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World’s Oldest Man, a Parapsychologist, Dies

I hope I can live to be as old as Alexander Imich. A touching story from the New York Times, this 111-year-old man had many facets to his long life, including his extreme interest in the paranormal. (You can check out his book, which he wrote in his 90s, here.)

Alexander Imich, world's oldest man, dies. He was a parapsychologistAlexander Imich, a Polish-born psychic researcher who was certified the oldest man on earth, died Sunday morning at a senior residence in Manhattan. He had turned 111 on Feb. 4.

He attributed his long life to the fact that he and his wife, Wela, a painter and therapist who died in 1986, never had children. (In addition to Ms. Bogen, he is survived by an 84-year-old nephew, Jan Imich, in London.) He also exercised, ate sparingly and never drank alcohol.

He said “the aeroplane” was the greatest invention he witnessed in his lifetime; he was born 10 months before the flight of the Wright Brothers.

In the early 1930s, he began researching a Polish medium known as Matylda S., who was renowned for séances that reportedly called up the dead. He detailed the encounters in a German scholarly journal in 1932 and an anthology he edited, “Incredible Tales of the Paranormal,” published by Bramble Books in 1995, when he was 92.