''Mental Radio: Does it work, and how?'' (1930) was written by the American author

Upton Sinclair Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in seve ...

and initially self-published. This book documents Sinclair's test of psychic abilities of

Mary Craig Sinclair Mary Craig Sinclair (1882–1961) was a writer and the wife of Upton Sinclair. Early life and education She was born Mary Craig Kimbrough in Greenwood, Mississippi on February 12, 1882, the oldest child of Mary Hunter (Southworth) and Allan McCas ...

, his second wife, while she was in a state of profound depression with a heightened interest in the occult. She attempted to duplicate 290 pictures which were drawn by her brother. Sinclair claimed Mary successfully duplicated 65 of them, with 155 "partial successes" and 70 failures. The experiments were not conducted in a controlled scientific laboratory environment.

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 ...

. ''

Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science ''Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science'' (1957)—originally published in 1952 as ''In the Name of Science: An Entertaining Survey of the High Priests and Cultists of Science, Past and Present''—was Martin Gardner's second book. A survey o ...

'' (Courier Dover Publications, 1957) Chapter 25: ''ESP and PK''
available online
accessed July 25, 2010. The German edition included a preface written by

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

who admired the book and praised Sinclair's writing abilities. The psychical researcher

Walter Franklin Prince Walter Franklin Prince (22 April 1863 – 7 August 1934) was an American parapsychologist and founder of the Boston Society for Psychical Research in Boston.Berger, Arthur S. (1988). ''Walter Franklin Prince: A Portrait''. In ''Lives and Letters ...

conducted an independent analysis of the results in 1932. He believed that telepathy had been demonstrated in Sinclair's data. Prince's analysis was published as "The Sinclair Experiments for Telepathy" in Part I of Bulletin XVI of the

Boston 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 ...

in April, 1932 and was included in the addendum for the book.

Critical reception

On the subject of occult and

pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or falsifiability, unfa ...

topics, Sinclair has been described as credulous.Dieter Herms. (1990). ''Upton Sinclair: Literature and Social Reform''. New York: Peter Lang. p. 62.

wrote "As ''Mental Radio'' stands, it is a highly unsatisfactory account of conditions surrounding the clairvoyancy tests. Throughout his entire life, Sinclair has been a gullible victim of mediums and psychics." Gardner also wrote the possibility of

sensory leakage Sensory leakage is a term used to refer to information that transferred to a person by conventional means (other than psi) during an experiment into ESP.Robert Todd Carroll. (2014)"Sensory Leakage in The Skeptic's Dictionary. For example, where the ...

during the experiment had not been ruled out: When Mrs. Sinclair was tested by William McDougall under better precautions the results were less than satisfactory.

Critical reception

References

Further reading