10 - On All Channels: Hans Bender, the Supernatural, and the Mass Media

Summary

Introduction

IN THE FIELD OF PARAPSYCHOLOGY, Hans Bender (1907–91) was one of the most renowned figures in the Federal Republic of Germany. His vast acclaim was due to his examinations into the phenomena of extrasensory perception, clairvoyance, ghosts, phantoms, and spirits. Among the public, Bender—nicknamed the Spukprofessor (“Professor Poltergeist”)— was widely known for his lectures and media persona. Beginning in the 1950s, he made regular appearances in the press and on the radio, reaching the peak of his popularity when his name became associated with the “occult wave” and with Uri Geller during the 1970s.

Unlike many of his scientific colleagues, Bender distinguished himself and his research by seeking direct contact with the popular media. His intense involvement with mass media, although unconventional, contributed to his fame as a parapsychologist. He worked together with local and regional newspapers, illustrated magazines and tabloids, radio and television. Through these diverse channels, Bender reached a variety of audiences and constituencies: physicians and psychologists, an educated public, as well as regular readers of Bild, the most popular German tabloid newspaper.

Even within Bender's lifetime, Eberhard Bauer, a former assistant, called Bender's cooperation with the mass media a “high-wire act,” because it required such careful negotiation of the space between the scientific field and media world. The present essay explores how Bender's relationship with the media developed over the course of his active scientific career between the mid-1930s and mid-1970s. It examines the ways in which this relationship contributed to his success and how Bender utilized mass media for the establishment, legitimization, and advancement of parapsychology, which in the 1930s was a young and marginal discipline on the frontier of science, religion, and entertainment. I will show how the epistemological peculiarities of the discipline, the specific requirements of the media (above all of those of radio and television), as well as the cultural atmosphere of the times intertwined and created a synergistic effect that helps to explain Bender's media success and the public interest in parapsychology in the 1960s and 1970s. I will also show how the huge popular interest in this research field proved to be Janusfaced, in relation to the lack of sufficient scientific boundary-work.