Manuscript Collections
Paranormal researcher Susy Smith (1911-2001) is the author of 29 books on psychic occurrences and parapsychology as well as two autobiographies; Confessions of a Psychic (1971) and Conversion of a Psychic (1978), and began donating her manuscript collections to the Browne Popular Culture Library in 1969. Smith began her professional career as a journalist but after successfully contacting her mother’s spirit with a Ouija board she gave up all other endeavors to concentrate her interest in the study of psychic phenomena and its related areas. She worked at Dr. J. B. Rhine's Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, before founding the Survival Research Foundation in 1971 to conduct experiments and assist in the procuring of scientific evidence for conscious survival of the human spirit after death.
Many of our manuscript collections donated by authors come with supplimental items that help give a more intimate and well rounded view of the subject such as client testimonials, and photographs, including this undated photo of a meditation group led by Susy Smith, and this U.S. Map hand embroidered by Susy Smith showing many of the places she traveled to in her work as a paranormal investigator.
The Invisible Ink Collection at the Browne Popular Culture Library consists of over 2,000 items donated by Ohio author Chris Woodyard. Woodyard is the author of the Haunted Ohio and Ghosts of the Past series as well as other books on Ohio and ghosts.
Born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1951 Woodyard, a one-time BGSU student, is an American author and researcher of books about ghost stories and hauntings. She has written more than 10 books in the Haunted Ohio and Ghosts of the Past series. Nearly all of her books focus on Ohio, but several include nationally-known ghost stories.
The Invisible Ink collection also includes some of Woodyard’s manuscripts with handwritten edits, fan mail, correspondence, Invisible Ink financial records, notes, newspaper clippings, and other items related to her writing career.
The Invisble Ink collection also includes a wide assortment of reference materials relating to ghosts, spiritualism, and paranormal activity including The Greater Chicagoland Psychic Directory 1st Edition March, 1986 (BF 1024.5 .K33 1986), Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology, 1964 (BF 1026 .B56 1964), Psychic Women by Antoinette May, 1975 (BF 1026 .M39 1984), Ghosts, Ghosts, Ghosts by Phyllis R. Fenner, 1952 (PN 6071 .G45 G642 1952), and the Encyclopædia of Death and Life in the Spirit World Volume 1 by J.R. Francis, 1896 (BF 1023 .F65)