Displaying the Paranormal

The following article appeared in Fortean Times, No 229, November 2007, pp.38-41.  It supported ‘Harry Price Investigates’, a spin-off article by Richard Morris, who had recently written a biography of Price.  Morris also contributed sidebars on Borley and Rudi Schneider, plus a further article on ectoplasm.  My title was reduced to ‘Displaying the Paranormal’, and some minor alterations of punctuation and wording were made (most notably the deletion of the reference to Of Monsters and Miracles, though I did refer to this event in a follow-up letter replying to some silliness by Morris, who was keen to keep plugging his book). The editor inserted a sub-heading: “In 1925, Harry Price opened a remarkable event in London – a public display of spirit photographs, automatic writing, apports and more.  TOM RUFFLES tells the story of the Exhibition of Objects of Psychic Interest.”  It appears here as submitted.

Displaying the Paranormal: The Exhibition of Objects of Psychic Interest

Readers of this magazine may remember the exhibition of Fortean objects, Of Monsters and Miracles, held at Croydon Clocktower in 1995.   It had an antecedent seventy years before in an even more ambitious enterprise staged at Caxton Hall on 20 and 21 May 1925.  Boasting a slightly less snappy title than the F.T. version, the Exhibition of Objects of Psychic Interest contained a large quantity of items with a paranormal element – almost 1,300 according to the catalogue produced to accompany it, or “many thousands” in the illustrated report which appeared in the July issue of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR).¹  The exhibition aroused a great deal of interest at a time, less than seven years after the end of the Great War, when Spiritualism was flourishing.

The idea originated with J.S. Jensen, president of the Danish Psykisk Oplysnings Forening, the Society for the Promotion of Psychic Knowledge.  He had been collecting objects related to the subject for some years, and had eventually gathered enough material for an exhibition in Copenhagen in January 1925.  Psychical researcher (and self-publicist) Harry Price was invited open it.

Price had been a last-minute replacement for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who had originally accepted an invitation to lecture in Denmark.  Unfortunately, according to Price’s later account in Search for Truth, shortly before Conan Doyle was due to leave he had attended a séance at which he was warned by the spirit world that the trip might prove injurious to his health, and he had cried off.  Price went in his stead, and the visit was a great success, especially the catering.  Jensen suggested that the exhibition might travel to London, and, impressed by the idea, Price agreed to make arrangements.

He needed a venue, and fortunately the London Spiritualist Alliance (LSA, later the College of Psychic Studies) was planning a grand bazaar and fête, with the purpose of raising funds to purchase a new headquarters building.  It agreed that the two enterprises would complement each other.

This was useful for Price because in March he floated the idea of a National Laboratory of Psychical Research, for which he required a home.  He had used rooms at the LSA’s premises in Queen Square previously, but he had ambitions for a much grander research facility, and it made sense to cohabit with the LSA.  One problem, though, was Price’s ambivalent relationship with Conan Doyle who, being the most prominent exponent of Spiritualism in the country, had a great deal of leverage with the LSA.  Price’s efforts to organise the proposed exhibition, thereby boosting the profile of the LSA’s bazaar, would provide him with an advantage in his negotiations with them.

The LSA Council announced the exhibition in its publication Light on 18 April 1925, and launched an appeal for loans to supplement Jensen’s collection, which was to be brought to London in its entirety.  Lenders were asked to supply a statement giving the background to the object, plus “the signatures of those able to testify to its genuineness.”  Given that there was only a month to the opening, the organisers did well to obtain the amount they did.  However, the bulk of the display – items 1 to 1,109 – was made up of Jensen’s material mounted on panels.  These, with objects gathered in Britain, filled Caxton Hall’s main space, two further rooms and a gallery, totalling, according to Price’s estimate, about 5,000sq ft.

