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Nandor Fodor (May 13, 1895 – May 17, 1964) was a British and American Parapsychology, Psychoanalysis, author and journalist of Hungary origin.Nevill Drury. (2002). The Dictionary of the Esoteric: Over 3000 Entries on the Mystical and Occult Traditions. Watkins Publishing. p. 108.
Fodor was one of the leading authorities on , haunting and paranormal phenomena usually associated with mediumship. He was at one time Sigmund Freud's associate and wrote on subjects like prenatal development and dream interpretation, although he is mostly credited for his Masterpiece, Encyclopedia of Psychic Science, first published in 1934. Fodor was the London correspondent for the American Society for Psychical Research (1935-1939). He worked as an editor for the Psychoanalytic Review and was a member of the New York Academy of Sciences.
Fodor in the 1930s embraced paranormal phenomena but by the 1940s took a break from his previous work and advocated a psychoanalytic approach to psychic phenomena.Hazelgrove, Jenny. (2000). Spiritualism and British Society Between the Wars. Manchester University Press. pp. 174-175. Timms, Joanna. (2012). Phantasm of Freud: Nandor Fodor and the Psychoanalytic Approach to the Supernatural in Interwar Britain. Psychoanalysis & History. Volume 14: 5-27. He published skeptical newspaper articles on mediumship, which caused opposition from spiritualists. "Nandor Fodor (1895-1964)". Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. 2001. Retrieved April 18, 2015.
Among the subjects he closely studied was the case of Gef, which served as the basis for the 2023 film Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose.
Fodor was the father of Andrea Fodor Litkei, composer, author, soloist and wife of Ervin Litkei.
In 1938, Fodor investigated the Thornton Heath poltergeist case that involved Mrs. Forbes. According to Rosemary Guiley "Fodor asserted that the psychosis was an episodic mental disturbance of schizophrenic character, and that Mrs. Forbes' unconscious mind was responsible for the activities finally determined to be fraudulent. Fodor eventually identified the cause as sexual trauma that had occurred in Mrs. Forbes's childhood, and had been repressed."Guiley, Rosemary. (1994). The Guinness Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits. Guinness World Records Limited. pp. 125, 334. Because he was skeptical of the case, Fodor was heavily criticized by spiritualists and was dismissed from his post at the International Institute for Psychical Research. The spiritualist Arthur Findlay, who founded the institute, did not approve of his research and resigned. Fodor was attacked in the Spiritualist newspaper Psychic News, which he sued for Defamation.
Fodor published two scientific papers on poltergeist phenomena, The Psychoanalytic Approach to the Problems of Occultism (1945) and The Poltergeist, Psychoanalyzed (1948). "The poltergeist is not a ghost. It is a bundle of projected repressions," he stated. With the psychical researcher Hereward Carrington, Fodor co-authored Haunted People: Story of the Poltergeist down the Centuries (1951); the book received positive reviews.August Derleth. (1952). Haunted People: Story of the Poltergeist Down the Centuries. Western Folklore. Volume. 11, No. 4. pp. 296–297.Berg, Irwin. (1953). Haunted People by Hereward Carrington, Nandor Fodor. The Journal of American Folklore. Volume 66, No. 259. pp. 91–92.
The psychologist Robert Baker and the skeptical investigator Joe Nickell wrote that, in most cases, Fodor discovered ghosts are "pure inventions of the hauntee's subconscious" and praised Fodor's book The Haunted Mind as vastly entertaining.Baker Robert; Joe Nickell. (1992). Missing Pieces: How To Investigate Ghosts, UFOs, Psychics, & Other Mysteries. Prometheus Books. p. 134. However, Fodor's belief that some poltergeist phenomena could be explained by psychokinesis has drawn criticism. Henry Gordon has stated that parapsychologists such as Fodor and William G. Roll took a speculative approach to the poltergeist subject, ignoring the rational explanation of deception in favour of a belief in the paranormal.Gordon, Henry. (1988). Extrasensory Deception: ESP, Psychics, Shirley MacLaine, Ghosts, UFO. Prometheus Books. pp. 106–107.
Fodor believed that a pregnant mother could communicate Telepathy with the mind and body of her unborn child. He held that the mother could cause physical and psychological events in her unborn child depending on her state of mind.Mercer, Jean. (2014). Alternative Psychotherapies: Evaluating Unconventional Mental Health Treatments. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 64. Science writer Martin Gardner wrote in 1957 that although Fodor had contributed to respectable psychoanalytical journals his views on telepathy were pseudoscience.Martin Gardner. (1957). Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. Dover Publications. p. 309.
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