tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15227428385639384982024-02-07T11:03:32.089+00:00Tom RufflesTom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comBlogger215125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-12708005145475108752023-09-15T14:45:00.002+01:002024-02-01T20:19:17.933+00:00Goodbye Doli, Welcome Jane: The Girl, the Ghost and the Gravestone<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgurmnhg_ZHF_P4rr4sXZq83uEKq5YtHSRm3HCnj3ywV1_pQzmqbQoudZ5PKS69Tv738XQfeJivtbeCiaX3ZabtQd9CR8jngxzj87QgJ9taQuMoEOqHDfEQ2tW8Fwo1CeK4AYSI-XEWtpRjK61_jdG-uqQECaqV4CHgxuUuurCHzxJ2fIxKL-PChUdDYjzp/s529/Goodbye%20Doli%20picture.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="351" data-original-width="529" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgurmnhg_ZHF_P4rr4sXZq83uEKq5YtHSRm3HCnj3ywV1_pQzmqbQoudZ5PKS69Tv738XQfeJivtbeCiaX3ZabtQd9CR8jngxzj87QgJ9taQuMoEOqHDfEQ2tW8Fwo1CeK4AYSI-XEWtpRjK61_jdG-uqQECaqV4CHgxuUuurCHzxJ2fIxKL-PChUdDYjzp/s320/Goodbye%20Doli%20picture.png" width="320" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The <span style="color: #c0504d; mso-themecolor: accent2;"><a href="https://tomruffles.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-brother-doli-poltergeist-case.html" target="_blank">Brother Doli</a> </span>case was originally reported by psychologist
Michael Daniels in the <i>Journal of the
Society for Psychical Research</i> (<i>JSPR</i>)
in 2002. Now the Penyffordd Farm case
(Penyffordd fittingly translates as ‘end of the road’), it is the subject of a
four-part BBC3 series presented by Radio 1 DJ Sian Eleri and produced by Twenty
Twenty Television. It is easy to see why
it caught the attention of the producers, because of the sheer quantity,
variety and dramatic nature of the events.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">From 1997 the property, at Treuddyn in
Flintshire, North Wales, was the scene of an extensive range of allegedly
paranormal phenomena, much of it with a religious connection. These included hundreds of stains and
carvings of images and words, mostly in Welsh, both inside and outside the
house. In addition, there were photographic
anomalies, noises, smells, temperature changes, puddles of water, displaced
objects, flower petals transforming into dying wasps, electrical, telephone and
computer anomalies, and more. Throw in a
sighting of the Virgin Mary and ghosts of a monk and a pregnant teenage girl
and there’s plenty for a series.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">These phenomena were promoted tirelessly
at the time by owner Rose-Mary Gower in a number of media appearances, and
investigated in a sober manner by Daniels (the page numbers in brackets below
refer to his <i>JSPR</i> article and a
following article contributed by Rose-Mary and her husband David). Daniels made 14 visits totalling 54 hours
between 12 November 2000 and 3 March 2001, with four further visits to discuss
later developments between 9 December 2001 and 12 May 2002, and maintained a
regular email correspondence (pp. 193-4).
His report occupies 29 pages of <i>JSPR</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Gowers moved into Penyffordd Farm in
February 1997, and Rose-Mary told Daniels that previously they lived in an
adjacent bungalow from May 1995 (p. 194).
Daniels lists the family living in the house as Rose-Mary, David and
their adopted son John-Paul, who has Down’s Syndrome. Daughters Nicolette, Adrienne (not named by
Daniels but interviewed by Eleri) and a third (who is not named by either)
lived elsewhere, but Daniels notes all three were regular visitors (p. 201). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The programme presents new information but
anyone expecting a breakthrough is going to be disappointed, though it is nice
to see the people who had been involved and have a brief sample of the AV
material Daniels collected. The two
hours are rather slow, with much filler focusing on Eleri rather than the case,
the programmes particularly keen to establish her Welsh-speaking credentials
(she tells us she grew up not far from Penyffordd). For reasons not explained there is a pivot
away from Brother Doli, now demoted from star to supporting player, with the
mysterious ghostly teenager Jane Jones taking centre stage.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">While not someone clued up about psychical
research, or science, Eleri stands in for the uninformed viewer, asking
questions in an attempt to make sense of the evidence, mulling over possible
explanations and wondering what conclusions to draw. Understandably the wide range of phenomena
reported by the Gowers and recorded by Daniels has been slimmed down for
television in the interests of time and credibility. Eleri does have Daniels to guide her, and he
gives her access to his research, his <i>JSPR</i> article, research notes,
photographs and tapes, as her starting point (the <i>JSPR</i> issue containing his article, with its distinctive yellow
cover, is the first item she takes out of his document box), so she knows from
the outset what he found.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Unfortunately, the pretence Eleri was
being filmed as she played detective, gradually uncovering information while
filling a pin-board with bits and pieces from Daniels’ box (one hopes they were
copies and not the originals), means information is not presented in a logical
manner. The investigatory pose also
leads to some odd moments, such as when Eleri turns up at Penyffordd Farm on
the off-chance of finding someone at home and the crew films through the
window. Being doorstepped is not always
appreciated. When nobody answers the
door she pushes a scruffy note through the letter box, although a typed letter
would have been more appropriate if less telegenic.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">But it is not a wasted trip, as she knocks
on a few more doors and speaks to neighbours, some of whom have memories of the
media circus the Gowers instigated. She
concludes that it sounds as though they think Rose-Mary was making it up, which
seems an accurate conclusion to draw. Eleri
claims on being told about the Virgin Mary from the neighbours that she had not
heard about it before, when she would have known about it from the <i>JSPR</i>
article Daniels gave her (pp.194-5).
This was the first event in the chronology, with a couple of
holidaymakers named Dooley sending a letter to the <i>Mold & Buckley
Chronicle</i> saying they had seen a vision of ‘Our Lady’ in a field owned by
the Gowers, and they had subsequently found their ailments improving. The story generated a great deal of interest,
and members of the public began turning up at the field. Eventually the story was picked up by the <i>News
of the World</i> (p. 195).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Eleri meets Penyffordd Farm’s current
owner, Michael Levy, not put off by an introduction in biro torn out of a
notebook, who has lived at the house for a decade and runs a glamping business
called Crazy Pheasant. Eleri is invited
to spend the night in the yurt, pitched in the field where the Virgin Mary was
seen. In correspondence following
transmission, he told me he has not experienced anything paranormal during his
time at Penyffordd Farm, nor has any of the hundreds who have stayed on the
property told him of weird experiences (pers. comm. 22 August 2023).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Much hinges round the grave marker of the
title, though Daniels’ article covers in it a couple of sentences (p. 208) so
it was not considered to be important in the initial investigation. It was made for a Jane Jones who died in
1778, aged 15. When Daniels recorded a
video in 2000 he filmed it leaning against the house, but a voice-over from
Daniels’ notes says he was told the Gowers moved it somewhere more discreet in
the summer of 1997 before daughter Nicolette’s wedding, as it was felt it might
create the wrong atmosphere. This does
not appear in his article.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Daniels’ film shows it in a prominent
position which his article identifies as ‘the outside front wall of the house’
(p. 208), so they may have moved again it after the wedding, or for Daniels’
benefit. They later said to him that
moving it was considered the catalyst for everything following, not a theory
Daniels included in his article. Why
moving a grave marker, a not uncommon event, should have such far-reaching
consequences in this instance, is unclear.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Eleri produces an audiotape of Rose-Mary
saying they buried the marker when trying to sell the house in 2010. The reason for the burial is confirmed by a
typewritten note Rose-Mary put in the bin liner the slab was wrapped in when it
was buried. Eleri does not mention the
note, but a photograph of it was kindly supplied to me by Michael Levy (pers. comm.
22 August 2023). Dated 30 August 2010,
it says the marker was found buried when the garden was being remodelled in the
1970s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">It was reburied, Rose-Mary continues,
roughly where it was dug up because they did not want to put off potential
purchasers. Rose-Mary adds that while it
is believed Jane Jones is buried in the garden, there is no evidence to support
the theory. That is a good reason for
Eleri to exclude the note as the body being buried on the site becomes a key
element in the Jane Jones story. Tellingly, despite being a ‘catalyst’ for the
events, the note makes no reference to the marker’s supposed role in the
phenomena.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In the programme, Michael Levy is
initially unsure about the marker’s whereabouts but eventually finds it, and
the camera crew records its disinterment.
For a slab nearly 250 years old and underground for over a dozen it was
in remarkably good shape; too good as it happens, because comparing it to the
film taken by Daniels in 2000 it appears to have been cleaned up. Apparently, the Gowers decided to have the
lichen removed at some point between Daniels filming it and when they buried it
in 2010. Michael Levy told me he has one
of Rose-Mary’s photographs showing it inside the house (pers. comm. 24 August
2023), so it could be it was cleaned up after 2000 and made a feature in the
home. The cleaning has shown just how
badly cut the lettering is.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Its provenance is obscure. All we know for certain is that it was there
before the Gowers moved in, because Daniels’ report notes it was visible in the
estate agent’s photograph (p. 208).
Rose-Mary tells Eleri that David dug up a bit of alleged human spine
while gardening at some point, but that is a long way from paranormal activity. With a will, however, a narrative can be
fashioned from disparate elements. In
‘The “Brother Doli” Case: Family Perspectives’, short statements she and David
wrote separately which were printed immediately after Daniels’ <i>JSPR</i> article, Rose-Mary claimed she saw
a pregnant ghost, aged about 12, stroking the family cat on the patio. The girl waved in response to Rose-Mary, who
did not realise she was looking at a ghost (p. 223).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Rowe-Mary says her youngest daughter (i.e.,
Adrienne) suggested the figure was Jane Jones, as recorded on the grave marker
(p. 223). The pregnant ghost was not associated
with Jane Jones in Daniels’ article and warrants only a couple of lines (p.
216). Running with the link, Eleri
quickly shifts from the marker’s presence on the property and the words ‘Jane’
and ‘Jones’ and the numbers ‘15’ and ‘1778’ among the writings on the wall
inside the house to a local girl with the not uncommon name, especially in
Wales, of Jane Jones born in 1763, as recorded in a register at the local
archive.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">A gentleman named Maurice, who lived in
the house before the Gowers and believes he is related to Jane Jones, said
there was a family story she died in childbirth and was buried in unconsecrated
ground because of the shame. That is
taken as evidence of her dying in childbirth or as a suicide and being buried
nearby. Eleri ties together vague
hearsay, someone called Jane Jones born at about the right time, a Jane Jones
recorded on a grave marker that could have come from anywhere, and Jane Jones
being the pregnant ghost-girl Rose-Mary says she saw. These connections are purely speculative.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The monk finally turns up in episode
three, though for some reason, the name Brother Doli, short for Adolphus, a
nickname given by the Gowers (p. 197), is never mentioned, a surprising
omission as it would help anyone searching for Daniels’ <i>JSPR</i> report. It is obvious
from the series’ title that the good brother is no longer the centre of
interest even though Eleri says the monk had impacted the Gowers the most. He does warrant coverage, and Eleri plots a
pilgrim route from Shrewsbury to Holywell on a large wall map. She finds a number of instances of alleged
paranormal activity along it, many with the involvement of a monk.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Daniels’ article had referred to the
pilgrimage route between Shrewsbury and Hollywell, associated with St Winifred
(pp. 208-9). While Eleri emphasises the
religious aspect of the case, including the wall markings, as does Daniels (p.
217) and as is evident from the glossary in his article (p. 206), she does not call
attention to Daniels’ information that David possesses a BEd in the unusual
combination of Chemistry and Divinity (p. 200), suggesting, despite his
sceptical pose, he would have possessed some theological knowledge.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Eleri’s embarrassing and pointless ouija
board session with an English-speaking paranormal group in a pub on the
pilgrimage route produces an encounter with a monk named William who claims to
be able to speak Welsh, but not when Eleri asks him to say something in the
language. Eleri, while noting their
sincerity, unsurprisingly looks sceptical when considering the value of their
information. The encounter fails to shed
any light on Brother Doli, but then there was no reason why it should.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">There is some business trying to locate
Rose-Mary and David’s current address, and to add a little tension we see Eleri
going through a phone book ringing up various Gowers like J R Hartley trying to
track down a copy of <i>Fly Fishing</i>. Rose-Mary makes a late appearance in the final
episode, on the surface a strange choice as she had been the core of events,
but apart from the attempt to build some suspense it quickly becomes clear why
she is not prominent: while she is as ebullient as ever, and she and David come
across as likeable, she sticks to her story and adds little that is new.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Rose-Mary tells Eleri she got ‘fed up’
with the attention the phenomena generated, but she looks pleased to have the
spotlight back on her after all these years.
She maintains there must be a natural explanation for what happened,
even if science hasn’t yet produced one.
In defence of the genuineness of their experiences, she points out that
David was out all day and she was busy looking after John-Paul, so she was not
faking for entertainment, nor for money.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Eleri does not put the obvious question,
that she might have used the case and the public interest it generated, with
all her media appearances, as a creative outlet to compensate for her
constrained daily life; some of her appearances are listed by Daniels (p. 197),
and there was press coverage in addition.
The attention would have been its own reward (Eleri observes she was
thoroughly enjoying herself in the media appearances). If so, other witnesses would then have
colluded to protect her, or misinterpreted ordinary stimuli as paranormal. On finishing her interview, Eleri concludes
Rose-Mary was ‘the source of everything’, and on another occasion rather
unflatteringly calls her ‘patient zero’ spreading perceptions of the phenomena
to the rest of the family.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Rose-Mary asserts that at one time there
was talk of a Hollywood film with the offer of thousands of pounds. Daniels in his article listed motives for a
hoax, a significant one being future financial exploitation, for example, a
book or film (p. 219). In the event, the
Gowers said no because of the fictionalising approach the filmmakers planned to
take. Perhaps the family would have been
subject to the same sort of treatment meted out to Enfield by James Wan in <i><span style="color: #c0504d; mso-themecolor: accent2;"><a href="https://tomruffles.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-demon-in-enfield.htm" target="_blank">The Conjuring 2</a></span></i>,
Warren-style demonologists descending on Flintshire, but it is hard to imagine
in what way Rose-Mary would be put off by that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Whatever the motive, if she was hoaxing it
is unlikely she could do it except in collusion with David. That would make it easier for the critic to
reach a conclusion, except there are statements from others about incidents,
some of which occurred in Rose-Mary and David’s absence. Adrienne, according to Eleri, was the first
person to report seeing the monk.
Staying for a few days, she woke one night and felt a weight on the end
of her bed. Opening her eyes she saw a
figure above her, a dark cloak covering its face, causing her to scream. She claimed she hadn’t heard about the monk
beforehand, which would rule out being influenced by stories from her parents. Daniels includes this episode (p. 196),
dating it to October 1998, with the detail that Adrienne saw a ‘young monk’ at
the bottom of her bed, but she does not say how she could judge age when the
face was covered.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Apart from Rose-Mary, the major witness is
Nicolette. She tells the story of going
upstairs to the bathroom when visiting and hearing John-Paul in his room
speaking, then hearing more than one male voice speaking Welsh, to which
John-Paul responded. Nicolette went in
and asked who he was talking to, so he was clearly on his own. John-Paul, it turns out, had quite a rapport
with the monk, who, he said, lived in a corner of his bedroom, and Daniels was
told he would report on the monk’s moods and (unspecified) activities (p. 201).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In February 2001, Rose-Mary emailed
Daniels to say John-Paul had told her Brother Doli was leaving for a ‘happy,
smiling place’ because John-Paul was about to turn 16 ‘and was too old’ (p.
215). On John-Paul’s birthday the
following month, Rose-Mary duly reported John-Paul had told her the brother had
left and would not return (p. 216).
Brother Doli behaved more like an imaginary friend than a ghost.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">It was not only Brother Doli whom
John-Paul saw. According to Daniels’
notes, read out as a voice-over in the programme, he said on one occasion
John-Paul had reported he could see what was thought to be the ghost of Jane
Jones sitting next to him while he watched TV, though this incident does not
appear in his article, and in her ‘Family Perspectives’ article Rose-Mary
states that ‘John-Paul has never mentioned seeing Jane’ (p. 223). The contradiction is not explored by Eleri.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The programme does not make clear that
Brother Doli and the ‘Jane’ ghost dovetailed.
John-Paul announced Brother Doli’s departure in early March. Rose-Mary emailed Daniels on 23 March to say
she had seen the pregnant ghost, ‘about 12 years of age,’ on the patio that
morning (p. 216), just over a fortnight later.
As Rose-Mary put it in her <i>JSPR</i>
article, it was ‘“Goodbye Doli, Welcome Jane!”’
(p. 223). Perhaps she was
thinking of the music hall song <i>Goodbye,
Dolly Gray</i>, and as with the soldier wishing Dolly goodbye, the brother had belatedly
heard the bugle calling. It does seem
quite a coincidence that one appeared almost as soon as the other departed, as
if Jane arrived to fill the vacuum Brother Doli had left.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Although Daniels wound down his
investigation at this point (p. 193), phenomena continued over the following
months, and were said to have occurred even after David and Rose-Mary had moved
to Eastbourne in 2002. After the move,
Nicolette and her husband Ewan stayed in the house with their new baby, with
nobody else present. Interviewed by
Eleri, an emotional Nicolette recounts how the phenomena continued. There were new wall writings, one of them
their young son’s name. They would see
things in peripheral vision, and Nicolette saw a hooded figure, like a monk,
looking over the cot in the night.
Nicolette heard the door latch raised and lowered, there was a cold spot
in the lounge, and they heard children’s voices singing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Even more startling is Eleri’s interview
with Ewan. He says that one day he came
downstairs and found an enormous heavy wooden owl had moved from the living
room to the kitchen. The eldest child
was four or five years old (suggesting they had been living in the house for
some time) and Ewan does not think it possible for him to have moved it;
Rose-Mary and David still own it, and during their meeting Rose-Mary invites
Eleri to lift it; it does seem unlikely, though not impossible, that a young
child could shift the thing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">On another occasion, Ewan came down early
one morning, put the TV on and went to make coffee, and when he returned the
owl was head-first in the fireplace, yet he had heard nothing. He says it moved the full length of the room,
though footage Daniels took in 2000 shows the owl standing by the
fireplace. Whatever the details, one
wonders why, having gone through these extreme experiences, they stayed in the
house, especially with two small children.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">A voiceover by Daniels reading from his
notes, said to date from March 2003, states the family is becoming increasingly
distressed, to the point where the daughters are saying they must have an
exorcism, though David dismisses it as ‘superstitious nonsense’. The 2003 date is possibly an error as David
and Rose-Mary were no longer resident, but he may be referring to Nicolette and
Ewan’s experiences. After working out
exorcisms are really ‘a thing’, Eleri goes to Wrexham to find out from an
Anglo-Catholic clergyman involved in deliverance ministry what it involves.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">A tape recording of Rose-Mary speaking (no
date given) says someone identifying as an exorcist came to the house, but the
senior Gowers thought it silly. She adds
they would never have requested one.
Eleri makes the reasonable point that if you thought your house was
haunted, wouldn’t you try anything to stop it?
Perhaps, she ponders, Rose-Mary was secretly happy for it to carry on,
adding that it is always Rose-Mary who is interviewed in the extensive media
coverage.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">It was not just family members who said
there was something spooky about the place.
Maurice said that during his residence he had felt a presence and as if
he was being watched (though as he is only reporting it now, knowing about the
Gowers and that it would likely get him on TV, his testimony has to be treated
with caution). A more substantial
report, read from Daniels’ unpublished notes but not in his <i>JSPR</i> article, recounts the visit of a
double-glazing salesman and his wife between Christmas and New Year 1999. She sat in the car while he was inside, and
when he returned 30 minutes later she was white, and said, ‘that house is
haunted, isn’t it?’ She said she had
seen a ‘shadow-like figure of a hooded monk passing back and forth in front of
the house.’ We are not told, though, if
Daniels interviewed them, or it was recounted by the Gowers, in which case we
would only have their word for it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Eleri interviews a Radio Wales producer,
Alan Dolby, who was in the house making a programme in 2003 when he saw
something moving out of the corner of his eye, as did a colleague at the same
time. The colleague in the recording
says what is convincing is that there is just so much material; if Rose-May had
been hoaxing, she would have been more subtle.
He does not consider the alternative, that she might have got carried
away and wanted to keep it going so she would have more to say on programmes
like his. The over-the-top nature of the
phenomena seemed to work well for her.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Then of course there is the report of the
sighting by Irish holidaymakers named Michael and Concepta Dooley of the Virgin
Mary very shortly after the Gowers moved into the house in February 1997. Daniels’ <i>JSPR</i>
report spends some time on the sighting and the ‘mini-Lourdes’ following it
(pp. 194-95). Rose-Mary sent a short
account to the ‘Experiences’ section of the SPR’s <i>Paranormal Review</i> about the Virgin Mary sighting, published in the
November 1997 issue. A photograph she
took said to show a face in a barn window was sent to <i>Wales on Sunday</i>,
appearing on 1 June 1997 with the headline ‘Is this the face of Jesus’ mother?’
(p. 195). Even at this stage she was
obtaining publicity for strange events associated with her.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">As the Dooleys could not be found, Daniels
did not rule out a hoax, either by the couple or someone pretending to be them
(p. 202). This assumes they actually
existed, but they may not have, despite Rose-Mary claiming to have met them in
the lane in February 1997 (pp. 201-2).
Rose-Mary would seem a good candidate to have sent a letter to the
newspaper purporting to come from a couple with names so Irish they sound
fictitious. She received a three-page hand-written
letter purportedly from the couple addressed to ‘The Lady with the Labrador Dog’,
dated 9 March (p. 194) confirming the sighting, but Daniels passes over it
quickly. He says nothing about comparing
the it to handwriting samples taken from members of the family, and does not
seem to consider it evidential.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">If the Dooley episode was a hoax
perpetrated by Rose-Mary, perhaps its success in fooling a newspaper and the
resulting publicity gave her grander ideas, on which she quickly capitalised. On the other hand, the programme may be the
prompt for Michael and Concepta to come forward at last, in which case it will
have served a very useful purpose.
Unfortunately, as Rose-Mary told the <i>Mold & Buckley Chronicle</i>
they were in their late 50s or early 60s (p. 194), they may no longer be with
us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Ironically, despite their surname hinting
at a south-west Wales origin, the Gowers are resolutely English. Eleri states they ‘don’t speak a word of
Welsh’ (even though Rose-Mary is heard on tape translating some words for
Daniels), implying Rose-Mary was an unlikely source for words mostly written in
Welsh. What Eleri doesn’t tell us, but
would have known from Daniels’ article, is that the family possessed a <i>Collins Gem Welsh Dictionary</i>, which he
was told they bought after the initial Welsh word stains appeared (p.
207). Spelling errors in the wall
writings, he adds, would be unlikely to be made by a Welsh-speaker but are
consistent with a non-Welsh speaker, possessing poorish eyesight, misreading
the small font used in the dictionary (pp. 208, 218). Although he does not say so, it can be seen
from the programme that Rose-Mary was a spectacle wearer.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Daniels’s article also points out that
words appear in isolation, not sentences (pp. 207, 218). These would be much harder for a non-Welsh
speaker to achieve convincingly. Actually,
Eleri does not seem to have read the article attentively. For example, scrolling through a microfiche,
she reads out from a local newspaper Rose-Mary’s account of dried flower petals
being transformed into half-drowned wasps, which is dramatised for effect as
she narrates, but she says it was in October 1998, the date on the newspaper,
whereas Daniels tells us it was in August 1997 (p. 195).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Inspired by similarities to the Bélmez
faces, referred to by Daniels (p. 217), Eleri learns what silver nitrate is and
goes to Swansea University to see if it could explain some of the wall writings
(but not the carvings). Lab experiments
with a similar surface are suggestive, the image appearing when exposed to
light, then fading over time. Eleri
notes David would have had the requisite knowledge. In his <i>JSPR</i>
article, Daniels notes David has degrees in chemistry, David conceding it made
him a prime suspect in a hoax (p. 218), and the stains could have been produced
by chemical means, though Daniels does not finger silver nitrate as a possible
candidate.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">This is not, though, a brilliant insight
by the Twenty Twenty team as three articles in <i>JSPR</i> about the Bélmez faces put forward the possible application of
silver nitrate, and its use in photography is well known. We are not told how long the images at
Penyffordd Farm lasted compared to those created in the laboratory, so if they
lasted significantly longer this would reduce the likelihood David purchased
quantities of silver nitrate to create them, and indicate their creation, by
whoever or whatever, employed some other method.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Most of the occurrences in the case point
either to their reality, a hoax among the family, or one set in train by
Rose-Mary which encouraged the family to interpret ambiguous stimuli as
paranormal. Malcolm Schofield of the
University of Derby and also, though this was not mentioned in the programme,
the current editor of <i>JSPR</i>
(presumably how he came to be included), talks about the unreliability of
eyewitness testimony and how witnesses can be primed to accept a paranormal
interpretation, a point made by Daniels’ article (p. 219).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Daniels runs through a number of possible
natural explanations: ‘natural artefacts, suggestibility of witnesses, errors
of perception, or lapses in memory’ (p. 217).
Such effects may account for some of the reports, but not the physical
aspects like the writings, the wasps and the moving owl. Eleri wonders if something ‘primed’ the
Gowers, such as the Virgin Mary sighting, but much cannot be put down to
cognitive errors.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Although we hear from two of the
daughters, an obvious omission is the third daughter. There is another son, also adopted and the
second oldest of the siblings, who is not mentioned at all in the
programme. Daniels had interviewed all
three daughters, who reported strange experiences, but the other son, according
to Daniels, had made few visits home since leaving in 1994, and was not
interviewed (p. 201). It would have been
useful if viewers had been told the reason for the missing daughter’s
non-participation in the programme, after she had talked to Daniels for his
article. Perhaps she had come to believe
the events were not genuine but did not want to speak against her family and
instead chose to keep quiet; she could have been unavailable for some other
reason. Something should have been said
to clarify the reason for her absence.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">We know little about the family
background, which is reasonable in a television programme but is bound to
hamper a full understanding of what might have been going on. Daniels in his <i>JSPR</i> article writes about poltergeists ‘often expressing indirectly
underlying emotional tensions within the family’, and he thought Brother Doli’s
influence ‘generally seemed to provide the family with a sense of common
interest and focus’ (p. 217).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Who knows what tensions existed within the
family, but it is intriguing that, as Daniels records in his article, four of
the five children, born between 1970 and 1976, left home between 1989 and 1997
(p. 201). It is possible David, and
particularly Rose-Mary, were in part using Brother Doli and the rest of the
phenomena, consciously or unconsciously, to keep their children within the
family orbit. Alternatively, the events,
which started in 1997, could have been an emotional response to the moving away
of the children, or an activity, ‘the hoaxer’s hobby’ as Daniels puts it (p.
219) to fill the void felt by empty nesters.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Painting scenarios, Daniels in <i>JSPR</i>
talks about a mixed case, with low-level genuine phenomena to which were added
‘imitative fraud’ for the more elaborate elements (p. 220). It cannot be ruled out, nor can the
possibility that the bulk of the phenomena were genuine, perhaps with
peripheral elements of misperception.
But there are good reasons for thinking this was a hoax, with Rose-Mary,
for whatever purpose, miking it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">If so, it may have backfired, because when
the Gowers put the house up for sale in 2010 she tells Eleri it took two years
to sell and went for less than it was worth.
Perhaps it would have taken that long anyway (the damp Michael Levy
found cannot have helped), or perhaps potential buyers were put off by the
house’s reputation. Michael Levy tells Eleri
he thought when hearing of the phenomena the price would go down, correctly it would
seem. One suspects all was peaceful during
tours by potential purchasers.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">When Rose-Mary concedes there might have
been a hoax, but they can’t think by whom, clearly she doesn’t really think
someone crept into the house unobserved and fabricated the phenomena. She is thereby implying their
genuineness. John-Paul was caught on
camera making marks on the wall (pp. 213-14), but doubtless he was responding
to what was going on around him and did not have the capacity to undertake the
vast majority of the reported events.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Daniels was told stains and carvings had
appeared during family trips away, and he floats the possibility that someone
else could have had access (p. 219). The
article does not say if the entire family went on these trips, so it is
possible a family member came in and made them, assuming the information that
markings appeared while the house was empty is correct; Daniels does not say if
he confirmed this independently. That
would not account for all the phenomena though.
A family conspiracy is not beyond the realm of possibility, as Daniels
says (p. 219). Adrienne’s argument which
she puts to Eleri that something happened when each family member, including
Rose-Mary, was absent is intended to support a paranormal explanation but
ignores the possibility of collusion.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">An omission in the programme is the lack
of an acknowledgement of the SPR. Eleri
is filmed taking a copy of <i>JSPR</i> out of Daniels’ document box, and when speaking
of Daniels’ ‘research notes’ she is flipping through his article. She later refers to it, but without naming
the publication. The brief clip of
Malcolm Schofield does not identify him as the current editor of <i>JSPR</i>.
It would have been polite if either Daniels or Eleri had mentioned the
SPR’s involvement. It is particularly
significant that Eleri does not say, as Daniels tells us, that both Rose-Mary
and David had been members of the SPR (p. 219).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">They would therefore have had a great deal
of information on hauntings and poltergeists, of which they had a long-standing
interest, Rose-Mary in particular after her family in Guernsey experienced
‘poltergeist-type phenomena’ from before she was born to after she left home
(p. 201). Knowledge of the literature
would be of assistance to anyone wishing to imitate poltergeist effects. Eleri not referring to their knowledge of
hauntings and poltergeists has the effect of suggesting that the Gowers were
unfamiliar with their characteristics, but this was far from the case.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">My final thoughts are that Michael Daniels
worked hard to produce his <i>JSPR</i>
report, which needs to be read by anyone who wants a more accurate picture than
Eleri provides, but I still think, as I did when I first read it, that it did
not warrant the space it took up. It is
flawed by Daniels muddying the water between treating the Gowers as the
subjects of an investigation and collaborators.
While there is always a chance there were genuine paranormal phenomena
occurring during the Gowers’ period of residence, on the balance of probability
the events he reported on are too far in the direction of a hoax. Several times in the programme and
surrounding publicity Penyffordd Farm was given the accolade of ‘the most
haunted house in Wales’ and ‘the most haunted house in Britain’, but it assumes
there was a haunting, and that is by no means the correct assessment.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Girl, the Ghost and the Gravestone</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">, by contrast to
Daniels’ investigation, is lazily produced and omits much pertinent information. It is structured as entertainment, its
primary function, so it fails properly to get to grips with the case. The many shortcomings can perhaps be summed
up by a moment at the end when Eleri has a final meeting with Daniels. He tells her that when his article was in
draft he showed it to the Gowers, and the couple wrote a response (actually two
separate responses), i.e. the ‘Family Perspectives’ article following his. He asks Eleri if she would like to see it and
she says yes, as if it was new to her. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">She reads snippets from David’s statement,
changing the odd word for clarity while making it sound like a continuous
narrative. She concludes with ‘but I can
only say that it felt very real to me.’ Dramatic,
yes, but that is the final sentence in <i>Rose-Mary</i>’s statement, which Eleri
has tacked on. The willingness to
manipulate for effect damages the programme’s credibility, and left me
wondering what the point of it was, other than to launch Eleri’s career beyond
the confines of the BBC1 studio, with further television series promised.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Acknowledgement<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I would like to thank Michael Levy for
taking the time to correspond with me, and supplying a photograph of the note
left with the grave marker.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">References<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Daniels, Michael. ‘The “Brother Doli” case:
Investigation of Apparent Poltergeist-type Manifestations in North Wales’,<i> Journal of the Society for Psychical
Research</i> 66, October 2002, pp. 193-221.
(Reprinted in Richard Wiseman and Caroline Watt (eds.). <i>Parapsychology</i> (The International
Library of Psychology). Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2005.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Gower, Rose-Mary. ‘Marian Visions and Cures in a
Welsh Field’, <i>The Paranormal Review</i>,
Issue 4, November 1997, p. 11.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Gower, Rose-Mary and Gower, David. ‘The
“Brother Doli” case: Family Perspectives’, <i>Journal
of the Society for Psychical Research</i> 66, October 2002, <a name="_Hlk145276066">pp. 222-24</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Romero, José Martínez. ‘The Faces of
Bélmez: Its Mystery and Message’, <i>Journal
of the Society for Psychical Research </i>61, January 1997, pp. 337-9.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Ruffles, Tom. ‘Correspondence’, <i>Journal of the Society for Psychical Research</i> 67, April 2003, p.
158; Michael Daniels’ reply, pp. 159-60.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Tort, César J. ‘Will Permanent Paranormal
Objects Vindicate Parapsychology?’, <i>Journal of the Society for Psychical
Research</i> 58, July 1991, pp. 16-35.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Tort, César J and Ruíz-Noguez, Luis. ‘Are the Faces of Bélmez Permanent Paranormal
Objects?’ <i>Journal of the Society for Psychical Research</i> 59, July 1993,
pp. 161-71.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Update 12 January 2024:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Television columnist Stu Neville reviewed the
programme in <i>Fortean Times</i>, no. 437, November 2023, p. 61. He repeated Eleri’s comment that the Gowers
were not Welsh speakers, and I wrote to the editor on 21 October 2023 to point
out that their Welsh dictionary would have supplied all the words they needed
to conduct a hoax. <span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The letter was published
in <i>Fortean Times</i> no. 441, February 2024, p. 67</span>:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Stu Neville’s television column discussing
the BBC’s </span><i style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Paranormal: The Girl, the Ghost
and the Gravestone</i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, about the Penyffordd Farm/Brother Doli case (FT437:61),
includes presenter Sian Eleri’s observation that Rose-Mary and David Gower were
not Welsh speakers.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">This implied they
could not have been responsible for the appearance of Welsh words in the house.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">However, Michael Daniels, the psychologist
responsible for investigating the case, states in his lengthy report, published
in the <i>Journal of the Society for
Psychical Research</i>, that they owned a <i>Collins
Gem Welsh Dictionary</i>, so the manufacture of Welsh words was not beyond
them. Daniels also points out that words
appeared in isolation, not in sentences which would be harder for a non-Welsh
speaker to achieve convincingly.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">He adds that spelling errors found in the
wall writings would be unlikely to be made by a Welsh-speaker but were
consistent with a non-Welsh speaker possessing poorish eyesight misreading the
dictionary’s small font. He does not say
so in the article but it can be seen from the programme that Rose-Mary Gower
was a spectacle wearer.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sian Eleri knew all this because she had
access to Dr Daniels’ records including his article in <i>JSPR</i>, a copy of which she can be seen holding in one shot (though
any reference to the SPR is conspicuously absent in the programme). Yet she omitted to mention the possession of
a Welsh dictionary, an important piece of evidence in assessing the wall
writings.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In fact, there was much information
missing necessary to reach a balanced conclusion, not least that David and
Rose-Mary Gower had been SPR members and would therefore have had some
knowledge of hauntings and poltergeists, useful to someone contemplating a hoax. Despite being structured as such, the
programme was not a serious reinvestigation, and Penyffordd Farm, billed in the
publicity as ‘the most haunted house in Britain,’ did not live up to the hype.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p></p><p></p>Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-36906622642016582452023-04-03T11:10:00.004+01:002023-09-23T19:30:29.597+01:00My Mastodon Suspension<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4Pj2CekcWQfYdnDImkTkwi0MrZRhYuN0bwAkR0gJc00_tRD43pv6Idl5-HmFjnUnTxrQk_k453XZIAPqS4lLMuVRZi32mlUK5tDP--aWke7WTR_FrOKtFOYhn3plzDvF05hTbK5DVB0TMwdm2PVrS8oPFemVjerlWjxG70dJ9Z4jTSTqLxSi-LwsUig/s659/Mammoth%20-%20Wiki%20Commons.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="485" data-original-width="659" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4Pj2CekcWQfYdnDImkTkwi0MrZRhYuN0bwAkR0gJc00_tRD43pv6Idl5-HmFjnUnTxrQk_k453XZIAPqS4lLMuVRZi32mlUK5tDP--aWke7WTR_FrOKtFOYhn3plzDvF05hTbK5DVB0TMwdm2PVrS8oPFemVjerlWjxG70dJ9Z4jTSTqLxSi-LwsUig/s320/Mammoth%20-%20Wiki%20Commons.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">When Elon Musk took over Twitter there was
a great deal of debate about what to do and if there was a more congenial
alternative.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I have been on Twitter
since August 2014 (@thomasruffles) but solely use it to log my writing activities,
so post only occasionally.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I wasn’t
happy with the way the new owner was behaving and kept hearing about Mastodon
as a kinder, more caring, community than Musk-era Twitter was shaping to be, so
thought I would take a look.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">While not as sophisticated as Twitter, I
thought there would be no harm in opening a Mastodon account while the Twitter
ferment resolved itself one way or another.
I decided, like the majority, not to jump ship completely and close my
Twitter account. As it happens, while there
are still controversies swirling around Musk’s interventions, Twitter seems to
have settled down and I have retained my presence there.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thus I have been running the two side by
side for several months. However, I
thought I would be more expansive on Mastodon, and as well as list my writing
note other things I do in what might loosely be called my cultural life. So on 28 March, for example, I visited the <i>Islanders</i> exhibition at the Fitzwilliam
Museum in Cambridge and had a VR experience, walking round a Neolithic village
on Cyprus, which I noted with a link to the relevant Fitzwilliam website page.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Recently I have been watching talks on
YouTube. Nancy Zingrone has been
uploading lectures in her <i>Parapsychology:
Research and Education Massively-Open Online Course </i>(ParaMOOC 2023) series,
and C J Romer those given to the Association for the Scientific Study of
Anomalous Phenomena in its regular weekly programme. I have been slowly working through the
backlog and recording my progress on Mastodon.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">During the evening of Saturday 1 April I
watched a ParaMOOC talk on poltergeists in Brazil and put it on Mastodon as
usual, with a link. To my surprise, on
the morning of Sunday 2 April I found that overnight I had received the
following email headed ‘Your account @tomruffles@toot.site has been
suspended’. Initially assuming it was a
phishing scam, I discovered my account really had been suspended:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘You can no longer use your account, and
your profile and other data are no longer accessible. You can still login to
request a backup of your data until the data is fully removed in about 30 days,
but we will retain some basic data to prevent you from evading the suspension.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What had I done to contravene Mastodon’s
norms of good behaviour?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Reason: Content violates the following
community guidelines<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Malicious or misleading information (such
as, but not limited to, anti-science, fake news and hate brigading) are
bannable offences. This also includes the encouragement and normalising of said
information. Such content can, for example, include anti-vaccine and
alternative medicine.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Wow, that does sound bad, yet I was
confused, and not merely by the use of brigading, as my posts seemed harmless
to me and far from warranting such a severe charge. Fortunately, Mastodon was on hand to point
out the offending items. There were five
in total, each of which I had provided with a link to the relevant YouTube
content:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I'm working my way through the excellent
ParaMOOC 2023 talks organised by Nancy Zingrone and Bryan Williams. Fatima
Machado gave a wide-ranging talk on poltergeist cases in Brazil. (1 April)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">ASSAP Webinar - "Ghosts: S is for
Survey" - another talk by C J Romer which largely focuses on the work of
the early SPR, A large number of ASSAP videos have been uploaded to YouTube.
