a lot of objections to his early tests and the way they were done. So he reworked his tests, and in 1940, published the book "ESP after 60 Years," and found that there was a great deal of support for the work in the academic community. Again, he was still trying to prove that this phenomena actually occurred and there was something to study. While in more recent years, we've come to move on to what we call process-oriented research. You know, the Rhine's been around since 1980, no 1935, which is 85 years. So in those 85 years, we have a lot of published research demonstrating the phenomenon occurs. The question is, how does it occur? And so our process-oriented research is more looking at what can - Why do some people do a lot better at it than others? What conditions allow people to do better in the lab than others? And in spontaneous situations, what's the experience of the people who are having these experiences? Why, why, what can we learn about how it works? And can we measure it in any way? So the work we're doing at the Rhine now is more related to process-oriented research. And that's most of the field has moved on to process-oriented research. So, you know, besides the change in the approach to the research, like most things, it's not a lot of change since 1935. Back in 1935, you know, we were using the cards. Now, we do things mostly with computer systems, we do automated processing, we try to bring the - try to provide an environment that's more conducive to the people who are likely to come in and produce the experiences. And we do things to try to automate and take the researcher out of the experience as much as possible. But that's also another interesting thing, because we all know that anytime you're doing an experiment, or anytime you're doing a sort of activity, if you're watching, you're participating. And so a researcher who's part of a project is participating in the project. And just acknowledging that, and doing our research with that in mind, changes the way that we approach research and the way we evaluate our results.

Nicolle Morock 19:10 

That is really interesting. It kind of gets into - and a lot of people will throw this around and not know what they're talking about, but I have a small idea - quantum physics and entanglement. So I'm sure that could be an entirely, different separate episode that we could get to at some point.

John Kruth 19:31 

Yeah, we can speak about a very briefly if you like, because entanglement is a phenomenon that was discovered probably about 80 years ago as well. Where is if you take a small object, a small particle like a photon, and you split it into two, occasionally, when you split them into two, you'll find that these particles, particles become entangled. In other words, you'll have two particles. They're separate from each other, but they still act as if they're one particle, no matter how far you move them away from each other, they respond as if they're one particle. For example, you have two particles, and if you measure one, you might find the spin of - particles have a spin on them. That means they move in a certain direction. If you find the spin on one is up, you'll find the other one is spin - has the spin down. And it will be consistent that you'll find this well within the particles. Now this means that even though they're they're not connected to each other, there's no way they could possibly be communicating to each other, you're able to see this connection, and able to find this measurement that they continue to act as if they are connected.

Entanglement is something as part of quantum physics that's been tested and verified and validated, and physicists don't understand how it works. They have no idea how these particles - like they can move them, they actually have done tests from outer space to the earth. They've done it from miles away and from hundreds of miles away. And still, they're able to find that the particles remain entangled. So what is a connection between these two particles that cause them to instantaneously to change? Well, a lot of people look at this phenomena and say, "Well, that sounds a lot like ESP," like if I'm able to know what someone else is thinking or what they're feeling from a distance. Perhaps that means that we're entangled? Well, entanglement has only been demonstrated on very small particles. It has been, it has progressed to the point that they're now doing it with small molecules. But it hasn't ever been demonstrated on a large scale with people or with large objects. So the connection between parapsychology and quantum physics is interesting to look at. But I think we're gonna have to wait a little longer before we can say, yeah, it does look like these two things are really tied together.

Nicolle Morock 22:10 

Yeah, a lot of people do like to connect the two, and I've been to many talks and listened to many podcasts where they they talk as if they know for sure that's what happened. That's what's happening. And yeah, we're just we're not quite there, yet but I could see the questions, and eventually the research moving in that direction. So it's definitely an interesting topic.

John Kruth 22:34 

Now, there are definitely people looking at it. But, and I think it's it is natural that people would have, a have a connection, see the connection between them because they do sound like similar phenomena. But you know, we don't understand quantum physics. We don't know how it works. We don't understand how entanglement occurs, we don't understand there's something else called the observer effect. We don't understand how that occurs within quantum physics. And we also don't understand ESP and how that works. We don't know the mechanisms for yet. There's a natural tendency for people, for human beings in general, when they have two things that they don't understand - sometimes they think that maybe they work the same. And so this is why people often say quantum physics and parapsychology, we don't know how either one of them work, they must be similar. And the same thing goes for like, you know, people looking for Bigfoot or looking for, looking at astrology. You can't find Bigfoot. It's a mystery. Astrology - we don't know exactly how it works. Well, geez, it must work just like ESP. No, you know, we can't really bring those together that way. But it was natural for people to do that.

