His name was Leonard Thompson Troland, S.B., A.M., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, born in Norwich, Connecticut on April 26, 1889. He taught at Harvard from 1916 until his death under mysterious circumstances on May 27, 1932 at the age of 43. Coming back from a trip to The Mount Wilson Observatory, he was killed by a fall into "Devil's Canyon" in the San Gabriel Mountains Wilderness 20 miles northeast of Central Los Angeles. He was a scientist, artist, inventor, a pioneer of color cinematography, early television, laser developments, and an expert on optics.

In terms of Mind Physics, Troland was awarded The William James Foundation Grant in Psychical Research the first time it was offered. With the grant he set up a Parapsychology Laboratory at Harvard. One of his first students was J.B. Rhine. Troland created prototypes of most of the equipment that has been used for years in every parapsychology laboratory such as:

1. Zener Cards (simple standardized visual symbols used in telepathy experiements);
2. Gravity Dice Randomizers (Miniature sets of stairs by which psychokinesis can be tested by rolling dice down them);
3. The Use of the Faraday Cage (exceptionally talented mediums were placed in these cages in order to test null hypotheses such as: can telepathy be blocked by appropriate shielding);

But, Troland, at the time of his death, was working on a complete Mind Physics; complete in the sense that all concepts and propositions were described by mathematics. For a concept such as the continuity between mass and conciousness, for instance, he utilized Topology or Analysis Situs which in the 1920's and 30's was considered a "pure mathematics" with no application possible.

Mind Physics was to be the "coda" to his "Magnum Opus": The Principles Of Psychophysiology and especially volume IV, entitled The Ultimate Theory of Mind and Matter. In turn, Troland's work was based upon such works as: The Elements of Psychophysics" (1860) by Gustav Theodo Fechner (1801-1887), Charles Henry's (1859-1926) Psychophysics: The Mathematics of Life (1890), and the philosophical neutral monism of William James (1842-1910), his mentor. Troldand's own philosophical panpsychism is dependent upon the ancient Greek concept of the YLEM (the primordial), that which is neither consciousness nor mass and is the source of all Cosmic expressions, manifestation, or epiphanies.

Troland's work on Mind Physics only reached the stage of extensive notes to himself, not really in publishable form that would have to have included the necessary background material for a full understanding of the material. Since he died intestate, all his private papers were seized immediately by the Probate Court of Massachusettes because he maintained only one bank account and a safe deposit box at The Cambridge Trust Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He had not accounts in any other areas.

At the end of 2 years (1934) the judicial determination was made, and his assets were disbursed. The bulk of his estate went to his widow Florence Crockford Troland, which included his private papers. Her only wish was for a trust to be set up for her own needs and to have her husband's manuscripts, both published and unpublished, donated to Harvard. To accomplish this goal, she went to The Cambridge Trust Company, the only banking and legal referral institutions that she trusted.

As fate would have it, this apparently routine trust was assigned to a young assistant trust officer just beginning his career in banking - my father. In his perusal of Troland's papers, his first reaction was to agree with Troland's wife and donate everything to Troland's colleagues at Harvard, especially the ones who where continuing the area of research Troland was engaged in just before his death - psychophysical optics. When my father got to the notes on Mind Physics and psychical research, he was astounded at what he saw and descided to enlist the help of someone more knowledgeable. My father's family was always concerned with the psychic often attending seances. At one time he admitted to me that he conducted one himself. And he was always involving me in ad hoc telepathy experiments. He contacted a friend of his, Gardner Murphy, a graduate student in psychology at Harvard and a member of The American Society for Psychical Research in New York City. Later, he was to become the Director of Research at The Menninger Foundation, Topeka, Kansas.

Both Murphy and my father agreed that this final work of Troland should be placed in an "academic timecapsule" to be opened sometime in the mid 21st Century.

Their reasoning was:

1. By the 21st Century his work will be understood to such a point that it can participate productively in the research of the day, or it will have been completely subsumed by the work of others and then its true significance can be assessed by the history of science;
2. If the notes on Mind Physics are given to one of Troland's colleagues in the present (the 1930's), there is no assurance that the potential and the significance of the work will be developed since the content of the notes are original to science and culture in general;
3. The originality of Troland's notes would make his work the target of intellectual theft, especially since in his lifetime he had a reputation for being unaggressive and without sufficient social and professional contacts to help with his promotion of his ideas.

© 1996 by Paul Laffoley 36 Bromfield Street #200 Boston, MA 02108