(29 March)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">ASSAP Webinar: CJ Romer on "Are
Poltergeists A Thing?" - has lots of references to the SPR. (28 March)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">ASSAP Webinar - Dr Kate Cherrell on
"Death, Debt and Gin: Scratching Fanny and The Cock Lane Ghost" was a
thorough overview of this seminal case. [OK, I concede I was a bit naughty
there, slipping in the word seminal]. (27 March)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Allison Jornlin gave a thorough overview
in her ParaMOOC 2023 talk 'The Hidden Ghost Hunter: Remembering Catherine
Crowe', a figure who deserves to be better remembered in the field (the talk is
also available on the Paranormal Women YouTube channel) (23 March)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It looked like my VR experience was not
contentious, while Brazilian poltergeists were the final straw. I was told: ‘If you believe this is an error,
you can submit an appeal to the staff of toot.site.'<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hmmm.
I wasn’t sure it was an error, because it felt like the sort of
treatment the Guerrilla Skeptics and their allies mete out to <a href="https://tomruffles.blogspot.com/2016/03/wikipedia-and-its-prejudices-recent.html" target="_blank">Wikipedia entries </a>they find not to their taste. The bit I was deemed to have breached was
probably the anti-science stricture, interpreted by the administrators to mean
what they wanted it to mean. What the
hell, I fired off an appeal immediately:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘These are parapsychology talks given by
respectable researchers on serious topics.
You may not agree with the content, but they do not fall foul of your
criteria. If you feel that the ban is
warranted, frankly you are a bunch of bigots and I wouldn’t want to be on your
platform anyway.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Take that, Mastodon. They’ve not yet got back to me. As well as my own, I also run the Society for
Psychical Research’s Mastodon feed, @SPR1882@mastodon.social, and <i>so far</i>
it has remained untouched. Perhaps the
SPR’s name gives the posts more protection.
Alternatively, Mastodon has a federated system, and it could be the
‘social’ administrators are more liberal, or better informed, than the toot.site
bunch.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s not even as if my account has much of
a reach. It is a lot easier to find
people on Twitter, and my Mastodon follower numbers have remained stubbornly
low – the only person who seriously engages with my posts there is my
Parapsychological Association colleague Craig Weiler, author of <i>Psi Wars: TED, Wikipedia and the Battle for
the Internet</i> (thanks Craig).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">So if I am banned it won’t be much of a
loss either to me or to Mastodon, but it rather dents their image as the
softer, inclusive, somewhat counter-cultural alternative to Musk’s
Twitter. Their page exhorting people to
join states:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Your home feed should be filled with what
matters to you most, not what a corporation thinks you should see. Radically
different social media, back in the hands of the people.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s definitely not in the hands of this
person, instead censoring content Twitter and YouTube have no problem with
simply because the moderators happen to dislike it. While I don’t believe Mastodon has fulfilled
its promise as a viable alternative to Twitter I was happy to stick with it. I never imagined it would have a problem with
parapsychology and I would find myself accused of peddling malicious or misleading
information.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Update 5 April 2023:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I had assumed that the toot.site
administrators would have the courtesy to inform me of the outcome of my appeal
by email. Wondering why they were taking
so long, I went to my blocked page to discover they had in fact made their
determination very quickly on Sunday 2 April but had not bothered to let me
know.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Their verdict was a curt ‘Your appeal has
been rejected.’ I had failed to persuade
them of my case. Perhaps they didn’t
like my attitude, though what I said was true, but it is possible that nothing
would have made a difference because they had already decided my fate, and in
their ignorance believed that by linking to ParaMooc and ASSAP talks I was
promoting pseudo-science.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I am sorry I was kicked off unfairly, but
it’s their service and they can do what they like. Anyone who wants to post material relating to
parapsychology should steer clear of this particular chunk of Mastodon. I had intended to give up the whole site as a
bad job, but although dispirited by my experience to date, I was curious to see
if other nodes were more tolerant so I have signed up to
@TomRuffles@geekdom.social.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Doubtless I’ll post the same sorts of
items I did on toot.site, and will see if their administrators have a more
relaxed attitude to parapsychology.
Perhaps I was just unlucky in my initial choice, and administrators
happy to embrace geekdom will find my posts acceptable. In the long term, I’ll be interested to see
how Mastodon develops, but my experience to date suggests it is never going to
be a serious player in the social media landscape.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Update 23 September 2023:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">My Mastodon experiment didn’t last long,
as I put my last post on geekdom.social on 25 July, and I also abandoned the Society
for Psychical Research account. I wasn’t
banned by the administrators, in fact they seemed tolerant of my whacky
psychical research interest, but there isn’t much point being on a platform if
nobody notices what one is posting there.
Almost as soon as I signed up to geekdom I felt it was not going to
prove useful thanks to the difficulty in building a community when the federated
structure is an obstacle.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Just as I was becoming disillusioned with
my Mastodon experience along came Threads, Mark Zuckerberg’s rival to Twitter,
or X as it is now annoyingly called.
This seemed a better option than Mastodon for building connections
because it was launched on the back of Instagram, its many users forming a
ready-made community, and it didn’t have the fragmented nature of
Mastodon. I already had an Instagram
presence, though I didn’t use it much, so signing up would be easy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I’m not a fan of Zuckerberg, and like
others think Threads is a terrible name because of the connotations of nuclear
war it evokes thanks to the film <i>Threads</i>. Even so, I thought I would give it a go, so
on 6 July I opened a Threads account (@tomhruffles@threads.net). Initially it was mobile phone-only, which I
didn’t like because I find it a pain to use a phone for text, and I left it at
a couple of test posts. I was pleased when
the desktop version was launched, news reaching me on 24 August, and I’ve been
adding to my feed on an occasional basis.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">My usage is much the same as with
Mastodon, including links to my writing (duplicating my X posts), but including
other activities which may be of interest.
Unfortunately, despite the advantage of having Instagram as a base,
Threads is proving about as useful as Mastodon.
After the initial flurry of excitement, with huge numbers signing up,
interest has waned and I am finding the same level of engagement – close to
zero. I’ll doubtless carry on using it,
but without much enthusiasm. Ah well, I
gave it a go.</span></p><p></p>Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-82149863413458417242023-02-07T17:11:00.009+00:002023-03-18T15:07:25.727+00:00Thoughts on keeping a dream diary<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0QI46gA7Ox8pR7O0cs04k56lsQWgD1Hs00umlZyTg96702JmV0Va8CVqENnyYPdVmp54c42gsZ_1HS_O6cAOAd-j_P8at3bC1IAJc20IV2pEYM55O8CiSHKY05vXmOTXSI0bOo5TnZuBCvmzSFGIxceCANeOb_jVqPL8Pc-2FlLmFtNedBzsVxmk1Tw/s3142/dream%20diary%20covers.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2356" data-original-width="3142" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0QI46gA7Ox8pR7O0cs04k56lsQWgD1Hs00umlZyTg96702JmV0Va8CVqENnyYPdVmp54c42gsZ_1HS_O6cAOAd-j_P8at3bC1IAJc20IV2pEYM55O8CiSHKY05vXmOTXSI0bOo5TnZuBCvmzSFGIxceCANeOb_jVqPL8Pc-2FlLmFtNedBzsVxmk1Tw/s320/dream%20diary%20covers.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The first three volumes of my dream diary</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">After reading Gary Lachman’s article in
the February 2022 issue of </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Fortean Times</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> based on his book </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dreaming Ahead of Time: Experiences with
Precognitive Dreams, Synchronicity and Coincidence</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, I was inspired to begin
recording my own dreams.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I started doing
so on 6 February 2022.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Below I have listed my observations on the
process of keeping a dream diary; describe a precognitive dream experiment I
participated in, and an online course I undertook; and muse on the role
artificial intelligence might play in assessing the content of dream
diaries. This is a work in progress, and
I shall add to it as new thoughts come to mind, but at the present time I do
not have anything earth-shattering to report.
Still, others contemplating keeping a dream diary may find my notes
useful. Readers will be relieved to
learn that I do not describe the contents of any of my dreams.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A Thoughts on recording my dreams<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">B My participation in an online
precognitive dream experiment<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">C </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
Science of Sleep and Dreams</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> online course<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">D The use of artificial intelligence?<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">E References</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A Thoughts on recording my dreams<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">1 Doing this properly is quite
time-consuming. Anyone contemplating
keeping a dream diary should be aware of the commitment involved. That is probably a major reason why keeping a
dream diary is rare, and early enthusiasm can quickly tail off (Schredl and Göritz,
2019).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">2 If waking in the night with a dream in
short-term memory, do not wait until morning to write it down as there will
probably be little if any of it left. If
I delay writing by a couple of minutes it quickly becomes increasingly
difficult to recall it and soon retrieval is impossible. <i>Record
it while it is fresh</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">3 Turning on the light was disruptive, but
I quickly found writing them on a pad in the dark and copying them out on
getting up was quite a pleasant start to the day. I write down everything I can remember, with
no censorship. If I think I have remembered
a detail later, I do not include it because there is no guarantee it was part
of the original dream. I do not use
paragraphs, as it would mean imposing an external structure. Any commentary when transcribing a dream is
placed in square brackets to emphasise it is not part of the dream itself.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">4 Writing in the dark uses a lot of paper
because lines need to be spaced out. You
may start to think more positively about junk mail leaflets, as long as they
are only printed on one side and aren’t too shiny. Pencil is kinder to the bed linen than
biro. Top tip when using a pencil in the
dark: make sure it is the right way round.
If using loose sheets of paper, number them beforehand as it is easy to
jumble them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">5 Some writers suggest using an audio
recorder to transcribe a dream in the dark.
I have not tried this for two reasons.
First, audio is slower to transcribe than written notes because of
stopping and starting, and the effort may be demotivating. Secondly, it seems likely that speaking would
wake me up more than writing would.
However, I am comfortable with writing in the dark, and others may find
making a spoken record the better method.
It would still need to be transcribed for future reference.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">6 Immediately saying a keyword or two
helps me to remember the dream until I have started writing. Occasionally I have remembered a dream after
trying to grasp it for a few minutes, but it is rare and more often I’m left
with the frustration of having the equivalent of a ‘tip of the tongue’ which
doesn’t materialise.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">7 The bulk comprise scenes that are
personal and everyday, albeit sometimes containing highly unusual
elements. I am generally more gregarious
in dreams than in real life. The
scenarios are generally arbitrary, though I can often trace aspects to my past
history and to wider social and political events. Disappointingly, there are very few surreal or
erotic moments.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">8 Elements rarely feel as though they are
symbolic, though it is possible I have missed their significance. Some feel symbolic based on a feeling, but it
may be merely a random element which can be interpreted as symbolic: apparent
symbolism could be in the (mind’s) eye of the beholder, reading into it more
than the dream warrants.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">9 Sometimes evidence of anxiety and
emotional baggage is demonstrated, but a strong emotional component is
infrequent.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">10 There are various suggestions available
for encouraging dreams, but good sleep hygiene, particularly regular hours, is important
(Hooper, 2018).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">11 Attempting to ‘seed’ [incubate] my
dreams with particular thoughts before falling asleep has no discernible
effect, nor does stating the intention to recall a dream to myself<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">12 Aspects of films I have watched in the
evening though do seem sometimes to feed through, perhaps because of greater
emotional impact. I don’t detect overt
influences from my reading, even psychical research.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">13 Quite a few people from my past have
made appearances, some of whom I have not (consciously) thought about for
years, and many have no particular significance for me (one wonders how many
dreams of others I might appear in). If
I recall enough dreams will everybody I have ever known (plus a few celebrities
I haven’t) eventually appear – the dream equivalent of Piccadilly Circus, where
it is said that anyone standing there long enough will eventually meet
everybody they know?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">14 It is doubtful any content is
precognitive, but perhaps some are but have not yet been fulfilled, or I have
failed to notice. As most focus on me,
there seems little scope for premonitions of large-scale events (Auerbach,
2017; Knight, 2022). The possibility of
a precognitive element is an excellent reason for keeping a dream diary; little
to lose, much potentially to gain.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">15 There may be some telepathic content,
bearing in mind the number of individuals from my past and present who pop up,
but it is impossible to tell unless someone confirms it, which is
unlikely. I could ask people I know who appear
in my dreams, but it’s not something I care to broach (if anyone dreams of me
and cares to admit it, I’d love to hear from them).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">16 Auerbach suggests a psychic element may
be signalled by a change in the dream’s quality, a sense it is different to the
ordinary non-psychic dream. I have not
noticed anything of this nature, but as dreams often contain unusual elements,
I’m not sure how I would be able to tell the difference in practice.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">17 Age is a factor, dream recall (and
dream theme diversity) reducing in adulthood (Nielsen, 2012), possibly related
to decreasing amount of REM sleep. This
may influence the number I record. It is
a shame I didn’t do this sooner.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">18 Sometimes when I recall a dream I seem
to remember only a fragment of it. I
label it to indicate it is part of a longer dream I am aware of having had, but
of which I cannot recall further details.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">19 It can be impossible to know if I have
run separate dreams together where there are disjunctions. There may be a sense, either a vague feeling
or thematic similarity, that part of an earlier dream has ‘bled through’ into a
later one, and I cannot be sure if some aspect is left over from a previous
dream, or is in fact part of the current one.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">20 There is no way of knowing how much the
dream content is altered by the act of recall, whatever the lag between waking
and recording it, but it is reasonable to assume the longer the delay, the
greater the chance it will be simplified.
I often sense there is a complexity just tantalisingly out of reach of
verbalisation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">21 The transcript is an approximation of
the dream, as any verbal description of a visual scene would be. Some of the richness of the experience is
lost in recording it, however comprehensive the attempt to capture the details.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">22 Occasionally I go a night (or more)
without recording a dream, but there does not seem to be any difference between
those nights and the nights I do record a dream. For example, I am not noticeably more tired,
and there is no correlation with having drunk alcohol during the preceding
evening. Waking up not having recorded a
dream is like having a party going on next door to which I’ve not been invited.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">23 I have never recalled a lucid dream,
even though I wake frequently during the night, including in the late stages of
sleep, a condition said to be conducive (Oxenham, 2016). Nightmares are not unknown, but are mild and
fortunately rare.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">24 Is this stuff really worth remembering,
and does it have any value other than demonstrating the extraordinarily wide
range of scenarios it is possible to generate effortlessly while asleep? Is the recorded dream a product of bits and
pieces generated by firing neurons compiled into what passes for a coherent
narrative, having no meaning whatsoever?
A huge weight of historical testimony would say there is a meaning, but
perhaps the meaning is read into the dream.
Or perhaps lack of meaning is the point: corrupted inputs to combat the
problem of overfitting, thereby allowing learning to generalise to new
situations (Hoel, 2020), in which case, while dreams may perform a crucial
function cognitively, they have no wider purpose.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">25 Either way, recording dreams regularly,
if one has the time to do it in an unhurried manner, is relaxing. There is a satisfaction in making something
of material which otherwise would disappear and be wasted. One comes to regret the ones that got away
(Whyte, 2017). Dreams may not be the
royal road to the unconscious, but they provide a fascinating way of learning a
little about what is going on down there, whatever their function.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">B My participation in an online precognitive
dream experiment<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This was an experiment run by Dr Elizabeth
Roxburgh, Dr Malcolm Schofield (both at the University of Derby) and Dr David
Vernon (at Canterbury Christchurch University).
Malcolm is the editor of the <i>Journal
of the Society for Psychical Research</i> and David is a former editor of <i>JSPR</i>.
Both are SPR Council members, so known to me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The experiment was in three parts. In the first I had to fill in a number of
personality surveys. The second was a
trial so I could familiarise myself with the experimental procedure. I was asked to keep a dream diary (which I
was doing anyway) and over two nights try to dream about a target image I would
be shown the following day.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Before I was shown the target, I was sent
a form to describe my dream(s), including emotional content as well as the
events. Then I had to rate four pictures
for closeness to the themes of my dream on a scale of one to a hundred, and
finally choose the one which most closely accorded with my night’s dreaming.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">That was a practice run, and the following
week I did the same again, the result constituting data for the
experiment. On each occasion, after I
had chosen my image I was sent feedback to show whether I had selected the
target. The first week I did select it,
and I was hopeful I would achieve a clean sweep that hinted at psychic ability,
but alas missed the second time, the trial which actually counted.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">C <i>The
Science of Sleep and Dreams</i> online course<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Science of Sleep and Dreams</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, run by the New Scientist Academy on the FutureLearn
platform, is a reliable, albeit simplified, introduction to what is currently
understood about sleep and dreams (though there is far less on the latter than
the title suggests). I took the online
course in January 2023. It is presented
in clear terms in a mixture of text and short videos. Prior knowledge is not required, though it
can get technical at times.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The content is broken down into three
weekly segments – sleep and dreams; learning in your sleep and sleep
engineering; and how to sleep better – but in practice it can be completed in
much less time. A few links are provided
to further resources. Unlike some
FutureLearn courses there is no interaction between tutors and students, but
student comments allow for limited discussion of the topics. Anyone interested in the subject of sleep
will find it useful, but those whose focus is dreams can skip parts two and
three.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">D The use of artificial intelligence?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Difficulties with trying to link a dream
diary to events in the real world in the search for possible psi influences are
that the dreamer may either not make connections because of the volume to
assess, or make connections that are spurious because criteria are too relaxed. To help in avoiding these dangers it would be
worth attempting to utilise methods that are automated, and objective compared
to the efforts of the dreamer.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">One possible approach is to employ
artificial intelligence to scan dream diaries and link them to news databases
for correlations. Both dispassionate and
able to handle enormous amounts of data quickly, it would be able to evaluate
far more material than an individual could in an effort to discover meaningful
links.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Similarly, the dream diaries could be
compared to daily journals in order to take into consideration the influence of
individuals’ experiences feeding through into dream content. It would be able to discard those in order to
focus on content that may have originated elsewhere.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">By synchronising large collections of dream
diaries, daily journals and news databases, possible instances of psi could be
flagged. Even if none was forthcoming,
useful psychological insights might emerge.
Such a project would constitute a ‘mass observation of the unconscious’
of the sort Charlotte Beradt conducted in Nazi Germany (Beradt, 1968), but with
the advantages of modern technology.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">E References<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Auerbach,<i> </i>Loyd<i>. <a href="https://tomruffles.wordpress.com/2023/02/09/psychic-dreaming-by-loyd-auerbach/" target="_blank">Psychic Dreaming:</a> Dreamworking, Reincarnation, Out-of-Body
Experiences & Clairvoyance</i>, Woodbury, Minnesota: Llewellyn, 2017.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Beradt, Charlotte. <i>The Third Reich of
Dreams: The Nightmares of a Nation, 1933-1939</i>, Chicago: Quadrangle Books,
1968.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hoel, Erik. ‘Dream Power’, <i>New Scientist</i>, 7 November 2020, pp.
34-38.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hooper, Rowan. ‘Broken Dreams’, <i>New Scientist</i>, 24 March 2018, pp. 32-36.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Lachman, Gary. <i>Dreaming Ahead of Time: Experiences with Precognitive Dreams,
Synchronicity and Coincidence</i>. Edinburgh: Floris Books, 2022a.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Lachman, Gary. ‘Dreaming the Future’, <i>Fortean
Times</i> No 415, February 2022b, pp. 32-38.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Knight, <i><a href="https://tomruffles.wordpress.com/2022/12/17/the-premonitions-bureau-by-sam-knight/" target="_blank">The Premonitions Bureau</a>: A True Account of Death Foretold</i>, New York: Penguin, 2022.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Nielsen, Tore. ‘Variations in Dream Recall
Frequency and Dream Theme Diversity by Age and Sex’, <i>Frontiers in Neurology</i>, 4 July 2012. </span><a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2012.00106/full"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2012.00106/full</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> (retrieved 3
January 2023)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Oxenham, Simon. ‘Want to control your
dreams? These tips may boost your chances’, <i>New
Scientist</i>, 17 June 2016. </span><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2094018-want-to-control-your-dreams-these-tips-may-boost-your-chances/"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">https://www.newscientist.com/article/2094018-want-to-control-your-dreams-these-tips-may-boost-your-chances/</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> (retrieved 4
January 2023)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Schredl, Michael, and Göritz, Anja S. ‘Who
Keeps a Dream Journal? Sociodemographic and Personality Factors’, <i>Imagination, Cognition and Personality:
Consciousness in Theory, Research, and Clinical Practice</i>, Vol. 39, Issue 2,
2019, pp. 1-10.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Whyte, Chelsea. ‘We dream loads more than
we thought – and forget most of it’, <i>New
Scientist</i>, 10 April 2017. </span><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2127471-we-dream-loads-more-than-we-thought-and-forget-most-of-it/"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">https://www.newscientist.com/article/2127471-we-dream-loads-more-than-we-thought-and-forget-most-of-it/</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> (retrieved 4
January 2023)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></p><p></p>Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-7884349413095682602023-02-04T19:35:00.001+00:002023-02-04T19:35:59.846+00:00Modern Psychic Mysteries and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s resignation from the Society for Psychical Research<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguIHwnwaMS2d1naITQzTSIbOIycg_kAcJUDnpgT5JnnTkWbEARt09y9iLjQYv_-0eGnrHKQUVrOeABAkCd-_zx0KYpumJArYvgyH-HNl-guB0KCxojsz_vyZjqWizHk5JN5qusHn7D6lF-cY4J0AKij2Enu6EBUBgBdaaY1WYYaRZt6vURu8MRCsLpAg/s3280/Hack%20-%20Modern%20Psychic%20Mysteries%20dj.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3280" data-original-width="2183" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguIHwnwaMS2d1naITQzTSIbOIycg_kAcJUDnpgT5JnnTkWbEARt09y9iLjQYv_-0eGnrHKQUVrOeABAkCd-_zx0KYpumJArYvgyH-HNl-guB0KCxojsz_vyZjqWizHk5JN5qusHn7D6lF-cY4J0AKij2Enu6EBUBgBdaaY1WYYaRZt6vURu8MRCsLpAg/s320/Hack%20-%20Modern%20Psychic%20Mysteries%20dj.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">1 Events at Millesimo Castle</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Modern
Psychic Mysteries</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">,
by Gwendolyn Kelley Hack, is a lengthy record of a series of séances which took
place in Italy in 1927-8. These were
arranged by Marquis Carlo Centurione Scotto, resident at the mediaeval
Millesimo Castle near Savona in northern Italy.
A medium himself, he participated in the séances in the hope of
contacting his son, the Marquis Vittorio dei Principi Centurione, who had died
in September 1926 while testing an aeroplane for a Schneider Cup race. Having read an Italian translation of H
Dennis Bradley’s 1924 book <i>Towards the
Stars</i> (<i>Verso la Stelle</i>), he had
attended séances with American medium George Valiantine at Bradley’s home in
Surrey, where he received what he considered strong evidence of Vittorio’s
survival.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Valiantine gave the Marquis an aluminium
trumpet, suggesting he attempt direct voice mediumship at home. This he did, and the resulting séances, with
himself and Signora Fabienne Rossi acting as mediums, were extremely
successful. <i>Modern Psychic Mysteries </i>(1929) is a compilation of séance reports
and commentary assembled by Mrs Hack, one of the sitters and herself a mental
medium as well as an artist.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hack relied heavily on others’ accounts,
notably those of Professor Ernesto Bozzano, who also contributed a lengthy
preface. His favourable reports on the
sittings had already appeared in the Italian periodical <i>Luce e Ombra</i>. The structure
of the book is chaotic and often prolix and repetitive, but cumulatively it
provides a fascinating account, one that was to have far-reaching ramifications
beyond the Italian borders.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">An extensive range of phenomena was said
to have occurred in the dark: the materialisation of hands and feet; the
levitation of the Marquis to a height of six feet while sitting in a heavy
chair; apports (bulky items that could not easily be concealed within the room)
and asports; antique weapons engaging in a noisy battle; the movement of
sometimes weighty and bulky objects; direct writing; the movement of a heavy
table; thuds and bangs; the playing of musical instruments as they
floated. On one occasion the sitters
were creating a favourable atmosphere by singing a fascist song when an
illuminated picture of Mussolini was transported from an adjoining room through
closed doors. Curiously, although it arrived
intact, a direct-voice trumpet fell on it, breaking the glass. Perhaps someone present was not a fan of <i>Il Duce</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A flexatone (a ‘musical’ instrument only
recently patented) moved through the air while accompanying music playing on
the gramophone. The trumpet flew around,
the voices emanating from it speaking a range of languages: Latin, Spanish,
German plus five Italian dialects, in one of which a discarnate Eusapia
Palladino (died 1918) communicated.
During a session in July, the Marquis suffered terribly from the heat,
and when this problem was raised by the sitters a refreshing blast of icy air
swept through the room.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">An entity identifying itself as Cristo
d'Angelo, claiming to have been a Sicilian shepherd, acted as control. He possessed a range of abilities, such as
reading the thoughts of people both during séances and on other occasions,
answering questions put mentally, reading messages in sealed envelopes,
providing a remote medical diagnosis of leukaemia, plus indicating a cure,
making a prediction of death (somewhat dubious ethically), and saying what was
happening to circle members when they were elsewhere.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Most famously, on 29 July 1928 the Marquis
was transported, or asported, from the locked séance room, necessitating a
two-and-a-half-hour search of the castle and grounds. He was eventually found after Mrs Hack
received an automatic message through her spirit guide Imperator supplying his
location: he was fast asleep on a pile of hay and oats in a granary within the
stables, the door locked from the outside.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Unfortunately, quite often information was
withheld by Hack on account of its private nature. This secrecy was of importance to those
concerned but unhelpful to the independent observer, who was prevented from
assessing it. However, enough is
presented to establish the phenomena as wide-ranging and dramatic. Hack was clearly convinced by them, yet it is
noticeable from the transcripts that despite the phenomena supporting a
paranormal explanation, there were many instances where direct questions were
deflected, or evasive answers provided, when there was no reason not to provide
the information requested.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hack conceded that controls had been poor
but, working on the assumption she would have been able to detect fraud if it
occurred, defended the results on the grounds of the Marquis’s class and
amateur private status as a medium, and the impossibility of carrying out the
phenomena by fraudulent means in the dark.
She argued that ‘it is possible to conduct a whole series of metapsychic
experiments which give solid, scientific proof, without adopting any kind of
personal control of the mediums whatsoever.’
It is hardly surprising her critics disagreed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">However, while some may have thought the
Marquis had nothing to gain by cheating, not everybody was convinced the séances
provided reliable evidence. Critics
included Baron Albert von Schrenck-Notzing, Rudolf Lambert – and Theodore
Besterman, whose blistering review of Hack’s book in the SPR’s <i>Journal</i> (of which he was the editor)
caused veteran member Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to leave the SPR in high dudgeon.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">2 Theodore Besterman reviews the book<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Besterman dismisses <i>Modern Psychic Mysteries</i> as displaying ‘an almost complete lack of
understanding of what constitutes good evidence and adequate recording of
mediumistic sittings.’ For those readers
who find the 360 pages of Hack’s volume a slog, it is heartening to find
Besterman in agreement. He states that
‘In the present review I take into account only Signor Bozzano's reports. The
remainder of the book (with the exception of a few pages by Professor
Castellani) is too confused and ill-arranged to be seriously considered, apart
from being disfigured by scores of misprints and literal mistakes.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">He notes the lack of controls, with
sitters drawn from family and friends in the Marquis’s own home, poor
documentation of the séance room and progress of the sessions, doors and
windows that would make it hard to secure the environment, and the frequent playing
of the gramophone which could cover fraudulent activity. Bozzano’s claim that the trumpet whirled
about with precision is undermined by references to sitters being knocked on
the head, and air currents can be generated by the use of balloons. Besterman wonders how the flexatone was
introduced to the circle as Bozzano says no one had heard of it before (it would
perhaps be more accurate to say they claimed they had not) and it was difficult
to play.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Besterman grumpily thinks that as no
information is available on the instrument, and Bozzano fails to describe it
adequately, what he has to say about it is hard to evaluate. If Besterman had had access to YouTube in
1930, he would have found numerous videos describing its operation, allowing
him to conclude it is not a particularly difficult instrument from which to
coax sounds, though something tuneful might be more challenging. After exhibiting irritation at the lack of
measurements of apports, and pointing out that apports never occurred in the
absence of one of the sitters, Signora Rossi, he adds that despite claims of
size and weight, they were of sufficient dimensions to allow them to be
smuggled in under a woman’s dress.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> His
conclusion is devastating:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘All groups of people have of course the
unquestionable right to sit in circles for their own edification; but to put
forward such a book as this as a serious contribution to psychical research,
and to put it forward with such dogmatic claims of infallibility as Signor
Bozzano's, is to bring our subject into contempt and disrepute.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">3 The fallout of Besterman’s review<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The result of the Besterman review was
Conan Doyle’s resignation from the SPR.
The October 2009 issue of <i>Psypioneer</i>
reprints Besterman’s review, remarking that while resignations from psychic
societies are not uncommon, this is the only known case of one resulting from a
book review, though it should be added that the review was not the sole
cause. Charles Higham in his biography
of Conan Doyle calls the controversy ‘one of the most tragic events’ in Conan
Doyle’s life.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Conan Doyle, who knew the Marquis through
his friendship with Bradley, circulated a statement to members, dated January
1930, which was printed in the March 1930 issue of the SPR’s <i>Journal</i>.
A reply by the SPR’s president and hon. secretaries, and another by
Besterman, followed. Conan Doyle’s
circular begins by reprinting a letter he had sent to the ‘Chairman of the
Council’ (i.e., the president) on 22 January 1930.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In it he attacks Besterman’s review, condemning
it for flinging around ‘misrepresentations’, ‘insulting innuendoes’, ‘insolence’
and ‘gratuitous offensiveness’, contrasting Bozzano’s ‘considered opinion’ with
Besterman’s general inexperience in psychical research, not to mention
non-participation in the séances (though of course the same applied to Conan Doyle). He stresses the unlikelihood of a man of the
Marquis's status, socially and politically, gathering together a group merely
to conduct fraud, completely fooling the company, including Bozzano. To paint such a scenario, he concludes, is
‘the limit of puerile perversity.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This is merely the opening salvo of a more
generalised attack on the SPR’s perceived bias against Spiritualism, or as
Conan Doyle puts it, ‘the Podmore, Dingwall, Besterman tradition of obtuse
negation,’ which he considers to be getting worse. He contrasts the SPR’s ‘unscientific’ and
‘anti-spiritualist’ approach with that of a ‘real psychical researcher’, Dennis
Bradley.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The SPR in his view had done no positive
work for a generation while hindering those who were carrying out research. He praises the ‘accurate reporting’ of the
Millesimo sittings, though as someone himself reliant on second-hand reports he
was not in a position to independently gauge how accurate they were. Having been dissatisfied with the SPR’s
direction for some time, Besterman’s review was the final straw, hence his
resignation and public protest.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The circular continues in an even more
intemperate vein, accusing the SPR, in the hands of a ‘small central body of
reactionaries,’ of being actively anti-spiritualist and having done no useful
work for many years while ‘hindering and belittling’ those who are conducting
‘real active psychical research.’
Besterman’s review is not an isolated incident: ‘This latest article of
Mr Besterman may be insignificant in itself, but it is a link in that long
chain of prejudice which comes down from Mr Podmore, Mrs Sedgwick [sic], and Mr
Dingwall, to the present day.’ To
understand why he considers this episode to be critical, he continues:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘...these Millesimo sittings are on the
very highest possible level of psychical research, both from the point of view
of accurate reporting, variety of phenomena, and purity of mediumship.
Therefore, if they can be laughed out of court anything we can produce will be
treated with similar contempt.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">He wonders whether Besterman had even read
the book, enumerating what he judged a number of lapses in the review, having
missed Besterman’s statement that he had not bothered, but instead had relied
on Bozzano’s articles: not the best way to approach the production of a book
review it must be said. Besterman had
suggested that apports could be smuggled in under clothing, but Conan Doyle
points out that photographs are included, one of a lance six feet long, and
another a plant four and a half feet high.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">He says that while Besterman was bemoaning
the lack of information on the flexatone, there is a description of it in the
book. Besterman, Conan Doyle concludes,
is a ‘slovenly critic.’ Finally, having
had enough and despairing of reform, he announces his departure and calls on
like-minded individuals to follow his example, recommending the British College
of Psychic Science (the organisation run by James Hewat McKenzie and Barbara
McKenzie) as a more congenial alternative.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The reply by the president, Sir Lawrence J
Jones, and the hon. secretaries, Eleanor Sidgwick and W H Salter, begins by
stating a wish to avoid entering the controversy on the grounds of Conan
Doyle’s lengthy membership, his eminence, and his ill health, but his circular,
with its call for mass resignation, required a response. This naturally consisted of a stout defence
of the Society, reminding readers of the work done in recent years, thereby contradicting
Conan Doyle’s claim that the SPR had carried out no constructive activities. The authors also pointed out that members
encompassed a broad range of views ‘from complete acceptance to total denial,’
and all contributions to its publications were the responsibility of their
authors; hence Besterman’s views were his own, though they were not impressed
by the claims made in the book either.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Besterman then makes his own reply, taking
issue with Conan Doyle’s defence of Bozzano’s ‘considered opinion’ and
stressing that what was at issue was not opinion but facts. He picks apart Conan Doyle’s allegations,
showing his review to have been misrepresented in its details, such as the size
of the apports and how the air current was produced, but still focusing on
Bozzano’s articles rather than Hack’s book more generally. Whereas Conan Doyle feels the sitters were
critical in their approach, Besterman believes them to have been the opposite.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The ‘Podmore, Dingwall, Besterman
tradition of obtuse negation’ he considers to be Conan Doyle’s invention,
though to rub salt in the wound, he adds how much he admires Frank Podmore’s
methods. Of the flexatone, he says his
review stated not that it had not been described but that it had not been
illustrated or adequately described.
(While an illustration of this novel instrument would have been useful,
there is in fact enough description for the reader to obtain a fairly clear
idea of how it worked, but probably not enough to appreciate that it was
simpler to play than claimed.) Besterman’s
firm defence of his review, contradicting Sir Arthur’s condemnation point by
point, was not designed to mollify his stern critic.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The <i>Daily
Express</i> picked up on the controversy and published an article on 19 March
1930. The journalist sought a comment
from Besterman who said that just six members had followed Sir Arthur’s exit,
and only two of them had specifically referred to the dispute. After reprinting extracts from Conan Doyle’s
letter and the SPR response, Conan Doyle tells the journalist that he is ‘not
at all bitter about the matter,’ though he clearly was, concluding ‘We want
more experiments and knowledge, and to secure that I think it is necessary for
the society to have more sympathetic people in the seats of the
governors.’ In other words, people with
views similar to his own.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Elizabeth Savage, in a blog post on the
Cambridge University Library Special Collections website concerning Conan
Doyle’s resignation, alludes to the private debate the letter generated between
the SPR’s officers. In public they tried
to make light of the affair by calling it ‘a very trivial matter,’ expressing
confidence in the management of the SPR and noting the differing views on
Spiritualism within the Society but an atmosphere of tolerance. While trying to minimise the impact, they
were right to be wary of the negative publicity the controversy would generate.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The May 1930 number of the Spiritualist <i>International Psychic Gazette</i> blared:
‘’The Crisis in the Society for Psychical Research. Hearty Support for Sir A.
Conan Doyle.’ Salter had the task of
defending the Society, and he claimed the SPR had in fact received a number of
letters from ‘prominent Spiritualists’ disapproving of Sir Arthur’s action and
defending the SPR’s methods. If the
claim was true, they were doubtless outweighed by the volume of criticism,
which the <i>International Psychic Gazette </i>was
happy to share. It was clear the
dissatisfaction ran deeper than anger at Besterman, as a number of other
comments critical of the SPR were made by correspondents. Added to the members who resigned in support
of Conan Doyle, a number said they had either resigned some time earlier, or
did not intend to renew their membership, thus leaving without submitting a
resignation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Conan Doyle includes the teleportation in <i>The Edge of the Unknown</i> (1930), in which
he compares the Marquis’s passage through solid objects and reassembly on the
other side to Houdini’s abilities as an escapologist, not though because he saw
the Marquis as fraudulent but because he considered Houdini to possess psychic
abilities. He calls the witnesses to the
teleportation ‘first-class’, and continues to take Hack’s description at face
value; he does not consider that ‘several locked doors’ might present little
difficulty to the building’s owner.
Nandor Fodor in the <i>Encyclopaedia
of Psychic Science</i> (1933) dedicates a column to the Marquis, beginning by
calling him ‘a medium of the Italian nobility’ and referring to his ancient
lineage, thereby hinting he is above reproach.