Nicolle Morock 23:40 

Right. So getting back to the Rhine Research Center, who actually funds the Rhine?

John Kruth 23:49 

Well, the Rhine is an independent nonprofit organization. So we have a number of members and a number of donors that provide funding to us. Our research has been funded in the past by different organizations, including there's a BIAL Foundation, which is based out of Portugal, which has provided some research funds to the Rhine to do different projects. And we do have some independent researchers and supporters who help us to fund our research as well. But the majority of our work is funded by members and who are able to benefit from different things like our events. From a Rhine video library - we have at the Rhine, where we have a number of speakers who've come to Ryan over the past 10 years. We have videos of very famous Parapsychologists and very famous people in the field of psi and mediums, healers, who have come to the Rhine and members benefit from all these things and the meetings that we have at the Rhine to help and that help to support the community. But the majority of it comes from members and from donation.

Nicolle Morock 24:56 

So if somebody wanted to get involved in the Rhine, whether it be research or attending events or offering support, how would they do that?

John Kruth 25:08 

Well, the easiest way to do it is go to our website at www.Rhine.org. That's R-h-i-n-e.org. And you can see all the information about the type of work we do. You can see information about parapsychology, learn about the research, find information about the online meetings we're having and the events that we're having with, you know, with the current environment, and all of our work has moved online. So all of its accessible to people through their - from their home computer, you can attend many meetings, virtually, you can watch many presentations as we do them live. You can also view the recordings anytime you want. There's a place where you can join us and become a sustaining member. It's only $10 a month, and it gives you access to all these things. Or you can just make a single donation if you'd like as well. But the website is really the easiest way to get to learn more about the ride, and to get more information about how to help us to continue with the research we're doing, and continue to do the work that we're doing.

Nicolle Morock 26:14 

And full disclosure for the listeners, I am a sustaining member. So, I think it's a fantastic way to support Rhine, and I get so much out of the events. When we could do the talks on Friday nights in person, I loved the interaction. But I am definitely enjoying doing them virtually as well. So I'm, I would encourage anybody who's interested in the work that Rhine is doing to definitely check out the website and consider becoming a member.

John Kruth 26:52 

Yeah, you've been doing a lot of our events. I know I've seen you around quite a bit.

Nicolle Morock 26:56 

I definitely - I get a lot out of it. I really do enjoy it. There - like you were saying earlier, the whole idea of a safe, safe space. That's one of the things that it's really important to me. And you definitely feel that when you attend the events. There's no stupid questions. People love to share their experiences. It's just - it's a very good community.

John Kruth 27:28 

Niki, have you ever been to the psychic experiences group, PEG group?

Nicolle Morock 27:32 

I have not.

John Kruth 27:34 

The PEG group is something that has been around now for well over 10 years. And it's a environment where people can share their own experiences with other people in a safe environment. It's, it's right now it's virtual, you can go online, and you can attend a virtual PEG group. It's the first Tuesday of every month. And I mean, it's always the first Tuesday. It doesn't matter if that first Tuesday is July 4, or the or the first - New Year's Day, they always meet on the first Tuesday of the month. And it's a, it's a group and many of them know each other. But there's always new people coming in to these meetings. We've had people now with our, with our online meetings coming in from as far away as Australia and UK, we have people coming in from all over the world. And it's just an opportunity to sit and hear people talk about their own experiences, share your own experiences, and get to know a little bit of that. Well, first of all, you're not alone, you're not the only one having these experiences. And you can learn about how other people are managing their experiences and how they're dealing with them. For example, there's a lot of people who have - who start to have psi awakenings, we might call them, they start to have experiences and they don't know what to do with it. They don't know how to turn it off. These people in the paid group can help people to learn more about how to manage and to control some of their experiences to make it more manageable through their lives.

