Ted Serios

Our thoughts are known to us, and us alone. But for a brief period in the 1960s, Ted Serios attempted to prove that his reality could be documented. At first, nobody believed the former bellhop. That is until a respected Denver-based psychologist did. In Dr Jule Eisenbud's supervised studies, Serios demonstrated an ostensibly psychic act termed 'thoughtography', involving the transfer of mental images onto undeveloped Polaroid film. A feat that some believe has never been fully dismissed or wholly verified. Existing within history as an uncomfortable knot in time, the Serios phenomenon can't be disentangled without questioning the very social conditions that allowed it to occur in the first place. Revolving around the twilight zone of 1960s America, the volume will consider the reaches and restraints of belief and the unique context in which Serios's story unfolded, exploring various aspects such as interpersonal relationships, scientific crossroads, photographic technology, state militaristic operations, and popular culture. Rather than exploring the phenomenon through a search for absolute truth, Ted Serios: The Mind's Eye allows the reader to arrive at their own conclusions through a series of thematic essays, narrative photographic stories, select ephemera and contemporary cultural artefacts.