In the lengthy section devoted to transportation, Fodor describes the
Marquis’s as ‘the best authenticated recent case.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">4 Later discussion<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The SPR found an ally in Harry Price, who
covers what he calls ‘The Conan Doyle uproar’ in his <i>Fifty Years of Psychical Research</i> (1939). Though he does not name Besterman, his
sympathies, he says, are entirely with the SPR, and the book ‘deserved all that
was said about it.' He adds he had taken
a similar stance in a review he had written for an American monthly, ‘but in
more polite language.’ By ‘American
monthly’ Price presumably meant the ‘International Notes’ he contributed to the
American Society for Psychical
Research’s <i>Journal</i>, of which he was the Foreign Research
Officer. In the January 1930 issue he
spends a couple of paragraphs on the book, criticising it for lacking an index
(a significant issue given the unhelpful manner of the book’s organisation),
adding ‘the book is full of errors of description and of fact,’ though he does
not delve into details. He concludes
that ‘the method of presenting that information to the reader leaves much to be
desired.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Fodor’s <i>Encyclopedia of Psychic Science</i> puts the number of resignations
following Conan Doyle’s at 84. The figure is repeated in a potted biography
taken from the encyclopaedia included in a 1948 Lily Dale reprint of Conan
Doyle’s <i>What Does Spiritualism Actually Teach and Stand For?</i> Mauskopf & McVaugh (1980) put the figure
at 77. That both might actually be an
underestimate (and Besterman’s six simply a number he plucked out of the air to
demonstrate the futility of Conan Doyle’s act) can be gauged by figures
provided by Price in <i>Fifty Years</i> showing,
whether or not directly attributable to Conan Doyle’s actions, the period saw a
dramatic decline in SPR membership, though this had begun prior to his
resignation. As Price put it in 1939:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘The Doyle resignation was rather in the
nature of a test as to whether members approved of the way in which the Society
was managed. There were resignations. In 1920, there were 1,305 members and
associates; in 1931, the number had fallen to 954. In 1932, the number was 809.
The latest figures, just published, show a grand total of 699 members and
associates. Excluding subscribing libraries, the number is 636.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The comments in the <i>International Psychic Gazette</i> expressed by members supporting Conan
Doyle alluded to a dissatisfaction with the direction the SPR had taken, and it
appears this unhappiness was shared, for whatever reason, by other members; such
certainly is the implication of Price’s figures. It should be borne in mind, however. that the
economic situation in the 1930s was not favourable, and many may have left for
financial reasons rather than because they disliked what they read in the <i>Journal</i> and <i>Proceedings</i>. While it is
clear Conan Doyle’s resignation acted as a catalyst, it is not possible to put
a figure on the number who followed his example as a direct result of his act.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Following the <i>Psypioneer </i>reprint of Besterman’s review is an article on the
Marquis’s transportation by Masimo Biondi (2009). An editorial note prefacing Biondi’s article states
there had been no further discussion of the matter in the SPR publications
since 1930. For some reason, Biondi gets
the date of the Marquis’s famous transportation wrong, giving it as 18 July
1929 instead of 29 July 1928.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">After noting Bozzano’s exaggerated claim
for the flexatone’s difficulty, Biondi draws attention to a letter written in
1945 by Count Piero Bon – who was present at a number of the séances, including
the one in which the Marquis asported – to leading Spiritualist Gastone De
Boni. De Boni (whom Luca Gasperini
(2011) calls Bozzano’s ‘disciple’) had inherited Bozzano’s library and papers
on the latter’s death in 1943.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">According to this letter, Bon and Mrs Hack
visited the castle the day after the Marquis’s disappearance and were shown
into the séance room to wait for him.
Bon spotted a patch of light shining through a tapestry from a concealed
door which had been left open, and when the Marquis came into the room he was
furious about it. Bon says the sitters
were unaware of the door’s existence behind the wall covering.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Crucially, the door led to the dining room
and was close to the sofa on which the Marquis had been sitting. Bon later checked the tapestry and found the
door could easily be opened, and a table by the sofa had been moved as if it
had been pushed by someone (i.e., the Marquis) moving past it in the dark. The Marquis was wearing felt slippers, a
detail not in Hack's book. Thus, Bon
concluded, not only could the Marquis have left the room unnoticed, but apports
could easily be introduced and removed later, constituting ‘a vile deception.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Biondi comes down on Besterman’s side in
the dispute with Conan Doyle over Bozzano’s reports, concluding the Marquis’s
vanishing was merely a deception. Biondi
adds that Bon did not make this information public; neither did De Boni, a
curious omission, especially as he wrote a book which discussed events at the
castle. Biondi shows a photograph of the
outside of Millesimo Castle, taken probably in the 1970s but showing a
structure little changed since the 1920s.
It is striking how close the séance room and the room where the sleeping
Marquis was found are. Once away from
the other sitters, he could have crept down to his hiding place quickly and
with little fear of detection.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is surprising the hidden door was not
known about by sitters, as a cursory inspection of the room should have
revealed it. Perhaps such an inspection
would have been considered impolite.
Bozzano was supposed to check the room before each séance, but he may
not have thought to look behind the hangings, though a failure to do so makes
one wonder what else he might have failed to observe.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hack does not refer to the discovery in <i>Modern Psychic Mysteries</i>, though
according to Bon she was present, and neither of them seems to have told
Bozzano this key piece of information, or if they did he suppressed it. On the other hand, Besterman deduces in his
review that the room had doors on three sides and a window on the fourth,
already offering plentiful possibilities for cheating, so it is possible other
sitters, including Hack, did know about the door but assumed the Marquis would
not lower himself to use it. Hack’s
mediumistic information providing the information that the Marquis was asleep
in the granary may perhaps indicate she was conspiring with him, in which case
she would already have known about the door when she and Bon saw the light
through the tapestry.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Besterman highlights the presence of
Signora Rossi coinciding with the occurrence of apports, meaning she could be
responsible for their introduction, while Conan Doyle in turn dismisses the
idea of bulky objects being smuggled in under a modern short dress (a
reasonable defence, even if it was a longer evening dress), but there was no
need to secrete them under clothing if they could be brought in through a door. Either way, she may have been assisting the
Marquis in fraud. And it is worth
bearing in mind that just before the Marquis’s disappearance he was holding
Signora Rossi’s hand before – he said – he lost consciousness. She could have told the company she was still
holding his hand while he was making his way to the granary.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is worth remembering when assessing his
accusation of fraud that Bon, a political opponent of the Marquis (who was
active in fascist politics), was privately reporting an event which had
occurred 16 years earlier. His claim
should consequently be treated with caution, but the passing of objects through
it into and out of the séance room by ordinary means, however achieved, seems a
more parsimonious explanation than their paranormal materialisation and dematerialisation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Biondi surmises that Besterman did not touch
on the Marquis’s vanishing because he did not consider anything Bozzano said to
have any value (his review merely picked out a few incidents at random), but
Biondi adds: ‘However, generations of spiritualists, in Italy and abroad,
judged the “Centurione’s vanishing” as a wonderful and beautiful mediumistic
phenomenon, one of the most important ones of the whole history of mediumship.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Yet Gasperini in his biographical sketch
of Bozzano indicates his unscientific approach, because when he attended the séances
he was ‘already profoundly convinced of the reality of the facts to which he
would have attested, and of the authenticity of the mediums.’ Further, the participants’ class told in
their favour, Hack and Bozzano assuming that members of the aristocracy and
their guests would not fabricate evidence.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Marquis clearly considered that as an
aristocrat and gentleman, his word was effectively his bond. With his public profile as a senator, he
would have had much to lose by being exposed as a fraud. On the other hand, this assumption militated
against the imposition of rigorous controls, and the temptation to allow the
benefit of the doubt in questionable situations, which would have worked in his
favour and minimised the risk of exposure.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In a review of Brian Inglis’s 1984 survey <i>Science and Parascience</i> in the SPR <i>Journal</i>, Carlos Alvarado (1985) says
that Besterman’s review of Hack’s book ‘presents several good criticisms,
although it can be said that Besterman overdoes his points and presents them in
too harsh a style.’ It should be added
that while it may be thought Besterman’s criticisms had some merit, they would
have carried greater weight not only if he had tempered his language, but had
actually read the book. Inglis in <i>Science and Parascience</i> accurately
describes Besterman as belonging to the ‘High-and-Dry’ element of the SPR,
impatient with those who did not share his views.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The controversy, and resulting publicity,
did <i>Modern Psychic Mysteries</i> no
harm. In the August 1930 issue of the
American Society for Psychical Research’s <i>Psychic
Research</i>, Price mentions in passing the controversy within the SPR, but
mainly focuses on the claim that the book had brought latent interest in psychic
research in Italy into the open. John
Lewis, the editor of the <i>International
Psychic Gazette</i> was invited to visit Hack in Italy in 1934, and calls <i>Modern
Psychic Mysteries</i> ‘Mrs Hack’s famous book.’
This was surely a degree of fame it would not have achieved without the
fallout from Besterman’s review.
(Incidentally, Besterman’s Polish origin is referred to more than once
in the <i>Gazette</i>, injecting a racist
element into the defence of the sittings he critiqued.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As for Sir Arthur, after he died the brief
notice in the October 1930 issue of the SPR’s <i>Journal</i> was as generous as could be expected in the circumstances:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘We regret to record the death on 7 July
(after the July issue of the Journal had gone to Press) of Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle, who became a Member of the Society in 1893. Sir Arthur resigned his
membership a few months ago in circumstances known to our readers; at this time
we wish only to pay a tribute to the manifest sincerity and enthusiasm
invariably shown by him in respect of any cause that he had at heart.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">References<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Alvarado, Carlos. Review of <i>Science and Parascience: A History of the
Paranormal</i>, by Brian Inglis, <i>Journal
of the Society for Psychical Research</i>, Vol 53, June 1985, pp. 100-108.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Besterman, Theodore. Review of <i>Modern Psychic Mysteries, Millesimo Castle,
Italy</i>, by Gwendolyn Kelley Hack, <i>Journal
of the Society for Psychical Research</i>, Vol. 26, January 1930, pp. 10-14.
Reprinted in <i>Psypioneer</i>, Vol. 5, No.
10, October 2009, pp. 324-328.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Besterman, Theodore. ‘Reply by Mr
Besterman’, <i>Journal of the Society for
Psychical Research</i>, Vol. 26, March 1930 (dated 14 February 1930), pp.
50-52. Reprinted in <i>Psypioneer</i>, Vol.
5, No. 8, August 2009, pp. 268-69.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Biondi, Massimo. ‘The Strange Case of the
Marquis’ Transportation’, <i>Psypioneer</i>,
Vo. 5, No. 10, October 2009, pp. 328-333.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Conan Doyle’s “Spirit” Protest’, <i>The Daily Express</i>, 19 March 1930.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘The Crisis in the Society for Psychical
Research. Hearty Support for Sir A. Conan Doyle.’ <i>The
International Psychic Gazette</i>, vo. 18 no. 200, May 1930, p. 1. Reprinted in
<i>Psypioneer</i>, Vol. 5, No. 8, August
2009, pp. 258-263.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Doyle, Arthur Conan. ‘Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle’s Circular’, <i>Journal of the Society
for Psychical Research</i>, Vol. 26, March 1930 (dated January 1930), pp.
45-48. (<span style="background: white; color: #111111; mso-highlight: white;">Includes
letter from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the president of the SPR, dated 22
January 1930.) </span>Reprinted in <i>Psypioneer</i>,
Vol. 5, No. 8, August 2009, pp. 264-66.<span style="background: white; color: #111111; mso-highlight: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Doyle, Arthur Conan. <i>The Edge of the Unknown</i>. London: John Murray, 1930.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Doyle, Arthur Conan. <i>What Does Spiritualism Actually Teach and Stand For?</i> Lily Dale, New
York: Dale News, 1948.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Fodor, Nandor. <i>Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science</i>, London: Arthurs Press, 1933.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Gasperini, Luca. ‘Ernesto Bozzano: An
Italian Spiritualist and Psychical Researcher’, <i>Journal of Scientific Exploration</i>, Vol. 25, No. 4, 2011, pp.
755-773.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hack, Gwendolyn Kelley. <i>Modern Psychic Mysteries: Millesimo Castle,
Italy</i>, London: Rider & Co., 1929.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Higham, Charles. <i>The Adventures of Conan Doyle: The Life of the Creator of Sherlock
Holmes, London: Hamish Hamilton</i>, 1976.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Inglis, Brian. <i>Science and Parascience: A History of the Paranormal, 1914-1939</i>,
London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1984.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Jones, Lawrence J., Sidgwick, Eleanor and
Salter, W. H. ‘Reply by the president and hon. Secretaries’, <i>Journal of the Society for Psychical
Research</i>, Vol. 26, March 1930 (dated 14 February 1930), pp. 48-50.
Reprinted in <i>Psypioneer</i>, Vol. 5, No.
8, August 2009, pp. 266-268.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Lewis, John. ‘Our Italian Notebook’, <i>The International Psychic Gazette</i>, vol.
22, no. 249, June 1934, pp. 129-130.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Mauskopf, Seymour H., McVaugh, Michael R. <i>The Elusive Science. Origins of Experimental
Psychical Research</i>. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1980.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Obituaries’. <i>Journal of the Society for Psychical Research</i>, Vol. 26, October
1930, p. 116.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Price, Harry, ‘International Notes’, <i>Psychic Research</i> (Journal of the
American Society for Psychical Research), Vol. 24, No. 1, January 1930, pp.
39-44.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Price, Harry, ‘International Notes’, <i>Psychic Research</i> (Journal of the
American Society for Psychical Research), Vol. 24, No. 8, August 1930, pp.
377-84.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Price, Harry, <i>Fifty Years of Psychical Research: A Critical Survey</i>, London:
Longmans, Green and Co., 1939.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Savage, Elizabeth, ‘Challenging
Challenger: The Fallout between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Society for
Psychical Research’, <i>Cambridge University Library Special Collections</i>, 4
April 2019 (retrieved 12 December 2022).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s resignation’, <i>Journal of the Society for Psychical
Research</i>, Vol. 26, March 1930, p. 45.
Reprinted in <i>Psypioneer</i>, Vol.
5, No. 8, August 2009, pp. 263-64. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-25991915949990943802023-01-16T17:15:00.001+00:002023-01-16T19:35:53.553+00:00Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain at 50<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhjy3Q50KytNd9bFpkUnSY7iDcHWcwMrPGlYZyLgVFG3qNjYAG9rDLKC_daM9iKa4TuI7xEYX2yixvvyqpjinznFkffM2VCAcpVbcDqUVTFIOuQ0_3OEhPA3yxaUbgZPhPqHJAvA75mWPX4BrvcsBsfcz8OOXyTJGeqp726FGXh2CsDm2ZHJxG8tAKwg/s2448/looking%20down%20cropped.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="2448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhjy3Q50KytNd9bFpkUnSY7iDcHWcwMrPGlYZyLgVFG3qNjYAG9rDLKC_daM9iKa4TuI7xEYX2yixvvyqpjinznFkffM2VCAcpVbcDqUVTFIOuQ0_3OEhPA3yxaUbgZPhPqHJAvA75mWPX4BrvcsBsfcz8OOXyTJGeqp726FGXh2CsDm2ZHJxG8tAKwg/s320/looking%20down%20cropped.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p>The January 2023 </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Fortean Times</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">’s cover feature by Billy Rough celebrates the
fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the highly influential Reader’s
Digest volume </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Folklore, Myths and Legends
of Britain</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Several eminent owners
of the book are shown proudly cradling their copies, and a number describe the
influence it has had in their lives.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It
had much the same effect on me, and was a significant factor in my growing fascination
with folklore and psychical research as a teenager.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">So I thought I would add my voice to those
explaining what it means to them.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I’m not sure how I came by my copy. My father did enjoy Reader’s Digest magazine,
and I remember second-hand copies around the house, but we would not have
purchased the book new. I probably
picked it up at a jumble sale in the mid-1970s, by which time it had lost its
dust jacket. Whatever its origin, I am
glad I obtained one when I did, as judging by Rough’s article they now fetch a
decent price.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Like the readers mentioned in <i>FT</i>,
I enjoyed browsing through its 550 closely-printed and beautifully illustrated
pages, and it helped open my eyes to the strangeness embedded in Britain’s history. The middle section, the regional guide,
passes lightly over the capital, its chapter opening with ‘Hell is a city much
like London’ (unfortunately attributing it to Blake rather than Shelley); as a
citizen of the Great Wen, here was an opportunity to sample those enigmatic
regions north of Watford Gap.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">It was not alone in helping to form my interest. On the fiction front, Alan Garner’s novels and
the damp menace of <i>Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight</i> made a particularly strong impact – a contrast to my pleasant
suburban upbringing. Such books, and
others, like the abridged version of James Frazer’s <i>The Golden Bough</i> (which I chose as a school prize for English in
1974) and Dennis Wheatley’s <i>The Devil and
All His Works</i>, not to mention odd copies of <i>Man, Myth and Magic</i> that came my way, helped to lay the foundation
for my enthusiasm when I picked up an early copy of <i>Fortean Times</i> in the Society for Psychical Research’s library, back
when the Society was located in Adam & Eve Mews, Kensington. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">My eclectic and largely undirected reading
was accompanied by other rural activities.
I developed a fantasy of one day owning a smallholding, which thankfully
eventually subsided. During this period
I subscribed to <i>Practical Self
Sufficiency</i> magazine (later <i>Home Farm</i>)
and joined Working Weekends on Organic Farms (better known as WWOOF), the
organisation still going strong today.
Members gave their labour in exchange for bed and board, fresh air, good
food, and the transfer of knowledge I rarely needed again.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Of course I acquired John Seymour’s <i>The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency</i>,
and was delighted to meet him and his family when I stayed with some people I
met through WWOOF who lived in teepees on his Pembrokeshire farm. William Cobbett provided a longer historical
view of rural life, though I was happy to discount his negative view of
drinking tea compared to beer, the economics having changed radically in a
couple of hundred years.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">This backward-looking, nostalgic, hippyish
counterculture view of the countryside was accompanied by media which often
showed its darker side, the sorts of films and television programmes that crop
up in Bob Fischer’s <i>The Haunted
Generation</i> column in <i>FT</i>. Musically, while at school and college I was
a regular at the Sunday night folk club held at the Bird in Hand pub in Forest
Hill, south London. My record collection
contained a large proportion of folk, and folk rock, LPs (the Topic record
label is fondly remembered).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Although I didn’t realise it at the time,
I was suitably haunted. <i>Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain</i>
was one strand in my developing interest in forteana, but an important one, and
as other commentators in Rough’s article were quick to point out, while not
always reliable, over the course of 50 years it has stood the test of time
well. Those who want to delve into the
mysteries of our landscape and the stories told about it could do worse than
pick it up and start browsing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">While the <i>Fortean Times</i> article noted how odd it was for a staid publisher
like Reader’s Digest to produce <i>Folklore,
Myths and Legends of Britain</i>, this was not their only foray into the weird
and wonderful. It was followed in 1975 by
a second multi-author volume, 50 pages longer, bearing the self-consciously
quirky title <i>The Reader’s Digest Book of
Strange Stories, Amazing Facts: Stories That are Bizarre, Unusual, Odd,
Astonishing, Incredible … but True</i>.
Sadly, it does not have the coherence of <i>Folklore, Myths and Legends</i>.
It must have sold well, though, as my copy is the third edition,
published in 1989, yet it never generated the same degree of affection as its
predecessor, now worthily commemorated in <i>Fortean
Times</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">References<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Folklore,
Myths and Legends of Britain</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">, London: Reader’s Digest, 1973.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
Reader’s Digest Book of Strange Stories, Amazing Facts: Stories That are
Bizarre, Unusual, Odd, Astonishing, Incredible … but True</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">, London: Reader’s
Digest, 1975.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Rough, Billy. ‘A Story Without End: Fifty
Years of <i>Folklore, Myths and Legends of
Britain</i>’. <i>Fortean Times</i> 427,
January 2023, pp. 28-35.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p></p>Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-23793753747482271832022-08-11T20:18:00.002+01:002023-03-11T15:56:17.487+00:00Systems Methodology and the Buckmaster Bequest: An Update<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhANU5JuMGPQQiRcE1T2GYiHbvApHb-pEJEX_f8w1MgxE4veFoQ5rSYbntzO1YA2oxvb6nFRgw1uArNzEXEcXLtXyhoaFMBuy4F2Pd8dOkm_W0HJ1tWAGkF6QfxNbA9Ci3Ts8ukn7D0wtwI7PvsZ_C0QK-TpxxcTBDJceiARBfCxSZE0k4LrAeO4ayPwQ/s720/Burning%20money.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="712" data-original-width="720" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhANU5JuMGPQQiRcE1T2GYiHbvApHb-pEJEX_f8w1MgxE4veFoQ5rSYbntzO1YA2oxvb6nFRgw1uArNzEXEcXLtXyhoaFMBuy4F2Pd8dOkm_W0HJ1tWAGkF6QfxNbA9Ci3Ts8ukn7D0wtwI7PvsZ_C0QK-TpxxcTBDJceiARBfCxSZE0k4LrAeO4ayPwQ/s320/Burning%20money.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Society for Psychical Research’s
Annual Report and Accounts for the year 2020-21 were published in late July
2022. As it has been some time since I
addressed the vexed issue of the awarding of £78,000 by the SPR to Dr David
Rousseau in March 2014 for the task of providing six papers and a book, I
thought it worth providing an update, as remarkably the matter is still
unresolved. The money came from the late
Nigel Buckmaster’s extremely generous bequest to the SPR, and the lack of
progress of this project is always recorded in the Annual Report.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The relevant section of the Buckmaster
Committee report in the 2020-21 Annual Report says: ‘The delayed Systems
Methodology for Exploratory Science project under Dr David Rousseau is finally
nearing completion but has encountered yet another delay due to family reasons.
The remaining and final product of this project is a practical handbook for
applying Systems Methodology to the problems of psychical research, and this is
now expected early in 2022.’ That early 2022
deadline, like so many before it, was missed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Delayed’ is putting it very mildly. In fact, this matter has been going on for so
long, a significant proportion of the SPR’s present Council were not on it when
the award was made and are probably unaware of how much money is involved. SPR members will certainly not realise it
from reading the annual Buckmaster Committee report.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The first Buckmaster report appeared in
the 2013-14 Annual Report, and the relevant paragraph merely stated that a
component of the ‘Buckmaster project’ was: ‘a research and publication project
to develop Systems Methodology as a new tool especially suited to the
investigation of spontaneous cases.’
Annual Reports since then have provided excuses for work not completed
and revised delivery dates which were ignored.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Finally, however, last year’s Annual
Report, for 2019-20, announced some good news:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘After previous delays, the Systems
Methodology for Exploratory Science project under Dr David Rousseau made good
progress over the past year. All six of the planned publications are now
finished and five have been published with the sixth about to be published.
These deal with various topics including the fundamentals of Systems
Methodology, reconciling spirituality and natural science, and using Systems
Methodology to reconcile differing world views. The final product of this project
is a practical handbook for applying Systems Methodology to the problems of
psychical research, and this is underway and expected early in 2021.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">So, on paper it looked like finally
significant progress had been made, apart from that niggling handbook. Unfortunately, none of the contracted papers
has yet made it to the SPR library. Despite
having been assured of their competition, we do not know what the titles are,
nor how relevant they are to psychical research, and we are still unable to
judge whether or not the Society has received value for its (considerable)
money.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hoping to get an idea of what the six
published papers might be, I looked at Dr Rousseau’s Centre for Systems
Philosophy (CSP) website as it has a bibliography. The first thing I noticed is that, despite
listing the various organisations with which he is associated, he does not
mention being a Council member of the SPR.
One would have expected acknowledgement of an organisation that has been
so good to him, but perhaps he does not consider the association to be
advantageous professionally. It is a
sentiment sadly shared by some psychical researchers, though it is less common
than it used to be.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Scanning the bibliography, it is not easy
to work out which essays might fulfil the criteria for the Buckmaster
contract. I can see nothing specifically
related to psychical research and systems philosophy. <span style="color: #475763;"> </span>It is possible the Buckmaster essays
have not been listed in Dr Rousseau’s bibliography because they are SPR property,
but there would be nothing legally to prevent them being included in a list of
publications.<span style="color: #475763;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There <i>are</i>
some essays on spirituality, a topic referred to in the 2019-20 Annual Report,
and these may be the ‘planned publications.’
If they are the items in question, they would need a strong
justification to demonstrate their relevance to psychical research. Nobody will grumble that the scope has been
extended from spontaneous cases, as originally announced in 2014, but what we
get does need to be applicable to psychical research, not vaguely about
‘spirituality’.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">After all, the entire project was posited
on the basis it would use systems methodology to develop new approaches in
psychical research; what these might be currently remains a mystery. Some of the essay topics alluded to in the
2019-20 Report sound generic and not produced with the SPR solely in mind. Writing about ‘the fundamentals of Systems
Methodology’ and ‘using Systems Methodology to reconcile differing world views’
sounds the sort of thing Dr Rousseau would be doing anyway as a systems
methodologist. Perhaps the handbook will
make it all clearer, once we see it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Never having been a fan of the proposal to
sink £78,000 into this endeavour, I especially thought it a bad idea to pay the
money upfront in three tranches, and not on production of results. As evidence of the incentive the prospect of
getting paid generates, it is worth noting that Dr Rousseau’s painfully slow
progress on the Buckmaster work was not matched by the speedy production of the
essay he co-wrote with his wife, Julie Rousseau (calling herself Julie
Billingham), for the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies’ 2021 essay
competition.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The result, <i>What would
have to be true about the world? On evidence for the possibility of
consciousness surviving death</i>, was a $50,000 runner-up, and unlike the
essays for which the SPR has paid it is easily identifiable in Rousseau’s CSP
website bibliography. He should really
have allocated the time he spent on the Bigelow entry to fulfilling his
existing well-remunerated and long overdue commitment to the SPR, rather than
the best part of a decade it has so far taken.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This unsatisfactory situation really needs to be wrapped up
after so many years. If all the outputs
cannot be produced immediately, and their relevance to psychical research
firmly demonstrated, there are grounds for clawing back the money; in practice,
though, it is hard to see this happening considering the relaxed way the affair
has been handled.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Update 9 March 2023:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Systems Methodology for Spontaneous Case
Analysis Revealed!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I finally received the last of the six
essays from the chair of the Buckmaster Committee on 27 February 2023. No reason was given why it took so long to
make them all available, when according to the 2019-20 Annual Report they had
been completed at some point before the end of September 2020. Presumably the failure to publish the final
essay, ostensibly on grounds of its length, was part of the explanation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Having achieved my goal, after so long, of
having the essays in my hands, I thought it worth checking to see whether the
SPR has received value for money. This
analysis applies only to the essays as there is no word on the accompanying
manual, which is <i>still</i> awaited. The essays in question are as follows (essay
number two exists in two versions, so there are seven items):<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">1 Rousseau, David. ‘Reconciling
Spirituality with the Natural Sciences: A Systems-Philosophical Perspective’. <i>Journal for the Study of Spirituality</i>,
Vol. 4 No. 2, 2014, pp. 174-188. (Available in Taylor & Francis Online)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">2a Rousseau, David. ‘Three General Systems
Principles and Their Derivation: Insights from the Philosophy of Science
Applied to Systems Concepts’, in A.M. Madni et al. (eds.), <i>Disciplinary Convergence in Systems Engineering Research</i>, New York:
Singer, 2018, pp. 665-681. (Available on the Springer website)<span style="color: #475763;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">2b Rousseau, David. ‘Strategies for
Discovering Scientific Systems Principles’, <i>Systems
Research and Behavioral Science</i>, Vol. 34, 2017, pp. 527–536, (available in
the Wiley online library).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">3 Rousseau, David, Billingham, Julie and
Calvo-Amodio Javier, ‘Systemic Semantics: A Systems Approach to Building
Ontologies and Concept Maps’, <i>Systems</i>,
Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 1–24. 2018. (Available on the <i>Systems</i> journal website).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">4 Rousseau, David and Billingham, Julie
(2018). ‘A Systemic Framework for Exploring Worldviews and its Generalization
as a Multi-Purpose Inquiry Framework’, <i>Systems</i>,
Vol. 6, Issue 3, pp. 1–20. (Available on the <i>Systems</i> journal website).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">5 Rousseau, David. (2015). ‘Anomalous
Cognition and the Case for Mind-Body Dualism’. In E. C. May & S. B. Marwaha
(Eds.), <i>Extrasensory Perception: Support,
Skepticism, and Science</i> [2 volumes]. Vol. II Ch. 13, pp. 271–304. Santa
Barbara, CA: Praeger.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">6 Rousseau, David and Billingham, Julie.
‘A Systems Philosophy Perspective on the Architecture of Reality’, unpublished,
2022 (but on <i>Systems</i>-headed paper).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Each item is stamped with the SPR logo and
the words ‘SPR Library Copy: Buckmaster Fund Project Systems Methodology for
Spontaneous Case Analysis’. So how often
are psychical research and parapsychology mentioned in the articles?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">1 Mentions parapsychology once, in a
reference – the title of an essay by William Braud, referred to in passing in a
footnote.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">2a/b Mentions neither.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">3 Mentions neither.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">4 Mentions neither.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">5 Both mentioned numerous times.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">6 Mentions neither.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The references to psychical research, and
the SPR, in the fifth paper are unsurprising as this is the one item that has
an obvious relevance to the subject.
Despite the project title being ‘Systems Methodology for Spontaneous
Case Analysis’, references to spontaneous cases in the essays are conspicuous
by their absence.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What about funding declarations? Surely this would be the opportunity to
acknowledge the support for these articles provided by the SPR? Below are the full statements of funding,
where supplied.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">1 No funding declaration.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">2a/b ‘Financial and material support for
the project was provided by the Centre for Systems Philosophy and by the
University of Hull’s Centre for Systems Studies.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">3/4: ‘Financial and material support for the
project was provided by the Centre for Systems Philosophy, INCOSE and the
University of Hull’s Centre for Systems Studies.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">5 No funding declaration.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">6 ‘: We are grateful for financial and
material support provided by the Centre for Systems Philosophy, Oregon State
University, the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS), and the
Systems Science Working Group (SSWG) of the International Council on Systems
Engineering (INCOSE).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is no reference whatsoever to the
SPR. I'm disappointed that despite the
substantial amount of money Rousseau received for these efforts from the Society,
he did not have the courtesy to acknowledge its contribution in any of these
articles, as one would normally expect the recipient of funds to do. Gratitude seems to have been in short supply.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It was also my assumption the SPR would
hold the copyright on Rousseau’s Buckmaster outputs, for which he was being
generously compensated. Yet three of the
essays show the copyright being held by the publisher, the open access journal <i>Systems</i> assigns the copyright to the
authors, and the authors claim the copyright of the final, unpublished, paper.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Payment was made directly from the SPR’s Buckmaster
fund, not via its Research Grants Committee as would have been usual, though
Rousseau was given a sum far in excess of the typical grant. In effect then he was paid as a contractor,
not the recipient of a grant. In that
case, one would expect the SPR to have bought the results and be able to
determine the use made of them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Instead, the bulk of the papers can be
accessed through the publishers’ websites.
Both volumes of <i>Extrasensory Perception:
Support, Skepticism, and Science</i>, the second containing Rousseau’s essay,
can already be found in the SPR’s Vernon Mews library. Basically, then, all the SPR has to show for
its outlay are copies of papers bearing the SPR logo and a Buckmaster stamp. For £78,000 one might have expected something
a little more <i>exclusive</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Presumably the handbook at least will be
the SPR's copyright, but who knows when it will see the light of day. During my efforts to winkle the outputs from
the Buckmaster Committee I jokingly likened it to the <i>Key to All Mythologies</i> in <i>Middlemarch</i>,
it was so long awaited, adding Casaubon died before he finished it so hoped the
parallel wasn't precise. I didn’t like
to say that Dorothea deemed the <i>Key</i>
to be of no value, and Casaubon’s efforts a waste.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The seven digital files have been sent to
the SPR librarian in London, and sets of hard copies will eventually be lodged
in the library and the SPR archive housed at Cambridge University Library. These will be available to visitors. Alternatively, readers with access can simply
download PDFs of the majority of them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Looking at Rousseau’s website, he has
written or co-written a number of papers on similar themes, and those submitted
to fulfil the Buckmaster contract seem to be an arbitrary subset of his output,
as if randomly chopped out from his systems methodology sausage machine and
sent over to satisfy the contract. Why these
were selected is nowhere made clear, nor in what way they were considered to be
particularly relevant to psychical research.
There is nothing I can see to justify the money paid for them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Let's hope my scepticism is misplaced and
these essays plus the handbook will constitute the important contribution to
the progress of psychical research we were led to believe they would be. If anyone can suggest ways these articles may
be utilised in the pursuit of psychical research (for example in the form of
citations), I would be very pleased to hear from them, because at the moment it
is difficult to see how, apart from a single book chapter, they will contribute
to its progress.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Perhaps that is why, in his relationship
with the SPR, Rousseau has kept a low profile, not referring to the association
in his published work, and not engaging with the psychical research community
to test his ideas. It may or may or may
not be significant that he has so far not been deemed of sufficient importance
to merit an entry in the SPR’s <i>Psi
Encyclopedia</i>, although it contains
a large number of biographies.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sadly, it looks like, having released an
arbitrary selection of articles after almost a decade, he has remained silent
about their significance because there is none, at least not for psychical
research. When one thinks what good
nearly £80,000 could do in a field notoriously strapped for cash, it seems a
shame this is how it was spent. Those
who supported the payout of so much for so little really should feel
embarrassed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p></p><p></p>Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-57033472810811273452022-06-06T18:45:00.000+01:002022-06-06T18:45:54.675+01:00A Harry Price Bookplate<div style="text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9k_MEfj8wWO2f5S7XxhHO9C5erJN-tPlhXHq4tvN_W90duCuWJCA4Nq0iW1nzHbS_s-EPtG5a75llg1AdLXwTmnt6dIKIYe4oMp3mm00YWb5_Atp8uCYOviYXiDCg5H-mCmBMB9QQnMs21y3GYv_jpQxsnjEhpOfo-XTdxOatiDqiniTNo-UX8ZGCBQ/s4895/bookplates.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3671" data-original-width="4895" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9k_MEfj8wWO2f5S7XxhHO9C5erJN-tPlhXHq4tvN_W90duCuWJCA4Nq0iW1nzHbS_s-EPtG5a75llg1AdLXwTmnt6dIKIYe4oMp3mm00YWb5_Atp8uCYOviYXiDCg5H-mCmBMB9QQnMs21y3GYv_jpQxsnjEhpOfo-XTdxOatiDqiniTNo-UX8ZGCBQ/w400-h300/bookplates.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Recently I came across an item in an
online auction, the description for which mentioned the name Harry Price. This
was for a set of three books titled </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Church
Stretton: Some Results of Local Scientific Research</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, edited by C W
Campbell-Hyslop and E S Cobbold (1900/1904).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">A laudatory review of the first volume in </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Nature</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> informed its readers that ‘Church Stretton is a market-town
about twelve miles south by west of Shrewsbury, Shropshire, and has a
population of about 2000.’</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What intrigued me was that each volume
contained the bookplate of ‘a Harry Price’, as the description put it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While not about psychical research, I
wondered if the books might have come from the library of paranormal
investigator Harry Price (1881-1948) as I knew he had a Shropshire connection:
he claimed to have been born in Shrewsbury, and while this was a fabrication
(he was born and grew up in London), he did have Shropshire links via his
father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also saw the third volume
dealt with archaeology, an early interest of Price’s.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Referring to the previous owner as ‘a
Harry Price’ suggested the vendor was not aware of the significance of the
name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While one would have expected an
antiquarian bookseller to have done some research, he is based in Telford,
Shropshire, so presumably as far as he was concerned they were merely of local
interest, and he had no reason to think they had a wider significance (or so I
hoped).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, I could not
enquire about them as it would have alerted him to their potential value, but the
opening amount was not too high so I decided to take risk, even though Harry
Price is not a particularly rare name.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Luckily mine was the only bid, and the
next step was to establish whether it was the right Harry Price.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was extremely easy, as Trevor Hall’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Search for Harry Price</i> has a chapter
discussing Price’s various bookplates, handily illustrating them all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mine were identical to the example in Plate 7
(shown above).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This Hall thinks was the
earliest Price used, and he characterises it as ‘the spurious crested plate.’
He implies that not many examples are extant as ‘it is still displayed in a few
items in Price’s collection.’<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As to why Price chose the design, the
answer casts an illuminating light on Price’s character and social
pretensions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is, Hall states, a Denbighshire
Price (ap Rhys) family who were created baronets in 1804.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite them being totally unrelated to his
much more modest family background, Harry adapted their crest (‘faked’ in
Hall’s words) with some modifications for his own use, thereby suggesting a
link to a distinguished line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
changes included the alteration of the Denbighshire Prices’ motto from ‘Vive ut
vivas’ to ‘Dum vivimus, vivamus’, the Epicureans’ maxim ‘While we live, let us
live’, which Price certainly took to heart.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I was fortunate Price bothered to include
his plate in my acquisition, as Hall was told by Alan Wesencraft, the librarian
then in charge of the Harry Price collection at Senate House, University of
London, where it is housed, that a large percentage of Price’s books lacked any
of his plates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wesencraft added that
most of those with plates had them on the front free end paper rather than
pasted on the inside of the front cover, a habit Hall considered curious as it
risks wrinkling the paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My examples
buck the trend by having been pasted onto the inside of the covers.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">So how did the Church Stretton volumes
come to be in the possession of a Telford bookseller in 2022? Price’s library was deposited at Senate House
Library in 1936 and bequeathed to it in 1948.
A University of London/<a href="https://tomruffles.blogspot.com/2011/06/memories-of-harry-price-library.html" target="_blank">Harry Price Library</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>bookplate
was pasted into each volume, and as these are not present in the Church
Stretton books they must have left Price's possession beforehand. Also, the title is not listed in the
University of London’s online catalogue.
