When I was first informed that I had been accepted as the recipient of the Alex Tanous Scholarship Award, I was delighted. In fact, words can’t describe how good it can feel to have your work recognised by means of an award, in a field of research such as parapsychology, which receives very little financial backing as a science. As a result of this, often, those involved in the field will self-fund their efforts where possible and be highly passionate about their studies and research, sometimes I feel this is the only thing which keeps most, if not all parapsychologists involved.
My first Alex Tanous Scholarship Award was presented to me during the end of my post-graduate research, while I was a Masters student. At that time I had also been studying anomalous telephone call experiences, which involved collecting and investigating such accounts. I began investigating such accounts in 2009, and subsequently published a few papers on the topic. The award money allowed me to purchase books and other texts that I would not normally be able to afford. Just after I received the Tanous Scholarship Award, I decided to compile all of my work into a new book entitled Telephone Calls from the Dead (Tricorn Books, 2012), which I hope will be accepted as a useful revised edition of the original book: Phone Calls from the Dead (by D. Scott Rogo and Raymond Bayless, 1979).
The Tanous Scholarship Award also contributed towards my travelling to the United States to not only give a presentation of my research and interview Dr. McAdams in person, but it also gave me to opportunity to visit D. Scott Rogo’s father in North Hollywood. It was an experience I will never forget and I have gratefully acknowledged the Alex Tanous Foundation for Scientific Research in my work to date, for their support of my work and research. The foundation offers great support for all students involved in the study of anomalous human experiences and a wealth of knowledge on Dr. Alex Tanous himself. I continue to follow the foundation with great interest and regularly highlight the foundation and its services to my own students and peers.
Callum Cooper was a recipient of the Alex Tanous Scholarship Award from 2011-2016 and has given presentations, lectures, discussions, etc. on Dr. Tanous, his work and life studies. Cal has republished Dr. Tanous’ book Conversations with Ghosts and is currently working on another manuscript from the Archive. He has been a tremendous resource, a wonderful Researcher, has presented several lectures for the Foundation and we are fortunate to have Cal who has great devotion to the parapsychology field and to the Foundation. You can learn more about Cal and his work at his web site: http://www.callumecooper.com