The Spirit of Dr Bindelof: The Enigma of Séance Phenomena

Rosemarie Pilkington earned a Ph.D. in Psychology (Consciousness Studies) from Saybrook Graduate Institute, under the mentorship of Prof. Stanley Krippner. She has written articles and reviews of books on psi phenomena for Fate, the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, and other periodicals.  She is the author of Esprit, Men and Women of Parapsychology Personal Reflections, Volume 1 and a second volume in this series, Men and Women of Parapsychology Personal Reflections, Volume 2, both published by Anomalist Books

“Rat, Rat:” Some Insight into “Dr. Bindelof”

Gil Roller, who was so creative in so many ways, did a lot of writing. He had only one book published, A Voice From Beyond, put out by Popular Library in 1975 and dedicated to his mother, Olga. When he died he left behind the manuscripts of at least one novel, one play (about D.D. Home and Katie King) and many short stories. In looking through his papers after the death of his widow, Marion, I came across one short piece he penned for a creative writing course entitled “Rat” that struck me as being the quintessential Gil Roller and that I believe supports my contention that “Dr. Bindelof” was an alter ego of Gil’s.

Here is the piece, which seems to be autobiographical:

RAT, RAT
As one moves through this experience of life, the past recedes. Not so fast at first, but as time goes on, the recession accelerates, and the events that were at first so clear become blurred, uncertain, lose reality, and finally leave the consciousness.

It is somewhat like riding a night train. A light—perhaps a farmhouse is ahead. Suddenly it is upon us, and then it slips past, gradually fading into the darkness.

Childhood memories are to me somewhat like those single lights at night. Most have gone. I daresay that if I were compelled to give an account of all the hours of my childhood, it would be as though I never had one — so few events remain as imprints on my memory. I am quite suspicious of people who profess a madly happy childhood, fields of clover, white Christmases, Sunday school, boundless love and a magical puberty full of glorious awakenings.

Be that as it may, of almost all the lonely faint lights of my childhood that have faded to extinction, some do remain—and why they do, is difficult for me to understand. They are not monumental, they are, in fact, quite trivial, and should have faded with the rest of my childhood. But for some reason, they remain. I remember one in particular.

I was twelve perhaps. It was a warm afternoon, and I climbed by myself among the rocks bordering the shores of the Hudson River. In the eddies near the rocks floated the sewerage of the city—contraceptives, excrement, rotted food, bottles, cans, and all the other things that are the residue of an orderly society. I stopped abruptly. On the rock ahead of me was a large rat. He looked at me but did not run. I looked at him. He was wet. His fur was matted and came together in hundreds of tangled points. He was very large.

The grey-pink tail stretched straight behind him. He kept looking at me. I squatted on my rock. “Psst, here rat, here rat,” I said as I rubbed my fingers in that mysterious sign that is supposed to have a special significance for animals. He moved his head. I remember how he did it, almost as though he had acknowledged me. But other than that, he did not stir. I moved a bit closer, waited, and then closer again.

We were now about six feet apart. I squatted. “Hello, rat.” His grey-pink tail went into a slight curve. “Hello rat, hello rat.” He looked directly at me. His mouth opened slightly, then closed again. I moved still closer, took a stick, reached out and carefully rubbed his head.

He still looked at me, and made no move other than to open and close his mouth. I knew, I could tell, he was dying. He was very old, I could tell that too. I held the stick near his mouth, but he ignored it. I moved closer. I could reach him now, if I chose. I was on his rock. “Hello rat, are you sick?” I was not afraid. For some reason, I was compelled to reach toward him—hesitantly, uncertainly—I extended my finger and touched his head. He kept looking at me. I reached again and cautiously stroked his head, smoothing the matted hair. “Hello rat, you’re sick, aren’t you?” I stroked him again. We continued to watch each other. Perhaps I could put him in a box. He might get better. I could keep him under my bed in the box, or that old lady I knew who liked cats—maybe she could keep him for me till he got better. These were my fleeting thoughts, heroic and senseless, as I suppose, most heroic things are.

And then it happened. He moved. He rose trembling, and came slowly toward me. I was not afraid. I touched his head again and waited. He came directly to me, looking up at me all the time. I did not change my squatting position. He came slowly—slowly, and stopped when he was between my feet. But he was still looking at me. Suddenly I felt enmeshed. I stroked his head. “Rat, you’re sick, you’re very sick.” As soon as I ceased stroking his head, he would look up. His eyes were cloudy. When his mouth opened, I could see something that looked like spit or foam. Again he moved—toward my foot. He pulled himself partly on my shoe so that his head and front paws rested on it. He looked up, and again I stroked his head.

The rat suddenly became my own rat. He was alone, the same as I. How could I leave him there, how could I move my foot? Could I pick him up, could I carry him? Where could I take him? My family hated rats. If I left him he would feel betrayed. All these agonies raced through my head as I stroked him. And then I resolved to take him. Somewhere, somehow, someway, I could make him well. I reached down with both my hands. “Don’t worry rat, I’ll make you well.”