It seems he was not wedded to books on particular topics and decided to
dispose of them after his need had passed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As evidence, Hall mentions that apart from
the crested plate appearing in books held at Senate House, by chance he came
across an example much closer to home, in the Leeds Library, an institution with
which he was associated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Opening a book
on trade tokens he was surprised to see the plate in question, ‘bearing the
name of “Harry Price” on an elaborate scroll, below a crest which he had certainly
no right whatever to display.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the
library’s records Hall established the two-volume set was sold by Price to London
bookseller Bernard Quaritch Ltd, from whence it was acquired by the Leeds
Library in June 1913.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Price had a long-standing interest in
numismatics, hence the books on trade tokens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He became interested in archaeology upon moving to Pulborough in Sussex
in 1908, when he tried to establish himself as an authority on the
subject.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is likely he would have been
particularly interested in the third volume of the Church Stretton set as it
deals with archaeology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately
for him, he was caught out claiming to have been involved in excavations when
he had had no connection with them, leading him to withdraw from the field in
1910.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is likely then that the Church
Stretton set entered his library between 1908 and 1910, so presumably the
bookplate was in use by the latter date.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After that, his involvement in the subjects addressed by the volumes
having been terminated, and his interests turning to other matters, he had no
further use for them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Price’s sale of books raises an intriguing
thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ‘borrowed’ lion with a rose
was succeeded by the much more elaborate ‘Abomination des Sorciers’ plate – in keeping
with the types of books for which Price’s library is now well known – no later
than 1923<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the crested plate was
certainly in use before 1913, Price was using it for over a decade, yet Hall
refers to only ‘a few items’ in the Harry Price Library with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps Price had a clearout of items
relating to numismatics and archaeology to provide the funds and space for his
‘magical’ library.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If so, it is possible
he sold additional books bearing those plates, and they are out there, sitting
on shelves of owners having no interest in psychical research, believing they
were once merely in the collection of ‘a Harry Price’ but not realising who
that singular individual was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They might
not be as rare as Hall assumed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">References<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Campbell-Hyslop, C W and E S Cobbold
(eds.). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Church Stretton: Some Results of
Local Scientific Research</i>. Vol. 1 (geology, macro-lepidoptera, molluscs),
Shrewsbury: L Wilding, 1900 (reissued 1904); Vol 2 (birds, flowering plants,
mosses, parochial history), Shrewsbury: L Wilding, 1904; Vol 3 (pre-Roman,
Roman, and Saxon archaeological remains, church architecture), Shrewsbury: L
Wilding, 1904.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hall, Trevor H. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Search for Harry Price</i>, London: Duckworth, 1978.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Our Book Shelf’, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i>, Vol. 62, 11 October 1900, p. 571.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><br /><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p></div>Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-26030917346934435852022-02-20T20:14:00.000+00:002022-02-20T20:14:57.611+00:00The Society for Psychical Research at 140<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhY53kCTm3YzFE7LmKNDibMCQW-GF_j6Av1YHSjk7aE-5vr6dMKW-lMgrC_FKGkPVpNVvEEgpwoIat3P254hJhgxhhYf1cn4_vHnQQ9BvEA2mFFcboZ130M0A1ZuC4-r-iNLIoiiGq4taP84_b_F46aS_tSaiOD0YscPbIJoqgfh__aLVLl6OTC9ST_Eg=s2414" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2414" data-original-width="1525" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhY53kCTm3YzFE7LmKNDibMCQW-GF_j6Av1YHSjk7aE-5vr6dMKW-lMgrC_FKGkPVpNVvEEgpwoIat3P254hJhgxhhYf1cn4_vHnQQ9BvEA2mFFcboZ130M0A1ZuC4-r-iNLIoiiGq4taP84_b_F46aS_tSaiOD0YscPbIJoqgfh__aLVLl6OTC9ST_Eg=s320" width="202" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sunday 20 February 2022 marks the 140th
anniversary of the founding of the Society for Psychical Research in 1882 (on a
Monday).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It’s not a satisfyingly round
number, like a centenary or a sesquicentenary, but it seems worth marking
nonetheless.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I’m sure in ten years’ time
there will be significant celebrations, as there were in 1982 when there was a
big conference at Cambridge, a series of books published by Heinemann on
various aspects of psychical research, a collection of essays edited by Ivor
Grattan-Guinness, and a history of the SPR written by Renée Haynes.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Grattan-Guinness’s <i>Psychical Research: A Guide to its History, Principles and Practices</i>
provides a handy overview of its subject matter as it was viewed in 1982, containing
contributions from some eminent names in the field. One part discusses topics seen to constitute
the range of psychical phenomena – mediumship, out-of-body experiences,
apparitions, clairvoyance and telepathy, survival after death, poltergeists,
psychic healing, precognition, psychokinesis and photography (Kirlian
photography would nowadays be excluded) – and these could easily slot into a
contemporary book, albeit with developments in experimental methods and
theoretical models. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Similarly, a contemporary overview of the
relationship of psychical research to other disciplines would look much the
same, with changes of emphasis (the section on computers seems quaint when set
against their ubiquity now). This is not
to say psychical research has remained static over the last four decades. Thinking about the way the Society has
evolved since 1982, the title of the final chapter in Haynes’s book caught my
eye: ‘Achievements. What Next?’ Naturally
there is more on past achievements, of which there are many, than future
prospects, but while the chapter is rambling, it provides a useful benchmark for
measuring the subject’s evolution.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">To begin with, Haynes detects an essential
continuity, despite swings in intellectual fashions, since the Society was
founded. That is reasonable, as its
objects are largely the same as they were in 1882, albeit the means of studying
them have evolved. However, she notes modifications
in attitude. Even by 1982, she felt ‘the
pendulum has jolted from an overwhelming interest in mediums and their
psychology to an overwhelming interest in the use of mass experiments evaluated
by statistical methods’; from scrutiny of environmental and emotional causes of
poltergeists to research on meditators and ‘psychokinetically-gifted people’
(the inclusion of emotional in relation to poltergeists is surprising, a
pendulum that has swung back); and with the continuing trend towards what
Haynes somewhat sniffily characterises as ‘the technology of psi.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Her assessment of mediumship now seems
unduly pessimistic, with a great deal of research being carried out into this
and other aspects of the possible survival of consciousness after bodily
death. She does mention super-psi as a
view gaining traction, linking it to clairvoyance, the latter to her mind less
popular with SPR members in the UK than in other countries, particularly the US
and France. Super-psi is an idea that is
posited as an alternative to survival (Stephen Braude is a notable champion), but
it is doubtful there are national preferences for clairvoyance. Final answers on survival she believed were
beyond psychical research to determine, a familiar view today. Technology provides useful tools for the
exploration of possible psi processes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Some elements of serious psychical
research she includes in her roundup have since fallen out of fashion, such as
metal bending and the Cox minilab. Others
have endured, though methods may have achieved a greater degree of sophistication
since 1982. There is still interest in
anthropology (having picked up the label of paranthropology to define its
intersection with the paranormal), folklore, biology and historical
studies. Considerable resources have
been devoted to precognition research, and much debate generated, over the
years. It is unlikely a modern book on
psychical research would devote nearly a page, as Haynes does, to Nostradamus. On the other hand, the philosophical
implications of the nature of time are as strongly debated.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As she was writing a history of the SPR
rather than psychical research there is much that is skimmed over, or missing
entirely. Some areas of neglect are
surprising – psychic archaeology for example – others less so, because the SPR
had little involvement, such as developments in the Soviet Union. Occult links and the vexed relationship with
Spiritualists are passed over probably because of Haynes’s own views. EVP, dismissed by her as a ‘vogue’, is widely
researched, having expanded its scope to encompass ITC. Out-of-body experiences are present, but not near-death
experiences, in 1982 a major omission.</span> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Healing, given a section in Grattan-Guinness’s book,
is ignored. She deals with
reincarnation, shortly to become a growth area, in a few lines. As an indication of the higher profile it now
has, and perhaps a degree of patrician disdain, she does not refer to the
campaign waged by pseudo-sceptics/counter-advocates, despite the Committee for
the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal having been formed in
1976.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Moving on to what psychical research has
achieved in a hundred years, she notes the formation of similar societies in
other countries and the occasional foreign SPR president. The number of organisations and university
departments concerned with psychical research has grown further since
then. Some areas, such as animal
migration, she considers to have largely been solved, though not that of
‘psi-trailing’, where an animal can find its way across long distances to
owners who may have moved. There has
been further work on anpsi, and the research of Rupert Sheldrake has looked extensively
at psychic connections between animals and humans.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Dowsing she feels may have a magnetite
component, which would supply a physical explanation, but would not apply, she
concedes, to map dowsing. Little
controlled dowsing research has been carried out in the field during the last
four decades, and much remains anecdotal, though <span style="color: #1f497d; mso-themecolor: text2;"><a href="https://tomruffles.blogspot.com/2012/04/some-reflections-on-some-reflections-on.html" target="_blank">Elizabeth Mayer’s claim to have recovered her daughter’s stolen harp</a> </span>with the help of map dowsing has been taken by some as evidence
for its validity. Thought transference
morphed into telepathy and is studied, unlike Reichenbach phenomena, present in
the 1882 Objects, which had vanished from serious consideration long before
1982. Haynes says she considers
psychokinesis proven, both experimentally and from spontaneous cases, and much
more work has been carried out subsequently, without universal acceptance of
the results.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Psychical researchers took mesmerism and,
as hypnosis, cleared away its occult accretions and misinterpretations, and put
it on a sound footing, meaning it has largely disappeared from psychical
research outside amateur regression sessions.
Apparitions, and haunted places, have shown longevity, being investigated
now as they were in 1882 and 1982. Unfortunately,
while there are greater numbers doing the investigating, many take their cue
from television rather than the scholarly literature, and despite much ink and
ingenious speculation being devoted to the topic, little real progress has been
made.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Of hard science, Haynes mentions physics
mainly in connection with the observer effect, the strangeness of some of
physics’ findings acting as a gateway for strangeness in psychical
research. Awareness of the potential implications
has increased enormously, with SPR vice-president Bernard Carr arguing that
physics can provide the foundation for an expanded science bringing together
matter, mind and spirit into a fuller understanding of the universe and our
place within it. There has been an
increased interest in consciousness studies and their philosophical
implications since 1982.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Haynes is out of sympathy with laboratory
work, questionnaires, and the use of statistics, claiming, in her colourful
way, that ‘The processes involved seem to resemble those of plucking, cleaning,
and boiling a chicken down for stock.
The end product may be wholesome and nourishing; but nothing
characteristic of the original remains, life, colour, shape are gone, regarded
as irrelevant.’ (p. 165) The resulting
generalisations and abstractions, in her view, remove the researcher from the
raw experiences of individuals.
Doubtless many ploughing laboriously through number-heavy papers in
parapsychological journals would agree with her.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Haynes’s greatest fear was that the use of
arcane, overtechnical language (‘gobbledygook’ as she terms it) within
specialisms might inhibit cross-disciplinary research and lead to ghettoisation
of specialists who failed to talk to each other. Fortunately, it can be said with confidence
this danger was averted, with psychical research benefiting from debate that
crosses boundaries in the search for answers.
Qualitative methods exploring lived experience are thriving too, which
no doubt she would have welcomed, while rolling her eyes at laboratory testing
on groups rather than individuals, allowing potential ‘stars’ to slip through
the net.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As a means of assessing the current
situation, a useful overview has recently been provided by Terje G. Simonsen’s <i>A Short History of (Nearly) Everything
Paranormal</i>. Much would have been
familiar to Haynes, including his central idea of the Mental Internet. Crucially, though, he outlines three main
approaches to our relationship to psi, focusing on laboratory, nature and
spirituality, the last of the three seeking to comprehend ways in which our
everyday existence, including psi, is part of a greater whole. This issue was not addressed by Haynes, but it
has become much more prominent since the publication of her book, as is
evidenced by the foundation of organisations like the Scientific and Medical
Network and IONS, specifically incorporating a spiritual element into their
programmes, and the overlap of psychical research with transpersonal
psychology.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It can be said that psychical research has
progressed significantly since 1982, but with much still to do. As for the future, the growth of computing,
and specifically the Internet, in the last couple of decades has made an
enormous difference to the way the SPR now operates. With electronic
communication has come a greater ability to reach out and fulfil a core
principle of the SPR’s charitable status, that of education. Rather than talking mainly to a small group
of like-minded individuals, it is now possible to disseminate the data of the
SPR, and psychical research generally, in a way not foreseen in 1982. This has opened up opportunities for cross-fertilisation
of ideas that can only be helpful. Grattan-Guinness’s
geographical breakdown has four sections: Britain, Europe, Russia and the
Soviet Union, and the United States, as if there was nothing to be said about
other regions. Thanks to the Internet,
the conversation can now be global.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Haynes famously coined the term ‘boggle
threshold’, and in the introduction to her centenary history (p. ix) defines it
as ‘the level above which the mind boggles when faced by some new fact or
report or idea.’ Phenomena are judged on
a case-by-case basis, and her threshold was fairly high for some, much lower
for others. Evidence will become
stronger or weaker, and boggle thresholds rise and fall, as psychical research evolves. In the process, topics leave the field, as
the Reichenbach phenomena did, while others enter it, as methods increase in
sophistication even if underfunding remains constant. In 1982 Haynes concluded with the words,
‘here’s to the next hundred years,’ and to that sentiment one can happily raise
a glass.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">References<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Grattan-Guinness, Ivor (ed.). <i>Psychical
Research: A Guide to its History, Principles and Practices. In Celebration of 100
Years of the Society for Psychical Research</i>. Wellingborough: The Aquarian
Press, 1982.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Haynes, Renée. <i>The Society for
Psychical Research 188201982: A History</i>. London: Macdonald, 1982.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Mayer, Elizabeth. <i>Extraordinary
Knowing: Science, Skepticism and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind.</i> New York: Bantam, 2007.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Simonsen, Terje G.. <i>A Short History of
(Nearly) Everything Paranormal: Our Secret Powers – Telepathy, Clairvoyance
& Precognition</i>. London: Watkins, 2020.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p></p><p></p>Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-72273745928847274992021-11-29T16:42:00.000+00:002021-11-29T16:42:53.561+00:00Thirty Years, on and off, in the Parapsychological Association<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBh_ZDCZ4xDh2XqFVLhoPw1qyV5g1_k5jaBJA6ubHJcIeKzGrV8wVr_51Nu83shzynXZh8vFJtrXp_RwOwJVx1jheJRtJsLuqWlc80XuAKVqJkK2BOWMML9qziYwdzMCZthlZ94gt9Im0C/s266/PA+logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="189" data-original-width="266" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBh_ZDCZ4xDh2XqFVLhoPw1qyV5g1_k5jaBJA6ubHJcIeKzGrV8wVr_51Nu83shzynXZh8vFJtrXp_RwOwJVx1jheJRtJsLuqWlc80XuAKVqJkK2BOWMML9qziYwdzMCZthlZ94gt9Im0C/s0/PA+logo.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.parapsych.org/home.aspx" target="_blank">The Parapsychological Association</a> (PA) is
an organisation aimed primarily at those, from whatever discipline, who are
studying parapsychology in order to advance a scientific understanding of it,
and to facilitate dissemination of that understanding.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It brings together professionals working in
the field with those who have a general interest.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The PA was founded in 1957, and in 1969
became affiliated to the American Association for the Advancement of
Science.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Most members are drawn from the
US and to a lesser extent Western Europe, though other regions, particularly
South America, are increasingly represented.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I first joined the PA thirty years
ago. My welcome letter, dated 23 August
1991, was signed by John Palmer, then chairman of the membership committee, and
soon to be President, who welcomed me as an associate member. Enclosed with the letter was the Fall 1990
issue of <i>PA News</i> – a four-page
newsletter edited by Nancy Zingrone – a small booklet containing the 1990
members’ directory, two pages on the PA’s aims and organisation, and a
publicity leaflet.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">My application reference was provided by
PA associate, and the Society for Psychical Research’s Hon. Secretary, Arthur
Oram, who had also recommended me for co-optation to the SPR’s Council the
previous year. The wheels turned slowly
in those pre-internet days, as Arthur’s letter saying he was going to send a
reference to the PA was dated 9 January 1991, so it took a further eight months
for me to be told my application had been successful. The subscription was $35.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I only seem to have remained in the PA
until 1997, judging by the contents of my file, after which I left because I
didn’t feel I was getting much for the subscription, not being in a position to
attend the annual conventions, as PA conferences are termed. Members were supposed to receive the annual
Research in Parapsychology, but I recall publication being patchy, so apart
from the magazine I had little to show for the money.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the first issue of the newsletter I
received, Nancy Zingrone had asked for suggestions for a better title than <i>PA News</i>.
By the time I left it was still called that, though the size had
increased to 12 pages. It would be nice
to see a set of these historical documents digitised on the PA website, or
perhaps included in the Lexscien online library (the PA is a partner organisation
and <i>Research in Parapsychology</i> is
already held in Lexscien).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">During the early 2010s I re-joined for
several years when doing postgraduate research, but left again when that
finished and I was no longer eligible for the student rate. However, I had always maintained an interest
in the PA and was impressed by the number of online activities it had
undertaken during the pandemic – lectures, symposia, the convention (this year in
association with the Society for Scientific Exploration) and a monthly virtual
meet-up, the Psi Agora. So in March this
year I decided to join for the third time, along with quite a few others I
understand: like the SPR, membership has risen during the last couple of years
as online events, accessible to members everywhere, have increased in number.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Comparing the PA in the early 1990s with today,
I discovered that the PA’s membership categories have been rejigged to make
them more inclusive. In 1991 they were:
honorary member (which was by invitation) full member, associate member,
affiliate, and student affiliate. Even
affiliates had to have full membership of a professional organisation in an
academic field (associates had to have an advanced university degree, and I had
an MA in Modern European Thought, hence being admitted to that category).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now the categories are: honorary member,
professional member, associate member, supporting member and student
member. The conditions for professional
membership have become more clearly delineated, though anybody who was eligible
for full membership then would still be elected to professional membership. Achieving an associateship is slightly harder
than it used to be, with two criteria to be met rather than one.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">However, where the old affiliate had to be
a full member of a professional organisation, supporting member (my category
now) includes anyone ‘who has an interest in the scientific and scholarly
advancement of parapsychology,’ with no academic requirement. Like the old affiliates, supporting members
do not have voting rights, but whereas affiliates and associates paid the same,
and professional members paid more, these days supporting members, associates
and professional members are all charged the identical rate (currently $100).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">An obvious difference in the last 30 years
is in the evolution of the <i>PA News</i>
into the beautifully-produced <i>Mindfield</i>. It debuted in 2009 and is a valuable addition
to the <i>Journal of Parapsychology</i>,
which is circulated to members (the default for both is digital, with paper
copies costing extra). The PA has
extended its activities to include career awards, book awards, a mentorship
programme for student members, and general information on parapsychology
provided through its website.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In addition to the PA’s direct
undertakings, it is worth mentioning that Analisa Ventola, its Executive
Director, has recently developed Public Parapsychology, previously a blog, into
an online forum to encourage networking.
While it is still in its early stages, it promises to bring in non-PA
members to explore parapsychological issues, and perhaps in turn encourage them
to consider joining the PA. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">For anybody with a serious interest in
parapsychology I would recommend PA membership.
There is a collegiate feel, and the organisation is always seeking to
find ways to push the boundaries of the discipline to demonstrate its
relevance. For a taster of its scope and
approach, there are many PA talks on YouTube.
The cost of membership may be a deterrent for some, but the rewards are
worth the subscription. Those who join
both the PA and the SPR are eligible for a reduction on their subscriptions,
making membership even better value, and supporting two important organisations
in the process.</span></p><p></p>Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-46666743474208934122021-11-16T19:25:00.000+00:002021-11-16T19:25:17.302+00:00The $1.8 million Bigelow Competition<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicJ0cPL5pvybDMuHjfjxGvvQyh-hO0HIabIjdB9rffOQxNB0WBMMKSBHlMbgcDf5J47PLDBFx9IbDvcpftvBQy2QadH2AjYP-qORFoG4NBCXmWigRzQ8l-xxQHdk55hsIVwTvsuP9n9UWb/s2228/Bigelow+logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="751" data-original-width="2228" height="108" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicJ0cPL5pvybDMuHjfjxGvvQyh-hO0HIabIjdB9rffOQxNB0WBMMKSBHlMbgcDf5J47PLDBFx9IbDvcpftvBQy2QadH2AjYP-qORFoG4NBCXmWigRzQ8l-xxQHdk55hsIVwTvsuP9n9UWb/s320/Bigelow+logo.png" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Robert Bigelow is a successful businessman
with an interest in parapsychology and UFOs, and for a decade he was owner of
the notorious Skinwalker ranch.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Like others
who have suffered personal loss (the deaths of his 24-year-old son in 1992, his
20-year-old grandson in 2011, and his wife in February 2020), he developed an
interest in life after death.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In June
2020 he founded the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies (BICS), though
he didn’t spend much money on its website.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Rather than an interest in aspects of
consciousness <i>per se</i>, as the name
might imply, BICS’ primary purpose is to ‘support research into both the
survival of human consciousness after physical death and, based on data from
such studies, the nature of the afterlife.’
Importantly, it is ‘seeking hard evidence “beyond a reasonable doubt”
that takes us beyond religion or philosophy.’
There have been efforts in this direction for more than a century and a
half, but fresh attempts are always welcome.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This is not Bigelow’s first foray into the
issue of survival: in 1997 he and his wife endowed a chair in consciousness
studies at the University of Nevada, at a cost of $3.7 million. Charles Tart and Raymond Moody, well known
for work in transpersonal psychology and near-death experiences (among other
topics) respectively, were the first chairs but, disillusioned by a lack of
progress, Bigelow eventually terminated the endowment. He founded BICS because, in an interview with
Leo Ruickbie, editor of the<i> Magazine of
the Society for Psychical Research</i>, he said he had decided the field needed
‘energising’.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> In
January 2021, BICS announced a competition for essays summarising the best
scientific evidence for the survival of human consciousness after bodily death. Prize money totalling $1 million was
announced, though the amount was later increased, and $1.8 million was
eventually awarded. As the BICS website
put it, ‘‘The purpose of the BICS essay contest is to generate research,
discussion and stimulate debate. And perhaps in so doing, BICS may substantially
broaden the amount of quality information available to you from a single
website source.’ When the story broke in
the <i>New York Times</i>, unsurprisingly it attracted a great
deal of attention. </span> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The deadline for
essay submissions was 1 August 2021.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">So why a competition rather than some
other method of promoting research? In
the interview with Ruickbie, Bigelow stated: <span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-highlight: white;">‘It’s a faster path, creating a
contest. You can achieve greater
acceleration and awareness – and that was my objective, to accelerate awareness
of the topic. So I thought, let’s have this contest, it’s a way to begin. It
hasn’t been done before, certainly at least not at this scope. And what could
it hurt, if it were properly put together?’</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The amounts on the table were eye-watering
in a field notoriously strapped for cash.
The top three winners would trouser a cool $500,000, $300,000 and
$150,000, with smaller, but still respectable, prizes for the runners-up. The judges were Jeffrey J Kripal, Leslie
Kean, Christopher C Green, Brian Weiss, Jessica Utts and Hal Puthoff (all from
the United States). They also serve on
BICS’ board of directors. Apart from
Green, these are familiar, and to varying degrees eminent, names in the field.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Such a rich offering was bound to tempt
opportunists and cranks, so rules were laid down to attract the suitably
qualified and filter out the tyre-kickers.
Not anybody could enter; essayists first had to demonstrate they were
serious researchers, with proof of at least five years study in the field, and
preferably affiliation to a reputable organisation (the Society for Psychical
Research was given as an example).
Entries relying on religious doctrine would not be accepted because, as
Bigleow told Ruickbie, ‘anybody can quote scripture, so that’s too sophistic to
accept.’ Essays were limited to a
maximum of 25,000 words, to weed out those who thought quantity would be a
substitute for quality.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Even with the rules to guide them, plenty
of people either thought they could furnish convincing evidence for the
continuation of consciousness after death, or assumed the competition’s
criteria were not as stringent as BICS had indicated. Over 1,300 people decided to try their hand,
of which 205 from 38 countries were shortlisted. Amusingly, according to an acknowledgement by
Bigelow on the BICS website noting the number of entrants, some people sent him
‘gifts’, and one can only assume these were intended as bribes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The winners were announced on 2 November
2021. There were 29 listed, the three
top prizes plus 11 given $50,000 each and 15 $20,000 each. Considering the scope of the competition and
the importance Bigleow had attached to it, it was all very muted; in fact, the
list of winners was published a day later than scheduled, with no explanation,
and no fanfare. There is going to be a
ceremony to present the awards in Las Vegas on 4 December 2021, but it may feel
a little anticlimactic coming so long after the winners’ names were announced.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Jefrrey Mishlove, host of the Thinking
Allowed/New Thinking Allowed interview series, took home the $500,000. A few of the essays were joint efforts, so a
total of 43 individuals will share the money.
These are the 29 named winners, most, as one would expect, well-known in
psychical research circles:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">1st Prize: Jeffrey Mishlove, $500,000<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">2nd Prize: Pim van Lommel, $300,000<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">3rd Prize: Leo Ruickbie, $150,000</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Runners-up ($50,000 each): Michael Tymn,
Stephen Braude, Nicolas Rouleau, Bernardo Kastrup, Elizabeth Krohn, Sharon
Rawlette, Jeffrey Long, Michael Nahm, Julie Beischel, Alexandre Rocha et al.,
David Rousseau et al.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Honorable Mentions ($20,000 each): Robert
Mays et al, Chris Carter, Steve Taylor, Christopher Kerr, Bruce Leininger,
Vernon Neppe, Helané Wahbeh et al, Chris Roe et al, Peter Fenwick et al, Walter
Meyer zu Erpen, Akila Weerasekera, Greg Taylor, Nick Cook, Andreas Sommer, Sam
Parnia et al.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The first essay to be published (by
himself rather than BICS) is Mishlove’s, offering an early opportunity to see how
the winner interpreted the aims of the competition, and a standard by which to
judge the rest. It is certainly lovingly
put together, a multimedia presentation drawing on his extensive <i>Thinking Allowed</i> and <i>New Thinking Allowed </i>interviews, with links
to segments of the films amplifying the text, and it is copiously illustrated.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is titled <i>Beyond the Brain: The Survival of Human Consciousness After Permanent
Bodily Death </i>(not to be confused with the long-running <i>Beyond the Brain</i> conferences organised by the Scientific and
Medical Network). In it, Mishlove has produced
a kind of psychical research’s greatest hits, albeit necessarily selective and
somewhat superficial, drawing on his interviews and mixing personal testimony
and scholarship.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the introductory section he recounts a
powerful personal experience which convinced him of survival. He notes the problems parapsychology has had achieving
recognition as a valid scientific discipline and, championing metaphysical
idealism (for which he relies heavily on the work of Bernardo Kastrup), lays
out reasons for taking the survival evidence seriously. He goes on, adopting a ‘bundle of sticks’
approach, to discuss what he considers the most important themes: near-death
experiences, after-death communications, reincarnation, Peak in Darien cases,
possession, instrumental transcommunication, xenoglossy, and mental and
physical mediumship, plus miscellaneous topics such as psychedelics, terminal
lucidity, the filter theory, and criticisms of the living agent psi hypothesis.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Whether one is convinced by his essay
rather depends whether one had previously been convinced by his many
interviews. The essay adds little to
that body, and he could be accused of recycling his previous work, remarkable
though the number of his interviewees and the range of subjects discussed over
the years have been. </span> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">He has compiled a
useful introduction to the various strands adduced by researchers suggestive of
survival, but if he had been given a book deal for this material, he would not
have received $500,000 for it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is an interesting, wide-ranging and
accessible read, but the tone of much of it feels like a distillation of the
SPR’s Psi Encyclopedia. I was hoping for
some twist, something which broke new ground in our efforts to determine
whether or not there is post-mortem continuation of consciousness, but came
away disappointed. Mishlove has
contributed hugely to the field, and this award felt a little like the actor
who wins an Oscar for a particular role which is not their best work, but
really as covert recognition of a career’s achievement.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">One can see why, though, Bigelow would
have been happy with Mishlove’s approach, because their views align
closely. In the interview with Ruickbie,
Bigelow contends: ‘materialism has become another religion, science has become
another religion. That has dominated the twentieth century and probably will do
so for the rest of this century.’ After
Ruikbie asks for his thoughts on consciousness, he says in part, ‘Thought is
key, so even forming the universe, if we want to go out on the super macro
scale,’ and he espouses the same filter theory of the brain as Mishlove. Mishlove argues that ‘Metaphysical idealism
is the most logically consistent position as it eliminates the problems of both
materialism and dualism,’ and he is critical of scientism.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Mishlove’s and the other winning entries
will be placed on the Bigelow website in due course. They will also be published in 5-6 volumes
intended to be ‘collector’s items’, and ‘each volume will be hard cover, richly
bound in faux leather with gilted pages and ribbons’, which sounds lovely. These will be distributed free to university
libraries, hospices (which should cheer the residents up) and some religious
institutions. Unfortunately, the print
format will work against Mishlove’s careful selection of videos to complement
his text.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In addition to the winning entries, we can
expect to see losing entries finding their way into the public arena. Some are already available, such as James
Beichler’s and Tom Butler’s. Anthony
Peake for some reason has chosen to read his out in a series of YouTube
videos. We can expect quite a few of
those papers which did not place to circulate in the coming months, so those
who agree with Bigelow on the importance of the survival issue will have plenty
to chew on in addition to the canonical 29, and they will offer an opportunity
to assess the losers against the winners to see how they compare.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Ian Wardell’s initial thought following
the announcement of the winners was that, because of the way the terms of
reference were framed, ‘My suspicion is that most of these essays will largely
regurgitate the evidence that is already out there and will do little to
persuade skeptics.’ Such was predictable,
as the competition sought ‘papers that summarize the best evidence available
for the survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death.’ It will be interesting to see whether any of
the other winning entries actually dig deeper or are rather ‘the best of the
rest’, a procession of summaries of already-available data.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">If it turns out Mishlove’s is indeed the
best, it will be hard to escape the conclusion that while Bigelow may have
achieved his goal of providing a pool of information and generating debate, the
examination of the survival of bodily death has not advanced further. On the other hand, Michael Tymn, a runner-up,
saw the problem with the competition differently, believing the necessary
evidence had already been accumulated as long ago as 1920, and any gathered
since is merely ‘icing on the cake’. By
that standard, the competition was bound not to produce anything new.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">So, did Mr Bigelow get his
money’s-worth? Based on Mishlove’s essay
I would say not. I’m sure he has made 43
people very happy, but I can’t help feeling the field would have been better
served if he had set up a grant-giving foundation (with a larger pool of
referees) and handed out smaller sums on a more sustainable basis for specific
projects that help to progress our understanding, rather than make a big
gesture for a handful of essays retreading old ground. An organisation like the SPR could I’m sure
have done a lot with nearly $2 million.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It does seem likely Bigelow will continue
to put money into survival research, judging by his remarks to Ruickbie. Asked what next, he replies: ‘We’ll be thinking
about 2022, as to what we can do for that year. Is it going to be another
contest? Is it going to be something that is going to involve some of the
applicants, some of the people generating these essays? We would want to come
up with something that certainly wasn’t just a repeat. We’re interested in
ideas as to what could constitute a new kind of contest for 2022.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">One hint he threw out is that he wants to
extend his effort from asking whether consciousness survives bodily death to
trying to determine what ‘the other side’ is like, as the next logical step –
the second strand of the Institute’s aims, according to its website. Only time will tell if the generous sums of
money Bigelow is sinking into research have produced worthwhile results, and
really moved the field forward significantly.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">References<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Beichler, James E. ‘Best Evidence for the
Afterlife is Something to Die for’, <i>Academia.Edu</i>, 2021. Retrieved 12
November 2021.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Bigelow Institute for Consciousness
Studies, <a href="https://bigelowinstitute.org/index.php"><span style="color: #1155cc;">https://bigelowinstitute.org/index.php</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Blumenthal, Ralph. ‘Can Robert Bigleow
(and the Rest of Us) Survive Death?’ <i>New
York Times</i>, 21 January 2021. Retrieved 5 November 2021.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Butler, Tom. ‘Case for the Survival
Hypothesis’, <i>Tom Butler’s Etheric Studies</i>,
November 2021. Retrieved 13 November 2021.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Mishlove, Jeffrey. <i>Beyond the Brain: The Survival of Human Consciousness After Permanent
Bodily Death</i>. 2021.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Ruickbie, Leo. ‘Death: The Final
Frontier’, <i>Fortean Times</i>, issue 405,
May 2021, pp. 36-39. Reprinted as ‘The $1,500,000 Question: Is there Life After
Death?’ in <i>The Magazine of the Society
for Psychical Research</i>, issue 3, 2021, pp. 4-7.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Society for Psychical Research, <i>The Psi Encyclopedia</i>, <a href="https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/"><span style="color: #1155cc;">https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Tymn, Michael. ‘Aerospace Magnate Robert
Bigelow Searches for Answers on Life After Death’, <i>White Crow Books</i>, 8 November 2021. Retrieved 9 November 2021.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Wardell, Ian. ‘Bigelow Competition for the
Best Essay on the Evidence for an Afterlife.’ <i>Ian Wardell: Philosophical Thoughts</i>, 10 November, 2021. Retrieved
11 November 2021.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p></p>Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-9229715434980530112021-10-08T18:37:00.000+01:002021-10-08T18:37:59.931+01:00Forty Years of Society for Psychical Research Magazines<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuB4r-F2c-emZYYqxSgoFnV3TV5iYNerVqNkqTuYF22e4CdE7ZCK6xVhj9hBcc2gODhUvsdkGgD1BSKPw-B8y3bJWXVLrWSUA_Kmny0-tvef74a3AT8BiBYpJ2aWD4TET89ku2XIdEnWro/s2048/1+SPR+Bulletin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1472" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuB4r-F2c-emZYYqxSgoFnV3TV5iYNerVqNkqTuYF22e4CdE7ZCK6xVhj9hBcc2gODhUvsdkGgD1BSKPw-B8y3bJWXVLrWSUA_Kmny0-tvef74a3AT8BiBYpJ2aWD4TET89ku2XIdEnWro/s320/1+SPR+Bulletin.jpg" width="230" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In March 2021, the
Society for Psychical Research’s </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Paranormal Review</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> changed its name to </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
Magazine of the Society for Psychical Research</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">This is the latest in a succession of titles the
SPR’s magazine has had over the course of the last four decades, the production
values improving with each iteration.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Unfortunately,
the first attempt at a more accessible publication to supplement the often rather
technical articles in the SPR’s </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Journal</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Proceedings</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> became
mired in controversy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In 1980 a report
appeared in the SPR’s <i>Journal</i> ominously headed ‘Activities of the
Publications Committee (now suspended)’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This detailed how said committee had embarked on a publishing programme
without consulting the SPR’s Council, incurring significant expenditure at a
time when the Society was facing financial difficulties, and producing items of
poor quality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These items, not actually
of poor quality, were a number of introductory booklets, the costs of which
went wildly over budget (the committee was also responsible for beginning the
project to produce a series of centenary publications, edited by Brian Inglis and
released in 1982, which were extremely successful).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A Council working
party was set up to examine the Publications Committee’s activities, and the
fall-out was in part an impetus for the decision by some members to set up the
rival Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP),
founded in 1981.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the <i>Journal</i>
report is a reference to ‘a Newsletter (which was withdrawn as unsuitable
before distribution).’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was the <i>SPR
Bulletin</i>, dated Spring 1980.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Described in an editorial as ‘something of an experiment,’ it is not
difficult to see why the conservative SPR old guard were unhappy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The <i>Bulletin</i>’s
editorial was unsigned but was written by Hugh Pincott, the SPR’s Hon.
Secretary, who was to become a founder of ASSAP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It noted that communication within the
Society was a concern, and the <i>Bulletin</i> was designed as a
‘meeting-place’ both for members and for a proposed network of regional research
groups (it was to assist the anticipated influx of new members resulting from
this effort that the publishing programme had been undertaken).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The idea of
regional affiliated groups has always been treated with ambivalence by the SPR
Council, partly because of potential image damage if a local group generated
negative press, and partly because of discomfort with the loss of centralised
control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not difficult to see why
there was unease among some on Council at the prospect of an autonomous national
network affiliated to the London organisation but with no regulatory mechanism
in place.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The general tone
of the four-page newsletter was chatty and approachable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alongside the editorial was a photograph from
a 1927 psychical research congress, with a rather sexist text, and an
announcement by the London & Home Counties Poltergeist Group that it
welcomed new members.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Page two would
have caused further discomfort to some of the more staid Council members.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Written by Hilary Evans and Kevin McClure,
again to be ASSAP stalwarts though Evans continued to serve on the Council, it
announced the arrival of ‘The SPR UFO Study Group’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first paragraph refers to ‘the first
formal contact between the SPR and ufology, in the shape of a joint symposium
with BUFORA’ held on 3 November 1979.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The study group
was established following the circulation of an internal report, <i>The UFO
Phenomenon: An Assessment</i>, in January 1979.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This was prepared as the result of a conclusion reached by Council at
the end of 1978 that, as the opening of <i>The UFO Phenomenon</i>’s
introduction states, ‘there was at least a prima facie case for regarding the
problem of Unidentified Flying Objects, as least in some of its aspects, as a
legitimate area for the Society’s interest.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the event interest quickly petered out, the UFO Study Group was never
again referred to in SPR literature, and some years later the SPR’s collection
of UFO literature was donated to ASSAP as being outside the SPR’s field of
interest.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The other two
pages of the <i>Bulletin</i> show the type of material it was expected to
carry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A proposed ‘true experiences’
column was kicked off by Brian C Nisbet describing ‘an auditory hypnopompic
hallucination,’ an experience involving a Goblin Teasmade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Home and Abroad’ recounted the activities of
three members, including ghosthunter Andrew Green, who probably needed no
introduction to readers, and one in Papua New Guinea.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The final page had
columns on a group in Essex; veteran member Zőe Richmond; and the role of the
new Research Coordinating Committee, which had consolidated previous research
committees, in relation to the regional groups.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The emphasis of the new committee was on decentralising the Society’s
research activities, and it stated that 18 local groups were in the process of
being formed, half of them in London, as well as a number of special interest
groups focusing on particular topics, with more in the pipeline.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sadly, the <i>Bulletin</i>,
with its grand aspirations to increase member involvement, never saw the light
of day, as indicated by the rough-and-ready banner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, after a gap of nearly a year, the
first issue of the <i>SPR Newsletter</i>, dated February 1981, was distributed
to members.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Edited by Anita Gregory, the
style was very different to the <i>Bulletin</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gone was enthusiastic talk about affiliated
groups and UFOs. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, the focus was
top-down, the reader being assured that ‘you will be kept informed about future
activities and developments,’ with no suggestion that the readers might be
generating those activities themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtazxZO_99ZSrSig3Ik-cz8VPh0sySPC-1KNTqHU1ZWw6S8DONKUbdVmmFdMkQrtgHoDCIuZLCl_o27V9YeBMC9cbWZtipllxLG6nT3L1PjUrXRCDEpPFLAACIaGR5GHSoUbe41Dx_XZrC/s2048/2+SPR+Newsletter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1488" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtazxZO_99ZSrSig3Ik-cz8VPh0sySPC-1KNTqHU1ZWw6S8DONKUbdVmmFdMkQrtgHoDCIuZLCl_o27V9YeBMC9cbWZtipllxLG6nT3L1PjUrXRCDEpPFLAACIaGR5GHSoUbe41Dx_XZrC/s320/2+SPR+Newsletter.jpg" width="233" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Still only four
pages long, it was divided neatly into topics.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Page one contained Gregory’s brief introduction, and reports on a
one-day SPR conference in Manchester and a study day in London.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Page two was devoted to forthcoming events,
including the 1982 centenary conference in Cambridge, and courses offered by Susan
Blackmore, Gregory and Archie Roy.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Page three dealt
with research being conducted by Arthur Ellison, Blackmore, Carl Sargent, John
Beloff, and Julian Isaacs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The final
page included a tribute to Ellison’s outreach efforts in lecturing around the
country, an extra lecture in the programme, an appeal for information, and a
list of some recent scholarly papers by academic members.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The difference between this as an information
sheet and the concept of the <i>Bulletin</i> as a vehicle for stimulating a
more democratic ethos in the Society is clear.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Gregory only
intended to edit the first issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
editor for the second and most of the 35 issues of the <i>Newsletter</i> was Sue
Blackmore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She adopted a less patrician manner
than Gregory’s, abandoned the neat divisions of activities Gregory had managed,
and solicited news about activities being undertaken by members.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pages covered events, research and
publications as before, but also had information on spontaneous cases and a
visit Blackmore had made to Poland.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Groups were not
entirely ignored, even if not unduly emphasised.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were a couple of paragraphs on a ‘Kent
SPR’ which had recently been founded, but Blackmore admitted she had not heard
from any other groups (this despite the substantial numbers mentioned in the <i>Bulletin</i>)
and invited them to get in touch with their news.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peter Hallson took on the role of Regional
Groups Administrator, but his was very much a passive role, restricted to
phoning local organisations once a year to see if they were still active.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Regional groups’ referred to independent groups
out in the regions, not regional subsidiaries of the SPR.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Subsequent issues
under Blackmore’s editorship maintained the mix of news items, announcements,
requests, and reports of events.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Julie
Milton took over the editorship for two years, improving the production values
and increasing the four A4 pages to eight, before handing it back to Blackmore
in 1988.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A portion of the <i>Newsletter</i>
was given over to a <i>Supplement</i> edited by Renée Haynes which was devoted
to experiences sent in by readers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
proved a useful feature to help fill space when Milton experienced a period of
illness and the length of the Newsletter had to be temporarily reduced.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The <i>SPR Newsletter</i>
proved popular with members, and moved from an initial publication schedule of
every four months to quarterly, in line with the SPR’s Journal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually Council decided it was time to
move to an improved version, with a title that gave a better idea of the
contents, that might even sell to the public. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After 36 issues of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Newsletter</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">, and 23 of the </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Supplement</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">, the final one appeared in January 1991.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the preceding issue Blackmore stated that Council
had been debating whether to expand the publication or replace it with a glossy
magazine, and the final issue announced that an expanded </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Newsletter</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> would replace it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
replacement was </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Psi
Researcher</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">, edited by Jane Henry.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6XAlQFrcw8mz_tcXad8S1c9j1TyCIANWzNhpvZhRIc3IMQiDCnoq2nWBn4azBg8z50aUpnyNuZuPTWw7uqEChUkf14Yf8hcDZ05k4feLdD30YBsmOj5yufujtACjKV4Z_gz9oQpjugzPk/s2048/3+Psi+Researcher.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1488" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6XAlQFrcw8mz_tcXad8S1c9j1TyCIANWzNhpvZhRIc3IMQiDCnoq2nWBn4azBg8z50aUpnyNuZuPTWw7uqEChUkf14Yf8hcDZ05k4feLdD30YBsmOj5yufujtACjKV4Z_gz9oQpjugzPk/s320/3+Psi+Researcher.jpg" width="233" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Apart from a new banner and a change from two columns per page to four,
the first issue of </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Psi Researcher</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, dated April 1991 looked much like its predecessor, with the same
number of pages – eight – so hardly an expansion. Henry even assured readers they would find
‘many familiar items’ within. She noted
that the new beginning for the publication coincided with a new beginning for
the Society, as it was about to move from its secluded premises in Adam and Eve
Mews to Marloes Road, a short distance away.