The 36-page catalogue emphasised the breadth of a collection “illustrating the history, literature and development of Spiritualism and psychical Research from the period of Mesmer (1778) to the present day.”  In the foreword, Price warned that a guarantee could not be given that all objects were genuine, and referred to “fraud, folly, self-deception” and “credulous owners.”  He stressed that no selection to “segregate the sheep from the goats” had taken place on the grounds that “the investigator does not yet know what is, or is not, psychic fraud.”²  Despite this caveat, he concluded that “No one – however sceptical – can regard the mass of material brought together at this Exhibition without coming to the conclusion that there is a strong prima facie case for very serious investigation and scientific research.  The observer who will not admit this is not honest” (italics in original).

On show was a selection of books, portraits of mediums and Spiritualist leaders, and “relics”, including Kate Fox’s marriage certificate which, along with pictures of the Fox sisters, harked back to the origins of Spiritualism in 1848.  There were examples of trance drawings and automatic writing, including texts dictated by Solon, Bishop Wilberforce, Plato, Seneca and Beethoven.  Captain Bartlett, drawing in semi-trance as John Alleyne, presented eight pastels of Glastonbury Abbey as he envisioned it to have looked in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.  There were a number of notebooks and drawings which had belonged to William Stainton Moses, one of the founders of the LSA, and various apports (objects transported by paranormal means into the séance room), including a pair of polecat tails and a wreath of leaves from Summerland.

There were many spirit photographs on display, including examples taken by Ada Emma Deane (who had been exposed by The Daily Sketch the previous year), Harry Blackwell, Robert Boursnell, William Hope’s Crewe Circle (investigated by Price in 1922 with ambiguous results), and Édouard Isidore Buguet, who had confessed to fraud – but later retracted – in 1875.  Conan Doyle’s 85 spirit ‘Garscadden’ photographs had an area to themselves. (By 1942, twelve years after Sir Arthur’s death, Price felt brave enough to dismiss the “large collection, every one of which was, apparently, a fake!  Poor, dear, lovable, credulous Doyle”; a verdict curiously absent from Price’s report compiled while Doyle was still corporeal.)  American medium ‘Margery’ (Mina Crandon), “whose phenomena are the wonder of the civilised world” according to the catalogue, was represented by two photographs.  One section was devoted to what the catalogue described as fake photographs, the implication being that all the others were genuine: “Anti-Spiritualistic experiments by Faustinus, Marriott and Rinn.”

Slates used by the medium Henry Slade were shown, as was his table, the catalogue noting that it had been “described by [John Neville] Maskelyne as a ‘Trick Table’ in the prosecution of Slade.”  This piece of furniture had been used in experiments by Price with the medium Stella C. (Dorothy Stella Cranshaw) at Queen Square in 1923, and then by the LSA as a packing table.³  There were mementos of Madame d’Espérance and records of sittings with a large number of mediums, including Slade, D.D. Home, Florence Cook, Kathleen Goligher, Stainton Moses, Eusapia Palladino, and Mrs Guppy “of aerial transit fame”, i.e. she was said to have teleported across London in 1871.  Captain Pearse’s trance drawing of Elsie Cameron, who was killed in December 1924, and which was said to have been drawn two days before the crime was uncovered, drew a great deal of prurient interest in a case that had achieved notoriety as the Crowborough Chicken Farm Murder

A number of people well known in the field were on hand to explain the significance of the exhibits to visitors.  Among these was Price who, with J.S. Jensen’s son, held sway over the Copenhagen material, as well as his own loans and artefacts associated with Stella C.  Bligh Bond was present to explain the Glastonbury scripts and drawings, and Conan Doyle did the same for his collection.  Dr Abraham Wallace showed lantern slides of the pioneers at work, and Blackwell discussed his spirit photographs.

A private view was held on the afternoon of 19 May, mainly for the press, and according to Light the resulting publicity attracted many non-Spiritualists.  Notwithstanding the organisers’ impression that the press was entirely sympathetic, the sceptical Daily Sketch of 20 May declared it to be the “queerest exhibition ever held in London” and felt obliged to mention two spirits that had been photographed in a semi-nude state.  It explained the pair’s unfortunate condition thus:  he had been an athlete while she had given herself up to pleasure, and both, having neglected to attend to spiritual matters while alive, were now unable to “weave” spirit robes on the other side.