Nicolle Morock 29:02 

I think that would be very useful. When I first started having my own experiences, I needed people to help me figure out what was going on and how to turn it on and off which - that was 20 years ago. And not everybody is as lucky as I was at the time to be hanging out with people who knew what they were talking about. So yeah, if if anybody listening is having those types of experiences, I would definitely encourage checking out that group.

So of the research that you've done at the Rhine in your time there, what has excited you most, what has surprised you most, maybe what maybe was a disappointment and that you didn't get the results you expected? Or do you go into everything without expectations?

John Kruth 30:00 

Well, you know, in research, the idea is to try to go into things with an open mind as to the results and not try to interpret things. One of the other things that we often try to do in research in psi is to keep ourselves as, as separated from the experiment is possible, mainly because we don't want to influence the experiment ourselves. If we, you know, if you go into a study, and you're the one producing the effect, then the study isn't very effective at that point. And when you ask, what has surprised me the most, you know, I'll tell you really bottom line, what surprises me more than anything else is that I will, and I've talked to other researchers about this that I work with, I will sit and design a study and work for a long period of time to try to get it just right, to make sure that we're taking all of the variables into account and make sure we're not allowing any outside influence to creep in. And then, you know, once we have it completely designed and completely settled, will then run the experiment. And when we start getting results demonstrating that ESP is occurring, or PK, psychokinesis, is occurring, it surprises the hell out of me. You know, no matter how careful I am, it always surprises me that I'm actually getting results. Because, you know, you would think these things are impossible. But even after doing this work for 10 years in the lab and seeing it repeatedly, I'm still very surprised when I get the results that I do when I see it. Every time I see these things that surprises me. But there is, there are a couple things that have really stood out for me. The first time, it was a number of years ago, we had a woman who had come from Canada, her name was Shirley Black, and she was visiting the Rhine. And she had come because she said she could demonstrate psychokinesis. She said she could affect objects, she can spin a aluminum foil wheel that was sealed inside of a jar. So we're sitting in a lab, or in the in the library at the Rhine with 11 researchers who are sitting at the table, and she's sitting at the other end of the table. And she pulls out her little aluminum foil wheel inside of - and she puts it inside the jar and puts her hand next to it. And it starts spinning. And my first thought is, "Wow, that's really happening. Like right in front of us." But my other thought is nobody's filming this. So I took out my cheap phone, and I ran down to the other end of the table with my shaky hands and my cheap phone, I started to take a video of what she was doing. But it wasn't only that she had it spinning. But I as I was talking to her and taking the video, so can you stop it? And so she moved her hands away and it stopped spinning. I said, Can you make it spin the other way? And she did. I said stop it again and make it spin back the other way. And she was able to do that, she was able to control it.

Nicolle Morock 33:07 

Wow.

John Kruth 32:34 

This is something that's ... Yeah, it was really phenomenal. It's something that's very impressive. I mean, first of all, you don't expect to see someone be able to do this. But when someone is able to spin something or have, or affect an object that's inside of a jar, you might think oh, maybe they there's a trick to it. Maybe there's something they're doing. But there were 11 researchers in the room. We were all inspecting it and looking at it very carefully. And it was a demonstration that led us to continue to do more a more extreme research with her and much more controlled studies. For example, we took the original studies that she did, and the original way she did it. And we created our own objects, we created our own little wheel within a jar. We used other instruments as well that we had complete control over and had her attempt to move them as well. Now, I have to say when we first set up the system, and we got this, what we call it an edgley wheel, which is just a little plastic pinwheel. And we sealed it inside of food storage container so that nothing could get, no air could get to it. We tested it for heat, for static, for light, for different things to see if we could make a move. We couldn't find any way to make it spin within this container. And she sat down next to it. And when she first did it, she couldn't get it to spin either. And we were like, ah, maybe we found a way to stop this. But we after working with it for an hour or so, she said ... we took ... she took a break, and she went home for the night and we we went home. We locked everything up in the lab. We came back the next day. We said, "Well, why don't we try again. Within five minutes, she had it spinning. We said. "What, what's different today than it was yesterday?" And she said, "Well, I had to make friends with it."

