The offspring of psychic parents, he was born with a veil, the mystic cross and a five-pointed star on his left hand, the traditional markings of a psychic. By 1960, Alex realized that he possessed not only the traditional psychic power of predicting the future, but also a wide variety of other abilities. With an eye towards furthering scientific knowledge in this area, he submitted himself to the American Society for Psychical Research for testing. Dr. Karlis Osis, Director of the ASPR, has said, “In a series of ESP tests given to Dr. Alex Tanous in which he scored very high, the law of probability that it was chance was 1 out of 3000.” The odds that his test scores could have been coincidence were 99.9% against.
Dr. Tanous completed a classical education at Boston College and collected an impressive array of degrees—M.A. in philosophy from Boston College in 1960; M.A. in Sacred Sciences and Ph.D work at Fordham University; M.S. Ed. Counseling from the University of Maine in 1973; Doctor of Divinity from the College of Metaphysics in Indiana in 1965. Between 1965-1967 Alex taught Theology at Manhattan College and St. Johns University, both located in New York City. In recent years he taught classes on Psychic Phenomena and related topics at the University of Southern Maine.
From 1968 until the time of his death, he was associated with the American Society of Psychical Research. During this time, he served as the ASPR’s leading “gifted” subject in many experiments. Alex also applied his talents to the diagnosis and treatment of disorders at a psychiatric clinic in Pennsylvania and to studies of Psychic Healing conducted at McGill