The Man Who Stole Einstein's Brain: He hid it for years, and even smuggled it to Canada in a cookie jar

It's a call Carolyn Abraham won't soon forget. In the spring of 1999, while working as the senior medical reporter for the Globe and Mail, Abraham received a tip from McMaster University — the office of Sandra Witelson, to be exact. A professor of neuroscience, Witelson had been featured in the paper several times before. Abraham always found her research fascinating, but she'd never heard of a project quite like this one. 

"Her office called and said that they had received Einstein's brain." That's Einstein as in Albert Einstein: author of the theory of relativity, a man who changed our understanding of time and space — perhaps the most celebrated mind in history. "It seemed completely weird to me," says Abraham. "I'm thinking, 'Wait, didn't that guy die a really long time ago?!" 

She wasn't wrong. Einstein died on April 18, 1955, succumbing to heart failure at the age of 76. As for the fate of his brain, that's another story, and after answering Witelson's call, Abraham would begin to uncover its legend. 

That story is captured in The Man Who Stole Einstein's Brain, a new film premiering at the Hot Docs Film Festival this week, and for those unfamiliar with the lore of the lobes, here's the gist:

When Einstein died, his body was sent for a routine autopsy. Dr. Thomas Harvey, chief pathologist at the Princeton Hospital, was assigned to the job. But before Harvey would pronounce the official cause of death, he cut out Einstein's brain and preserved it for future research. 

Mere days later, Harvey's actions were hailed in the headlines, but he had acted before consulting with Einstein's surviving family, and the scientist's own wishes didn't jibe with what transpired. (As Einstein had told biographer Abraham Pais: "I want to be cremated so people don't come worship at my bones.") 

He would eventually receive a belated blessing from the Einstein estate, but it came with a caveat: the brain must never become a spectacle — an object of worship and public curiosity. It should only be used in the name of science.

Harvey vowed to respect the family's wishes, but the man wasn't a neuroscientist. If the physical source of Einstein's genius was ever going to be studied, he'd need to bring it to the appropriate experts, and for decades, Harvey was unsuccessful in his mission. Still, he quietly guarded the brain, taking it with him from job to job, city to city — stashed away in an anonymous cardboard box.

"[When] I wrote the story in the Globe, Tom had basically brought the brain to Canada in a couple of cookie jars in the trunk of his Dodge," says Abraham, laughing at the memory. "He said he tried to declare it at Customs and they didn't believe him, so they just waved him through."

At that point, Harvey was an elderly man, somewhere in his 80s, and after a lifetime, he'd finally connected with scientists like Witelson who were keen to study it. Shortly before his death, he found the brain another home. An anonymous physician at Princeton ("Dr. X") remains its keeper to this day.

The history of Einstein's brain — and Harvey's part in it — was never a secret. Back in 1999, Abraham herself had some fuzzy recollection of reading something in a magazine about it. Still, she felt there was more to the legend than what had already been told.

"After the Globe story, there were so many unanswered questions I still had about this man's life with the brain," says Abraham, who wrote a book on the subject, Possessing Genius: The Bizarre Odyssey of Einstein's Brain. Published in 2002, it was nominated for the Governor General's Award for Nonfiction that year, and to write it, Abraham spent roughly two years interviewing Harvey, sometimes visiting him in Princeton, N.J., where he lived at the time.

The Man Who Stole Einstein's Brain is largely based on that book, and Abraham co-wrote the film with the project's director, Michelle Shephard (Guantanamo's Child). After its run at Hot Docs, the film will air on CBC's documentary Channel this summer (July 30). 

For years, Abraham had toyed with continuing the story that was captured in her book: "I wanted to make a film that was about Tom and what Tom's story said about the human condition — the desire that we all have to be aware of our legacy, or leave something behind." But first, she needed advice on how to break into documentary filmmaking. Shephard, a Peabody Award-winning journalist and co-founder of the production company Frequent Flyer Films, was a friend with the right expertise. So in 2019, they met for a chat over coffee. 

Shephard was fascinated by what she heard. "I remember at that coffee saying, 'There hasn't been a movie done on this?'"

"I knew from Carolyn's book, and from our conversations, that [Harvey] was largely misunderstood," says Shephard. "He was kind of a complicated character, a nuanced character, and a bit of a contradiction in my ways. And that kind of character always fascinates me."

There have been other documentaries about Einstein's brain. There are books and magazine articles — even graphic novels and plays. But this new film isn't about the brain, it's the story of a man who spent his life with it. And in Abraham's opinion, Harvey's never been given his due.

When they first met, Harvey was 87 years old — "white-haired and stooped over and very sweet." Abraham can't say why Harvey chose to speak with her, but they began their interviews shortly after he'd bequeathed the brain to Dr. X. "I think Tom felt a little bit liberated," she says. "I felt like he was a man with a lot of stories to tell, but it all came out very slowly."

Case in point: Abraham was a year-and-a-half into researching the book when Harvey dropped a major revelation. Shortly after taking the brain, he began a correspondence with Einstein's friend and executor, Otto Nathan. Excerpts from their letters appear in the documentary, and as Abraham sees it, their conversations put a different spin on Harvey's place in history.

Other reporters have positioned him as a dubious figure, she says. "It was very easy to pigeonhole Tom as a thief — as a brain thief who got away with this." But Einstein's estate knew he had it all along, she explains. "[Harvey's] motivations were never deeply explored."

The Man Who Stole Einstein's Brain is an attempt to do just that, and the film features an extensive cast of characters who knew Harvey well: friends, family and former colleagues. They have some wild stories about the brain, as well.

"Nothing had looked at the man who really set in motion the immortal afterlife of Einstein's brain," says Abraham. 

"Life intervenes in ways where you end up procrastinating over something that was at one point extremely important to you. And suddenly you're like, "Wait a minute, how did it get to be 1995?'"

The Man Who Stole Einstein's Brain premiered at the Hot Docs Film Festival May 3. Now streaming on CBC Gem.

This interview is part of CBC Arts's coverage of the 2023 Hot Docs Festival.