And she said, "I had to I had to convince it that it would be happier if it was spinning. And when I convinced it, it would be happier if it was spinning, it started spinning." So like ... and so from this point on, we realized that even when we had very strict control over the instruments, and we have people watching very closely, we could still produce the effect. So we started to try to find out, can we learn more about how it's happening? And can we stop it from happening? She was able, even able to do it from a distance from, you know, from not just from a small distance from just a few inches away. But she was able to do it from across the table, over two meters from the object, she was able to make it spin, from her original research, or from her original work that she was doing, she produced a method to help train people to be able to do this, and was able to help other people to produce the same effect. This is pretty amazing. And so that's one of the things that has really, it's just, it's, it's unforgettable! The first time I ever saw someone intentionally perform psychokinesis in a laboratory environment, it really changes your whole view of the world. You realize these things happen. And now how do I make that fit into the rest of my life where there's always seems to be some sort of force between an intention and an object that might be moving? Still trying to figure that one out.

Nicolle Morock 36:33 

Yeah, that is amazing. With making friends with it. I've participated in I would say fork bending, because we have more forks than spoons. But yeah, it was the the Raleigh, I guess, subgroup of the Rhine that meets on occasion. And that was the same thing we were told was, you know, ask it to do what you want it to do, be friendly with it, and show it some love.

John Kruth 37:06 

Yeah

Nicolle Morock 37:06 

And it seems crazy, but when my my kind of mental attitude went from trying to force it to work to being like, "Well, you know, this would be great. If you do this, I'd really appreciate it if you do this. But if it's, you know, if you don't want to, that's fine." Then I wasn't forcing it anymore, and I have three bench forks in my dining room on display.

John Kruth 37:33 

Yeah, we had, we used to have spoon bending parties at the Rhine all the time, we did something called psi games that we would do at the Rhine. And we did it about three or four times a year, where we'd have people come in, and we'd show them how we used to test ESP with the old ESP cards. We teach them a little bit about remote viewing and have them try that out. And then we also had them trying to affect machines with their intention, trying to make a random number generators be less random, try to make lights on a machine light up at different ways. And after we did this with a group, we'd bring everybody back together, and we'd all been spoons. And I didn't say we try because like you said we'd all get together, and after about a half hour or so of working together - there's something about the group energy that really has an effect on things. Something about being able to, you know, you don't have to take responsibility, you can say, well, maybe that came from somebody else. And I think that's important for some people, because they don't want to feel like they're the ones that are doing it. And they don't want to feel like their pressure, the pressure to do it themselves. So that people and it happens so often that people will just leave their spoons behind. And you said you have three forks. I mean, you know how many!

Nicolle Morock 38:53 

Right!

John Kruth 38:54 

People, people would bend so many spoons that some of these events, they just leave them behind, and so we started a collection of spoons, and I was like, what are we going to do with this? Well, we have a large jar of spoons. And every year we add to it as we have more of these events, and usually at our Halloween party, we have a guess how many spoons there are in the jar for a door prize contest.

Nicolle Morock 39:19 

That is, that's fantastic. I have attended a sigh games tonight. And I encourage - when when we get to have a live in person events again - I encourage anybody in the area to attend those because they are a lot of fun.

John Kruth 39:35 

They are they're fun in there because they let people participate and be part of it. I think this is one of the main things, you know, it's one thing to sit and listen to someone speak about their work. That's always that's always interesting. But you know, it's so much more fun when you get to be part of it, too.

Nicolle Morock 39:49 

Yeah, everybody gets to test themselves just a little bit or just observe, like, whatever the comfort level is.

John Kruth 39:57 

Right.

Nicolle Morock 39:58 

It's a great night.

So, that, that's gonna wrap up my questions for this time around. But I will be in touch with you again to have a conversation about a particular research study that you've done. So, I want to thank you for your time.

John Kruth

Always happy to talk to you, Nicolle.

Nicolle Morock

I appreciate it.

Thanks again to John for being my first interview for the PEEP Podcast! Please, look up the Rhine Research Center and check out all the great things they have going on!

In the next episode, we’ll explore whether a ghost tour can influence a person’s belief in the paranormal. Yes, someone has actually studied that topic!

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If you have an idea for a show topic - remember it needs to be able to be studied scientifically - you can fill out the contact form at my site: nicollemorock.com. If I can find a study about it, I’ll be happy to use it!

Thanks again for listening to the PEEP Podcast! Stay safe and be well!