I picked him up carefully, gently, and as I did–as I lifted him from my shoe, his head fell limp over my fingers. “Rat, rat,” I said. I held him in one hand and stroked him with the other. “Rat, rat, answer me, rat.” I stared at him. His tail hung limp at one end and his head at the other. He was dead. I remember saying just “Rat.” But what I meant was, if I had only known, if you had only told me, if you had found me sooner, I could have saved you. We could have been friends.

I slipped him into a deep recess of the rock and stared pointlessly. Dinner would be ready soon. I had to go. I took one long look, and remember so well saying, “Rat,–rat.”

Remember that Gil was only four or five years older than he was in this story when he and his friends conjured up “Dr. Bindelof.” Here, in that young Gil, as well as in the older man in whose memory this encounter was indelibly printed, we see that same strong desire to help those who are ill and suffering as that of the spirit physician who “returned to heal the sick.”

Throughout his life this interest in healing and the desire to help sick people and animals was strong in Gil. He loved his pet cats, and I remember when one old female, Elizabeth, was ailing and couldn’t urinate, instead of having her put down, he would take her into the garden and squeeze her gently to empty her bladder. Another of his cats he named “Garbage” because he found the bedraggled, half-starved kitten literally in a pile of garbage from which Gil rescued, adopted and raised him.

He was very enthusiastic about combining the radio experiment we conducted with my ex-husband with healing, and found a few people for Nick to work with. One was Rosemary Byron, a lawyer who lived upstate not far from Gil’s weekend house. She had very poor hearing in one ear and he tested her simply by having her listen to his ticking watch before and after Nick attempted a laying-on-of-hands healing (now called “Therapeutic Touch”) on her. After a couple of sessions she was able to hear the rather unusual ticking sound of his watch and later her hearing specialist confirmed that her hearing had improved—even if it was only temporary as it turned out– in that ear.

It should not be surprising then that the spirit father-figure, called forth by Gil and his friends who called himself “Dr. Bindelof,” was a man dedicated to alleviating pain and suffering and making people well.

“There is much to be learned from this lively and informative book. For the absolute beginner, it is an ideal guide to the history of home sitter groups, with practical advice on how to start your own. For the more advanced, there is much to be learned here about how to get positive results…”

–Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, January 2007, 45-46.

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“For years insiders in the sciences dealing with anomalies and psychic events have heard accounts of the legendary Bindelof Society, a group of teenagers who reported a series of remarkable experiences in the 1930s. Rosemarie Pilkington and two of the original Bindelof group bring these experiences to life providing us with a compelling glimpse into the world of seance phenomena. Dr. Pilkington provides an historic setting to this gem of a story and we are treated to a singular and unique adventure that even the most skeptical reader will appreciate.”

— Stanley Krippner, PhD, Professor of Psychology, Saybrook Graduate School, co-editor of Varieties of Anomalous Experience

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“..the boys who carefully recorded the supernatural events resulting from their contact with Dr. Bindelof are, as this book shows, undeserving of any suspicion either of fraud or of ulterior motive. Their records speak for themselves, and the phenomena they experienced were real; leading to yet another urging to all of us that we consider such happenings as both genuine and as enlightening. “
-Bob Girard, Arcturus Books

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This fascinating book recounts a series of seances held in the early to mid 1930s by teenage boys. The Bindelof account is well worth reading for its own sake, but in addition the book provides an excellent overview of “physical” (as opposed to mental) mediumship and related psychic phenomena. One of the cases Pilkington explores is that of Ted Serios. . . .

Michael Prescott, Michael Prescott’s Blog

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
EVIDENCE FOR SÉANCE PHENOMENA CHALLENGES SCIENCE’S LIMITED VIEW OF REALITY.

In The Spirit of Dr. Bindelof researcher Dr. Rosemarie Pilkington reveals how the minds of so-called mediums can change matter and alter gravitational fields.

Certain talented people do in fact have the ability to change or dematerialize matter; levitate objects, including at times themselves; produce ectoplasmic limbs, phantoms, and disembodied voices, affect photographic film, cameras, and other mechanical or electronic devices; and perform other seeming miracles.

Dr. Pilkington has drawn on her many years of experience and research in psychic phenomena to compile a fascinating, in-depth look at these mysteries of the séance room. The Spirit of Dr. Bindelof focuses on one little-known episode of physical mediumship, Gilbert Roller’s utterly charming and disarming autobiographical account of a group of teenagers who experimented with séance phenomena and contacted alleged spirits including a “Dr. Bindelof” in the 1930s.

Although it is non-fiction, “Bindelof” reads like a novel: it entertains as well as enlightens the reader. Dr. Pilkington follows Gil Roller’s story up with a captivating history of physical mediumship highlighting some of the well-documented extraordinary physical mediums of the 19th and 20th centuries and the mind-boggling feats they performed. She sets the Bindelof case within this wider framework and brings it up to date with a review of contemporary spiritual and “secular” mediums such as Ted Serios.

The book illustrates how the mountains of evidence documented and verified by some of the world’s finest scientists and investigators, as well as the eyewitness reports of hundreds of people, has been ignored or derided by skeptics and maligned by debunkers. Science must take these phenomena into account if it truly wants to understand how the world works. However, because of the bad press séances have received this evidence is unknown to most of the scientific community.