The captivating untold story of Hermann Rorschach and his famous inkblot test NAMED ONE OF
THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • New York Post • Sunday Times (UK) • Irish Independent In
1917 working alone in a remote Swiss asylum psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach devised an
experiment to probe the human mind: a set of ten carefully designed inkblots. For years he had
grappled with the theories of Freud and Jung while also absorbing the aesthetic movements of
the day from Futurism to Dadaism. A visual artist himself Rorschach had come to believe that
who we are is less a matter of what we say as Freud thought than what we see. After
Rorschach's early death his test quickly made its way to America where it took on a life of
its own. Co-opted by the military after Pearl Harbor it was a fixture at the Nuremberg trials
and in the jungles of Vietnam. It became an advertising staple a cliché in Hollywood and
journalism and an inspiration to everyone from Andy Warhol to Jay Z. The test was also given
to millions of defendants job applicants parents in custody battles and people suffering
from mental illness or simply trying to understand themselves better. And it is still used
today. In this first-ever biography of Rorschach Damion Searls draws on unpublished letters
and diaries and a cache of previously unknown interviews with Rorschach's family friends and
colleagues to tell the unlikely story of the test's creation its controversial reinvention
and its remarkable endurance-and what it all reveals about the power of perception. Elegant and
original The Inkblots shines a light on the twentieth century's most visionary synthesis of
art and science. Praise for The Inkblots "Impressively thorough . . . part biography of
Herman Rorschach psychoanalytic super sleuth and part chronicle of the test's afterlife in
clinical practice and the popular imagination . . . Searls is a nuanced and scholarly writer .
. . genuinely fascinating."-The New York Times Book Review "A marvelous book about how one man
and his enigmatic test came to shape our collective imagination. The Rorschach test is a great
subject and The Inkblots is worthy of it: beguiling fascinating and full of new discoveries
every time you look." -David Grann author of The Lost City of Z
