Harold Morrow Sherman ( – ) was an American writer, lecturer and psychical researcher.

Biography

Sherman was born on July 13, 1898, in

Traverse City, Michigan Traverse City ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Grand Traverse County, Michigan, Grand Traverse County, although it partly extends into Leelanau County, Michigan, Leelanau County. The city's population was 15, ...

. He studied at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

for a brief time, then relocated to

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

to work for the

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational corporation, multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. T ...

. During 1921, Sherman worked as a reporter for the '' Marion Chronicle'' in

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

. He relocated to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

during 1924 to write several popular boys' sports and adventure books (notably the ''Tahara'' series) and to produce two plays on Broadway. During 1941 Sherman wrote a play titled ''Mark Twain'', after being granted exclusive dramatic rights by the Twain Estate. He was then hired by Hollywood producer Jesse L. Lasky to write a treatment of the play for Lasky’s upcoming movie '' The Adventures of Mark Twain'', which was released during 1944. Sherman married Martha Bain on September 26, 1920; they had two daughters. Sherman and his family spent the 1950s and early 1960s living in

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

, writing for television and lecturing on his most recent work. Eventually, Sherman and his family relocated to Arkansas, where he lived until his death. He died on August 19, 1987.

Telepathy experiment

Sherman with the explorer Hubert Wilkins performed their own experiment in

telepathy Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic ...

for five and a half months starting October 1937. This occurred when Sherman was in

and Wilkins was in the

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

. The experiment consisted of Sherman and Wilkins at the end of each day relaxing and visualizing a mental image or "thought impression" of the events or thoughts they had experienced during the day and then recording those images and thoughts in a diary. The results at the end when comparing Sherman's diary to Wilkins' were claimed to be more than 60 percent agreement. The full results of the experiments were published during 1942 in a book by Sherman and Wilkins titled ''Thoughts Through Space''. In the book both Sherman and Wilkins had written they believed they had demonstrated that it was possible to send and receive thought impressions from the mind of one person to another. The magician John Booth wrote the experiment was not an example of telepathy as a high percentage of misses had occurred. Booth wrote it was more likely that the "hits" were the result of "coincidence, law of averages, subconscious expectancy, logical inference or a plain lucky guess." A review of their book in the '' American Journal of Orthopsychiatry'' cast doubt on their experiment noting that the fact that "the study was published five years after it was conducted, arouses suspicion on the validity of the conclusions.Steiner, Lee R. (1942). ''Review of Thoughts Through Space''. '' American Journal of Orthopsychiatry'' 12 (4): 745.

Selected bibliography

Sherman's personal papers are archived at the

University of Central Arkansas The University of Central Arkansas (Central Arkansas or UCA) is a public university in Conway, Arkansas, United States. Founded in 1907, the university is one of the oldest in the state. As the state's only normal school at the time, UCA has hist ...

Conway Conway may refer to: Places United States * Conway, Arkansas * Conway County, Arkansas * Lake Conway, Arkansas * Conway, Florida * Conway, Iowa * Conway, Kansas * Conway, Louisiana * Conway, Massachusetts * Conway, Michigan * Conway Townshi ...

: http://uca.edu/archives/m87-08-harold-m-sherman-collection/

Non-fiction

*Your Key to Happiness (1935) *Thoughts Through Space (with Sir Hubert Wilkins) (1942) *Your Key to Married Happiness (1944) *Your Key to Youth Problems (1945) *Your Key to Romance (1948) *You Live After Death (1949) *You Can Stop Drinking (1950) *Know Your Own Mind (1953) *Adventures In Thinking (1956) *TNT, the Power Within You (with Claude Bristol; 1957) *How To Turn Failure into Success (1958) *How to Use the Power of Prayer (1958) *How To Make ESP Work For You (1964) *How to Solve Mysteries of Your Mind and Soul (1965) *Wonder Healers of the Philippines (1967) *Your Mysterious Powers Of ESP (1969) *How to Foresee and Control Your Future (1970) *How to Take Yourself Apart and Put Yourself Back Together Again (1971) *The Harold Sherman ESP Manual (with Ambrose and Olga Worrall; 1972) *Your Power To Heal (1972) *You Can Communicate with the Unseen World (1974) *How to Know What to Believe (1976) *How to Picture What You Want (1978) *The Dead Are Alive! (1981)

Adventure fiction

* Cameron McBain, Backwoodsman (1927) * Ding Palmer, Air Detective (1930) * The Land of Monsters (1931) * Let Freedom Ring! (1932) * Tahara Among the African Tribes (1933) * Tahara: Boy King of the Desert (1933) * Tahara: Boy Mystic of India (1933) * Tahara in the Land of the Yucatán (1933) * Call of the Land (1948)

Sports fiction

* Fight 'Em Big Three (1926) * Safe! (1928) * Block That Kick! (1928) * Hit By Pitcher (1928) * Over The Line (1929) * Hit And Run (1929) * Hold That Line (1930) * It's A Pass! (1931) * Strike Him Out (1931) * Interference (1932) * Under the Basket (1932) * Down The Ice (1932) * Double Play (1932) * The Tennis Terror (1932) * Captain of the Eleven (1933) * One Minute to Play (1926)

Fantasy

* The Green Man (1946) * All Aboard for the Moon (1947) * The Green Man Returns (1947) * This Way To Heaven (1948)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sherman, Harold 1898 births 1987 deaths 20th-century American novelists American male novelists American parapsychologists University of Michigan alumni People from Traverse City, Michigan People from Mountain View, Arkansas Telepaths 20th-century American male writers