Thelma Moss (born Thelma Schnee, January 6, 1918 – February 1, 1997) was an American actress, and later a

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

and parapsychologist, best known for her work on Kirlian photography and the human aura.

Biography

Born Thelma Schnee, a native of Connecticut, Thelma Moss graduated from

Carnegie Tech Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

, and originally pursued a career in acting and in writing scripts for film and television. She was one of the earliest members of

The Actors Studio The Actors Studio is a membership organization for professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights at 432 West 44th Street between Ninth and Tenth avenues in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded ...

; as a scriptwriter, her biggest success was the screenplay for the 1954 Alec Guinness film ''

Father Brown Father Brown is a fictional Roman Catholic priest and amateur detective who is featured in 53 short stories published between 1910 and 1936 written by English author G. K. Chesterton. Father Brown solves mysteries and crimes using his intuiti ...

''. She also wrote the script for the 1958 science fiction film '' The Colossus of New York'', about the implantation of a human brain belonging to a brilliant scientist (played by

Ross Martin Ross or ROSS may refer to: People * Clan Ross, a Highland Scottish clan * Ross (name), including a list of people with the surname or given name Ross, as well as the meaning * Earl of Ross, a peerage of Scotland Places * RoSS, the Republic of So ...

) into a large humanoid robot. However, she struggled for years with persistent psychological problems, rooted in depression and grief at the loss of her husband (he died of cancer two days after she gave birth to a baby daughter). She survived two suicide attempts. For treatment for her problems, she underwent a course of

LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...

psychotherapy; she later published an autobiographical account of her treatment, ''My Self and I'', under the pseudonym Constance A. Newland; the book was a bestseller in 1962. Moss returned to academia in the mid-1960s, studying at the

UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute The Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior is a research institute of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). It includes a number of centers, including the "Center for Neurobehavioral Genetics", which uses DNA sequencing, g ...

and interning at the Wadsworth Veterans Hospital; she earned her Ph.D. in psychology from UCLA and became a professor at the same institution. For a time in the 1970s she led UCLA's parapsychology laboratory (while it existed). She explored a wide range of specific subjects in parapsychology (

hypnosis Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.In 2015, the American Psychologic ...

ghosts A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to rea ...

levitation Levitation (from Latin ''levitas'' "lightness") is the process by which an object is held aloft in a stable position, without mechanical support via any physical contact. Levitation is accomplished by providing an upward force that counteracts ...

alternative medicine Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or evidence from clinical trials. Complementary medicine (CM), complementary and alt ...

), though her research on Kirlian photography was the most significant theme in her work for the remainder of her career. Moss came to believe that Kirlian photography depicts the astral body. She made several trips to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

to explore Russian work in the field, and wrote two books on that and related subjects, plus lesser works.

Olav Hammer Olav Hammer (born 1958) is a Swedish professor at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense working in the field of history of religion. Career Hammer has written four books in Swedish and one monograph ''Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of E ...

''Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age'' 2001, pp. 240-241

Books

*''My Self and I'' (pseudo. Constance A. Newland), New York, Coward McCann, 1962. *''The Probability of the Impossible: Scientific Discoveries and Exploration in the Psychic World,'' Los Angeles, J.P. Tarcher, 1974. *''Body Electric: A Personal Journey into the Mysteries of Parapsychological Research, Bioenergy and Kirlian Photography,'' Los Angeles, J.P. Tarcher, 1979.

Short films

* ''Power Of Plants'' (1950) - John Kieran's Kaleidoscope https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZCKy61DNrE

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Moss, Thelma Jewish American actresses 20th-century American psychologists American women psychologists Parapsychologists 1918 births 1997 deaths 20th-century American women 20th-century American Jews

Biography

Books

Short films

See also

References

External links