However, the dailies were, on the whole, respectful in tone.  All were primarily fascinated by plaster casts of spirit hands (‘pseudopods’) loaned by the British College of Psychic Science, obtained through the mediumship of Franek Kluski by the hands plunging into buckets of wax before dematerialising.  The Yorkshire Post of 22 May, though, after a positive review, struck a warning note by opining: “One feels, however, that any such exhibition should make a clearer distinction between purely physical phenomena and phenomena having some bearing on human survival”, although it failed to define what it meant by physical phenomena other than that displayed by mediums, which they would automatically consider to imply survival.  As Light put it on 30 May: “Almost every phase of physical mediumship was represented.”

There was a decidedly Society component to the affair.  The first day was opened by Sybil Viscountess Rhondda, and the second by Susan Countess of Malmesbury and Viscountess Molesworth.  Conan Doyle made introductory remarks on both occasions.  As well as the exhibition, there were stalls selling good quality bric a brac, an auction, concerts and variety shows, and “seers” who, in the words of Light’s advance publicity, would “exercise their various gifts to amuse, and perhaps enlighten, visitors for a few quiet minutes away from the bustle of buying and of viewing exhibits…”

There were a number of curious occurrences during the two days, such as Iltyd B. Nicholl, who claimed that he was a frequent target for apports, being struck on the shoe by a safety pin while walking up some stairs with Price.  Price picked it up and declared that it felt warm, though tactfully not that it was the same sort of warmth which would have arisen from it being kept in a pocket.  Another apport, “in the shape of an African native’s leather apron” arrived “especially for the Exhibition.”  As the description of these wonders occurs in the same paragraph in the ASPR article in which Price warns of folly and self-deception, one can assume he is being tongue-in-cheek.⁴

Attendance was excellent, with £850 changing hands according to the ASPR Journal account (“nearly £1,000” in Search for Truth), which amounted to £600 profit.  The article goes on to state that many well-known people attended, including “everyone in the psychic world”, notably the “late Sir William Barrett”, although it does not add that he was pre-mortem at the time.

Light declared the event a resounding success, giving it extensive coverage.  There were a number of reviews in its 30 May issue, concluding that the bazaar, fête and exhibition would “leave a shining mark in the annals of our subject.”  They noted that Kluski’s casts, Captain Bartlett’s drawings and Conan Doyle’s photographs had attracted particular attention, though in the last-mentioned case whether that was because of the attraction of the pictures themselves or because the creator of Sherlock Holmes was present to discuss them is open to question.

The success of the exhibition oiled Price’s relationship with the LSA, which agreed that his National Laboratory of Psychical Research could occupy the top floor of its new premises in 16 Queensberry Place to which it moved later in the year, and the laboratory duly opened on 1 January 1926.  Conan Doyle, though, continued to blow hot and cold in his relationship with Price, and the intermittent antagonism seems to have caused the LSA some embarrassment, caught as it was in the crossfire between the pair.

Price, foreseeing the exhibition’s success, suggested in the catalogue’s foreword that it should form the nucleus of a permanent museum, and in his ASPR Journal report stated that it had been decided to restage the exhibition.  In a note in the October 1925 Journal he mentioned that Conan Doyle had acted on his suggestion by mounting a display of objects associated with Spiritualism in the basement of his psychic bookshop that could be viewed for a shilling.

Price, perhaps not to be outdone by his rival, also announced that the Council of the National Laboratory had decided to found a museum which would show items he had been collecting for the purpose.  And indeed, Paul Tabori in his biography of Price mentions that Jensen sent material for a display at the Laboratory, of which he became an honorary corresponding member.