This was for financial reasons, so it was not a particularly auspicious
time to be starting a new publishing venture.
A cover price for non-members was included from issue 2 (£1), but
efforts to secure newsstand distribution proved unsuccessful. From issue 3 the number of columns per page
settled down to two.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">As Henry had said, the mix was indeed much as before, though with less
space devoted to event reports and more to features, and the addition of recent
research abstracts compiled by Carl Williams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was well received, and the second fulfilled the promise of an
increase in size, moving to 16 pages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
addition to features, news, experiences, abstracts, reports and reviews, there
was an account of an interview James Randi had given to Williams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Haynes retained her section, retitled
‘Paranormal Experiences’, editing it for the first three issues until forced to
give up through ill health, after which it was consolidated into the magazine,
with John Crabbe eventually taking charge.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Blackmore did not disappear entirely, with a ‘Skeptics’ Corner’ in
issue 2 (swiftly retitled ‘Sceptics’ Corner in issue 3), thereafter largely fading
from view but making the occasional appearance, notably promoting her ‘dying
brain’ hypothesis to explain NDEs in issue 6.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Mary Rose Barrington began her long-running ‘Archives’ column in issue
4, in which she summarised and discussed a case from the early literature of
psychical research (not only the SPR’s; she also covered the Institut
Métapsychique International’s </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Revue Métapsychique</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Production values improved, with colour introduced to the banner with
issue 7, and a lavender cover from issue 9, a style it retained for the rest of
its life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cover illustrations were
introduced, drawn from the Mary Evans Picture Library with which, through
Hilary Evans, the SPR had set up a licencing deal to carry images from its
archives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With issue 8 the contents list,
hitherto on the cover, moved inside, creating a much cleaner presentation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The magazine initially retained the schedule
for the SPR </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Journal</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> – April, July and October 1991 – but issue 4 was dated Winter 1992,
and the seasonal dating (a standard ploy when schedules drift) was used until
issue 16.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Henry remained editor for all 23 issues of </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Psi researcher</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">, the last dated November 1996, and she greatly
improved its look and quality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
development of a lively letters section indicated that the membership was duly
appreciative, though a congratulatory letter in issue 3 suggested the title was
‘a bit misleading’ (during Council discussions on what to call the new
publication I had argued that </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Psi Researcher</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> was too obscure for a magazine Council hoped would reach an audience
outside the Society, but the consensus was in favour).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">After a run of almost six years, however, the general feeling on
Council was that the title was too obscure for a general readership interested
in the subject but not necessarily </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">au fait</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> with the technical terminology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Thus it was decided to rename the magazine </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Paranormal Review</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> as a more accessible indication of the contents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cover price for non-members, by now
£1.95, remained unchanged but the number of pages was reduced from 28 to 24.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br /></span></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7NYwQFR4ES9JlmJlvrHqmj9V6M6zmTG2mxucg5RdM1PG_foco7ZZ0mNvv2t2Ds1S7h9TjrUWotq9tNKNBbbgTha5uLL-ChW3GstH3paUbplDC8O4maRsDIxCdJ5DKZoXy29ClGJpu1Pbu/s2048/4+Paranormal+Review.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1441" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7NYwQFR4ES9JlmJlvrHqmj9V6M6zmTG2mxucg5RdM1PG_foco7ZZ0mNvv2t2Ds1S7h9TjrUWotq9tNKNBbbgTha5uLL-ChW3GstH3paUbplDC8O4maRsDIxCdJ5DKZoXy29ClGJpu1Pbu/s320/4+Paranormal+Review.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The first issue of the new magazine was dated February 1997, and the
guest editor for the first three was Richard Wiseman.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The lavender cover was replaced with a blue
one, but the Mary Evans Picture Library continued to supply the cover
photographs, ensuring continuity of presentation.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Inside were the familiar elements: reports,
experiences, Mary Rose Barrington’s archive section, and notices.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">David Fontana instituted a president’s
column, a feature which has appeared off and on, depending on the motivation of
the president, ever since.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Issue 2 saw
the first of Guy Lyon Playfair’s ‘Mediawatch’ columns.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Wiseman duly edited the first three issues before handing the reins to
Chris Roe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Roe’s first, November 1997
saw the page count return to 28 but there was no significant change in the
contents, though issue 7 saw the first of ten crossword competitions, perhaps
not the best use of the space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cover
illustrations were drawn from sources other than the Mary Evans Picture Library
from issue 6.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The popularity of the new magazine was confirmed with issue 9.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pages increased to 36 (though
occasionally dropping to 32, and even 28, when economics dictated), and the
paper cover was replaced with a heavier glossy one, printed in three colours; the
result was eye-catching if not subtle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The first of these had a question mark, but subsequent issues carried
the SPR logo in the middle, with the notable exception of the January 2000
issue, showing a cartoon millennial cracker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The title was shortened to </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Paranormal Review</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> on the banner, and the number of illustrations gradually increased.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Roe moved on to edit the SPR’s </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Journal</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">, issue 27 being his last, and he was succeeded by Nicola Holt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a farewell editorial he revealed that he
had agreed to edit two issues but had stayed for 24.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were no significant changes under his
successor, though Holt was liberal in her interpretation of ‘psychical’,
occasionally including articles of a more fortean nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Crabbe gave up editing the experiences
section after issue 50 in 2009, and John Randall took over, but its appearance
became patchy and when Randall died in 2011 it was dropped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In issue 70 Holt announced her departure
after a tenure of ten years.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Under its new editor, Leo Ruickbie, issue 71 (July 2014) heralded a
radical departure from </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Paranormal Review</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">’s standardised plain cover.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There was also a departure in the editorial style.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ruickbie announced his arrival with a bang: his
inaugural issue concentrated on the centenary of the First World War, the list
of articles down the side of the cover printed over a detail from C R W
Nevinson’s </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Bursting Shell</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The page layout moved from two columns per page to three, and apart
from the ‘Diary’ section compiled by the Secretary the editor took complete
control, with no separately-edited sections.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Notable among the casualties was the ‘Archive’ section conducted by
Barrington; after 90 columns she was happy to retire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ruickbie took responsibility for the
magazine’s design, and not only did the covers continue to be attractive, he
introduced colour inside, completing the transition to a modern magazine.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Issues were often themed, and practical aspects of psychical research
became more prominent, helping the SPR to appeal to a broader constituency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ruickbie penned a regular editorial, and his
talent as a photographer was frequently on display.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The range of contributors increased, and
these were often drawn from outside the UK, thereby emphasising psychical
research as an international activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Altogether, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Paranormal Review</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> became an attractive package, and a worthy showcase for the Society in
the effort to expand its membership.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br /></span></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxxXCex80geZCfPBuglgvg7By8hnI9AZcW468mAeGx2RBY_6RzEJcZ2k4Nr7h2_exkdJcpu7snNo94xxBVnkytvSWt51vA8KdlJU9mCkQ4wJZBY6nbdmfAisU4jNA86lc5pK2chQqwRiMX/s2048/5+SPR+The+Magazine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1436" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxxXCex80geZCfPBuglgvg7By8hnI9AZcW468mAeGx2RBY_6RzEJcZ2k4Nr7h2_exkdJcpu7snNo94xxBVnkytvSWt51vA8KdlJU9mCkQ4wJZBY6nbdmfAisU4jNA86lc5pK2chQqwRiMX/s320/5+SPR+The+Magazine.jpg" width="224" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Other minor
changes were a switch from dating by month to using seasons, starting with
issue 73, which was called Winter 2015 rather than January (not a universally
popular move), and with issue 89, at the beginning of 2019, all dating other
than the year was jettisoned.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">A major
change followed issue 96, the final one of 2020.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It marked the last appearance of </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Paranormal
Review</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, as the first issue of 2021 was retitled </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Magazine of the
Society for Psychical Research</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There were several
reasons for this, as Ruickbie explained in issue 2’s editorial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One was to bring it into line with the SPR’s <i>Journal</i>
and <i>Proceedings</i>, so they would have uniform titles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More importantly, though, he felt the word
paranormal was a loaded term, and the magazine did not particularly review
things (though the original justification for the title was the intention to
review the field, signalling the breadth of the publication’s scope).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He pointed out that as one always had to add
‘the magazine of the Society for Psychical Research’ after <i>Paranormal Review</i>,
the latter was redundant anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
title was the only thing to change, and the publication continues to be a
pleasure to read.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Concluding remarks<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The various
publications produced by the SPR over the last 40 years – aimed at an audience
that might consider the <i>Journal</i> and <i>Proceedings</i> rather dry, but
without sacrificing the values which characterise the SPR – have undergone a
remarkable evolution, from a basic utilitarian approach to a glossy magazine,
and never relying on paid advertising to subsidise them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Tribute
must be paid to the editors who have steered the magazine’s various
incarnations for the past 40 years, and also to David Ellis, who has provided
proofreading services since the </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Newsletter</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> days, and acted as production manager for
many years.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Combined, the magazines
contain a huge quantity of material reflecting on the entire scope of psychical
research and parapsychology, always presented in an accessible manner, and they
repay study.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For older members they also
evoke times and people past, and the evolving outlook of the SPR as it adapted
to a changing world.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Psi Researcher</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, <i>The
Paranormal Review</i> and <i>The Magazine of the Society for Psychical Research</i>
are available in the Lexscien online library, but not the <i>SPR Newsletter</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would be nice to see these added to the
database and made available to a wider audience.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><br /><p></p><p></p><p></p>Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-11446773660410850472021-08-26T16:46:00.001+01:002021-08-26T16:52:55.099+01:00The Impington and Histon Sculptures<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM-M7pNYcsLUn-NM7wGhzKkoPXBEuCk5iAmagRHmPBrZkMiWX8Sly5NZWMX9F939INWL8C_OhGc6nGbRz2C0ouEXoz-reaNNNhKkg6ph9Lj9-Vo7OT_SESBmD2pRKRYPd9z_809SF7a-BR/s4119/1+Camel.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4119" data-original-width="3089" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM-M7pNYcsLUn-NM7wGhzKkoPXBEuCk5iAmagRHmPBrZkMiWX8Sly5NZWMX9F939INWL8C_OhGc6nGbRz2C0ouEXoz-reaNNNhKkg6ph9Lj9-Vo7OT_SESBmD2pRKRYPd9z_809SF7a-BR/s320/1+Camel.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Camel</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Public art comes in many forms and evokes
a range of responses.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sometimes it is
instantly universally loved and celebrated; sometimes it is initially derided
but regarded with increasing affection as it becomes a familiar part of the
landscape; and sometimes it is considered a boil on the bum of the community
from the outset, an opinion which never wavers.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">A further category consists of stuff some
like and some don’t, and a recent addition to the public art of the nation
falls into this category.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The sculptures
dotted around the joint villages of Impington and Histon, on the northern
periphery of Cambridge, have divided opinion since they were erected on their
current sites in recent months: that is, I think they are terrible, and
everyone else thinks they are wonderful – or if they share my minority opinion,
they are keeping shtum.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrJHhZVOb3FJv4oJt0UqD7DDSXCDSi6omyB8_jsps2eF_mp17kaqgGzyAzRZiTjZpHil-4CLhMXwQvWvSliSjQCqNuaVWSr3FVPF6Xn38Dc8OoInfH0rNBFuivuw-yNtiulsCymUZrcPtF/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3864" data-original-width="5152" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrJHhZVOb3FJv4oJt0UqD7DDSXCDSi6omyB8_jsps2eF_mp17kaqgGzyAzRZiTjZpHil-4CLhMXwQvWvSliSjQCqNuaVWSr3FVPF6Xn38Dc8OoInfH0rNBFuivuw-yNtiulsCymUZrcPtF/" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Man and Dog</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">These structures were the handiwork of a local
resident, Tony Hillier (1942-2014). A prodigious welder of bits of metal, his
kitsch confections were once a landmark occupying the whole of his front garden
facing onto the B1049 running from Histon to Cottenham. The accumulation was dispersed after his
death (doubtless significantly increasing the value of his neighbours’
properties) and a number of them were donated to the community, with others
foisted on villages across Cambridgeshire.
There they sit, gently weathering.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcnKigsRqo8w3RV-p8Ea5OR2W-RlupL8SHMV_m5WiyZRHxCHfxNDFe-P_3w7EVv7BOT96LgLp4dXAIP1syM43IvK4fFMjsqqSS9fxybDtK08AF44vV8jOd_caAmiF9QTEgq_qWTQ5E25ne/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3311" data-original-width="4415" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcnKigsRqo8w3RV-p8Ea5OR2W-RlupL8SHMV_m5WiyZRHxCHfxNDFe-P_3w7EVv7BOT96LgLp4dXAIP1syM43IvK4fFMjsqqSS9fxybDtK08AF44vV8jOd_caAmiF9QTEgq_qWTQ5E25ne/" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sewing (Andy Capp)</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I have been round to see the local ones
and taken their photographs so that I have a record after they have been
removed, or in case they are vandalised in the meantime. They are:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Camel’: Junction of the B1049 and
Cambridge Road<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Man and Dog’: Homefield Park<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Sewing (Andy Capp)’: Clay Close Lane Pocket
Park<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Spider’: In a tree on the green by the
bridge over the brook<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Truffle the Pig’: Community orchard<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Grandfather, Grandson and Dog’: Junction
of the B1049 and Cottenham Road<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Dog’ and ‘Horse’ remain in the front
garden of Hillier’s house on the B1049</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXTXYPchbYqBbkh_D14ILHLJx6LDois49rsKSUqnmn8hTNKho3mqt4N5xV4RZ8X5enevJSG58kDdanPT4Z8dyThkE8zH5YkPGUi318A8Zr4Zgesf9EbbewEMRACBi4tVMKblmZX8x1vjuO/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1963" data-original-width="1314" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXTXYPchbYqBbkh_D14ILHLJx6LDois49rsKSUqnmn8hTNKho3mqt4N5xV4RZ8X5enevJSG58kDdanPT4Z8dyThkE8zH5YkPGUi318A8Zr4Zgesf9EbbewEMRACBi4tVMKblmZX8x1vjuO/" width="161" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spider</td></tr></tbody></table></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">By far the largest is the camel, and it is
huge. It now stands at the entrance to
Impington, in distractingly full view of drivers coming from Cambridge and the
A14. With its long eyelashes and
come-hither attitude, it looks rather camp.
The pig is called Truffle, so we almost share a name. He stands appropriately in the community
orchard. Hillier obviously liked dogs,
which appear several times in these works.
Andy Capp looks so unlike the original there is little risk of being
sued by Reg Smythe’s estate.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBqSi0b83mRLwsRxkOOp96ZSailIixn5Ipi65vzFwNudgpZ4T9DWEIttmztEJzmxK_ImVEEupqXeYTlGDNR2WjcvQUJw57YLyBQyidn10AzYLRKrj97X0wfiLOXaf7QYrh-wEm5HvNt_na/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3302" data-original-width="4402" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBqSi0b83mRLwsRxkOOp96ZSailIixn5Ipi65vzFwNudgpZ4T9DWEIttmztEJzmxK_ImVEEupqXeYTlGDNR2WjcvQUJw57YLyBQyidn10AzYLRKrj97X0wfiLOXaf7QYrh-wEm5HvNt_na/" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Truffle the Pig</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Size does these objects no favours, and
there is a correlation between dimensions (and therefore impact) and
degree of charm. Thus the camel is
hideous and the humans grotesque, while the smaller, garden-scale, animals are
more attractive. The spider hiding in a
tree – so discreetly I had to ask a nearby resident where it was – is actually
quite engaging. Such quirky pieces are
best appreciated, or ignored if that is the choice, when not imposed on the
environment. At least most of them are
tucked away in quiet spots, though even then anyone wishing to enjoy some peace
in a bucolic bolthole might not relish the junkyard ambience.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE-BcIsZ5p4gAT2hIT3S6rUBpiax1iyiqwNh066ZUka64bsUBwGdxCpB8DZ2QwhqiP4VeDiPsMhT6MNtpGzb-O8V51aiB-5JQg0c9gkLmdgj3nA4bZ6mJOnJqhBBm5zEy4Wem0j7IZH9Lz/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3123" data-original-width="4164" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE-BcIsZ5p4gAT2hIT3S6rUBpiax1iyiqwNh066ZUka64bsUBwGdxCpB8DZ2QwhqiP4VeDiPsMhT6MNtpGzb-O8V51aiB-5JQg0c9gkLmdgj3nA4bZ6mJOnJqhBBm5zEy4Wem0j7IZH9Lz/" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grandfather Grandson and Dog</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Children are being encouraged to colour
Hillier’s ironmongery in chalk, making them look even scruffier. I can’t help finding this activity alarming,
and hope that the children who are allowed to approach close enough to scrawl
on them do not cut themselves, because a tetanus shot is a high price to pay for
the dubious pleasure of colouring a metal pig’s ear a pastel green. The camel has a sign asking people not to
climb on it but it is hard to imagine anyone being stupid enough to want to do
so.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTxbRNb82LzuPTe4JcXnKxxqRa5i6SYeKOK7h1vUZUulVE1Uy_tqTf35IYrX6oONHLn8I7e0Xwyw7TZOzTJ8cp_kObbI0OieUVre3VPnJ8fh4OMjhYAuVtoi7y_qX3rLgXX03DoYGVQaPG/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2684" data-original-width="3578" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTxbRNb82LzuPTe4JcXnKxxqRa5i6SYeKOK7h1vUZUulVE1Uy_tqTf35IYrX6oONHLn8I7e0Xwyw7TZOzTJ8cp_kObbI0OieUVre3VPnJ8fh4OMjhYAuVtoi7y_qX3rLgXX03DoYGVQaPG/" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Horse</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Presumably these blots on the landscape
will gradually decay and, with no money for maintenance I have heard about,
they will eventually become dangerous structures that will have hazard tape put
round them for a few weeks in a feeble attempt to stop the foolish from gashing
themselves and getting sepsis, before they are carted away for the scrap they
always were. But even when they are no
more the photographs will remain, and here is a record of these bizarre
constructions.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9_fvNBntC9rAlemB5M-WpRSER1S5lG94KYVOibDASzSZ-HDrtsx50fRG-jDouhSbamedaf6QAtCIcxWsWOiB_MCzeYi2QZXcv8RsvDG7_BBgHgx7MAdxtqDmtQCUxKN41yzgnJdeVABOY/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1371" data-original-width="2048" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9_fvNBntC9rAlemB5M-WpRSER1S5lG94KYVOibDASzSZ-HDrtsx50fRG-jDouhSbamedaf6QAtCIcxWsWOiB_MCzeYi2QZXcv8RsvDG7_BBgHgx7MAdxtqDmtQCUxKN41yzgnJdeVABOY/" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dog</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The jelly moulds</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">But never fear! Once Hillier’s horrors have been reclassified
as dangerous structures and removed, we will still have the jelly moulds. Yes, jelly moulds, or rather sculptures of
moulds. Public art is endless in its variety.
Made by King’s Lynn-based artist Charlotte Howarth, these were erected
last year to celebrate Chivers, once a major employer, and still a presence, in
the area.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4-D6Ch4j1cRAeQ5wFKD3SOWI9zWd7lKIei9mVP_HCe19S64DXitff07WfYMg6fVOMO5G7oVJ9nvI7GAT7erM6B2GZDGFQGuR-skZVlUVST0a_r8S8JJdE1Og-GSn-98FgBxL1v25jDdBy/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3524" data-original-width="4698" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4-D6Ch4j1cRAeQ5wFKD3SOWI9zWd7lKIei9mVP_HCe19S64DXitff07WfYMg6fVOMO5G7oVJ9nvI7GAT7erM6B2GZDGFQGuR-skZVlUVST0a_r8S8JJdE1Og-GSn-98FgBxL1v25jDdBy/" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Doctor's Close moulds</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">There are six in total, in two groups of
three placed at either end of Impington and Histon (those in the Doctor’s Close
Pocket Park are carved in stone, while those in The Coppice are cast in bronze
apparently, though the uninitiated would be hard-pressed to tell). One set is close to where I live, placed
among some trees where orchids have been found in the past, and I am fortunate
to be able to see the trio every day.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHmm-ewEde4A_F03ikT2b0QOGPO4m0R7rXRYSS9Ckmgksuihf1vZppopxz4tblACgEqgwUdpjBYxvc6Vq14GZraeIBuprORuq0Fm7ZUUYurdWYUM7CUM79Mru0mo12a3eSuac6L9tI_X0n/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2927" data-original-width="3903" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHmm-ewEde4A_F03ikT2b0QOGPO4m0R7rXRYSS9Ckmgksuihf1vZppopxz4tblACgEqgwUdpjBYxvc6Vq14GZraeIBuprORuq0Fm7ZUUYurdWYUM7CUM79Mru0mo12a3eSuac6L9tI_X0n/" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Coppice moulds</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Unlike Hillier’s efforts they blend into
the landscape to an extent because they are much more wooden plinth than
sculpture, the hard little objects perched on top. Already, after only a few months <i>in situ</i>, they are looking damp and
dingy, the antithesis of jelly with its lurid colours and associations with
fun. The Chivers brand is now owned by
an Irish company and the Histon factory by an American company, making the
jelly mould sculptures simultaneously an elegant metaphor for hard predatory
capitalism and Britain’s current wobbly place in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p></p>Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-35978844819776264722021-07-22T19:37:00.002+01:002021-07-24T17:23:56.486+01:00Dr Carlos Alvarado (1955-2021): An Appreciation<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDvAmauxvFkU3JPnrnmVENWDm7Z44OnG1ZLSu8J-lwfJSMgHxUNGpt5DdRaTOuKANkY3v3xCmAVkKWGhNJ6AwEAcCfMnwtmqkk36cUqfp1kmf3j6XrvHYUU0H3zFI-L3-1kjLMbqc8OiJU/s550/carlos+pic.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="537" data-original-width="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDvAmauxvFkU3JPnrnmVENWDm7Z44OnG1ZLSu8J-lwfJSMgHxUNGpt5DdRaTOuKANkY3v3xCmAVkKWGhNJ6AwEAcCfMnwtmqkk36cUqfp1kmf3j6XrvHYUU0H3zFI-L3-1kjLMbqc8OiJU/s320/carlos+pic.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Parapsychologist Dr Carlos Alvarado died
on 16 July 2021 after a battle with glioblastoma.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">During his illness he was looked after by Dr Nancy
Zingrone, his wife and collaborator of nearly 40 years.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I am sure there will be many heartfelt
tributes to Carlos as the parapsychological community comes to terms with his
untimely death, but I wanted to record my own sadness at the loss of someone I
admired greatly, not only for his deep knowledge but for the qualities of his
character and dedication to his chosen field.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">He pursued a wide range of professional
activities, not least serving two terms as president of the Parapsychological
Association and a lengthy stint as a research fellow at the Parapsychology Foundation,
with which he and Nancy were associated for many years.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">He was well known for AZIRE, the Alvarado
Zingrone Institute for Research and Education, a foundation he and Nancy set up
to be an umbrella for their outreach activities; and the very successful free
online courses they organised as ParaMOOC, attracting eminent researchers to
give lectures to large and enthusiastic audiences.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Primarily though, Carlos was a scholarly
and extremely prolific writer, his work, often in collaboration with other
researchers, appearing in numerous publications.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">He only wrote one book, </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Charles Richet: A Nobel Prize Winning
Scientist’s Exploration of Psychic Phenomena </i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">(2019), but he produced huge
numbers of articles.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">He took a
particular interest in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century psychical
research and its links to psychology (championing a re-evaluation of the key
role psychical research played in the development of psychology, which
contemporary psychology is keen to airbrush from its history), but he also
investigated other parapsychological aspects, such as out-of-body experiences.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">That flexibility reflected a concern with
over-specialisation in niche topics, to counter which he urged researchers to
pursue a general education in all parapsychology’s aspects and encourage an
interdisciplinary focus.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Parapsychologists, possessing an overarching understanding, could then
step outside their own narrow area of expertise to find relationships, enriching
parapsychology as a whole.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The research
was only part of the process, however.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Carlos was concerned about the ghettoisation of findings in dedicated
journals read only by a few, and he stressed the need for the dissemination and
discussion of results as widely as possible.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In terms of communication, he was
concerned to highlight how much of the international literature is inaccessible
to monoglot English-language speakers, and how the English-language literature
is similarly unavailable to those who do not have the necessary skills to read
it. He was keen to disinter neglected
literature, in order to provide a more representative history. But he was far more than an antiquarian: by
drawing attention to the richness of the subject he wanted to see if it could
provide insights relevant to current research, in an effort to remap the
boundaries of science orthodoxy. To do
so would</span> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">reinforce
the notion of parapsychology as ‘edge science’, and possibly suggest practical
applications for the extension of human capabilities.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Generous in publicising the work of others,
when producing a profile of an individual he would invariably start with a
reference to how they had met – and it is fair to say Carlos had met virtually
everyone of note in the field.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In that
spirit, I should say we met only once, and briefly, in October 1994, when he
and Nancy came to the Cambridge University Library for a Society for Psychical
Research study day.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Its title was T</span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">he Archives and Early Literature of
Psychical Research: The Cambridge Connection</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, based around the Society’s
archives not long transferred from its office in London, and Carlos gave a talk
on ‘Parapsychological Periodicals in Historical Perspective’.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> W</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">e
occasionally exchanged emails in more recent years.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">An entry on Carlos appeared in the SPR’s </span><span style="color: red; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/carlos-s-alvarado" target="_blank">Psi Encyclopedia</a> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">two days after his death, written by
Michael Duggan and James Matlock, with input from Carlos, and is a fitting
tribute.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Carlos himself contributed a
number of articles to the Psi Encyclopedia in addition to the hundreds he wrote
for various journals.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">His </span><span style="color: red; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://carlossalvarado.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">blog </a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">remains an invaluable and accessible resource,
containing articles on parapsychological phenomena but so much more, including
surveys of historical literature, interviews, bibliographies, organisations, events,
and lists of resources.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The blog, which has
contributed significantly to my own education, exemplifies his strengths as a
synthesiser and promoter, and ably illustrates his profound knowledge and
commitment.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Carlos was a parapsychologist
to his fingertips, and it can be said with justice that parapsychology in its
entirety was his beat.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-23962008119551696232021-04-29T18:57:00.002+01:002021-05-04T18:28:28.187+01:00The Society for Psychical Research at 100: Beyond the Threshold<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijPYhj65ReU0eBOTxkMTmXGj1ktX1PIMUk5TXpZSkP8AmeWHe4K0mP-7X21DUou5YkSulLd7eYLTk0f2knzHODv4foJT0b6dEpARQPahJruLabnMyIprhMuuEB7-UIof0xQXJKSQ-0V9he/s1115/SPRPA+1982+dinner+cvr.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1115" data-original-width="738" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijPYhj65ReU0eBOTxkMTmXGj1ktX1PIMUk5TXpZSkP8AmeWHe4K0mP-7X21DUou5YkSulLd7eYLTk0f2knzHODv4foJT0b6dEpARQPahJruLabnMyIprhMuuEB7-UIof0xQXJKSQ-0V9he/s320/SPRPA+1982+dinner+cvr.jpg" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">When the Society for Psychical Research
reached its centenary in February 1982, the anniversary was marked by a number
of events.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Heinemann published a series
of books, edited by Brian Inglis; Renée Haynes wrote a history of the Society;
and Ivor Grattan-Guinness edited a collection of introductory essays on various
aspects of psychical research.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Michael Thalbourne
carried out an </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">SPR Centenary Census</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> to which half the membership
responded, and the results of which were reported in the </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Journal of
Parapsychology</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> in 1984 and the SPR’s </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Journal</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> in 1994.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The regular lecture series held at the
Kensington Central library was titled the ‘Centenary Year 1982 Lecture Programme’
(as was the custom in grander days, the Presidential Address was given at the
Royal Society, as was the Myers Memorial Lecture that year). In August, a ‘Centenary Jubilee Conference’ took
place in Cambridge in conjunction with the Parapsychological Association,
including a <a href="https://archive.org/details/sprpa-1982-dinner" target="_blank">formal banquet</a>, and the following
year an issue of <i>Research in Parapsychology</i> appeared containing
conference abstracts and papers.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The BBC broadcast a 45-minute radio
programme, <i>Beyond the Threshold</i>, on
Radio 4, and thanks to ‘evpman’ it has been uploaded to YouTube. Presenter June Knox-Mawer traces the history
of the Society, setting its origins in the context of loss of faith in
Christian dogma, the growth of Spiritualism, and an interest in abilities that
exceeded the limits of human senses such as thought transference. She emphasises its elite membership in the
early years, and the investigations of telepathy and survival resulting in such
pioneering works as <i>Phantasms of the
Living</i> (1886), the ‘Census of Hallucinations’ (1894), and extensive <i>Proceedings</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Knox-Mawer highlights various notable
points in the SPR’s history, and there are interviews with senior SPR
members. Historian of the early SPR Alan
Gauld, the only participant still with us, talks about the early interest in
survival and mentions the sceptical approach exemplified by Frank Podmore, a
co-author of <i>Phantasms of the Living</i>. He draws attention to the tremendous energy
expended in the first decades, and particularly the importance of the seminal
work on hypnosis.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Arthur Ellison was the president at the
time of the broadcast and he discusses the change from mediums as an object of scrutiny
to a more collaborative approach (the consequences of which were seen later in
the study of the Scole phenomena he undertook with Montague Keen and David Fontana,
when the three were criticised for lack of rigour in excluding fraud). He refers to the Toronto Philip experiment,
but curiously neither he nor the other interviewees mentions the Enfield
poltergeist case, though both Haynes and Grattan-Guinness include references to
it in their books.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Renée Haynes, who joined in the 1940s,
talks about the composition of the Society in those days, members sharing a
similar outlook grounded in membership of institutions such as the older
universities, the Civil Service and the military. She recounts that when a fellow member said
she did not want a person to join because he wasn’t a ‘gentleman’, she meant
there was no guarantee he would meet the requisite standards. In other words, he wasn’t one of us. When I joined in the late 1980s I found a
similar condescending attitude on the part of the Council Old Guard.* Having known Renée, I’m sure she brought a
breezy informality with her from the start.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Brian Inglis notes a divide between those
who pursue scientific programmes and those with a more general interest who
find articles in the <i>Journal</i> to be too technical and difficult to
understand (hence a newsletter was instituted in 1981, to appeal to a broader audience,
and this evolved into the current glossy magazine). He refers to the split which created ASSAP,
the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (also created
in 1981, still thriving, and still with an anti-SPR animus among some members
after 40 years), alluding vaguely to ‘internal rows’ as a cause of the schism. Unfortunately, he is unable to remember what
the acronym stands for.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Hon. Secretary, Anita Gregory, sadly
speaking only a couple of years before her untimely death, discusses
spontaneous cases and the kinds of approaches the Society receives from the
public, not all of them from individuals of sound mind, she claims. Such requests, she continues, give rise to a
conflict between wanting to help and wanting to observe for the sake of
research, never an easy issue to resolve (today’s ethical standards would
disagree).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Discussing why investigators so often find
phenomena have died down, she responds that it can be difficult to know whether
there was nothing there in the first place, or whether some subtle effect created
by the investigator’s presence inhibits it.
There is evidence the most violent phenomena occur in the early stages
of a case, and later on people help things along. It had been the general rule to stop taking
an interest once people were caught cheating, but Gregory believes this is a
mistake, as cases are often a mix of genuine and fake. Gregory was depicted in <i>The Conjuring 2</i>, which was – very loosely – based on the Enfield
case.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In answer to the key question of how the
SPR would measure its achievements and influence, Haynes claims there is now more
knowledge of the subject and acceptance of telepathy. Gauld argues there is a wider understanding
that looking into these matters is not the province of cranks or the
credulous. He makes the bold assertion
that if there had been no SPR then there would have been no American SPR, and
consequently no Duke University laboratory (where J B Rhine had established an
influential parapsychology unit).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Ellison thinks the present moment is a
watershed, with greater appreciation among scientists that there is something meriting
study. In particular, he sees an
increasing awareness that psychical research has important implications for an
understanding of personality.
Optimistically he considers scientific acceptance to be close, with more
rapid progress likely as the SPR enters its second century. There is no sense nearly forty years on that
his upbeat assessment has been borne out.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Inglis, who seems to have had an
ambivalent attitude towards the SPR, pointing out he had ‘many harsh things to
say’ about it, thinks it will cope with new developments, maintaining its high
standards and integrity. The influence
of Uri Geller at this time can be gleaned from Inglis’s prediction of
psychokinesis as the coming thing because with metal bending one can observe
the metal bend, even though, he continues, many in the Society consider Geller
to be a fraud. Like Ellison, Inglis forecasts
science and psychical research coming closer together, but with the latter
prone to the ‘inkfish effect’ (a term apparently from Arthur Koestler which has
not caught on): things go wrong or the desired result fails to occur, thwarting
the investigator’s endeavours<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Haynes and Gauld both bemoan an increasing
focus on technique and the drive to create perfect experiments in the
artificial circumstances of the laboratory, with a loss of psychological
richness, rather than on what happens in real-life situations: pursuit of the
experimental method has for some become an end in itself. Gauld suspects the founders might feel we had
lost the larger question: the experience of people in ordinary situations,
rather than in the restricted lab context.
On the other hand, he sees a swing back to an interest in spontaneous
phenomena, tackling puzzles that we find in everyday life. Forty years on, the tension between the
experimental and spontaneous is still with us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The programme can currently be found on
YouTube:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikP388G8Seg"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikP388G8Seg</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">*As an example of how little in some
respects the SPR’s ‘not one of us’ attitude had changed since its foundation,
even beyond its centenary, the January 1997 issue of <i>Uri Geller’s Encounters</i> (subtitled ‘The World’s Most Paranormal
Magazine’) carried an article devoted to the SPR. This contained a reference to an
investigation the Anglia Paranormal Research Group, of which I was a member,
had conducted at St Botolph’s, a redundant church at Skidbrooke, Lincolnshire,
and about which I had written in the SPR’s magazine <i>The Psi Researcher</i> the
previous year.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The article also included an interview
with Arthur Ellison. Arthur was very
excited about this and brandished a copy at an SPR Council meeting. He informed the gathering we had kindly been
offered a full-page advertisement for the SPR in the magazine <i>gratis</i>.
