Psychical EES/EHES Record Type: Review   ID: 837
The Blue Sense: Psychic Detectives and Crime Lyons, Arthur, & Truzzi, Marcello
The "blue sense" is a term the police use for a cop who has successful hunches while hunting criminals. This book is a survey on the use of psychics in solving crimes. It is by a detective novelist (Lyons) and a sociology professor who explores various anomalous phenomena, including ESP, from a skeptical viewpoint. As part of the work of the Center for Scientific Anomalies Research, which he founded, Truzzi undertook a "psychic sleuths" project, canvassing the existing literature and interviewing psychics in order to see if psychics serve a useful adjuncy, in criminal investigation. They survey occult and supernatural solutions to crime from Old Testament times to the present. They discuss the problems involved in legitimizing psychic claims in Chapter 3. They also have a chapter on the problems involve in criminal investigation about the psychics themselves. Different psychics do better with different types of crimes or criminals. Several examples are given. The authors also tried to gain some concept of the extent to which the police are actually using psychics in their work. Three chapters are devoted to psychics noted for criminal investigations who were caught in fraudulent activity or accused of it, such as Gerald Croiset and Peter Hurkos. A chapter is devoted to successful attempts by psychics to aid police. Another is on the related topic of using psychics for purposes of espionage. The possibility of police themselves developing the "blue sense" is also discussed. The legal aspects involved in using psychics in criminal investigation are considered. Summarizing the status of their findings, Lyons and Truzzi feel that because the efforts to investigate claims of psychic crimebusting have been too simplistic, it is not possible to conclude whether or not psychic sleuths are valid. They close by outlining the improvements that could be instituted to enable us to answer the question.
Publisher Information:	New York: Mysterious Press, 1991. 314p. Bibl: 303-308; Chap. bibl.: 258-302; 1 fig; 30 illus; Index: 309-314

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