While the exhibition was undoubtedly fascinating, Price’s triumphant echoing of a newspaper verdict that it had been “the most wonderful exhibition ever held in London” seems peculiar given that as he wrote, over in Wembley the British Empire Exhibition was in full swing, having opened in April 1924, and finally closing in October 1925.⁵  Perhaps Price felt that the doings of the spirit realm were more wonderful than those of empire builders...

Footnotes:

¹ Although unsigned, the Journal article was written by Harry Price.  It formed the basis for the chapter entitled ‘A Unique Exhibition’, in Price’s Search for Truth.  Price was the ASPR’s ‘Foreign Research Officer’.

² One feels that Price, with his first-hand knowledge of the field, would have had a good idea of what was fraudulent.  The verdict in Search for Truth was not so even-handed, adopting a sneering tone.

³ It now resides in the President’s office at the College of Psychic Studies.

⁴ In the ASPR account the gentleman remains anonymous and is identified by name only in Search for Truth, by which time he was presumably dead.

⁵ One of the Light reviews refers to the Caxton Hall display as a “Wembley” of psychic exhibits.

Further reading:

[Harry Price], ‘The Psychic Exhibition’, Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, July 1925, pp382-386.

Harry Price, Search for Truth – My Life for Psychical Research, Collins, London, 1942.

Paul Tabori, Harry Price: Ghost Hunter, The Athenæum Press, London, 1950.

Acknowledgements:

Thanks are due to Dr Julia C Walworth, Head of Historic Collections at the University of London Library, for producing the exhibition catalogue from the Harry Price Collection (gone, alas, are the days when one could look for oneself); and especially to Kay MacCauley, General Administrator of The College of Psychic Studies, for delving into back issues of Light.

Course Works

This article appeared in the readers’ views column at the back of Amateur Photographer, 30 October 1999, p.106, under the title ‘Course works’. The darkroom references give it an air of nostalgia, and I still recall fondly messing around with tests strips and the magic, which never palled, of putting the paper in the developer and seeing an image emerge. It’s a sensation you just don’t get with Photoshop. Alas when I tried to book up for the next module I found the course full, then I moved, then digital came along. It is good though that there is still an interest in old processes. I recently decided to part with my film cameras (including the Pentax Super-A referred to in the article) and lenses, and donated them to my local charity shop. A lady picked them up eagerly for her daughter, telling me that the students at the village college had a darkroom and were avid users of film cameras. It’s nice to think that old techniques survive alongside new ones, and that future generations will experience the pleasure of the real – as opposed to the digital – darkroom.



For years I, like many other amateur snappers, did not particularly consider what went on between pressing the button on the top of my automatic camera and getting the packet of photos through the post. The most technical thing I ever did was press '+2' when there was a lot of sky in the frame. I enjoyed taking pictures, and tried to improve my composition - I even asked for a roll of black and white film one birthday so that I could try some arty shots - but something was lacking, as I realised when I compared my efforts to work in magazines.

Help was needed if I wanted to create something more than a record of family life. There was nothing for it but to enrol in an evening class, and I discovered that my local FE college had a decent photographic department. Armed with a second-hand Pentax Super-A, I enrolled on a City and Guilds course, where I knew that I would be mixing with other mature students. My original aim was to pick up a few tips about technique, and the theoretical sessions went a long way towards giving me the confidence to take more than random snaps. We were also able to try out the well-equipped studio, which was interesting, and not something I would have done otherwise.

After a term we moved into the darkroom to do black and white processing and printing. What a revelation that was. For the first time I could control the sequence from raw material (bulk film for economy) through to final image. I was no longer reliant on a machine and an anonymous operator. If I mucked it up (which I frequently did) I had nobody else to blame.

Perhaps it was something in the chemicals, but I found the process addictive, as I suspect many of my colleagues did, judging by the number that came in early, worked like demons, and left as late as possible. People did drop out: some decided that a camera club would be more suitable for their level of aspiration, others lacked patience and could not get the hang of the technical aspects. But most stuck with it, and we learned together. Well before the end of the year I knew I wanted to do the other modules.