As the SPR article formed the basis of Uri Geller’s editorial (calling
it ‘our major feature on the Society for Psychical Research’) it is entirely
possible this gesture came from the man himself.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I thought it a generous offer, and would enable
us to reach a large number of potential members, yet there was reluctance by
some present to take it up, and after discussion it was decided to decline on
the grounds it could attract the ‘wrong’ kind of person, one who failed to
conform to our standards (i.e. the typical reader of <i>Uri Geller’s Encounters</i>). When I had joined a decade earlier it was
still a requirement to have two members vouch for an applicant. Fortunately, such ossified attitudes have
faded with the passing of that generation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">References<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Blackmore, Susan J. <i>Beyond the Body: An
Investigation of Out-of-the-Body Experiences</i>, London: Heinemann, 1982.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Gauld, Alan. <i>Mediumship and Survival: A
Century of Investigations</i>, London: Heinemann, 1982.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Grattan-Guinness, Ivor, ed. <i>Psychical
Research, A Guide to its History, Principles and Practices: In Celebration of
100 Years of the Society for Psychical Research</i>, Wellingborough: Aquarian
Press, 1982.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Haynes, Renée. <i>The Society for
Psychical Research, 1882-1982: A History</i>, London: Macdonald, 1982.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">MacKenzie, Andrew. <i>Hauntings and
Apparitions</i>, London: Heinemann, 1982.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Richards, Mel. ‘Society for Psychical
Research’, <i>Uri Geller’s Encounters</i>,
Issue 3, January 1997, pp. 30-33.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Roll, William G, John Beloff & Rhea A.
White, eds. <i>Research in Parapsychology 1982: Jubilee Centenary Issue.
Abstracts and Papers from the Combined Twenty-Fifth Annual Convention of the
Parapsychological Association and the Centenary Conference of the Society for
Psychical Research</i>. Metuchen, N.J. and London: Scarecrow Press, 1983.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Ruffles, Tom. ‘Field Investigation – St
Botolph, Skidbrooke: A Follow-Up’, <i>The
Psi Researcher</i>, No. 20, February 1996, pp. 7-8.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thalbourne, Michael A. <i>A Glossary of
Terms Used in Parapsychology</i>, London: Heinemann, 1982.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thalbourne, Michael A. ‘The SPR Centenary
Census. I. The ESP Test’, <i>Journal of Parapsychology</i>, Vol. 48, 1984, pp. 238-239.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thalbourne, Michael A. ‘The SPR Centenary
Census. II. The Survey of Beliefs and Experiences’, <i>Journal of the Society
for Psychical Research</i>, Vol. 59, 1994, pp. 420-431.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Zohar, Dana. <i>Through the Time Barrier</i>,
London: Heinemann, 1982.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-52429869079431471892021-04-02T18:26:00.002+01:002021-04-04T19:33:42.862+01:00B.P. Hasdeu’s Psychic Photographs<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYFVRMFwqfZntdsq8j0OYocdFArYaJM6BDtWJr_L3edNm2wBMl-Iwpjf89bvyU8M2RDL2o86wqX_rplU4YWLTkWd6fXpyjJCBFk4GDs3wx-iTcDJ53sPhhbcd3BTSJ9bF7yrFoGVNbS7Qi/s1260/1979_Revista+Manuscriptum+crop.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="813" data-original-width="1260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYFVRMFwqfZntdsq8j0OYocdFArYaJM6BDtWJr_L3edNm2wBMl-Iwpjf89bvyU8M2RDL2o86wqX_rplU4YWLTkWd6fXpyjJCBFk4GDs3wx-iTcDJ53sPhhbcd3BTSJ9bF7yrFoGVNbS7Qi/s320/1979_Revista+Manuscriptum+crop.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Bogdan Petriceicu </span><a name="_Hlk67923978" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hasdeu </a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">was a writer, editor, historian, philologist,
folklorist, jurist and politician, described by Mircea Eliade as ‘the most
erudite Romanian of the 19th century.’</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">He was born in 1838 at Cristinești, Moldavia, where his middle-class
family owned a small estate.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">His father,
also a polymath, had an interest in esoteric writings.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The story of the grand building Bogdan Hasdeu
erected at </span>Câmpina<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, known as the Iulia Hasdeu Castle,
is well known, his experiments in psychic photography less so.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">His beloved only daughter Iulia
contracted tuberculosis and died in 1888 at the age of 18. She was buried in Bellu Cemetery in Bucharest
in an elaborate tomb. Highly talented, she
had studied at the Sorbonne, spoke several languages, and left a large quantity
of writings that indicated great promise.
As a result of his bereavement, Hasdeu became a Spiritualist, or perhaps
had previous Spiritualist leanings confirmed, and was influenced by the ideas
of Allan Kardec.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">His <i>Sic Cogito</i>, the
first book on Spiritualism in Romanian, was published<i> </i>in instalments in his journal <i>Revista
Nouă</i> from March 1891, and in book form in 1893, with a third edition in
1895. In it, he describes how in March
1889, six months after his daughter died, he was sitting at his desk when he
suddenly began to write automatically, producing a message in her handwriting
which said she was happy, she loved him, and they would meet again. This was the first in a series of communications
purporting to come from Iulia.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Iulia’s Castle was intended both as
a tribute to her and as a way to maintain contact. The elaborate structure, full of esoteric
symbolism, was built between 1894 and 1896 to his own design in mediumistic
consultation with Iulia, and séances were held there. As well as his daughter, his father,
grandfather, brother and wife (also named Iulia, who died in 1902) communicated.
Hasdeu lived in the house from 1897 to
his death in 1907. Restored after having
fallen into neglect during the Ceaușescu years, it is now the Bogdan Petriceicu
<a name="_Hlk60326921">Hasdeu </a>Memorial Museum.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">As well as conducting séances, Hasdeu
actively pursued his interest in Spiritualism more broadly. A brief news item in <i>Two Worlds</i> in July 1891 relates that he had written to the <i>Revue Spirite</i> to introduce a young Romanian
medical student, ‘mechanical writing medium’, and member of the Spiritual
Society of Bucharest (of which <a name="_Hlk68196040">Hasdeu </a>was presumably
also a member) who was about to arrive in Paris.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Determined to put his
investigations on a scientific basis, Hasdeu explored the possibilities of
photography as a means of objectively recording psychic phenomena. His article ‘Studie Fisice asupra Spiritului:
D. Fourtier si Fotografia Extra-Retinala’ [‘Physical Study on the Spirit: D.
Fourtier and Extra-Retinal Photography’] which appeared in the February-March
1894 issue of <i>Revista Nouă</i> was accompanied by one of his psychic photographs
(Appendix 1 lists publications in which Hasdeu’s photographs can be seen).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
Religio-Philosophical Journal</span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> of 2 June 1894, and <i>Light</i>, 30 June 1894, both carried articles drawing on a report by
Rossi de Glustlanianl in <i>La Revue Spirite</i>. This stated that Spiritualism was making
great progress in Romania, largely thanks to the efforts of Hasdeu. He was holding seances twice weekly, the
sitters were all professionals, and allegedly even the mediums had university
degrees. Whatever the truth of the
latter claim, Hasdeu’s social standing had certainly attracted a circle of
intellectuals. The reports referred to
photographic experiments in similar terms, that in <i>Light</i> concluding:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Some spirit heads, more or less
visible, have been obtained by photography in the most complete darkness, the
photographic apparatus being hermetically closed and sealed. M. Hasdeu expects, in a new work which he is
preparing, and which will be a sequel to his “Sic Cogito,” to include all the
spirit photographs which he has obtained, and to give, at the same time, all
the details of these curious and interesting experiments.’ (Hasdeu’s obituary
in T<i>he Annals of Psychical Science </i>in
1907 states that<i> Sic Cogito </i>was ‘his
only spiritistic work.’)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Reference was made in an article on
spirit photography written by M. Lecomte in <i>Paris-Photographe</i> (30
December 1894) to two articles <a name="_Hlk61965745">Hasdeu </a>had published
in Bucharest. Lecomte included one of Hasdeu’s
images that had appeared in the February-March 1894 issue of <i>Revista Nouă</i>.
<i> </i><a name="_Hlk68016013">Hasdeu </a>was
in close touch with his counterparts in France, but<i> Paris-Photographe</i>
was a general photography magazine, suggesting interest outside Spiritualistic
circles in his activities.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hippolyte Baraduc (who the same
year Hasdeu died himself lost a child of a similar age to Iulia) promoted Hasdeu’s
photographic experiments in his book <a name="_Hlk68270289"><i>L'Ame Humaine</i></a>,
published in 1896 and translated into English as <i>The Human Soul</i> in 1913.
<i>L'Ame Humaine</i> was drawn on by the
July 1896 issue of W T Stead’s <i>Borderland</i>, which included a lengthy section
devoted to articles on ‘psychic photography’, largely dealing with images
obtained without an exposure.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Baraduc printed what he termed a ‘<i>psychicone’</i>
(‘psychic icon’) made by Hasdeu and described as showing ‘the possibility of
the creative spirit acting on a plate without the help of the hand.’ A patch in a photograph was said to represent
Hasdeu’s brother Nicolae, who like Iulia had died at the age of 18, his image
having been ‘modulated’ in Hasdeu’s mind and then projected (in a chapter in <i>Sic Cogito</i> on ‘Materialism in
Spiritualism’, Hasdeu said that ‘In the phenomenon of the spiritualist
photography, the sensitive plate does not transcribe a real shape, but only an
idea that is occurring in a medium’s brain at that moment’).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Baraduc and <i>Borderland</i> also provided
an account, and <i>psychicones</i>, of an experiment with Istrati. This involved telepathic transmission between
<a name="_Hlk61965300">Hasdeu </a>and his colleague and friend Dr <span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-highlight: white;">Constantin </span>Istrati. Istrati was, according to Baraduc, about to
travel to ‘Campana’ (actually Câmpina, location of both his home and the future
location of Iulia’s Castle, just under a hundred kilometres from Bucharest), and
he agreed to try to project himself onto Hasdeu’s plates at Bucharest. When Hasdeu went to bed on the night of 4
August 1893, he placed a camera at his head and another at his feet (<i>Borderland</i>
erroneously assumed he had only put plates at his head and feet).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">As Istrati fell asleep, he exerted
his will to appear on Hasdeu’s plates. When
he awoke, he felt he had succeeded, as he dreamt he had appeared to Hasdeu. The <i>Borderland</i> article reprints part
of a letter Hasdeu wrote to ‘M. de R’ (Albert de Rochas) and forwarded to <i>Borderland</i>:
‘Upon the plaque A there are are (sic) three attempts of which one...is
extremely successful. The doctor is seen looking attentively into the
apparatus, the bronze extremity of which is illuminated by the light peculiar
to his spirit.’ On his return to Bucharest, Istrati was astonished at the
resemblance to himself of ‘the fluidic image’.
<i>Borderland</i> refers to ‘the already famous portrait of Dr. Istrati,’
implying wide circulation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hasdeu has generally been
overlooked by recent historians of psychic photography. A notable exception is Andreas Fischer, who
opens his essay ‘“La Lune au Front”: Remarks on the History of the Photography
of Thought’ in the 2005 volume <i>The
Perfect Medium</i> with an account of Hasdeu’s August 1893 experiment. Fischer states that Hasdeu used cameras set
up in his bedroom with the shutters open, and quotes from a letter Hasdeu sent
to de Rochas, dated 12 August 1895 (presumably the letter a copy of which de
Rochas sent to Stead at <i>Borderland</i>), held in the Rochas Archives,
American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia: ‘I picture the Doctor
with the…desire to bring his spirit before my cameras during the night.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Fischer notes that this has generally
been considered the first experiment in thought photography, but points out
that it differs little from previous attempts at photographing a double, for
example the 1875 projection of the ‘spirit’ of Stainton Moses while asleep in
London to the camera of Édouard Isidore Buguet in Paris. He reproduces one of Hasdeu’s images, with a
comparison portrait of Istrati, which are held in the Rochas Archive in
Philadelphia. This is taken from an
original gelatin silver print and is uncropped, whereas that in <i>L'Ame Humaine</i>
and <i>Borderland</i> shows only the portion said to be of Istrati.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In recent months the website <i>Camera Arhiva</i> has scanned and put online
a large number of Romanian magazines published between 1947 and 1989. Perhaps surprisingly, given the ideological
climate, in 1979 <a href="http://cameraarhiva.com/2019/10/23/19791-revista-manuscriptum-bvau/" target="_blank"><i>Revista
Manuscriptum</i> </a>published a number of Hasdeu’s psychic photographs, though
less surprisingly Hasdeu’s preoccupation was cast in pathological terms. An accompanying article signed by C.
Săvulescu describes how he was researching a history of Romanian photography
when he discovered a large quantity of Hasdeu’s plates, and six of these are
reproduced (as shown above). Constantin
Săvulescu was a historian of photography who published <i>Cronologia Ilustratǎ a Fotografiei din România : Perioada 1834-1916</i>
in 1985.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">This is a translation of
Săvulescu’s text:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: white;">‘During research undertaken
for a possible history of photography in Romania, a lot of 68 original images
(12 x 16 format), made by B.P. </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Hasdeu<span style="background: white; mso-highlight: white;">
between 1893-1896, were identified in the holdings of the State Archives in
Bucharest. </span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: white;">‘Examining them, I found
that on the back of many of them the writer had made some notations in pencil.
Here are some: Code II, 825/3 <<No. Wednesday to Thursday, 21 July. You
were evoking Dr. Istrati who is in Constanța. Not only was the room made a dark
room, but precaution was taken so that no light would pass through. The device was
opened in the dark at 11 hours, closed at 8 ¼ >>. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: white;">‘Code II, 825/2: <<
No. G. 15 July, Thursday to Friday. Went to bed late, woke up around 8 o’clock,
it was exposed too short a period >>. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: white;">‘Code II, 825/17: <<
No. V. Tuesday to Wednesday 18 Oct with the red light and the camera open, and
on Wednesday, evoking Dr. Istrati, there was nothing >>.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: white;">‘The photos represent some
curiosities, the consequence of some obsessions arising from the famous drama
that marked the last years of the writer's life. Experiences like this
represent an unwelcome scene, just as at the time they aroused the irony and
compassion of some of his contemporaries. Dr Istrati, invoked here, recorded in
his diary on 1 August, 1907: <<... so many charlatans pretending to be
inspired and who deceived him with their mediumship, distancing him from his
real friends. Now there is nothing left to squeeze, they are notable by their
absence>></span><span lang="EN" style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: white;">‘Entrusting these few
photos to the press, we are left with the feeling that another secret from the
nebulous universe of the romantic poet was betrayed by reality.</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: white;">C. </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Săvulescu<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Săvulescu’s reference to 68 images means
there are 62 more sitting in an archive in Bucharest that have possibly never
been published. One or two points are raised
by these sample descriptions, and doubtless further study of the collection
would raise more.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The dates <a name="_Hlk61970301">Hasdeu
</a>provides are ambiguous as a single date is assigned to two days, but
presumably indicate that the experiments were carried out overnight. This is indeed the case: 21 July was a
Tuesday in 1891, a Thursday in 1892 and a Friday in 1893; 1892 was a leap year,
hence there was no Wednesday 21 July. So
‘Wednesday to Thursday, 21 July’ must refer to Thursday 21 July 1892. 15 July was a Friday in 1892. Thus, it can be seen Hasdeu was conducting
experiments at least a year earlier than the famous 4 August 1893 effort,
attempting to communicate with Istrati at Constanța on the Black Sea coast. The other date noted, 18 October, was a
Wednesday in 1893.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">There is clearly further research
to be conducted on Hasdeu’s experiments, in order to assess which archives hold
his results, to ascertain the composition of those experiments, and to examine
what he himself said about them. He made
a significant contribution to the field of psychic photography, and his output
deserves to be better known.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">References:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Lacroix, Henry. ‘The “Revue
Spirite” (Paris)’, <i>The Two Worlds</i>,
Vol. 4, No. 190, 3 July 1891, p. 396.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hasdeu, B.P. ‘Studie Fisice asupra
Spiritului: D. Fourtier si Fotografia Extra-Retinala’ [‘Physical Study on the
Spirit: D. Fourtier and Extra-Retinal Photography’], <i>Revista Nouă</i>,
Nos.11-12, February-March 1894.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Spiritualism in Roumania’, <i>The Religio-Philosophical Journal</i>, Vol.
5, No. 2 (new series), 16 June 1894, pp. 40-41.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Interesting Experiments in
Roumania’, <i>Light</i>, Vol. 14, No. 703,
30 June 1894, p. 304.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Lecomte, M. ‘Photographie Spirite’,
<a name="_Hlk61965369"><i>Paris-Photographe</i></a>, 30 December 1894, pp.
433-41.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><a name="_Hlk66886433"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hasdeu</span></a><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">, B.P. <i>Sic
Cogito: E Viaţa? Ce e Moartea? Ce e Omul?</i> Bucharest: Editura Librăriei
Socecŭ, 3<sup>rd</sup> edition, 1895.
First published in instalments in <i>Revista Nouă</i> from March 1891.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Psychic Photography’, <i>Borderland</i>, Vol. 3, No. 3, July 1896,
pp. 313-21.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Baraduc, H. <i>L'Ame Humaine, ses
mouvements, ses lumières, et l'iconographie de l'invisible fluidique</i>.
Paris: Georges Carré, 1896.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘The Death of Prof. Bogdan P.
Hasdeu’, <i>The Annals of Psychic Science</i>, Vol. 6, No. 36, 1907, pp.
440-442.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Flournoy, Theodore. <i>Spiritism
and Psychology</i> (translated and abridged by Hereward Carrington). New York:
Harper & Bros., 1911.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Delanne, Gabriel. ‘Le Spiritisme
est une Science’, <i>La Vie Mystérieuse</i>, 10 December 1911, pp. 356-7.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Baraduc, H. <i>The Human Soul, its Movements, its Lights, and the Iconography of the
Fluidic Invisible</i>. Paris: Librairie Internationale de la Pensée Nouvelle,
1913.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Duxbury, E. W. ‘M. Leon Denis on
Automatic Writing’, <i>Psychic Science</i>, Vol. 6, No. 2, July 1927, pp.
123-28.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Săvulescu, C. ‘B. P. Hasdeu’, <i>Revista Manuscriptum</i>, Issue 34, 1979.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Fischer, Andreas. ‘“La Lune au
Front”: Remarks on the History of the Photography of Thought’ in <i>The Perfect Medium: Photography and the
Occult</i>. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005, pp. 139-153. Originally
published in French as <i>Le Troisième œil: La photographie et l'occulte</i>,
Paris: Gallimard, 2004.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Mihalcencova, Corina. ‘B. P. Hasdeu Under
the Lens of Spiritual Practice’ in conference proceedings <i>Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu: Patrie, Onoare şi Ştiinţă</i> [<i>Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu: Homeland, Honor
and Science</i>], Cahul, Moldova, 23 March 2018. Cahul: 2018, pp. 70-80.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Nemes, Constantin. ‘Practica
spiritista a lui Hasdeu’ [‘Hasdeu's Spiritualist Practice’], <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">https://www.rauflorin.ro/practica-spiritista-a-lui-hasdeu/,
11 June 2011, retrieved 17 March 2021.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu Memorial
Museum website, http://muzeulhasdeu.ro/en/index.php, retrieved 30 March 2021.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Appendix 1<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Images by Hasdeu can be seen in the
following publications. As a number
reprinted the same images, these represent only a small proportion of his
output. I would be interested to hear of
other publications which have covered Hasdeu’s photography.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hasdeu, B.P. ‘Studie Fisice asupra
Spiritului: D. Fourtier si Fotografia Extra-Retinala’ [‘Physical Study on the
Spirit: D. Fourtier and Extra-Retinal Photography’], <i>Revista Nouă</i>,
Nos.11-12, February-March 1894.*<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Lecomte, M. ‘Photographie Spirite’,
<i>Paris-Photographe</i>, 30 December 1894.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Psychic Photography’, <i>Borderland</i>,
Vol. 3, No. 3, July 1896.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Baraduc, H. <i>L'Ame Humaine, ses
mouvements, ses lumières, et l'iconographie de l'invisible fluidique</i>.
Paris: Georges Carré, 1896.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Baraduc, H. <i>The Human Soul, its
Movements, its Lights, and the Iconography of the Fluidic Invisible</i>. Paris:
Librairie Internationale de la Pensée Nouvelle, 1913.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Săvulescu, C. ‘B. P. Hasdeu’, <i>Revista
Manuscriptum</i>, Issue 34, 1979.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Fischer, Andreas. ‘“La Lune au
Front”: Remarks on the History of the Photography of Thought’ in The <i>Perfect
Medium: Photography and the Occult</i>. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">*Illustrated in blogpost by
Constantin Nemes, ‘Practica spiritista a lui Hasdeu’, posted 11 June 2011.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Appendix 2<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">A note on </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">spelling.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">While Hasdeu did not spell his name using the diacritic (i.e., Hașdeu),
it is pronounced as though the diacritic is present. Romanian-language sources are divided on
whether to include the diacritic or omit it, and I have chosen to spell the
name as Hasdeu himself did.</span></p><p></p>Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-2195931637755433672020-11-25T18:58:00.001+00:002020-11-26T15:25:35.331+00:00Cambridge University Library and those Missing Darwin Notebooks<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaUEhBUf1hQU9Lw7bDIbyO1A0Tijz0pKRShDVqqYBL1GWQAPiTpp8mmgRZrftdIaSofYLJEERak-uFrHVITY-XuDY-DYuVAJnCBt8REROkFX93FnoGmivyPMD7Tjua8qy6OaV8xYJuXS7C/s2048/CUL+roof.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaUEhBUf1hQU9Lw7bDIbyO1A0Tijz0pKRShDVqqYBL1GWQAPiTpp8mmgRZrftdIaSofYLJEERak-uFrHVITY-XuDY-DYuVAJnCBt8REROkFX93FnoGmivyPMD7Tjua8qy6OaV8xYJuXS7C/s320/CUL+roof.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">CUL, looking secure<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Astonishing news reaches us that
Cambridge University (CUL) has lost two valuable Darwin notebooks.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Even more astonishingly they vanished 20
years ago.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The assumption was that they
had been misshelved, and they were only reported missing to the police last
month.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">A pundit was on the Radio 4
lunchtime news yesterday opining on what he thinks happened.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">This is in essence what he suggested:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Regular readers become familiar
faces to librarians.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Said librarians are
so used to those readers that security becomes less stringent than it
should.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Some readers become heavily
invested in their research materials to the extent that they develop a
proprietorial attitude towards them.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">With relaxed security, opportunities arise to make off with said
research materials.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Librarians don’t
notice.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">If they do realise something is
not where it should be, they assume it has merely been misplaced and no alarm
bells are raised.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What a load of tosh.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I would be amazed if this scenario
had occurred.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The following procedure has
been in place for many years.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">When
ordering from the stacks in a CUL reading room, a request slip on carbonless
paper is filled in, and it is retained by the librarians while the item is with
the reader. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">When it is returned to the
librarians’ desk, a receipt is handed to the reader and a copy kept for CUL’s
records, enabling them to track who has had what.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">If someone walked out with material it would
quickly become apparent because the sheet to be given back to the reader would
still be attached to the library’s copy.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I cannot imagine a librarian dishing out anything without obtaining a
filled-in slip, much less valuable Darwin manuscripts.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It is a system designed precisely to prevent
theft.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The administrators back in 2000
were unquestionably slack by failing to maintain the requisite vigilance.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">According to a </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Guardian</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> report of 24
November 2020, the notebooks were taken out of storage to be photographed in
November 2000 (the photographic unit is in the same building so they did not
have to leave the premises), and a routine check in January 2021 noted the box
containing them was not in its correct place.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Plainly there was inadequate oversight, but with no indication the
manuscripts were requested by a reader in the intervening period.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The librarians complacently assumed
they were somewhere about and instituted ‘extensive’ searches for them over the
ensuing two decades, a new management team only now, after a final look,
conceding they are nowhere to be found.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Extensive building work’ in 2000 has been propounded as a potential
scapegoat, hinting at outsiders being responsible, but it seems most unlikely a
hod carrier targeted these particular items in an opportunistic theft while
nobody was around, or a cat burglar shimmied up scaffolding and prised open a
window in the dead of night.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It is worth bearing in mind that a
similar situation to the Darwin scandal has arisen before.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In 1989 the archive and rare books of the
Society for Psychical Research were transferred from the SPR’s premises at Adam
& Eve Mews in London to CUL, because of security concerns.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Rare SPR books were categorised ‘Z’, and I
remember long-serving Council member Tony Cornell walking into the building
waving a Z book and saying he had stolen it – in order to demonstrate how easy
it was to remove them without detection.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">This situation led to negotiations for the permanent loan of the SPR’s
paper archive (the audio-visual component is housed elsewhere) and Z books to CUL,
where they remain today.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Unfortunately, a short time later red-faced
CUL officials informed the SPR that several of its rare books had been stolen,
though thankfully it didn’t take 20 years to find out.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">To their credit they did make efforts to
replace the missing volumes as best they could, and following a lengthy
internal investigation it was concluded the theft had been an inside job.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The affair was hushed up because it looked
bad to have to confess that a member of staff had walked off with valuable
property (and in this case belonging to someone else).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">No lackadaisical librarian had unwittingly allowed
them to be removed by a cunning reader, they were lifted directly from the
stacks.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">My money is on the Darwin
notebooks having gone in a similar manner, the perpetrator taking advantage of
their trip to reprographics.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The ‘expert’ on Radio 4 thought
they would turn up eventually because their fame makes them instantly
recognisable, which is to be hoped for, but he had already argued that readers
can become greatly attached to their research objects (though not usually to
the extent of taking them home), so they could be sitting in a private library
being gloated over.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">They may come to
light as the result of a sale or be voluntarily returned to CUL, but perhaps
only on the death of the holder, a possibility floated by the deputy director
of Research Collections who was interviewed by the </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Guardian</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">If that is the
case, we could be in for a long wait.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Though I am not an authority on
international crime, it seems doubtful they are being used as collateral by
organised crime interests because, unlike an old master painting, they will not
look obviously hugely valuable to the untutored eye; but I could be wrong.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Let’s just hope they do not suffer the same
fate as those rare books boosted from a warehouse while waiting to be shipped
off to auction which were found in a damp hole, or have not been seized by
disgruntled creationists who consider Darwin to have been Satan’s catspaw and
destroyed.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The only positive note in
this sorry tale is that the manuscripts have been put online, so at least the
contents are still available, even though they do not possess the aura of the
missing originals.</span></p></div>Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-86513087530229264072020-11-22T20:34:00.000+00:002020-11-22T20:34:29.583+00:00The Society for Psychical Research’s electrocardiograph and the Whipple<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik1F4wbu3F2BrdlR4WVya3zAyAkl0h9WKZITcSFtrlNM9Cjo0qRTOqt2_POcZN1GtaXuwpD7lrlDRGC7Fj4v5LQrkzriJ-A7SPP9BCH4JQPXeE5TTqWTZvts51Pq0w31EzeZDjvC1o0di7/s1200/Electrocardiograph.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1036" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik1F4wbu3F2BrdlR4WVya3zAyAkl0h9WKZITcSFtrlNM9Cjo0qRTOqt2_POcZN1GtaXuwpD7lrlDRGC7Fj4v5LQrkzriJ-A7SPP9BCH4JQPXeE5TTqWTZvts51Pq0w31EzeZDjvC1o0di7/s320/Electrocardiograph.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy Whipple Museum, Cambridge<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">On Friday 13 November 2020, the
Whipple Museum of the History of Science, one of the University of Cambridge’s
museums, tweeted:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">@WhippleMuseum</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">For #FridayThe13th, it's
#MuseumsUnlocked day of demons, devils & ghosts! This #Cambridge Instrument
Company portable electrocardiograph belonged to the Society for Psychical
Research & was probably used to record the physiology of mediums!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">This was accompanied by two
photographs, one a general view of the electrocardiograph, the other a close-up
of a plate on the side, which says:<br /><br /></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">CAMBRIDGE
PORTABLE<br /><span style="font-size: 12pt;">ELECTROCARDIOGRAPH</span></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">[Symbol]</span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">THE
PROPERTY OF</span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">SOCIETY FOR
PSYCHIC RESEARCH<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">LONDON</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I retweeted it on the Society for
Psychical Research’s Twitter feed (@spr1882), pointing out that the Society’s
name had been spelled incorrectly.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
Whipple responded by asking if I knew why.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I didn’t, and said I would check with the SPR’s archives officer.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">He stated it was before his time and he had
no idea either.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnm_zky9gv3UbWQCAbbOByVYV5Ocffo6U1PzFZXlj-62ixPg4YUgCf14mlx9w_HteLl_l6Qp9JeFkYH1Rfvq9rVAT71yDT0E-TbbOv3T6ZyB5C0cdfTqxB_udfbqe8irPadkRXcC_0nluF/s1200/Electrocardiograph+plate.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="795" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnm_zky9gv3UbWQCAbbOByVYV5Ocffo6U1PzFZXlj-62ixPg4YUgCf14mlx9w_HteLl_l6Qp9JeFkYH1Rfvq9rVAT71yDT0E-TbbOv3T6ZyB5C0cdfTqxB_udfbqe8irPadkRXcC_0nluF/s320/Electrocardiograph+plate.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy Whipple Museum, Cambridge<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Curious, I sent a private message
to the Whipple asking what they could tell me about their acquisition of the
device.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">They said it was donated in 1976
by someone from the University’s Department of Colloid Science.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Intriguingly, my anonymous correspondent
added: ‘I'm afraid I cannot give you their name’ but noted that an online
search did not indicate an association with the SPR. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The individual responsible for adding the
plate, which looks pre-1976, was obviously not completely familiar with the
Society’s name.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I wondered how this piece of
apparatus arrived at the Whipple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The museum’s
online <a href="https://collections.whipplemuseum.cam.ac.uk/objects/12907/?fbclid=IwAR0r1yLUqEmxdY20yjorpp8pYbEByYTDdafNf_6xyBzx_-kkfBHJ8L5RnSs" target="_blank">catalogue page</a> states it was built by the
Cambridge Instrument Company, Ltd, in 1933, and the symbol in the middle of the
plate is the company logo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Robert
Whipple, whose collection of scientific instruments formed the basis of the
Whipple Museum, was an early employee, rising to become managing director and
chairman of the company.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The reference to colloid science
was a starting point, though it could have been a red herring with no relevance
other than that the person last in possession happened by chance to be a member
of the department.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">However, it proved a
fruitful lead, and led me to conclude that there is a strong possibility this
device may have been used in experiments with Austrian medium Rudi Schneider,
who was tested by the Society for Psychical Research between October 1933 and
March 1934.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The term colloid science appears in
SPR publications only once, in the </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Journal</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> for March/April 1942,
referring to the endowment of a studentship at the University of Cambridge to
honour the memory of Oliver Gatty, an SPR member.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The studentship was ‘to give an opportunity
to scientists of any nationality working in any branch of Science to carry on
their work for a year in the Department of Colloid Science at Cambridge,
provided that in this work Physics was being used to help Biological Research,
or Biology was helping Physical Research.’</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Aged only 32, Oliver Gatty was severely injured in a gas explosion while
conducting research in Cambridge, dying at Addenbrooke’s hospital on 5 June
1940.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">He left a widow, Penelope, and a
posthumous daughter, Tirril.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Gatty worked with Eric Rideal, who
was Professor of Colloid Science at Cambridge, and he also worked in the
University’s Department of Zoology.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">He
had joined the SPR in 1933 and became a Council member the following year.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">He was a member of ‘the Cambridge Committee’
exploring paranormal cognition; investigated Rudi Schneider with Theodore
Besterman, about which they co-authored a paper in the SPR’s </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Proceedings</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">;
and at the time of his death was conducting dowsing experiments.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">His obituary in the SPR’s </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Proceedings</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
stresses his enthusiasm and likeability.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Oliver’s family background is
interesting.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">His sister Hester was
unhappily married to Siegfried Sassoon.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">His brother Richard, who attended one of the Besterman/Gatty Schneider
sessions, married Pamela Strutt, granddaughter of John James Strutt, second
Baron Rayleigh.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Her uncle, John William
Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, was SPR President in 1919; her cousin Robert John
Strutt, 4th Baron Rayleigh, was SPR President in 1937-1938.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Most of the 1933.34 Schneider sittings
took place in a purpose-built seance room at its premises in Tavistock Square,
London, not in Cambridge.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">They were led
by Besterman, the SPR’s Investigation Officer, with his collaborator Oliver Gatty
monitoring the equipment.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Besterman and
Gatty’s article in the SPR’s </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Proceedings</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">,
‘Report of an Investigation into the Mediumship of Rudi Schneider’, describes
the set-up at length.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Gatty installed infrared equipment,
following a similar arrangement that had been used with some success by Eugene
and Marcel Osty at the Institut Métapsychique in Paris during a series of 90
sittings with Rudi in late 1930 and 1931 (which the SPR helped to fund) and in
a series of 27 sittings conducted in London by Lord Charles Hope for the SPR
between October and December 1932.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The
aim of utilising infrared was to see if a psychic emanation from Rudi would
interfere with the beam but Gatty did not observe any absorptions, indicating
the beam remained unobstructed.</span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Besterman/Gatty report includes
the following statement:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘The space C (see plan, Fig. 1) is
divided from the cabinet by a solid partition, reaching from floor to
ceiling.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It contained a shelf, later two
shelves, stretching from wall to partition, on which stood a Moll galvanometer,
with its lamp and scale, a cardiograph embodying an Einthoven string galvanometer,
a voltmeter and a switchboard. This apparatus was observed by 0. G. [Oliver
Gatty], who had to crawl under the lower shelf in order to get to and from his
chair.’ (p. 254)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Later we learn:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘The [photo-electric] cell has an
approximate resistance of 1800 ohms and was connected in series to a Cambridge
Instrument Co. portable electrocardiograph Einthoven galvanometer having a 1400
ohms gilt glass fibre.’ (p. 279)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The technology brought to bear on
Rudi was highly sophisticated and drew heavily on Gatty’s physics
expertise.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sadly, after the extensive
series of 55 sittings with Schneider (including four informal sittings, three held
at Oliver Gatty’s home in Lowndes Square, London SW1.), the authors concluded
that ‘In the event no phenomena clearly of a paranormal kind were obtained’ (p,
252) so their elaborate procedures were in vain.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">My Whipple informant confirmed that
the description in the report matches the device held by the museum: the
Einthoven galvanometer is a key element of the Cambridge Instrument Company’s
electrocardiograph.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Thus it can be seen
that an electrocardiograph manufactured by the Cambridge Instrument Company was
employed by Theodore Besterman and Oliver Gatty for these SPR sittings.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The 1933 date for the Whipple’s machine ties
in with the start of the experiments in October the same year.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It is a reasonable assumption that
the Whipple’s electrocardiograph is the one used in the Schneider
sessions.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Oliver Gatty moved to
Cambridge, having been there for several years before his death according to
his obituary in the SPR’s </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Proceedings</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It is likely he took the electrocardiograph
with him and it languished in his department for nearly four decades until a
member of staff donated it in 1976.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Whoever
was responsible for arranging the transfer, the survival of this historic item from
1933 is remarkable, and the Whipple are to be congratulated for carefully
preserving it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Gatty family retained their
connection with the SPR after Oliver’s death, and several members died in the
mid-1970s, around the time of the Whipple’s acquisition.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Oliver’s widow Penelope, who had helped her
husband with experiments, joined the SPR in 1940, becoming a Council member and
later a vice-president.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">She married
Thomas Balogh, Baron Balogh, in 1945 but continued to style herself Mrs O.
