Discovery Lab Answers

Rhine Research Center

The Rhine Research Center is the institutional continuation of the Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory, the pioneering research program founded by Joseph Banks Rhine in the early 1930s. The Center preserves the laboratory’s archives, research legacy, and ongoing investigative work.

History and institutional role

Joseph Banks Rhine established the Duke laboratory as the first university-based research center dedicated to systematic, quantitative investigation of psi phenomena—anomalous cognition and psychokinesis. Over more than four decades, Rhine introduced experimental protocols and statistical methodology that transformed parapsychology from anecdotal séance investigation into an experimental discipline grounded in controlled research.

The Rhine Research Center emerged as the institutional guardian of this legacy. Sally Rhine Feather, daughter of J. B. and Louisa E. Rhine, served as executive director of the Center and was instrumental in preserving decades of case files, experimental data, and theoretical frameworks accumulated during the Duke laboratory’s foundational era. Her role encompassed both original experimental contributions and the curatorial work necessary to maintain the Center as a living archive and active research institution.

Research scope

The Center’s work has included original experimental studies in ESP and psychokinesis alongside systematic analysis of spontaneous-case material—continuing the Rhines’ investigation into the phenomenology and cognitive basis of anomalous cognition. The Center has also maintained the Duke laboratory’s tradition of rigorous quantitative methodology in psi research.

For more on the foundational research that shaped the Center’s mission, see the Joseph Banks Rhine and Sally Rhine Feather profiles on ESP-Nexus.