What have I learned so far? For a start, the considerations involved in taking good photographs, and in the darkroom how to try variations on a theme to obtain the best effect. There is something incredibly satisfying about manipulating an image for optimum impact, and I never tire of seeing the picture magically appear in the developer, faint at first, then stronger and stronger. The materials are fairly cheap, so if an idea does not work, not much has been lost, and the syllabus provides a framework so that the experimentation has a goal.

OK, I'm not an expert by any means, but there is a sense of satisfaction in having a go which is denied to those who send off their films in an envelope or drop them off at a high street processor. So if you haven't previously considered it, find out about a class. The mix of the teaching staff's expertise, mutual assistance (and friendly rivalry) with the other students, and access to facilities denied to the average amateur, will give you confidence to take better pictures. It's definitely a worthwhile investment.

Television review: Ghosts of Hollywood

This is another brief review which appeared in the Newsletter of the Society for Psychical Research, in 1989. Such programming is ubiquitous now but was much rarer back then. I seem to have been mildly scandalised that the programme was so light-weight, but I expect such naivety was soon dispelled on further exposure to the genre.


SPR Newsletter No 31, October 1989, p.31.

Ghosts of Hollywood (ITV, 28/8/89): A Review

The main interest of this look at ghosts of Hollywood (on and off celluloid) was the old film clips. The serious element was lightweight, despite the presence of the oddly-termed “psychic researchers”, a CSICOP representative and (usually celebrity) subjects of hauntings thrown in to leaven the mix.

There were some interesting moments: A mysterious light captured on film in a Longleat corridor (the term “Hollywood” liberally interpreted!); the strange fogging of the middle frames in a roll of film; and photographs showing nasty-looking wounds to the people who inspired The Exorcist and The Entity. I would have liked to know more about all these. The rest was mostly unsubstantiated assertion.

Particularly unsatisfactory was the section on The Amityville Horror, which could have presented the case against the Lutzes much more forcefully (the Amityville episode is a horror, but not in the sense usually intended). The useful bits in this programme seemed to be dropped in at intervals, a pity, as examining Hollywood ghosts was a good idea. The result was, like the “medium” it was based on, two-dimensional.

This Life, Next Life: Evidence for the Afterlife - DVD review

This Life, Next Life: Evidence for the Afterlife (2009) by Keith Parsons

It may seem odd reviewing a film that cannot be seen by the public.*  Keith Parsons’s documentary is currently in limbo because of copyright issues; it contains quite a few archive photos and downloaded clips which have not been cleared because of the expense.  But in case the DVD acquires a kind of samizdat existence, passed round aficionados for private study until such times as the intellectual property difficulties are resolved, it is worth outlining its content and evaluating it.

Keith is a retired BBC radio producer who has single-handedly put together a well-structured and informative 54-minute documentary presenting the arguments for life after death.  He is unashamedly pro-survival which may grate with those who expect their documentaries to present a balanced view.  The reason for this partisan approach is because Keith sees a bias against the survival hypothesis in media presentations and wants to cover aspects that are less frequently aired; apart from occasionally in religious programming, the subject is generally treated as entertainment and not taken seriously.

An engaging and sincere host, Keith’s stated aim to present the scientific case for the afterlife, which as far as he is concerned is too strong to be discounted.  He begins his investigation with an anecdote which had a great deal of significance for him.  When he visited a medium he was given messages from his deceased father and sister (whose names were supplied to him by the medium), and as far as he was concerned the choice was between the messages being genuine spirit communication, and the medium reading his mind.  His thesis is that an examination of the evidence leads to the conclusion that the former is far more likely than the latter.  Other possibilities, cold reading for instance, are not explored.