Gatty in membership lists (apart from being listed as ‘Gatty, Mrs O., Lady
Penelope Balogh,’,in the 1974 list though divorced from Balogh by 1970).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">She died in June 1975.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Richard Gatty died in September 1975.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">He was not a member of the SPR but his wife
Pamela joined in 1945.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">She died in
2009.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Oliver and Penelope’s daughter
Tirril was also a member for a while.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hester Sassoon, who had married Siegfried in 1933, joined the SPR in 1944
and died in 1973.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Theodore Besterman
died in November 1976.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Acknowledgement: I would like to
thank my contact at the Whipple Museum for prompt and helpful responses to my
questions.<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /><br /></span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">References</span></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Besterman, Theodore & Gatty,
Oliver. ‘Report of an Investigation into the Mediumship of Rudi Schneider’, </span><a name="_Hlk56959534" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research</i> </a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">42,
1934, pp. 251-85.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Obituary: Mr Oliver Gatty’, </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Proceedings
of the Society for Psychical Research</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> 46, 1940. pp. 206-207.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘A Memorial to Oliver Gatty’, </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Journal
of the Society for Psychical Research</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> 32, 1942, p. 154.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-51805902039082755092020-10-17T15:51:00.002+01:002020-12-01T16:12:58.402+00:00A Natural History of Ghosts gets controversial<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWS60ub2tVV0xBCCyQesXcymoIK8Bm_rENJpOVGg0VYQvbD3jK0Heq_oKxMfpCfoLJ907iM_xobP8AO9PY0hQJYxOZNtJnMshbMOMVwYW97P6MjZ23h0xwLd6O0BodRnw2o3DvK1SlQVoE/s475/vlarke+cvr.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="312" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWS60ub2tVV0xBCCyQesXcymoIK8Bm_rENJpOVGg0VYQvbD3jK0Heq_oKxMfpCfoLJ907iM_xobP8AO9PY0hQJYxOZNtJnMshbMOMVwYW97P6MjZ23h0xwLd6O0BodRnw2o3DvK1SlQVoE/s320/vlarke+cvr.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Radio 4 is running a ten-part
series, starting Monday 19 October, called </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">A
Natural History of Ghosts</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, which also happens to be the title of a 2012
book by Roger Clarke.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">One might readily
assume the series is based on the book, and Roger would be amply rewarded for
his involvement, but it soon transpired that the first he had heard about the
series was when the BBC promoted it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> The radio series is co-written and
presented by Kirsty Logan, a novelist, mentor and speaker (for £175 an hour
plus travel), but not a name particularly known in the field of psychical
research, and therefore possessing no obvious credentials for her participation.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As is the way, she took to Twitter to
announce in a proprietorial manner her pleasure at the forthcoming broadcasts,
declaring ‘I’m so glad my ghosts are being unleashed!</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">A Natural History of Ghosts starts on Monday
19 October, 1.45, on @BBCRadio4, then a new episode every weekday until
Halloween,’ with a link to the programme page on the BBC website.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Roger replied to say he was unsure
why the title of his book was being used, and disappointed it had been done
without letting him know.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Logan
responded in an ebullient tone to thank him for alerting her to his work, stating
she did not know it was the title of his book, and assuring him that none of
the content of the book was used or referred to in the series.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Roger was puzzled, and replied, ‘You’ve never
come across my book?</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">On internet
searches?</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">On Twitter?’</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">He received a flat denial, Logan promising to
pick it up and adding that although she had co-written and was narrating the
series, she had not chosen the title.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">This is where it gets
unsavoury.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Roger was interested to know
who chose the title, as he had pitched it to Radio 4 in 2013-14 (the book had
received a huge amount of positive press when it was published and would have
made an excellent series).</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">To his
enquiry answer came there none from Logan, but in the meantime an observer,
Richard Kovitch, weighed in to show her claim not to know about the book was inaccurate.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">He wrote: ‘You [Logan] read Roger’s
book in 2016, and even list it on your website as ‘Best Beautifully-Written,
Rambling Book about Ghosts: A Natural History of Ghosts, Roger Clarke.’</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">No ambiguity about that, and a screenshot
from said website supported his contention (as of this writing it is still
there, having been deleted then restored).</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As someone else noted, she had actually tagged Roger in a 2016 tweet
listing his book in her top 50 of the year.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Logan promptly did some judicious
pruning of her tweets, but as Roger noted, ‘you can never really erase things
properly from the internet.’</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As an
example, someone else popped up to tell him about a tweet by producer Elizabeth
Ann Duffy in March 2020 declaring ‘Right Twitter, @kirstylogan and I are using
this time to start on out projects (sic) on the cultural evolution of
ghosts.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">So recommend reading to me, tell
me which cool academics are doing the most interesting #ghostlore
research.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I need all things #ghost
related to read.’</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">A reply listed two
titles, one being Roger’s book.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Ignorance by either Logan or Duffy was therefore hard to plead.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Following this shabby episode Roger
called on Radio 4 to change the title of their series, something unlikely to
happen as it was being heavily trailed (it may be that I have not been
listening at the right time, but I get the impression they ceased after the
controversy broke) and for Logan to apologise for lying to him, which seemed equally
unlikely as she was ignobly pretending the sorry business had not happened (as
was Duffy).</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">He also asked fans of the
book to listen carefully to the series to see if any of his book’s content had
been lifted without credit, while wondering aloud why, as there was clearly an
alignment of approach judging by the common title, he had not only not been
invited to contribute but told they had not heard of him.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Perhaps he wasn’t ‘cool’ enough.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The result of this BBC
foot-shooting was a massive outpouring of support for Roger, and a boost in
sales of the book, plus others tagging Radio 4 and asking what the station
intended to do about it.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">What Radio 4
intended to do about it was borrow the Logan playbook and remain silent.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Someone who did not remain silent was
Christopher Josiffe (author of </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://tomruffles.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-symposium-on-gef-talking-mongoose.html" target="_blank">Gef! The Strange Tale of an Extra-Special Talking Mongoose</a></i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">)
who announced that he had been interviewed for the episode on poltergeists but
had asked for his contribution to be removed as he now felt uncomfortable being
associated with the project.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">While there is no copyright on
titles (hence those crying plagiarism on the title alone are wrong), it could
be construed as passing off, and according to Roger some contributors had
assumed he was involved.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">However, it is
difficult to argue he has suffered any loss of income when sales have increased
as a result; but it does seem a shame to have lifted the distinctive title of a
well-regarded book without acknowledgement.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Roger asked me to read it and comment when it was in draft, and I
thought it sensitively written and informative, and a solid overview.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Even without her own evidence that Logan had
read it, it would be hard to believe she could have researched an entire
series, if she had done so properly, and not come across it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">One wonders how the duplication
came about.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Did a producer (Duffy?) think
it up independently, was it perchance a case of cryptomnesia, or just a cynical
disregard for the feelings of an author, caring more for the snappy title than
the effect it would have; or perhaps in the arrogant way media people often
have, assuming Roger would be flattered.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In the event, they have done Roger a backhanded favour by giving him
exposure, but it hardly excuses the way the situation has been handled.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Let’s hope that after this entirely
avoidable unpleasantness the series is worth listening to, and makes good on
Logan’s assurance Roger’s book was not tapped for its content.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Many ears will be listening to make sure such
is the case.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It is hard enough for
freelancers to make a living, and people who work for the national broadcaster
should be careful how their actions may affect others with less power.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It is also pathetic that Logan should be
caught out saying she did not know about Roger’s book when it was one of her
top reads only four years ago – and the evidence was so readily apparent.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Unless of course she does not in fact read
the significant number of books she claims to get through, and really had
forgotten all about it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I’m sure I’ll be updating this
story.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Update 8 November 2020:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">More evidence of Logan’s knowledge
of Roger’s book emerged before the broadcasts commenced in the form of her
holding a copy on her Instagram feed in 2016 and referring to a startling
detail that had caught her eye, indicating she had at least skimmed it.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Her initial profession of ignorance sounded
more and more hollow with each new revelation, and actually peculiar; did she
not realise how easy it was to check?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">One positive result of the debacle
was the edition of Roger’s book selling out and requiring a reprint.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Less satisfactory was a meeting he eventually
had with the BBC in which he expected to be offered an apology, not least for
the corporation misleading contributors who assumed he was involved, but he was
told by the executive that they did not feel they had done anything wrong.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Roger was offered a link on the series
website, but declined on the grounds it would be confusing.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It was too little too late anyway,
and the negative comments continued until eventually the BBC cracked. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">After transmission had already begun it
quietly retitled the series </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">A History of
Ghosts</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, dropping the </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Natural</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Roger still had to find out from a supporter,
though, as the BBC did not let him know they had done it, and Natural still
appeared in the actual episodes as Logan spoke the title.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Then belatedly, as the series
wended its way to the Hallowe’en conclusion, Roger reported that he had heard
from the BBC, apologising for any distress caused and telling him they had
changed the title to make the lack of connection with the book clear, adding,
‘The title clash was coincidental.’</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As
Roger sarcastically pointed out, because Logan and Duffy both knew of his book
beforehand it was ‘a very special and entirely new form of coincidence
previously unknown to science.’</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The Beeb certainly must have been
rattled to make the change after commencement, and Roger’s assessment that they
knew they were passing off was reasonable, thanks to Logan and Duffy’s clear
previous knowledge of the book.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Such
attempts to mollify Roger did not prevent the story (</span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">sans</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> names) appearing as a gossip item in the </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Times Literary Supplement</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, then in </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Private Eye</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, which included names and did not shrink from using the
term ‘shameless lie’ in connection with Logan’s claim not to have known of
Roger’s book.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As for the series itself, it was
well-written, enjoyable, appropriately atmospheric, and refreshingly
incorporated ghost lore from around the world.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Logan’s generalisations and anecdotal approach were balanced by
website-only podcasts featuring experts who grounded each episode (apart from
the one on poltergeists, which was missing Chris Josiffe’s contribution), and
were generally more informative than Logan.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The broadcasts are sufficiently
distinct from Rogers’s words to ensure no charge of plagiarism could be
supported, and Logan is experienced enough not to have needed to resort to such
tactics.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The difference between the two
writers is illustrated by the unlikelihood Clarke would mistake Henry James for
his brother William, as Logan did when quoting William’s famous remark about
white crows.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It is a pity the BBC ran into so
much needless controversy over the title when in all other respects the
programme was fine for a 15-minute slot between the lunchtime news and the
afternoon repeat of </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">The Archers</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Logan and Duffy must be fervently wishing
they had called it something else, and saved all the fuss over such a minor
point that has tainted their efforts and damaged their reputations.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;">Update 1 December 2020:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">After the flurry of critical
activity in the run-up to Hallowe’en, things went quiet following the series’ conclusion.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">On 25 November Roger tweeted that as he had
decided Kirsty Logan was unlikely to apologise he was not going to talk about
her further, and added that there was no need for his supporters to continue to
be active on his behalf.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It wasn’t quite the end of the
matter, however, as the Christmas 2020 issue of </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Fortean Times</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> (FT400,
p.55) carries a Forum article on the subject written by Roger, ‘An unnatural
history of ghosts’.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">This runs briefly
through the chronology, and concludes with the declaration: ‘Under conventional
plagiarism laws, I don’t own the title of my book.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">But I do own the private haunted space it has
made.’</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Whatever the legal and moral ins
and outs of the ownership of haunted spaces, he is entitled to feel miffed by
Logan and Duffy’s contortions and the grudging way the BBC handled his
complaint.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">What puzzled me, though, was
his assertion earlier in the article that ‘</span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">A Natural History of Ghosts</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
has only ever been used once before, and that was by me.’</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">While it may be the first use for a book
title in English, it has certainly been used before, albeit in German.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Ernst Krause gave it to his 1863
book, </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Die naturgeschichte der gespenster; physikalisch-physiologische
studien</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> (</span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">The Natural History of Ghosts; Physical-Physiological Studies</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">).
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I had assumed this was Roger’s source,
though Krause’s name does not appear in his book, but apparently it wasn’t.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">While strictly speaking his title is not
original, Roger’s reuse has no bearing on the passing-off issue with the BBC as
the English-language version is so closely identified with him.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As a firm supporter of the BBC I
was sorry to contemplate this self-inflicted wound, but I am also sad the
podcast Christopher Josiffe narrated about Gef was not, at his insistence,
included on the series website, as while they were all excellent, it is one I
would have particularly enjoyed.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Presumably it still exists in the BBC’s archives and hopefully one day,
in another context, we will be able to hear it.</span></p></span><p></p>Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-63353801641444494942020-07-29T15:58:00.000+01:002020-07-29T15:58:00.094+01:00All About History and the Victorian Occult<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDBaZRw6YDm4lzjdxuiisJPtBFcUq9D2vkiMarCLgS4RRpBPwdhJfnpEyYaLP9VipicUgfMReoZjzcMuCf3NTuC57v38t96o_M_y7ru9Z29bZAaSP-FAqwZ5pcetc_ep1_AJT4xUcO7eJW/s1600/All+about+history+cvr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="793" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDBaZRw6YDm4lzjdxuiisJPtBFcUq9D2vkiMarCLgS4RRpBPwdhJfnpEyYaLP9VipicUgfMReoZjzcMuCf3NTuC57v38t96o_M_y7ru9Z29bZAaSP-FAqwZ5pcetc_ep1_AJT4xUcO7eJW/s320/All+about+history+cvr.jpg" width="247" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">All About History</span></i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> is a
heavily-illustrated magazine from Future Publishing Ltd with mostly short
articles containing basic information on miscellaneous subjects. The
cover story in issue 93 (August 2020) is ‘Victorian Occult’, subtitled ‘Lifting
the shroud on the 19th century’s obsession with death and the afterlife.’
The tone is set by the question on the cover: ‘Was a morbid obsession with the
paranormal fuelled by fraudsters?’ and the editorial line is that the
individuals discussed were fraudulent, with no further discussion required.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Victorian Occult’ was written, apparently
in haste, by Callum McKelvie (he has another article, ‘Atomic Spies’, in the
same issue so he would have been busy). He is billed as Features Editor
on the magazine’s staff and therefore not someone with deep knowledge of the topics
covered. These are brief, badly linked, sprinkled with incorrect facts,
and containing nothing that could not have been culled from a basic internet
search, supplemented with quotes from respected scholar Simone Natale.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">We begin naturally with the Fox sisters in
1848, and the first error (leaving aside the uncertainty over the children’s
actual ages, McKelvie sticking with Wikipedia) is a lulu because Natale must
have been interviewed over the phone and McKelvie misheard Hydesville, New York
State, where it all began, as Huddersfield! We move on to Maria B Hayden,
who brought mediumship to England, Daniel Dunglas (spelled here Donglas) Home
and Robert Browning’s attack on him in <i>Mr. Sludge, "The Medium"</i>, and mediums Charles Williams and
Frank Herne (spelled here Herme). William Mumler’s spirit photography
segues to voodoo and then to the Society for Psychical Research (note to editor:
please tell your subs, if you have them, that it is ‘for’, not ‘For’).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">In keeping with the negative tone of the
article, the SPR is totally mischaracterised. After noting that in
Britain ‘the Spiritualist craze was in full-swing (sic),’ we are told the SPR
‘was founded in 1882 with the intention of investigating (“without prejudice or
prepossession of any kind”) various paranormal phenomena and acted as an
extremely fierce proponent of the movement.’ That statement could only
have been written by someone ignorant of the SPR’s ‘no corporate views’ policy,
to which it has adhered since its foundation, and unaware of the complex
relationship the Society has always had with Spiritualists.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://tomruffles.blogspot.com/2019/08/so-is-ghost-club-really-worlds-oldest.html" target="_blank">Ghost Club</a></span><span style="color: red; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">is mentioned, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
literary ghost stories, W T Stead, his assistant on <i>Borderland</i> Ada
Goodrich Freer and her investigation of Ballechin House. This sorry tale
is used as a stick to beat the SPR, as McKelvie claims that because of
criticism over her handling of the case, ‘rather than standing by one of their
own, the Society For Psychical Research quickly disowned the clairvoyant and
discredited all findings of the investigation,’ as if it acted
dishonourably. In fact she had behaved fraudulently and plagiarised
material by Father Allan MacDonald, good reasons for the SPR to distance itself
from her.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Then despite the title ‘Victorian Occult’
it’s on to the First World War, Sir Oliver Lodge and <i>Raymond</i>, Dennis
Wheatley and Aleister Crowley, both it seems writing in the 1920s and ‘30s, and
Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan. Further comments from Natale bring it all
up to the recent past with <i>Most Haunted</i>. The main article is
accompanied by two supplementary pages, one on ‘Ghost Stories’ (paragraphs on
The Hammersmith Ghost, Spring-Heeled Jack, 50 Berkeley Square, the 1855 Devil’s
Footprints and the Theatre Royal’s Man in Grey ghost), the other an interview
with Alan Murdie about the Ghost Club.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">This is a dreadful article, lazy,
simplistic and error-strewn, shoehorning disparate strands of the paranormal
into the convenient but unanalysed and uninformative catch-all ‘occult’, even
though it does not apply to organisations like the SPR or the Ghost Club, or to
the Spiritualist movement. Magazines like <i>All
About History</i> are supposed to provide information while entertaining a
general audience, not to misinform, and this mess does its readers a
disservice. Anyone tempted, as I was, to sport out £5.20 on the strength
of the article would be well advised to save the money and check out more
reliable sources (which do not include </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://tomruffles.blogspot.com/2016/03/wikipedia-and-its-prejudices-recent.html" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">, Mr McKelvie), not least the SPR’s free
online <i>Psi Encyclopedia</i>.</span></div>
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Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-41207927841465003172020-07-21T17:20:00.000+01:002020-07-21T17:20:41.770+01:00G A Smith's Thirteen Months in a Haunted House<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Writer and anthologist Tim Prasil runs a website called<i> Brom Bones Books</i> which contains a section titled <i>The Ghost Hunter Hall of Fame</i>. His latest inductee is George Albert Smith (1864-1959), on the grounds that Smith conducted two investigations, a minor one in Norwich and a far more significant one in Brighton, where he and his wife Laura lived in an allegedly haunted house for over a year. The tribute is headed ‘George Albert Smith: A Short-Term Ghost Hunter Who Conducted a Long-Term Ghost Hunt’, and I was pleased to see this recognition of part of Smith’s contributions to psychical research. The article relies heavily on Frank Podmore’s ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’ in the <i>Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research</i>, which does not mention Smith by name, and I was surprised that Prasil ends with the words ‘It makes perfect sense that Smith is the fellow who signs his name “X.Y.” in Podmore’s article – but how do we know that it was him? For certain?’ If it is apparently uncertain, one is likely to muse, why is Smith in the <i>Ghost Hunter Hall of Fame</i>?<br /><br />However, Prasil can rest easy, for there is much documentary evidence to indicate it was Smith (and Laura) who made psychical research history, before Ada Goodrich-Freer’s investigation at Ballechin House and Harry Price’s at Borley, by occupying a house for an extended period in an attempt to detect paranormal activity. Of that occupation, Society for Psychical Research (SPR) historian Alan Gauld describes it as ‘one of the eerier cases of which we have records.’<a a="" ftn1="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[1]</a> It is possibly even unique in its way: ‘...ghosts are kittle cattle, and so far as I am aware the nearest any member of the Society got to encountering a ghost was to hear odd raps and other minor noises in the Brighton house occupied on behalf of the SPR in 1888-9 by Mr G A Smith.’<a a="" ftn2="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[2]</a> The following is divided into three parts: the investigation prior to Mr and Mrs Smith’s residency, the residency itself, and the aftermath.<br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
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The investigation<br /><br />Smith’s identity only became known at a much later date, after the case was covered by the <i>Daily Mail</i>.<a a="" ftn3="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[3]</a> It was designated G. 187 in the SPR’s numbering system, and the generally sceptical Podmore considered it significant because it involved two separate sets of residents of a house who both reported phenomena with no communication between them having taken place (though this was not true, as will be seen). Podmore’s ‘other point of view' as indicated in his title was that apparitions were products of telepathy, and this type of case, where there was apparently no telepathic connection, challenged his hypothesis. <br /><br />Statements from both sets of occupants are included in Podmore’s article. The location of the terraced house was withheld in the public account but the file in the SPR archive identifies it as 18 Prestonville Road, Brighton.<a a="" ftn4="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[4]</a> The first statement is from a Miss L. Morris, who wrote to the SPR in June 1888.<a a="" ftn5="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[5]</a> She and her aunt had taken a lease in October 1882 and odd events began the day they moved in, with the sound of footsteps round the drawing-room table, though nobody was visible. Then a sister heard footsteps upstairs (her two sisters were occasional visitors throughout the tenancy). Miss Morris searched the house but found no intruder. Yet that night she could hear footsteps trudging round the house and felt a presence of someone in her room. There followed further footsteps each night until she had become used to it. About three weeks later she saw the figure of a woman, in black with a face ‘intensely sad and deadly pale.’ Not thinking anybody would believe her, she kept this secret for three years. The household also experienced a great deal of annoyance, from June 1884, with the front door bell being rung frequently. This, with knocks on the door in addition, continued for three weeks. Nobody was seen to ring the bell though the residents were on guard.<br /><br />Other phenomena included in 1885 seeing a woman in black glide along the basement hall. Miss Morris thought it might be her aunt but she found her in the drawing-room. Sometime after this the aunt died, and the family vacated the house in December 1886 as the lease had expired, to Miss Morris’s evident relief. She attributed her experiences to a woman having committed suicide in the house some years earlier, which she had been told about by a friend. Podmore visited Miss Morris on 9 July 1888 (the month following receipt of her letter). She believed that the house had remained vacant until taken by a Mrs G, and said that her predecessor, Miss E, had not experienced anything untoward during her time there. She had clearly been doing some investigation prior to writing to the SPR. Podmore also spoke to one of Miss Morris’s sisters, who confirmed the particulars.<br /><br />Podmore was not the original investigator of the case but had taken over from fellow SPR member Edmund Gurney in unfortunate circumstances. Gurney had seen Mrs G on 13 June 1888 (coincidentally the date of Smith’s marriage to Laura Bayley), and rated her credibility as a witness very highly: ‘I have never received an account in which the words and manner of telling were less suggestive of exaggeration or superstition.’<a a="" ftn6="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[6]</a> He asked her to compile a report of her occupancy and this was dated 15 June 1888. Gurney’s visit to Mrs G was only a week and a half before his death, and the investigation might have provided a reason for Gurney to be in Brighton on the night he died at the Royal Albion Hotel (the night of 22/23 June 1888).<a a="" ftn7="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[7]</a><div>
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This is certainly more plausible than the theory advanced by Trevor Hall in his 1964 book <i>The Strange Case of Edmund Gurney</i> that Gurney was in Brighton to meet Smith’s sister, summoned by her so that she could tell him her brother had cheated in telepathy experiments the two men had conducted together. Hall does not mention the possibility that Gurney’s visit was connected to the case at all, probably because, if Gurney were staying at the hotel to conduct interviews and perhaps arrange Smith’s tenancy rather than in despair at having uncovered cheating in telepathy experiments, it very much undermines the likelihood that the suicide theory is correct.<a a="" ftn8="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[8]</a> One loose end is that the obituaries in <i>Light </i>and <i>The Athenaeum</i> say that Gurney’s body was identified by an unposted letter in his pocket inviting someone (unnamed), a ‘colleague’ according to the former, to join him on whatever business had taken him to Brighton, and it is unclear why he should have wanted someone else to participate in this investigation.<a a="" ftn9="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[9]</a><br /><br />Mrs G, a widow with two children, took the house in November 1887. She recounted a variety of unexplained phenomena, beginning about a fortnight after moving in.<a a="" ftn10="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[10]</a> The first were sobs and thumps at night and a voice saying ‘Oh, do forgive me!’ three times. She also experienced unexplained thumps, crashes and tramping sounds. The door bell rang repeatedly even when she stood by the window and could see that nobody had approached the door. The children and servant, not to mention the dog, were badly affected too, and one of her children, Edith, claimed to see a white face peering round a door. During a visit she made to them the neighbours mentioned bells ringing, but they linked this to a ‘wicked servant’ of Miss Morris’s. Edith saw ‘a little woman’ pass her and later her younger sister Florence saw a man standing by the window. The knocks and other noises became worse, including the sensation of someone entering the children’s room, shaking the bed and walking out. On occasion they saw lights in their room. Mrs G discovered from the landlord that a woman had hanged herself in the house. A succession of friends and relatives came to stay but did not experience any significant disturbance.<br /><br />At this point Mrs G exchanged notes with Miss Morris, so her account is not independent, as Podmore suggested when he wrote that the case was ‘remarkable because two successive sets of occupants of the house, without any communication with each other, or any conscious knowledge on the part of the second set that the first set had had experiences, were “haunted” by sounds and sights.’<a a="" ftn11="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[11]</a> Mrs G even recounts stories Miss Morris had told her, and it is entirely possible that these had coloured her own perceptions. Eventually Mrs G asked the landlord to release them early from the lease but was told that she would have to pay until Christmas (this would appear to be late March). The children continued to see ghostly figures so Mrs G took them to London leaving the servant and her father in charge. However, phenomena continued in her absence, and she finally left in early May 1888, after a troubled five months. Gurney implied that the expense and inconvenience of her decision to quit the house told in her favour. He never interviewed Miss Morris and Podmore, taking over the investigation, interviewed both: Mrs G on 8 July 1888 and Miss Morris, along with Mrs G’s daughters and Anne H – Mrs G’s servant – the following day.<a a="" ftn12="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[12]</a> Miss Morris and Mrs G both wrote their accounts in June 1888.<br /><br />In addition to his interview with Mrs G, Podmore had access to her diary from which he reproduces extracts and which add a measure of verification to her account.<a a="" ftn13="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[13]</a> He includes witness statements from Anne H dated 16 June (her graphic account suggests a febrile atmosphere in the house) and various other people, including three professional gentlemen who, having heard of the house’s reputation, mounted their own investigation in May, the month Mrs G left.<a a="" ftn14="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[14]</a> Two of them provided statements to Podmore, and he interviewed all three, though not particularly vigorously. They heard the bell ring and crashing sounds, and W O D saw ‘the dress of a super-material being,’ while the Rev. G O saw an entire figure (undescribed), but Podmore rightly points out that they would have heard all manner of stories before they visited. C also saw part of the dress but did not provide a written statement.<a a="" ftn15="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[15]</a> While W O D was convinced of the reality of their experiences (‘I am firmly convinced in my own mind that the phenomena we beheld and the noises we heard were the results of supernatural forces’), this was not a serious investigation because on a second visit they were thinking of leaving after only thirty minutes when they saw the ‘form.’<a a="" ftn16="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[16]</a><br /><br />The final element included by Podmore is a newspaper extract dated 5 April 1879, which provides details of a suicide in the house.<a a="" ftn17="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[17]</a> However, Podmore did not feel that there was a strong link with the phenomena subsequently experienced and, unsurprisingly, did not consider it indicated post-mortem agency strongly. Instead he discusses such possible explanations for experiences occurring independently (as he saw it) to two sets of tenants in terms of coincidence; apparitions resulting from alarm caused by the strange noises, themselves an elaboration of real sounds – an example of <i>point de repère</i>; or even telepathy from Miss Morris to Mrs G. He certainly saw the experiences as hallucinations rather than as a ‘semi-corporeal ghostly entity’ for, ‘To me it is not obvious why the dreams of the living should possess less potency than the imagined dreams of the unknown dead.’<a a="" ftn18="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[18]</a> This tack irritated Andrew Lang, who refers obliquely to the case in an article in <i>Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine</i>, in which he accuses Podmore of taking ‘the gilt off the spectral gingerbread in a very ruthless manner’ by explaining phenomena as rats or the wind, or some other noise which is misinterpreted as an hallucination.<a a="" ftn19="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[19]</a><br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
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The residency<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
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The importance of the case, despite the difficulties in unravelling its causes, was such that Smith and Laura moved in for an extended stay on 17 August 1888, three months after Mrs G left and two months after their wedding.<a a="" ftn20="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[20]</a> The finances of this arrangement are obscure, and Gauld reasonably suggests that the SPR was subsidising the tenancy.<a a="" ftn21="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[21]</a> Smith’s narrative is described as by ‘An Associate’ of the SPR, and takes the form of his diary for the period.<a a="" ftn22="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[22]</a> After describing the house’s appearance and layout (but not providing a plan), Smith discusses its location, particularly its proximity to the station and the clarity of shunting operations when the wind is favourable.<a a="" ftn23="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[23]</a> He adds that the house is close to a branch line though they never heard noise from it, however there is an implication that noise from the station might account for some of the sounds heard by the occupants. Smith says that they did not experience anything ‘startling or violent,’ and did not see any apparitions. Smith seems to be downplaying his time in the house because while not violent, some of the noises they heard appear to have startled the occupants, and the account appears to belie Smith’s anodyne verdict.<br /><br />They had visitors from time to time and Smith provides statistics on them, indicating that he kept careful records. He says 25 men and 14 women slept in the house over a total of 137 nights, and presumably the presence of women staying at night would have necessitated a married couple rather than a single man in charge of the operation. Smith even notes which bedrooms were used by visitors and gives occupancy rates, presumably a measure designed to track who was where should anything noteworthy occur. The visitors included a smattering of military men – Smith refers to Colonel and Mrs H, Lieutenant-Colonel S and Captain N.<br /><br />Smith supplies his diary entries, of which there are 21 published in Proceedings, most of them brief, covering the entire stay. Initially the Smiths were on their own, but a maid-servant, M W, arrived on 6 September.<a a="" ftn24="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[24]</a> A comparison of the unpublished account with the published one shows that many references to SPR personnel and Smith’s family staying in the house were deleted. Laura’s mother and sister (unnamed, possibly Eva, who stayed in February 1889) were there from 15-23 November, but this is missing from the published record. Henry and Eleanor Sidgwick were regular guests; on one occasion Mrs Sidgwick brought ‘Miss Balfour’ (presumably her sister Alice) with her and they stayed from 11-14 December. On another occasion Mrs Sidgwick and Alice Johnson shared a room for a week. Mrs Sidgwick came back with Henry and they stayed for three weeks – but in different rooms.<a a="" ftn25="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[25]</a> On another occasion they stayed for eight nights, again separately. Henry Sidgwick also came alone for a week and Mrs Sidgwick squeezed in a couple of days on her own. These visits were all excluded from the written report, but nobody experienced anything out of the ordinary. Visits seem to have been more frequent in the summer months, suggesting that there was a certain mixing of business and pleasure.<br /><br />However, although their visitors were not troubled by odd occurrences, the tenants were. The first incident involved Laura, three days after they moved in. Twice she heard what sounded like a zinc pail being rattled, though there was no evidence that the pails had been disturbed. On 4 September Smith ‘returned from town,’ indicating that he combined occupation of the house with his duties for the SPR in London. On this occasion Laura, who had been alone in the house all day, had on two occasions heard loud crashing sounds though nothing had been displaced. While investigating this, they both heard what sounded like the crack of a whip, but again there was nothing to account for it. The following evening Smith heard similar crashing sounds while writing at his desk, Laura ‘dozing upon the sofa.’ Oddly, though they seemed loud to Smith, they did not rouse her. As their predecessors had experienced, they were subjected to the front-door bell ringing, but after one of these Laura was quick enough to spot children running away. Mysterious bell-ringing occurred later as well (the house may have been a target for children because of its reputation). On 18 October Smith was in London when knocking was heard by Laura at 5.30pm.<br /><br />Later in September Smith heard gentle tapping upstairs. While on this occasion he did not consider the possibility that the noises came from next door, he did at other times. One day the maid-servant said she had heard sounds while in bed and had wondered if they came from next door, but said they sounded very close. Smith mentions here that the adjacent property on the same side as their staircase was empty. Another day Colonel H heard ‘mild groans and loud breathing,’ which Smith attributed to the adjacent bedroom in the house next door (presumably on the other side), possibly one phenomenon which was explicable, if too delicate to describe.<a a="" ftn26="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[26]</a> On a couple of occasions, noises occurred while Smith was writing, which suggests that he brought work home as his diary entries were generally not long.<br /><br />The longest entries are both in December, when something definitely out of the ordinary took place. Smith shows a remarkable steadiness of nerve in confronting the unknown. At 8.30pm on 9 December he was on his own in the house, writing, when he heard a bumping noise moving around just outside then away from his door. Smith took his reading lamp and went to investigate but found nothing. He returned to his desk but five minutes later the sound recommenced, from the position where it had left off before. This time he ran out so fast he forgot the lamp but as he reached the stairs the sounds ceased. In the dark but not wanting to waste time fetching the lamp, he went downstairs backwards, feeling the stairs with his hands. On reaching the kitchen, in the basement, he turned up the gas but once more could not see anything to account for the sounds. Returning once more to his writing, he shut the door and settled to his task when there were three thumps just outside. This might have unnerved a lesser man but Smith ‘sprang across the room and threw the door open.’ Predictably there was nothing there, and he was left not able to account for what had happened. He discounted the possibility that the sounds emanated from next door as they were so clear. Smith and Laura did not at that point have a cat.<br /><br />On 15 December, at 11.35pm, there was a strange incident, but it throws a fascinating sidelight on the Smiths. Their bedroom was separated from the sitting-room by curtains. In the sitting room was a piano and above it on the wall hung a guitar. Smith says that he had gone to bed, leaving Laura in the sitting room saying her prayers by the fire as it was cold. This is an interesting insight, suggesting Laura’s piety and Smith’s relative lack of belief. It is possible Smith was making this up with Laura’s collusion, but there would be no reason to invent a scenario in which Laura was praying while he lay in bed. One wonders if, when Smith was on his own on Sunday 9 December at 8.30, Laura and the servant M W were at evensong.<br /><br />Suddenly, the guitar strings sounded:<br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">‘<o:p></o:p></span>– <i>pung, pang, ping – pung, pang, ping</i> – here my wife called out in a loud, awe-struck whisper, “Did you hear that?” whilst even as she spoke a third <i>pung, pang, ping </i>sounded clearly through the rooms. I immediately sprang out of bed and rushed in to her, finding her kneeling upon the hearth-rug by an armchair, staring with astonishment at the guitar upon the wall.’<a a="" ftn27="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[27]</a></div>
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They sat by the fire for over half an hour but no further sounds were heard. Laura said that she had been distracted a couple of times during her prayers by odd sounds, like someone sweeping a hand over the wallpaper. They now had a cat (‘an extremely lazy Persian’) but it was asleep. She said that when the guitar sounded the second and third times she was looking at it and saw no movement, nor was anything near it. The sound was not caused by the pegs slipping and a note sounding as a result. On 13 January Smith came in at about 10.30 and Laura said that the guitar had again produced a note. Smith ends this section of his diary by saying that he cannot account for the phenomenon.<a a="" ftn28="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[28]</a> Later a visitor, Mrs V, when alone in the sitting room, heard the guitar, not knowing it had happened before.<a a="" ftn29="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[29]</a><br /><br />In March, Laura’s sister ‘Miss E.B.’ [i.e. Eva] slept in the house for a week.<a a="" ftn30="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[30]</a> She heard raps on her door in the early hours on her first night but nothing subsequently. Smith himself slept on his own in the three bedrooms (the two guest rooms and the servant’s room) from time to time to see if anything happened, but nothing did that he noticed. Smith and Laura left the house on 27 September 1889 and a new tenant moved in the following day. There is a friendly letter to Smith in the SPR file from the new tenant dated 13 March 1890 saying that disappointingly nothing had been experienced since moving in.<a a="" ftn31="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[31]</a><br /><br />Alas, given the length of time this investigation took, and the number of people involved, the SPR file is rather thin and appears to have been weeded at some point. Considering that Smith’s account indicates he spent much of his time writing, very little of it seems to have been preserved. Most of the surviving material relates to the previous occupants and the intrepid trio of independent investigators, and while including much that made its way into print, with hardly anything relating to the time Smith and Laura spent there, apart from a draft of his statement. To take over a house like this for such a long period and maintain a constant presence in case phenomena occurred was groundbreaking, and it is disappointing so little of the documentation remains.<br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
The aftermath<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
Here the matter rested until an article appeared in the SPR’s <i>Journal</i>, ‘The Journalist at Large in Psychical Research’, in April 1905, by which time Smith had long ceased to be active in the Society.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith">[32]</a> Noting the sensationalist aspect of many ghost-related articles in the press, the writer argues that it is worth seeing how stories develop, and describes two in which their evolution could be tracked. After disposing of the Talking Baby of Bethesda (alas deceased), the article moves on to a case which appeared in the <i>Daily Mail</i> the previous Christmas Eve and circulated widely, even being picked up by the foreign press. A chunk of the <i>Mail</i>’s article was reprinted, concerning a haunted house in Brighton where a ghost had been seen. In part it reads:<br /><br />‘A gentleman well known in Brighton lived in the house with his wife and children for fifteen months. Sturdy and muscular, with a partiality for mountain-climbing as a pastime, this gentleman, who was seen by a <i>Daily Mail </i>representative yesterday, is certainly not the kind of man to suffer from “nerves”.<a a="" ftn33="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[33]</a><br /><br />‘He said that he had not seen the ghost, but a very curious thing happened in the corner of the drawing-room where the figure is said to have appeared...’ [and goes on to describe three notes being played three times on a guitar.]<br /><br />The account also notes that a barrister who had watched with two friends had had a revolver, and a woman had committed suicide in the house because of a man’s cruelty.<a a="" ftn34="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[34]</a> The article goes on to say that the case was referred to in the <i>Annals of Psychical Science</i> for the preceding January. The <i>Annals </i>had indeed included a piece in its ‘Odds and Ends’ column, taken from newspaper accounts and beginning, ‘English newspapers have had much to say about a <i>haunted house</i> at Brighton the last few days,’ giving hardly any space to the experience of ‘a former tenant,’ referring briefly to a ‘gentleman and his wife’ who had occupied the house for fifteen months, and devoting most space to a lawyer who had spent a night there with two friends, his revolver, and a dog.<a a="" ftn35="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[35]</a> The writer in the <i>Journal </i>pointed out that these accounts implied that this was a recent case, but were clearly reminiscent of the one published in <i>Proceedings</i> back in 1889 (i.e. in Podmore’s article). Given the similarities, a letter had been sent to Smith to ask him about it, and part of his reply is printed.<a a="" ftn36="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[36]</a><br /><br />Addressed from his Southwick home <i>The Laboratory, Roman Crescent</i>, and dated 25 February 1905, it finds Smith in a sharp mood but, as with the diary kept during his tenure of the house, it helps to round him out by including a detail from his life which would not otherwise be available. He had seen the account in the <i>Daily Mail</i> and was not impressed with the way the story had been handled. At Christmas 1903, a reporter on a Brighton newspaper had approached him saying he was writing a ‘seasonable’ column and had a few cases of local hauntings, including the one in which Smith had been involved, which Smith was asked to verify. This duly appeared and as far as Smith was concerned was ‘substantially accurate.’ He did not think that his name was included. Then a year later it appeared again, in the <i>Daily Mail</i>,<i> </i>but so worded to make it appear to be recent, not fifteen years old. The article mentions the <i>Mail </i>representative having seen Smith ‘yesterday’, implying an interview, though what had happened was that the journalist had indeed ‘seen’ Smith, but across a crowded concert room with not a word passing between them; they had only nodded at each other. Smith was there ‘to see my little daughter’s calisthenics.’ The local journalist also wrote the piece for the <i>Mail</i>, hence knew of Smith’s involvement in the case and was recycling his copy. The JSPR article’s author added that the reference to the suicide was at odds with that given at the inquest and the reference to ‘The cruelty of a man’ was a journalistic addition.<a a="" ftn37="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[37]</a> The <i>Annals </i>duly reported that the affair was a good example of the unreliability of newspapers, as rather than being recent, the case was one that ‘has already done hard work.’<a a="" ftn38="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[38]</a><br /><br />Alice Johnson at the SPR had written privately to Smith, presumably to ask his opinion on the matter. He replied to her on 15 March 1905. There is again personal information, as so often with Smith only supplied in passing, and it explains a certain irritation over the matter:<br /><br />‘The proprietor of the <i>Brighton Herald</i> is my brother-in-law, and he is much annoyed by the want of principle shown by his reports.<a a="" ftn39="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[39]</a> The proprietor is a genuine stickler for literacy accuracy & truth, & I should be sorry to see his paper named reprovingly as it seldom deserves it. The young reporter who dished his 12 months old article up for the <i>Daily Mail </i>did it entirely on his own account. His original article in the <i>Brighton Herald</i> was I understand based upon conversation with the witnesses. He certainly took the trouble to see me, but though I confirmed what he had heard I would not allow my name to be used.<br /><br />‘Of course there is no objection to using my name in the Journal or elsewhere in SPR publications as tenant of the house...’<br /><br />One final mystery of the investigation is the address given for Smith during his occupation of the Brighton house. Trevor Hall says that Smith was living at Manstone Cottage, St Lawrence, Ramsgate, in December 1888, having taken this from the list of new associates in <i>JSPR</i>.<a a="" ftn40="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[40]</a> He catalogues Smith’s movements from 1888 to 1892 but does not mention the Brighton house at all. He seems to think that Smith was living in St Lawrence: ‘it seems possible that he found it convenient to make his home with his wife’s parents for a time’ (on the sole grounds that Laura came from Ramsgate).<a a="" ftn41="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[41]</a><br /><br />The December 1888 membership list may have been prepared in advance, but hardly before August, when he and Laura moved into 18 Prestonville Road. The next list, dated May 1889, also falls within the period of his tenancy of the Brighton house, yet still gives his address as Manstone Cottage. And that is the address given in the <i>Proceedings</i>'<i> </i>list dated December 1890. <a a="" ftn42="" haunted="" house.docx="" href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith" in="" months="" s="" thirteen="">[42]</a> Thus while living in Brighton, the impression was given by the lists that he was in Kent. Could this have been to deflect knowledge of his involvement and help to protect the house from further notoriety?<br /><br /> <br /><div>
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<!--[endif]-->
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Gauld
and A D Cornell, <i>Poltergeists</i>, 1979,
p.187.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Gauld,
<i>The Founders of Psychical Research</i>,
1968, p.196.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Podmore, ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’, <i>Proc.SPR</i>, Vol. 6, 1889, pp.229-313. Podmore also gives a potted version of the
case, which he numbered 29, in his 1909 <i>Telepathic
Hallucinations: The New View of Ghosts</i>, pp.118-120. A summary, including a description of the
house’s layout and a useful tabulation of the phenomena across the witness
statements, plus lengthy extracts from statements and Smith’s diary, are
provided by Gauld and Cornell (<i>Poltergeists</i>,
1979, pp.186-195).<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <span lang="EN-US">File SPR/Lit.Com/G187: Brighton. Gauld (Gauld and Cornell, <i>Poltergeists</i>, 1979, p.186), gives the
name of the road but not the house number, and in his <i>The Founders of Psychical Research</i>, 1968, p.180, fn2, he gives
both.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn5">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Podmore, ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’, pp.256-8. The SPR file gives her first name as Louisa.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn6">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Podmore, ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’, p.264.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn7">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Mrs G’s name, and her residence after leaving Prestonville Road, are not given
in the published account, but Gurney’s unpublished notes of his interview with
her in the SPR file state that her name was Mrs Gilby, and she was living at 15
Albert Road, Brighton. A later letter to
Podmore gives her first name as Clara. Perhaps
Gurney chose the Royal Albion because of its convenience to her or to Miss
Morris, who was living at 14 Victoria St, Brighton. The hotel is about a mile and a half from
Prestonville Road, a mile from Albert Road and about the same from Victoria
Street. All three streets are fairly
close to each other and the Royal Albion would be a good base from which to
visit each. It is reasonable to assume
Gurney rather than Podmore would have visited Miss Morris had he lived.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn8">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> A
point also made by Trevor Hamilton, <i>Immortal
Longings</i>, 2009, p.167. Fraser Nicol
in his essay-review of Hall’s book, ‘The Silences of Mr Trevor Hall’, <i>International Journal of Parapsychology</i>,
Vol. 8, No. 1 Winter 1966, p.14, also
refers to the haunted house investigation as a reason for Gurney to be in
Brighton.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn9">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <i>The Athenaeum</i>, 30 June, 1888, p.827, <i>Light</i>, 30 June, 1888.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn10">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Mrs G’s narrative occupies pp. 259-264 of Podmore’s article.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn11">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Podmore, ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’, pp.255-6.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn12">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
The SPR file gives Anne’s surname as Holden, and there is a statement written
by her in it, giving her age as 21.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn13">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Mr G’s diary extracts are on pp.264-5.
