When Nandor Fodor Came to Minneapolis

The trailer just dropped for the new paranormal comedy, Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose. Starring Simon Pegg and Minnie Driver, it tells the tale of Gef, The Talking Mongoose, a poltergeist case in the 1930s on the Isle of Man in the UK. This famous case was huge in the tabloids and controversial among paranormal researchers, but the movie looks like a lot of fun.

Nandor Fodor was a Hungarian-born British and American parapsychologist, psychoanalyst, author, and journalist. In the mid-Twentieth Century, he was one of the leading authorities on poltergeists, hauntings, and paranormal phenomena usually associated with mediumship. Although his earlier research in the 1930s dealt with traditional supernatural explanations of ghosts and hauntings, when he moved to the United States he was more interested in how Freudian Psychoanalysis could be used to explain paranormal phenomena. Dr. Fodor pioneered the theory that poltergeists are external manifestations of conflicts within the subconscious mind rather than autonomous entities with minds of their own. One of his more controversial theories was that a pregnant mother could communicate telepathically with the mind and body of her unborn child. 



Fodor received a doctorate in law from the Royal Hungarian University of Science in Budapest and later moved to New York to work as a journalist. He worked as the London correspondent for the American Society for Psychical Research and was a member of the New York Academy of Sciences. 

In August 1963, Dr. Fodor visited Minneapolis to hear ghost stories and interview locals about their supernatural experiences. His visit was part of a publicity stunt to promote the release of the classic haunted house horror movie, The Haunting, based on the Shirley Jackson book. 

Fodor interviewed three of the "nearly 100" people in the Minneapolis area who had responded to a newspaper advertisement by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the movie studio releasing the film and they were seeking accounts of experiences with the supernatural. The ad, which ran nationally, brought some 1,300 replies.

Fodor became interested in the supernatural in the 1920s when he communicated with his dead father in a seance. He considered this one of the three occasions he personally experience that were "evidential" to the existence of supernatural powers.



The Minneapolis Star-Tribune documented his visit and asked Fodor about what he had found. One couple, Mr. and Mrs. Charles J. Organ, claimed they had lived in a haunted house 30 years ago on South 18th Street in Minneapolis

According to the article:

 "The ghost had a peg leg," Mrs. Organ said. "He'd walk from the attic to the basement at night.

You could his peg thumping, but you couldn't see him. Doors would open when they should have been closed. A set of long underwear appeared in the doorway one night. We saw footprints in snow…

"The house had been owned by a man who had his leg amputated. He hanged hinself one night after he told his wife he’d haunt the house if she ever sold it. People told us it was haunted before we bought it.”

“Were you afraid?” Fodor asked. “Ive never been afraid of anything in my life,” she said.

"Me neither," said her husband. 

"We cut down the rope and burned the chair he had stood on to hang himself." 

"Did the ghost stop?" 

"Yep. Never saw him again." 

"Remove the props and you often remove the ghost," Fodor advised. 

Fodor also interviewed a woman who forecasted the reception of a gift and a man who felt his wife's fear at the same instant her life was jeopardized miles away. When asked if he considered these accounts of the supernatural genuine, Fodor replied, "Often these things are hallucinatory. The mind refuses to be stunted. They are a kind of reality because what exists in the mind is real."

Fodor's work had a significant impact on the study of the paranormal. He was one of the first researchers to apply psychoanalytic theory to paranormal phenomena, and his work helped to legitimize the study of paranormal activity in academic circles. Fodor's writing and research inspired a generation of paranormal investigators and helped to shape the field of paranormal studies that exists today. We can't wait to see the movie but it's exciting that he has a connection right to thr Gopher State by collecting stories in Minneapolis!

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