That experience was of course convincing on a personal level, but not necessarily to others, and Keith focuses on a number of areas, some historical, some contemporary, which he feels should convince the impartial viewer.  The first of these is the cross-correspondences, scripts independently recorded by a number of mediums, separated geographically, in the first third of the twentieth century.  He gives some simple examples of how these correspondences worked, fragments that by themselves were obscure and only made sense when combined.

The next stop is a brief look at Tom Oliver Whitlock, who died in action in 1916 and came through at séances in the 1950s.  This was one of Alan Gauld’s ‘drop-in communicators’, recorded in the literature with the pseudonym Harry Stockbridge.  ‘Tom’ supplied items of information which turned out to be correct but had to be verified by reference to a variety of sources, making fraud and super-psi less likely explanations than spirit communication.

For The Scole experiment Keith is fortunate to have been able to interview both Robin Foy, who was the main organiser of the séances, and David Fontana, a primary investigator.  They run through some of the phenomena recorded there and Keith exhibits the book written by Jane and Grant Solomon, but does not mention the SPR Proceedings which examined the phenomena in much greater depth, nor does he mention the critical comments Scole has attracted, apart from the locked box in which test films were kept during sittings.  Foy mentions that the sitters were never searched by the investigators, though he says that they would have complied had they been asked, but the investigators did search the séance room before and after each sitting.  Fontana vouches for the honesty of the sitters and stresses the implementation of controls to eliminate the possibility of fraud, though there is no mention that séances took place in complete darkness and the spirits refused to allow the use of infra-red cameras.  Fontana points out that the investigators had challenged conjurors to duplicate the phenomena under the same conditions but had not had any takers.  Overall, despite flaws, Parsons seems convinced of the genuineness of the bulk of the evidence gathered during the Scole sittings.

A description of an electrical device through which the Scole group received a twenty-minute message leads into a discussion of Electronic Voice Phenomena and Instrumental Transcommunication. Beginning with Frs Ernetti and Gemelli and their contact with the latter’s deceased father when the wire on the recorder they were using kept breaking, Keith moves on to Friedrich Jurgenson, Konstantin Raudive, and George Meek’s Spiricom.  He also visits Anabela Cardoso in Spain to see her experimental set-up.  Keith acknowledges that sounds can be open to interpretation, the background noise rendering it difficult to understand what is being said, but again considers this approach valuable in demonstrating survival.

The mediumship of Leonora Piper is covered, including the investigation mounted by Richard Hodgson, previously a sceptic and scourge of Madame Blavatsky, who changed his mind about survival as a result of his contact with Mrs Piper.  The final part of the documentary comprises a discussion of the relationship between brain and mind.  Bruce Greyson is interviewed saying that current discussions of how the brain relates to mental function are inadequate.  If the mind is not dependent on brain, then survival becomes more tenable.  To illustrate this point we are shown a clip from the BBC programme The Day I Died featuring the well-rehearsed Pam Reynolds case in which she had an aneurism and the blood was drained from her brain to repair it, yet she had an NDE.  It would be ironic if this is one of the items causing publication difficulties as the entire documentary is freely available (at least at the time of writing) on YouTube.

In addition to these strands, Keith lists a number of well-known researchers into life after death such as Sir William Crookes, Henry Sidgwick, Frederic Myers, Alfred Russel Wallace, Sir Oliver Lodge, Thomas Edison, John Logie Baird, William Barrett, William James, James Hyslop, Lord Rayleigh, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (illustrated with the portrait from the National Portrait Gallery implicated in the Scole Polaroid of Conan Doyle – see Fortean Times Issue 261, April 2010, pp.64-65) and Arthur Balfour.  This is certainly an impressive list, and is intended to reassure the doubter that if such eminent men were convinced, there must be something in it.  Of course as reassurance for the doubter goes this is of limited value, though it is always worth being reminded of the range of talented individuals with an interest in survival.

