It is with great sadness that I write to tell you that Australian parapsychologist Michael Thalbourne has passed away. I am glad to have known Michael and to have worked with him. I will miss him greatly. He was a creative and original thinker, not to mention highly intelligent and prolific in his output. He made major contributions to parapsychology and anomalistic psychology and his ideas have certainly had a major influence on my own thinking on these topics.
Some of you will be aware of the fact that Michael was a long-term sufferer from bipolar disorder and you may recall that on a previous occasion I sent out an email via the paranormal email network announcing his death by suicide. On that occasion, it transpired that I, along with dozens of others, had been the victim of a hoax and Michael was in fact still very much alive. The hoaxer was Michael himself, in one of his manic phases. I was, therefore, somewhat suspicious when I received an email a few days ago ostensibly from Bryan Thalbourne, Michael's brother, informing me that Michael was in hospital in a coma having been found unconscious at his flat. Since then, I have been informed by Bryan of Michael's death. On this occasion, I have taken steps to try to ensure that the emails are genuine (e.g., by contacting third parties) and I now believe that, unfortunately, they are.
Yours in sadness,
Chris.
Michael was a friend/colleague of mine, and I too received an email on 5/6/2010 from his brother Bryan Thalbourne informing me of Michael's passing. I was not involved in parapsychological research. Instead, I am involved in psychology of religion and psychology of mysticism reserch. In this regard, Michael and I were writing an academic article entitled, "Mystical Experience, Mystical Union, and Mystical 'Deification': Psychological and Theological Issues" for the (Belgium-based) journal Archive for the Psychology of Religion /Archiv für Religionspychologie. Michael and I both had a history of mystical experiences. Michael himself, in 1991, created a formal mysticism scale, The Mystical Experience Scale,which was published in the online journal The Exceptional Human Experience Network. (This Scale was based on his own personal mystical experiences, and has, since then, been psychometrically verified.) I first met Michael by writing him concerning his concept of "transliminality," with was discussed in either a Time or Newsweek article on "The Biology of Religious Experience." Thus Michael had, in addition to the parapsychology "vector" to his research, other "vectors" in mystical psychology and in personality psychology. He will be missed by many of us.
Very sorry to hear this sad news. I didn't have the pleasure of meeting him personally, but came into contact with his work on many, many occasions – it's hard to imagine that such a distinguished and prolific contributor to the fields or parapsychology and personality research is no longer with us.