Stacy Horn | |
---|---|
Born | Norfolk, Virginia | June 3, 1956
Alma mater | Tufts University New York University |
Occupation(s) | Author, journalist |
Stacy Horn (born June 3, 1956 in Norfolk, Virginia) is an American author, businesswoman and occasional journalist. [1]
She grew up on Long Island, New York and received a B.F.A. from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She received a graduate degree from New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program. [2]
In 1990, after working as a telecommunications analyst for Mobil Corporation, Horn founded Echo, a New York-based bulletin board system. [2]
Stacy Horn founded EchoNYC or Echo, [3] a New York City Internet salon, in 1990, whose members are called Echoids [2] [4] [5] and go by their real names rather than a UserName. [6] The WELL, one of the oldest virtual communities in continuous operation, was an influence. Horn later decided that Echo stood for "East Coast Hang Out". [1]
Horn saw the Echo bulletin board system as a place where conversation could revolve around literature, film, culture, and sex, rather than the more pervasive topics of computer technology at the time. [7] Originally run out of Horn's apartment in Greenwich Village in her spare time, Echo rapidly expanded its membership, and eventually consumed every free phone line in her Greenwich Village neighborhood, requiring New York Telephone to run a separate cable to Horn's apartment. [8] In 1990, Echo became a company with a core group of members chosen by Horn for their "strong on-line personalities", who were responsible for creating enticing discussions to attract users. [9] She donated twenty years worth of Echo's archives to the New York Historical Society. [10]
Her first book, Cyberville: Clicks, Culture and the Creation of an Online Town (Warner Books, 1998), describes the community that formed on Echo, the problems Horn encountered as Echo's final authority, and her observations about the nature of the virtual world. Through the 90s, she was often profiled and quoted in articles about life and business on the internet. Her book is still used in courses on the sociology of virtual communities. [11]
The publication of her second book, Waiting For My Cats to Die: A Morbid Memoir (St. Martin's Press, 2001), a memoir about her midlife crisis, revealing an unusual fascination with death, coincided with a series of commentaries for the NPR's All Things Considered on the same subject.
Her third book, The Restless Sleep: Inside New York City's Cold Case Squad (Viking, 2005), recounts the stories of four of New York's cold cases and profiles the detectives who investigate them.
Her fourth book, Unbelievable: Investigations into Ghosts, Poltergeists, Telepathy, and Other Unseen Phenomena, from the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory, was published in 2009.
Her fifth book is about singing. It is titled Imperfect Harmony: Finding Happiness Singing With Others, and it was published by Algonquin Books in 2013. [2]
Her sixth book, titled Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York, is about Blackwell's Island and was also published by Algonquin Books in May, 2018.
Her seventh book is about the connection between white collar crime and the destruction of neighborhoods of color across America, and will be published by Gillian Flynn Books and Zando Projects in January, 2025. [12]
Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near-death experiences, synchronicity, apparitional experiences, etc. Criticized as being a pseudoscience, the majority of mainstream scientists reject it. Parapsychology has also been criticized by mainstream critics for claims by many of its practitioners that their studies are plausible despite a lack of convincing evidence after more than a century of research for the existence of any psychic phenomena.
In German folklore and ghostlore, a poltergeist is a type of ghost or spirit that is responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises and objects being moved or destroyed. Most claims or fictional descriptions of poltergeists show them as being capable of pinching, biting, hitting, and tripping people. They are also depicted as capable of the movement or levitation of objects such as furniture and cutlery, or noises such as knocking on doors. Foul smells are also associated with poltergeist occurrences, as well as spontaneous fires and different electrical issues such as flickering lights.
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 W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), and has remained more popular than the earlier expression thought-transference.
In American science fiction of the 1950s and '60s, psionics was a proposed discipline that applied principles of engineering to the study of paranormal or psychic phenomena, such as extrasensory perception, telepathy and psychokinesis. The term is a blend word of psi and the -onics from electronics. The word "psionics" began as, and always remained, a term of art within the science fiction community and—despite the promotional efforts of editor John W. Campbell, Jr.—it never achieved general currency, even among academic parapsychologists. In the years after the term was coined in 1951, it became increasingly evident that no scientific evidence supports the existence of "psionic" abilities.
Hans Bender was a German lecturer on the subject of parapsychology, who was also responsible for establishing the parapsychological institute Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene in Freiburg. For many years his pipe smoking, contemplative figure was synonymous with German parapsychology. He was an investigator of 'unusual human experience', e.g. poltergeists and clairvoyants. One of his most famous cases was the Rosenheim Poltergeist.
Celia Elizabeth Green is a British parapsychologist and writer on parapsychology.
Andrija Puharich — born Henry Karel Puharić — was a medical and parapsychological researcher, medical inventor, physician and author, known as the person who brought Israeli Uri Geller and Dutch-born Peter Hurkos (1911–1988) to the United States for scientific investigation.
Dream telepathy is the purported ability to communicate telepathically with another person while one is dreaming. Mainstream scientific consensus rejects dream telepathy as a real phenomenon. Parapsychological experiments into dream telepathy have not produced replicable results. The first person in modern times to claim to document telepathic dreaming was Sigmund Freud. In the 1940s, it was the subject of the Eisenbud-Pederson-Krag-Fodor-Ellis controversy, named after the preeminent psychoanalysts of the time who were involved: Jule Eisenbud, Geraldine Pederson-Krag, Nandor Fodor, and Albert Ellis.
Henry Addington Bayley Bruce, best known as H. Addington Bruce was an American journalist and author of psychology books.
Anomalistics is the use of scientific methods to evaluate anomalies, with the aim of finding a rational explanation. The term itself was coined in 1973 by Drew University anthropologist Roger W. Wescott, who defined it as being the "serious and systematic study of all phenomena that fail to fit the picture of reality provided for us by common sense or by the established sciences."
Douglas Scott Rogo was a writer, journalist and researcher on subjects related to parapsychology. Rogo was murdered in 1990 at the age of 40. His case remains unsolved.
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 general public. The society has an open membership, anyone with an interest in psychical research is invited to join. It maintains a website; and publishes the quarterly Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.
Guy Lyon Playfair was a British writer, best known for his books about parapsychology and his investigation of the Enfield poltergeist.
The Rosenheim poltergeist claim is the name given to claims of a poltergeist in Rosenheim in southern Bavaria in the late 1960s by German parapsychologist Hans Bender. Bender alleged that electrical and physical disturbances in the office of the lawyer Sigmund Adam were caused by the telekinetic powers of 19-year-old secretary Annemarie Schaberl. Bender's investigation has been criticized for omitting key details and avoiding naturalistic explanations.
Nandor Fodor was a British and American parapsychologist, psychoanalyst, author and journalist of Hungarian origin.
Walter Franklin Prince was an American parapsychologist and founder of the Boston Society for Psychical Research in Boston.
Anthony Donald Cornell was a British parapsychologist and prominent figure in the investigations of ghosts and other paranormal activity across the United Kingdom during the later part of the twentieth century. He appeared in numerous TV documentaries and television debates, and was often the subject of magazine and news articles concerning ghosts and paranormal investigations.
In psychology, anomalistic psychology is the study of human behaviour and experience connected with what is often called the paranormal, with few assumptions made about the validity of the reported phenomena.
Charles Edward Mark Hansel was a British psychologist most notable for his criticism of parapsychological studies.
Loren Rhoads is a San Francisco-based author, editor, and lecturer on cemetery history. She is a member of Horror Writers Association, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and the Association for Gravestone Studies.