Podmore also included notes from his interview with her. He met the two children (aged he said 9 and
11) and had a conversation with them. In
<i>Telepathic Hallucinations</i> he gives
the ages as ‘about nine and ten,' so these may be estimates.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn14">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Despite efforts used to protect the address and the identities of all involved,
Podmore notes that ‘Mrs G’s experience in the house appears very quickly to
have become matter of common talk in the town...’ (p.267). The witness statements are on pp.267-268. The SPR file identifies the gentlemen as W O
Dawson, Rev. G Ousley and Mr W K Cargill.
Dawson was a barrister and Cargill a solicitor.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn15">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
There is a letter in the file from Cargill to Smith written in October 1889 (so
just after Smith had vacated the Prestonville Road house) saying that he had no
time to attend to Smith’s letter of that day’s date, suggesting he wished to
distance himself from the affair.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn16">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Notes written by Dawson in July 1888, ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point
of View’, p.267.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[17]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Podmore, ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’, pp.268-9. The copy
in the SPR file is in Smith’s hand. The
newspaper is the <i>Brighton Herald</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn18">
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[18]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Podmore, ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’, pp.269-70.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[19]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Lang,
‘Ghosts up to Date’, <i>Blackwood’s
Edinburgh Magazine</i>, January 1894, pp.57-8.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref20" name="_ftn20" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[20]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Hamilton, <i>Immortal Longings</i>, 2009,
p.249, dryly asks: ‘One wonders what the new Mrs Smith thought about this as an
introduction to married bliss.’<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref21" name="_ftn21" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[21]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Gauld, <i>Poltergeists</i>, 1979, p.192.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Podmore, ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’, pp.309-13,
included as an appendix. Gauld, <i>Poltergeists</i>, 1979, p.192, rates Smith
highly as an investigator, saying of his reports that they ‘seem to me
workmanlike and level-headed.’<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref23" name="_ftn23" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[23]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Smith puts the house at ‘10 minutes’ walk from the railway station.’ According to AA’s route finder it is 0.7
miles by road, coincidentally about the same distance as the house from St
Ann’s Well gardens, where Smith later became proprietor.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref24" name="_ftn24" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[24]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
The SPR file identifies M W as Mattie Welles or Weller.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref25" name="_ftn25" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[25]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
There is an ambiguity in the wording and it is possible that Sidgwick stayed
for just one night.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn26">
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref26" name="_ftn26" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[26]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Anne H in her account said they had been in the house nearly three weeks when her
‘mistress came to my room and called me, and said she heard someone screaming
and groaning dreadfully.’ Anne went into
Mrs G’s room: ‘I heard it too; I thought someone was being murdered. It seemed in the next house to me, as if
someone was being thrown about dreadfully.’
It is highly unlikely that there was a paranormal explanation for this
incident either (‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’, <i>Proc.SPR</i>, Vol. 6, p.266).<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref27" name="_ftn27" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[27]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
The repeated use of ‘sprang’ suggests great vigour on Smith’s part which, aged
24, he may well have possessed, but the word is a conventional one and
springing – particularly from bed – occurs with surprising frequency in the SPR
literature.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref28" name="_ftn28" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[28]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
It is worth bearing in mind Ada Goodrich-Freer’s adage, writing about Ballechin
House, that, ‘The fact that there are noises in a house which we have been
unable to explain in no sense proves that they are unexplainable, the
limitations may be ours...’ (‘Psychical Research and an Alleged “Haunted” House’
(Nineteenth Century, August 1897, p.234).<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn29">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref29" name="_ftn29" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[29]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Mrs
V is identified in the unpublished account as Mrs Verrall and she is described
as ‘Mrs Sidgwick’s friend,’ although she was to become a significant member of
the SPR in her own right.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref30" name="_ftn30" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[30]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
The printed account (p.313) has her stay of five or six nights from 15 February,
but from Smith’s diary it would appear to have been in March.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref31" name="_ftn31" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[31]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
The writer appears to be B. Shoesmith, but the name has been crossed
through. This was not the first letter
that Shoesmith had sent to Smith as the letter begins ‘<span lang="EN-US">I had no idea you had left Buckingham</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span><span lang="EN-US">Place [presumably referring to
Buckingham Street, where the SPR’s rooms were] and would have forwarded the
last letter to you direct,’ suggesting that Smith had kept tabs on the case
after his departure. The second half of
the letter, expressing disappointment at not experiencing a ghost is printed in
Podmore, </span>‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’, <span lang="EN-US">p.313, and concludes Podmore’s
lengthy article.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn32">
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref32" name="_ftn32" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[32]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <i>JSPR</i>, Vol. 12, pp.65-68.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref33" name="_ftn33" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[33]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
The reference to mountaineering is intriguing, but like other elements of the
story may be journalistic licence. The
reference to children certainly is considering the short time the Smiths had
been married when they moved into the house.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn34">
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref34" name="_ftn34" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[34]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <i>JSPR</i>, Vol. 12, p.67. Presumably the barrister was W O Dawson. There is no reference to firearms in the
file.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref35" name="_ftn35" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[35]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> ‘Odds
and Ends: A Haunted House in Brighton’, <i>The
Annals of Psychical Science</i>, Vol. 1, 1905, p.64-5.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref36" name="_ftn36" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[36]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <i>JSPR</i>, Vol. 12, p.68.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref37" name="_ftn37" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[37]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
The <i>Annals</i> account also referred to ‘a
man’s cruelty.’<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn38">
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref38" name="_ftn38" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[38]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> ‘Odds
and Ends: A Haunted House in Brighton’, <i>Annals
of Psychical Science</i>, Vol. 1, 1905, p.269-70.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref39" name="_ftn39" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[39]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
William Henry Attwick, married to Smith’s sister Fanny (Hall, <i>The Strange Case of Edmund Gurney</i>, 1964,
p.186, notes that Fanny and Attwick married, but not Attwick’s proprietorship
of the <i>Herald</i>).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref40" name="_ftn40" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[40]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <i>JSPR</i>, Vol. 3, p.345; Hall, <i>The Strange Case of Edmund Gurney</i>, 1964,
p.168.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/G%20A%20Smith's%20Thirteen%20Months%20in%20a%20Haunted%20House.docx#_ftnref41" name="_ftn41" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[41]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Hall, <i>The Strange Case of Edmund Gurney</i>,
1964, p.168.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-6430018832690404112020-04-26T16:35:00.000+01:002020-04-26T16:35:07.880+01:00Nobel Prize-winning Society for Psychical Research members<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs4KWcykDj1tdLW0PR0w4Tyia9oBpA_weLp9cAmD-OJ7okfn6ZbUjAmAl-LcJ9cb7EXpDAdEtPuSfN4569hAqcDpnksly-DrSSaqTzAsXp4HR6c74HiOih58by_y3xmZw_YRWv-DYmIVx1/s1600/Nobel+medal.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs4KWcykDj1tdLW0PR0w4Tyia9oBpA_weLp9cAmD-OJ7okfn6ZbUjAmAl-LcJ9cb7EXpDAdEtPuSfN4569hAqcDpnksly-DrSSaqTzAsXp4HR6c74HiOih58by_y3xmZw_YRWv-DYmIVx1/s320/Nobel+medal.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">This is a list of members of the
Society for Psychical Research who won Nobel Prizes which I put together for
the SPR website in 2008, but it disappeared in the 2016 revamp.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">There is a long list of Nobel laureates who
had some connection to psychical research in the SPR’s Psi Encyclopedia, but
not all were SPR members.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">It is worth highlighting
the extent to which members of the Society achieved this high honour.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">According to Fraser Nicol there
have been eleven SPR Nobeleates, which he unfortunately omitted to list, so we
are one short, unless Marie Curie counts twice.
I would be happy to hear of any I have missed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Marie Curie: Physics 1903,
Chemistry 1911<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">John William Strutt, 3rd Baron
Rayleigh: Physics 1904 (SPR president 1919)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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1904<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">J J Thomson: Physics 1906<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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1911<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Charles Richet: Medicine 1913
(SPR president 1905)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">W B Yeats: Literature 1923<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Henri Bergson: Literature 1927
(SPR president 1913)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Nicholas Murray Butler: Peace
1931<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Brian Josephson: Physics 1973<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-76792406350046116752020-04-03T15:33:00.000+01:002020-04-03T15:33:37.335+01:00The American Society for Psychical Research: Action Required<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEi2rM-x1FByllgL3s6AeEPscNAaCy-XEckj7EZ3uL8tB3BTR-InaUSyeQaXO4ZOEXJgXoYET8PzvJrC1hxjFAt1_OJglVwHQn3xrBmdXHyqkIvI438J34sCZBp-kNiGiOu8oUOHQZap9w/s1600/Action+required.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="711" data-original-width="1024" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEi2rM-x1FByllgL3s6AeEPscNAaCy-XEckj7EZ3uL8tB3BTR-InaUSyeQaXO4ZOEXJgXoYET8PzvJrC1hxjFAt1_OJglVwHQn3xrBmdXHyqkIvI438J34sCZBp-kNiGiOu8oUOHQZap9w/s320/Action+required.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">For those who are not aware of
the parlous state of the American Society for Psychical Research and are
wondering what this is about, please see my previous posts on the subject, ‘</span><span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://tomruffles.blogspot.com/2019/07/more-downs-than-ups-at-american-society.html" target="_blank">More Downs than Ups at the American Society for Psychical Research</a></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">’ and ‘</span><span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://tomruffles.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-american-society-for-psychical.html" target="_blank">The American Society for Psychical Research: Recent Developments</a></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">’, for the background.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The change.org petition addressed
to the New York Charities Bureau seems to have stalled just over the half-way
point. All those who would like to see
the ASPR survive are urged to sign the petition <i>and</i> <i>circulate it to anybody
else they think might be willing to sign it</i> so that it reaches the target
of 1,000 signatures as quickly as possible.
The petition is here:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN"><a href="https://www.change.org/p/new-york-charities-bureau-save-the-american-society-for-psychical-research"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">https://www.change.org/p/new-york-charities-bureau-save-the-american-society-for-psychical-research</span></a></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Reaching the target will help to
achieve two aims. Firstly, it will send
a message to the current ASPR management that their activities are being
subjected to close scrutiny. Secondly, <b>regulatory bodies will be much more likely
to act if they feel there is widespread negative public opinion on the matter.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As well as signing the petition,
New York residents can <span style="color: red;"><a href="https://www.charitiesnys.com/complaints_new.html" target="_blank">complain directly to the Attorney General</a></span> as well as to their state representative who would ask
the New York Attorney General to investigate.
In the event that mismanagement or misuse of assets is uncovered,
directors and officers can be sued in order to recover the missing funds for
the charity. This could be the stimulus
for a criminal investigation, if warranted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Attorney General’s office
receives large volumes of complaints about charities, and with resources scarce
it is easy for the Attorney General's Charities Bureau to focus on those cases
with a high profile and neglect the rest.
Simply because they are not investigating does not mean that all is
well, but an investigation is less likely while those who care for psychical
research sit on their hands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If there are any ASPR members
left, their protests would be particularly welcome as carrying greater weight
than those of outsiders. Also, ex-board
members who have remained quiet for many years should add their voices to the
campaign. They have nothing to lose by
speaking out and should not feel constrained by a sense of loyalty that was not
reciprocated. Some of them may have made
private complaints in the past, but now is the time to renew their concerns,
and make them public.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Frankly, time is not on our
side. With an enormous mortgage and no
obvious way for it to be repaid, it is necessary to act before the headquarters
building is lost, and possibly the archives too. Why such large loans were taken out, and
where the money went, are questions that need to be answered. In the absence of a voluntary accounting by
the ASPR’s President and Executive Director, the only alternative is for
official scrutiny to elicit the information.
Please help to make that happen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If anybody has information that
could be useful in the efforts to save the ASPR, please get in touch:
tom.ruffles@yahoo.co.uk<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Acknowledgements:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I would like to thank those who
have contacted me to express their concerns about the matter, and particularly James
A. Conrad, who has done a huge amount of tenacious research delving into the murky
legal and financial situation. <span style="color: red;"><a href="https://survivalafterdeath.blogspot.com/2020/04/diario-de-ciencias-psiquicas-n25-abril.html?fbclid=IwAR018_YbmhYtmbqT2NUDwtjuQsN1VzregvQKEvfJaZ8PnZFwtraHKb_uhUE" target="_blank">Diario de Ciencias Psíquicas</a> </span>has kindly translated my
previous posts on the ASPR into Spanish, thereby making them available to a
wider audience.</span></div>
Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-55787732156120428772020-02-28T20:12:00.000+00:002020-03-01T12:41:48.305+00:00Whither the Society for Psychical Research?<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg66jhaToMV_BQERbdikIvVy2zugEX9wtzxjUU4m7hNK6Qzw9PUdtEOEbYN-e_WlnOb-VXemA9nz_t4BGaUye_rTXx-JvSuar0ejzLDHcVI0bYOsWFEUbs1nn6bnLPDhoUmjXr5ZY_kU2ra/s1600/PR92+cvr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="678" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg66jhaToMV_BQERbdikIvVy2zugEX9wtzxjUU4m7hNK6Qzw9PUdtEOEbYN-e_WlnOb-VXemA9nz_t4BGaUye_rTXx-JvSuar0ejzLDHcVI0bYOsWFEUbs1nn6bnLPDhoUmjXr5ZY_kU2ra/s320/PR92+cvr.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dr Leo Ruickbie’s editorial in
Issue 92 of the Society for Psychical Research’s magazine </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Paranormal Review</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">, which was published recently, seeks to stimulate
a debate on the direction the Society should take.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Currently, as he puts it, the organisation
‘stands on one side of a bridge into the unknown.’</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Prompted by Lew Sutton’s account in the
magazine of the home circle he has been running for several years in Devon, Leo
begins by looking at the role of the SPR in a changing paranormal landscape.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Lew’s project, which Leo characterises as ‘citizen
science’, is the sort of thing the SPR used to do itself, along with such
activities as thought transference experiments, surveys, and other forms of
investigation that by and large it no longer conducts. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">This observation leads Leo to muse on the role
of the SPR and how it can maintain its relevance.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">He notes that the SPR is being
squeezed on two fronts: from below, by the proliferation of ghost-hunting
groups tackling the kinds of cases that at one time would have been the sole
province of the SPR; and from above, by academia engaging in (though still not
as much as one might wish) the sort of controlled experimentation the SPR also
used to do. Both sets publish, organise
meetings, network – in short undertake what the SPR has always done. Consequently, on one side the SPR’s Spontaneous
Cases Committee has a reduced role in active investigation; while on the other
the SPR’s role in research is mainly focused on facilitating academics’
projects through its dedicated research funds (out of which only a limited
number of grants are awarded annually), publishing papers and providing a venue
for lectures. So, how should the SPR
respond to challenges posed by these two currents?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Looking at how members receive
information, Leo refers to the SPR’s active programme of events, but notes these
reach only a small number of attendees, and not many extra through recordings. He does mention the SPR’s website and its
social media presence, but despite expanding content on the website, in the
grand scheme of things their reach is fairly limited and members are not
guaranteed to look at them. What they do
see is its magazines, the <i>Journal</i> and
<i>Paranormal Review</i>. As Leo says, for many members, those
publications <i>are</i> the SPR, but they
are actually quite limited in what they can communicate considering the wide
range of SPR activities. There is an
opportunity for the Society to do more with what it has, Leo argues, even if it
is not leading research itself. He ends
by asking if the SPR needs to debate its purpose and develop a strategy for the
future, requesting members to get in touch with ideas (and I am sure he would
welcome the constructive thoughts of non-members as well).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">SPR membership has been
increasing in recent years, but Leo’s question asking about the future
direction of the Society is highly pertinent.
Unfortunately I am not certain what the answers are. The spontaneous cases side is probably the
easiest to address, with the Spontaneous Cases Committee being more proactive
than it is at present. There are signs
of this, but more could be done to carry out investigations in a manner that
would set a benchmark for others, particularly those who follow what they see
on television shows. The experimental
side is more problematic. When reading
old issues of the Society’s <i>Journal</i>
and <i>Proceedings</i>, with experiments
being conducted in the Society’s offices, I have thought how nice it would be to
have work undertaken there now. But for a
variety of reasons such efforts by and large moved into university departments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">So could the Society be more
active in promoting what it does do? Leo
is correct in saying the SPR’s publications only cover a narrow range of the
Society’s activities. But it would be
simplistic to conclude the answer is to increase the volume of its own print publications. The <i>Journal</i>
and <i>Paranormal Review</i> are expensive
to produce, and apart from a few individual and institutional subscriptions
only reach members. A hint (I think) in
the editorial of a possible future initiative is the reference to commercial publishing,
preferably self-financing. We have had
many books based on SPR material in the past.
These include SPR-published pamphlets, and one-off books and series from
commercial publishers, for example the G Bell & Sons volumes in 1937-9 and
the Heinemann books edited by Brian Inglis to commemorate the SPR’s centenary
in 1982. Resurrecting a publishing
programme is an idea that has come up from time to time, but somehow never
comes to fruition, mainly it seems because it is difficult to make much money
from serious books on paranormal subjects.
That was the reason for the failure of the Athlone Press series edited
by John Beloff in the late 1990s.
However, if a new venture were successful it would be an ideal way to
promote the subject and generate some income.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Yet while a publishing programme
will have some impact in assisting the SPR to raise its profile and is worth
reconsidering, it is not the entire answer.
After all, a similar function is being fulfilled by the SPR’s <i>Psi Encyclopedia</i>, and while it is a
valuable source of reliable information and is well-regarded, it cannot be said
to have been a game-changer in psychical research education. I agree that the SPR needs to leverage what
it has now, such as seeing more from those researchers who receive money from
it. For an organisation with research in
the title we ought to be spending more on it, but we live in a world of finite
resources and lab research is expensive (especially when you have universities
insisting on the inclusion of generous overheads in grant applications). Recipients’ results could definitely be disseminated
by them to a greater extent than they are to publicise what the SPR does to
support research.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The alternative to formal
institutional research is the citizen science approach exemplified by Lew
Sutton. I suspect there is a reservoir
of interest among members waiting to be tapped, if only it could be directed by
those with the necessary expertise and bearing in mind that, to achieve results
the scientific community will consider, it needs to be done properly. The SPR could act as a clearing house for
results, publishing and archiving them as appropriate. A product of the Buckmaster bequest, in
addition to the <i>Psi Encyclopedia</i>, is
the SPR’s <i>Psi Open Data</i> project, billing
itself as ‘an open repository for the storage of parapsychological and
psychical research data.’ It is adding
value to the academic research process, and perhaps this approach could be
extended to a wider range of well-conducted citizen science.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There are of course practical
obstacles, not only financial but in terms of labour. Those who would be qualified to oversee such
efforts, and exercise quality control, are busy with their own work, and this
would be a considerable commitment. It
is certainly worth discussing, however.
We may never see the heroic levels of activity achieved by the early
SPR, but there is much potential over and above what it is doing currently, and
an expansion of its remit would a major contribution to the subject. If it stays on its present course I don’t
think the future for the SPR is bad, but it will not be fulfilling its
potential. I shall follow the debate Leo
has started with interest, and I hope it produces both good ideas and offers to
implement them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-13243402609805939982020-02-20T17:44:00.000+00:002020-02-20T19:26:11.512+00:00The American Society for Psychical Research: Recent Developments<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5cCS_AIpKumef6Ps3JpiT3n__TrxUng3E_JsXz7YqsqU1CTgke6XucRjnzIdbylA7oQR_x5DY8cf2_hwgGX9W5aDI8BBSO3L4r2eHphGdQViQlst4vqkjkltMDoy6Mi0mA1tzSUvz65Kt/s1600/First+ASPR+Proc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="947" data-original-width="619" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5cCS_AIpKumef6Ps3JpiT3n__TrxUng3E_JsXz7YqsqU1CTgke6XucRjnzIdbylA7oQR_x5DY8cf2_hwgGX9W5aDI8BBSO3L4r2eHphGdQViQlst4vqkjkltMDoy6Mi0mA1tzSUvz65Kt/s320/First+ASPR+Proc.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Since </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://tomruffles.blogspot.com/2019/07/more-downs-than-ups-at-american-society.html" target="_blank">I wrote about asset-stripping</a></span><span style="color: red; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">at the American Society for Psychical Research
(ASPR) in July 2019, prompted by the headquarters building in New York being put
up for sale, there have been some developments.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">I thought it would be worth pulling together the latest strands in the
saga though the picture is still unclear as, to my knowledge, the individuals
in charge have never responded publicly to the concerns raised by those who
wish to see the organisation regain its former position as a major focus for
psychical research.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">An article about the ASPR
appeared in the London-based Society for Psychical Research’s online <i><a href="https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/american-society-psychical-research" target="_blank">Psi Encyclopedia</a></i><span style="color: red;"> </span>in September 2019.
While it devotes much space to the APSR’s earlier history, the final
section covers the more recent period under the heading ‘ASPR in Decline (1990-
)’. As that date suggests, the rot has
been going on for quite some time, and in November 2019 I referred to Robert
McConnell’s valiant but fruitless efforts to address the problem in his 1995
book <i><a href="https://tomruffles.wordpress.com/2019/11/11/far-out-in-the-new-age-by-robert-mcconnell/" target="_blank">Far Out in the New Age</a></i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Startlingly, in September 2019 I
was told the ASPR, according to public records on the New York City Department
of Finance website, had apparently received loans over the years totalling $10
million using its headquarters building as collateral. A New York City real estate company, Bernstein
Real Estate, in New York, had created ‘5 W. 73rd Street LLC’ (5 West 73rd
Street is the ASPR address; LLC is a limited liability company) which now owns
the entire mortgage. The company has the
power to rent or lease out the building to generate income in order to pay the
debt should the ASPR default. Where the
money has gone, and how it is to be repaid, is unknown.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In November 2019, T C Goodsort
started <a href="https://www.change.org/p/new-york-charities-bureau-save-the-american-society-for-psychical-research" target="_blank">a petition</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>on the change.org website
addressed to the New York Charities Bureau seeking the removal of the ASPR’s
current officers. At the time of writing
it had reached just over half of the target number of 1,000 signatures. Goodsort had a letter published in the
January 2020 issue of the <i>Journal of the
Society for Psychical Research</i> (pp. 58-9) drawing attention to the
petition.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">A major piece of news was the tip-off
on 6 December 2019 that the ASPR’s New York HQ sale listing on the Sotheby’s
website, publication of which had sparked the most recent concern, had been deleted. My informant could not find the building
elsewhere on the Sotheby’s website, or another estate agent’s. As was pointed out to me, this did not
necessarily mean the building was no longer for sale, as it could instead have become
an unlisted or ‘off-market’ property for a more discreet transaction. As no notice of a sale has surfaced, it
suggests the ASPR has completely withdrawn it, at least for the moment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The latest development, of a
kind, was notification this week of a sale on both the US and UK versions of the
<a href="https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?bi=0&cm_sp=SearchF-_-sf-_-Results&ds=30&kn=AMERICAN%20SOCIETY%20FOR%20PSYCHICAL%20RESEARCH&sortby=17&sts=t&vci=56110904" target="_blank">AbeBooks website</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>of ASPR-related materials by a
bookseller in New Hampshire. Headed
‘Archive of early correspondence of the American Society for Psychical
Research’, a total of 85 items dating from the 1880s to 1921 are being offered
for US$ 6,250.00 + $6.50 shipping (£4,952.15 + £30.77 shipping to the UK). The lengthy description states that ‘the
majority of the collection consists of membership and dues communications,’ but
it lists a wide range of writers and topics covered in the correspondence, making
it more interesting than merely a batch of admin paperwork (which would hardly
be worth £5k).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Their origin is not stated but it
was natural to wonder if this heralded the break-up of the ASPR’s archive. However, in this instance at least it seems
the current ASPR management is not directly at fault, as an enquiry to the
vendor elicited the reply that the items had been acquired from the stock of a defunct
Maine bookshop. He did not know how the shop
owner had obtained them, and did not think there was anything else connected to
the ASPR in his possession.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">How the Maine bookseller came by
them is probably now lost to history.
Perhaps they were stolen (in which case one might have expected more
coherence). Possibly they were deemed
surplus to requirements by the Society and disposed of, though it is hard to
believe any self-respecting archivist would discard letters of the sort
described, and it would be a scandal in its own right. Altogether it is a mystery: just one more
associated with the ASPR. Clarification
from that quarter is unlikely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Acknowledgement: I’d like to
thank those informants who share my concern over the mismanagement of the ASPR.
I would be happy to hear from anyone
with further information on this sorry business.</span></div>
Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1522742838563938498.post-11447451820331419242019-11-25T17:52:00.000+00:002019-11-25T17:52:39.412+00:00The Twelfth Annual Festival of Ukrainian Film<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghjF4Fxi3zkmSXYM_mF3O7TEhPPW1Bn_pVMFkPCVOzhQplOyTlbNQl6CE5g_lyc_XTfxc0c1jGvjEnhGkuN6cSxE5gtXKFZe7XcJRflc3FQc4m2Fms-xs2gzPmGUVXSdpyXRrL5syX4Drq/s1600/Mr._Jones_%25282019_film%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="220" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghjF4Fxi3zkmSXYM_mF3O7TEhPPW1Bn_pVMFkPCVOzhQplOyTlbNQl6CE5g_lyc_XTfxc0c1jGvjEnhGkuN6cSxE5gtXKFZe7XcJRflc3FQc4m2Fms-xs2gzPmGUVXSdpyXRrL5syX4Drq/s320/Mr._Jones_%25282019_film%2529.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
first night of the 2019 Cambridge Ukrainian Film Festival was moved from its
usual home in Trinity to the Old Divinity School, St John’s College. The reason for the bigger venue was the
extremely large audience for the Friday night film which we were seeing in
advance of its UK national release: <i>Mr.
Jones</i> (2019). This was a break with
the tradition of selecting low-budget Ukrainian output, in favour of a
British/Polish/Ukrainian co-production directed by the Polish Agnieszka Holland
and with a multi-national cast. T</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">he event
was held in conjunction with Cambridge Polish Studies, the Association of
Ukrainians in Great Britain, and the Holodomor Research and Educational
Consortium.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Before
we saw the main feature we had an introduction from Dr Olenka Pevny, director
of Cambridge Ukrainian Studies, and a prize-giving for the winning entry in the
annual competition, now in its second year, run by the Association of
Ukrainians in Great Britain for the best essay by a school student on the
Holodomor. We also watched a
fifteen-minute video, <i>Holodomor: Stalin’s
Secret Genocide</i> (d</span><span lang="EN" style="background: #F9F9F9; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">irected by Andrea
Chalupa, 2016). <i>Mr. Jones</i> was followed by a reception, and a display of
publications on the Holodomor drawn from the Ukrainian collection at Cambridge
University Library.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdPEDk-temCwXJbbTKc65fvb4g7uRsyCn8g7kEym4CBA-wX8dfGwITJo-SGe61CmDQfHjDEQuL-MDVhWE9OzZY4qVCPoessIsxrsLdi0mhIiOfBr0CqoU9DuSRQYnj6nzDdAiOTlgOkBab/s1600/Holodomor+pamphlets.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdPEDk-temCwXJbbTKc65fvb4g7uRsyCn8g7kEym4CBA-wX8dfGwITJo-SGe61CmDQfHjDEQuL-MDVhWE9OzZY4qVCPoessIsxrsLdi0mhIiOfBr0CqoU9DuSRQYnj6nzDdAiOTlgOkBab/s320/Holodomor+pamphlets.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">As for </span><i style="color: #0d0d0d; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Mr. Jones</i><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">
itself, James Norton does a tremendous job bringing together the professional determination,
the far-sighted understanding of European politics, but the personal
vulnerability too, of Gareth Jones, the Welsh journalist who highlighted the
genocide the Soviet government was inflicting on the Ukrainian people in
1932-3.</span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Fresh from interviewing the new
German Chancellor, Hitler, and out of a job working as Lloyd George’s foreign
affairs advisor because of budget cuts, Jones goes to Moscow hoping to
interview Stalin.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="background: #F9F9F9; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">He wonders how the country is managing to undertake a
spending spree when it is apparently broke; as he notes when asking questions
but finding himself stonewalled, ‘the numbers don’t add up.’ On arrival he learns that fellow journalist
Paul Kleb has been murdered in a ‘robbery’ after uncovering evidence of famine
in Ukraine. Despite foreign correspondents
being largely confined to Moscow and kept under tight surveillance, Jones
manages to wangle a trip to Ukraine, where his mother had once taught in what
is now Donetsk.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="background: #F9F9F9; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">He slips his handler and, trudging through the snowy
landscape, sees for himself the desperate conditions the people are having to
endure. Grain – Stalin’s gold – is being
shipped to Moscow while people are literally dying in the streets. This is no natural disaster but an engineered
holocaust of enormous proportions. In a
terrible scene, himself starving and reduced to eating bark, he finds himself
with a group of siblings who give him soup with pieces of meat. When he asks how they have meat, the eldest
answers ‘Kolya’. Jones naively asks if
Kolya is a hunter, and they stare at him.
He finds what is left of Kolya in the snow outside. Walking along a road he sees a dead woman and
her crying infant. Corpse collectors callously
throw both onto the sleigh carrying a pile of bodies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="background: #F9F9F9; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Captured at a railhead, he is returned to Moscow and
offered a choice. A group of British
engineers had been arrested on spying and sabotage charges (the
Metropolitan-Vickers affair) and he is told their safety depends on his silence
(though why the NKVD do not just assassinate him as they apparently had Kleb is
unclear). Back in Britain he agonises
over whether to risk their deaths to possibly save millions. Once the engineers have been freed, however,
he is able to tell his story (adding to testimony by Malcolm Muggeridge, who is
shown meeting Jones in Moscow), only to find a tide of misinformation drowns
out his account.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="background: #F9F9F9; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The worst comes from the odious Walter Duranty of the <i>New York Times</i> (curiously, Jones and
Duranty were both Cambridge graduates, Duranty of Emmanuel, Jones of
Trinity). Contrasting with Jones’s
principled approach to journalism, Duranty is a cynical shill parroting the
line of the Soviet authorities, denying the magnitude of what is happening in
Ukraine. To demonstrate his ghastliness,
Duranty invites Jones to a party shortly after Jones’s arrival in Moscow, and
the scene lingers on a decadent debauch in his comfortable apartment, more
Weimar Berlin than revolutionary Russia.
Jones realises Duranty is not going to rock a very comfy boat. The British are less bothered about Ukraine
than their own parlous economic position and maintaining good relations with
the Soviets, so sit on their hands. But
an encounter with William Randolph Hearst on a visit to Wales allows his
account to be published internationally, finally bringing the situation in
Ukraine to a wider public.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="background: #F9F9F9; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">George Orwell, himself an icon of integrity, and someone
else who mistrusted Duranty, makes intermittent appearances. The film opens with shots of corn fields and
feeding pigs, but this is not Ukraine, as we see Orwell composing <i>Animal Farm</i>, clearly linking Jones with
the novel’s farmer (which one might not think much of a tribute). Later in the film, Orwell and Jones are
introduced to each other by literary agent Leonard Moore, and Orwell attends a
public lecture Jones gives on Ukraine.
In a telling exchange, Orwell tries to defend Soviet methods, but Jones
firmly disabuses him of the idea they are building a better life. Orwell was
later to have his own negative encounter with Stalinism, in Spain. Yet while he is quite forthright about the
Soviet regime in his 1947 introduction to the Ukrainian edition of <i>Animal Farm</i>, it is significant that he
does not refer to the 1932-3 genocide.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="background: #F9F9F9; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The film is certainly not an accurate biopic: Jones had
visited Ukraine twice before, and the chronology of the period after he leaves
Russia has been manipulated. However, it
highlights how the Ukrainians were treated then, and by implication the
colonialist aspirations of Russia towards its neighbour today. In so doing it will perform a useful function
in promoting the memory of the Holodomor to a wide audience. But it has a bland title, and the one given
to it in Ukraine is more informative – </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">'Цiна правди' (<i>Price of Truth</i>). Characters wrestle with the idea of what
would become known as ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’, firmly deciding there
is only one truth and it needs to be told, whatever the cost.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">(I have a brief anecdote about
the Metro-Vickers affair. At some point
in the mid-1980s, <span style="color: #1d2129;">when I was employed by British
Telecom,</span> I picked up a hefty volume of translated transcripts from the
trial, <i>Wrecking Activities at Power
Stations in the Soviet Union</i><span style="color: #1d2129;">. Later, we had some consultants working with
us on a project, one of whom was named Allan Monkhouse. I casually mentioned one day I had a book
about a Moscow show trial featuring someone with the same name, to which he
replied that that was his grandfather.
He did not have a copy of the book so I was happy to donate mine to
him.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
film on the second night was a contrast to <i>Mr.
Jones</i>, and more typical of the sorts of film we tend to see at the
Cambridge Ukrainian Film Festival. <i>Ukraïner: The Movie</i> (2019) is a
documentary charting half a dozen interwoven stories of ordinary people doing
ordinary things across the country (apart from the war zone), together forming
a tapestry of life as it is lived by typical Ukrainians outside the big cities.
The audience may have been smaller than
the previous night, but the film had its pleasures.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Supported
financially by the Ukrainian Cultural Fund, it is part of a much larger project
that began in 2016, drawing large numbers of volunteers internationally to
document Ukrainian life and provide translations in order to show the country
both to Ukrainians and to the rest of the world. The emphasis is firmly on traditional
provincial life, and the overall atmosphere one of contentment, lingering on
small gestures and conversations (do all Ukrainian children have classes in
‘Christian ethics’?), the rhythms of which pull the viewer in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There
are segments about a farmer who practises traditional tree beekeeping, once
considered a lost art but making a comeback, with the bees living in slots in
trees rather than artificial hives; a lighthouse keeper who has to wade salt
flats to get to work; an elderly bus driver who is an enthusiast of the
declining sport of motorcycle football, which he has played for half a century;
a couple who keep goats and weave the most wonderful traditional blankets from
their wool; an old hippy couple who are turning their village into a museum
with their sculptures; and an ex-resident of Pripyat who has returned to the
Chernobyl exclusion zone to document the crumbling structures and burgeoning
wildlife.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Following the screening the
film’s producer Bogdan Logvynenko took questions from an appreciative
audience. He was asked about the approach
to choosing subjects, as the film dealt with small-scale activities rather than
industry or city life, hinting at a retreat from modernity. Bogdan answered that the focus was on what
was distinctive about Ukraine, not what could be seen anywhere, showing aspects
of life there which are under pressure from the modern world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I saw the questioner’s
point. While it is understandable the
filmmakers wish to show positive aspects of Ukraine, and they are fascinating, there
is a sense it is an idealised image, with no attempt to provide the broader
context within which the subjects live their lives; one would not know from the
film that the country is engaged in a protracted hybrid war with Russia, or
that there are concerns with political corruption. The Chernobyl section is the closest one gets
to controversy, and even there the stress is on regeneration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Perhaps the producers’ answer is
that for most people, going about their everyday lives, such wider considerations
are irrelevant. The pressing need is to
project a positive image, and preserve traditions that are a key part of the
national identity but which are under threat from modern life. That is fair enough, but if one wishes to
obtain an accurate image of what it means to be Ukrainian as a whole, those
wider considerations surely need to be included. Further documentaries exploring the urban
experience might help to give some balance if the project truly wishes to live
up to its name.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Tom Ruffleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.com