D. Scott Rogo

D. Scott Rogo
Born David Scott Rogo
(1950-02-01)1 February 1950
Los Angeles
Died 18 August 1990(1990-08-18) (aged 40)
Los Angeles
Pen name D. Scott Rogo
Occupation Writer, Journalist, Musician
Nationality American
Period 20th century
Genre Parapsychology

David Scott Rogo (February 1, 1950—August 18, 1990) was a writer, journalist and researcher on subjects related to parapsychology. Rogo was murdered in 1990 at the age of 40.[1][2] His case remains unsolved.[3][4]

Biography

He wrote or co-wrote 20 books and more than 100 magazine and journal articles, 7 books were reprinted in 2005 by Anomalist Books,[5] Leaving the body was reprinted in 2008 by Simon & Schuster.[6] Rogo was active at the Psychical Research Foundation (formerly at Durham, North Carolina) and at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Born in Los Angeles, California and educated at the University of Cincinnati and San Fernando Valley State College (now California State University, Northridge; he graduated summa cum laude from the latter institution in 1972. (His B.A. was in music; Rogo played the oboe and the English horn, and for two years played professionally with the San Diego Symphony and other ensembles.) Rogo served as a consulting editor for Fate Magazine for which he wrote a regular column; he advocated greater involvement by both researchers and skeptics in parapsychological research.

Rogo was open minded on the question of survival of consciousness after death, he wrote that he was "favourable to the survival notion" he was however skeptical about some of the phenomena involved in psychical research as he believed they could be psychological experiences.[7] He is most well known for his book written with Raymond Bayless titled Phone Calls From The Dead (1979) in which they describe an alleged paranormal phenomenon in which people report that they receive simple, brief, and usually single-occurrence telephone calls from spirits of deceased relatives, friends, or strangers.[8]

In his book The Haunted Universe (1977) Rogo hypothesized that strange phenomena such as flying saucers and Bigfoot are really psychic projections that are produced by the minds of the observers themselves.[9]

Death

Rogo was last seen alive on August 14, 1990.[3] He was found stabbed to death in his home by police on August 16.[1][4] There were no signs of a struggle although a number of Rogo's personal items were missing and his wallet was empty.[3] The police later arrested a 29-year-old Hispanic man, John Battista. After an initial mistrial, he was tried and convicted of Rogo's murder in 1992. After lengthy appeals, his conviction was later overturned, due to prosecutorial misconduct, in 1996.[4] His killer is still unknown and the case remains open.

Reception

In his memory, the Parapsychology Foundation established The D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature in 1992 to benefit authors working on manuscripts pertaining to parapsychology.[10][11] The parapsychologist George P. Hansen wrote: "Scott was also a leading authority on the history of psychical research. In this I would estimate that there are only three or four people in the world who might be considered to be in his league. The breadth of his historical knowledge of the field was unsurpassed."[2]

Rosemary Guiley has written "within the parapsychology establishment, Rogo was often faulted for poor scholarship, which, critics said, led to erroneous conclusions."[12] The parapsychologist Douglas Stokes wrote that Rogo's Phone Calls From The Dead "was widely criticized in the parapsychological community for its generally sloppy and credulous nature."[13]

Science writer Terence Hines has written Rogo was a proponent of pseudoscience as he had advocated a nonfalsifiable hypothesis in parapsychology.[14]

Skeptical investigator Joe Nickell has heavily criticized Rogo for being "credulous". In his book Miracles: A Parascientific Inquiry Into Wondrous Phenomena, Rogo declared various cases to be evidence for genuine miracles. However, Nickell found possible naturalistic explanations that Rogo had ignored.[15]

Bibliography

Books authored by D. Scott Rogo

Coauthored Books

References

  1. 1 2 Connelly, Michael (August 18, 1990). "Parapsychologist Stabbed to Death in Northridge Home". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 1 October 2012.
  2. 1 2 Hansen, George P.. D. Scott Rogo and His Contributions to Parapsychology. The Anthropology of Consciousness , Vol. 2, Nos. 3-4, September–December 1991, pp. 32-35
  3. 1 2 3 Ramsland, Katherine. "Murder of a Ghost Writer". Psychology Today. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
  4. 1 2 3 "D. Scott Rogo murder". Margaret Press. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
  5. ↑ Huyghe, Patrick (2006). "The Odyssey of a Psychical Investigator: Seeking D. Scott Rogo*". The Anomalist.
  6. ↑ D. Scott Rogo at Simon & Schuster
  7. ↑ Thoughts on Survival of Consciousness by D. Scott Rogo
  8. ↑ Phone Calls from the Dead by Jim Hale
  9. ↑ Rogo, D. S. (1977). The Haunted Universe. New York: Signet.
  10. ↑ Melton, J. Gordon (2001). Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, Vol. 2, 5th Edition. Gale Group. p. 1319
  11. ↑ Previous Winners - Parapsychology Foundation
  12. ↑ Guiley, Rosemary. (1992). The Guinness Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits. pp. 284-285
  13. ↑ Stokes, Douglas. (1997). The Nature of Mind: Parapsychology and the Role of Consciousness in the Physical World. McFarland & Company. p. 200
  14. ↑ Hines, Terence. (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. pp. 145-146. ISBN 1-57392-979-4 "The second reason for the persistence of parapsychology as a discipline has to do with the type of logical arguments permitted within the field. The use of the nonfalsifiable hypothesis is permitted in parapsychology to a degree unheard of in any scientific discipline... The nonfalsifiable hypothesis always permits, almost requires, the attribution of the experiments’ failures to something other than the nonexistence of psi. This attitude is epitomized in the quotation from Rogo (1986) earlier in this chapter regarding the reasons for Blackmore’s failure to find any evidence of psi in her numerous experiments. Rogo didn’t even consider the possibility that psi doesn’t exist. Rather, he put forth the totally untestable idea that Blackmore’s failure to find evidence of psi was due to her deeply hidden, unconscious motives. In any other area of scientific research, it would be impossible for anyone to seriously propose such an “explanation” for the failure to find a hypothesized effect. The type of reasoning so frequently used in parapsychology, reasoning that is nearly invulnerable to empirical disproof, is much more characteristic of religion than of science."
  15. ↑ Nickell, Joe. (1993). Looking for a Miracle: Weeping Icons, Relics, Stigmata, Visions & Healing Cures. Prometheus Books. pp. 10-62. ISBN 1-57392-680-9

External links

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