While the presentation is generally sound, there are some issues with which it is possible to quibble.  For example Keith makes assumptions about the narrow extent of Mrs Piper’s knowledge (she is often portrayed as a woman of limited education), something about which I have always thought it pays to be cautious; and he repeats the myth that Edison invented the light bulb (Joseph Swan).  More significantly, he characterises Colin Brookes-Smith’s conclusion after studying the cross-correspondences to be that survival was the only conclusion to be drawn by any reasonable person, and that the SPR should announce this breakthrough to the world.  Keith believes that the SPR did not make such an announcement only because it has sceptics among its membership, individuals who present a major obstacle to the acceptance of survival.

However, this is not actually what Brookes-Smith said.  He talked (in the June 1963 issue of the SPR’s Journal) in weaker terms: “There must now be in existence a very large amount of script material from which, after making due allowance, it can be inferred that discarnate intelligences have at least partly contributed to the subject matter”.  He also talks about the scientific arguments for survival being presented to the public by “a team”, not as an official announcement by the SPR.  Making such an announcement would contravene the Society’s principle of not holding corporate views, so would not be possible.  This misrepresentation (or more likely misunderstanding) seems to have come from Victor Zammit’s book A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife, which is featured in the documentary.

Later Keith discusses Hodgson’s attack on Madame Blavatsky and says that in 1986 the SPR “officially retracted its verdict on her”.  The SPR did no such thing because it had no verdict to retract.  Keith is referring to an article by Vernon Harrison in the April 1986 issue of the SPR Journal which was critical of Richard Hodgson’s role in the original investigation of Blavatsky.  Harrison’s article was prefaced by an editorial note which says in part:

“Although, as it has been repeatedly pointed out, The S.P.R. holds no corporate opinions, it has widely been regarded as responsible for endorsing the 'Hodgson Report' (as we shall hereafter refer to the report as a whole) and hence as being on record as condemning Mme. Blavatsky.”

Critics of the original report have long, as indicated in the quotation, assumed that the Hodgson Report represented an official SPR ‘line’, but from the beginning of the SPR’s existence it has held that its publications are the responsibility of the authors, and do not represent an official view by the Society.  Harrison’s opinions were his alone, as would have been apparent from reading the editorial note accompanying his article.

Clearly Keith is impressed by much of the research he presents, and sees an increasing feeling among scientists that a theory of everything needs to incorporate consciousness.  He predicts a paradigm shift in which spirit and other dimensions are considered essential components in an understanding of reality.  As he rightly concludes, if we accept survival, that acceptance causes a change in our view both of ourselves and of the world.

There is a limit to what can be achieved in under an hour, and the resulting briskness could be confusing for the newcomer, but seeing it might encourage viewers to seek out a wider range of resources.  Unfortunately having produced the documentary at his own expense and in his own time, Keith has not been able to find a broadcaster willing to take it on.  It would be a shame if nobody heard about Keith Parson‘s project, and it joined those films which for one reason or another cannot be shown.

It would also be a pity to lose the interviews he conducted with a number of eminent researchers in the field: Archie Roy, David Fontana, Victor Zammit, Robin Foy, Anabela Cardoso, Bruce Greyson and Peter Fenwick.  In commercial terms its lack of balance is bound to harm its prospects so it seems unlikely that it will be picked up for national broadcast.  The alternative approach would be to strip out the elements for which copyright permission has not been granted and post it online.   Whatever one’s view of the individual topics covered, it is still good to see them aired in an accessible way, even though the overall feel is one of preaching to the converted.

I would like to thank Keith Parsons for his kindness in supplying a copy of the documentary.

*Update 21 June 2015

On 20 June 2015 a copy of the film was uploaded to YouTube.  I don’t know if Keith was involved in this or if it was done solely by other hands: the upload credit is to the cleverly named iDigitalMedium, part of whose aims is ‘To share all aspects of spirituality and creativity as they relate to our everyday lives in this age of technology, on the cusp of the re-enlightenment of the consciousness of mankind’.  It may have been carried out without Keith’s knowledge – Tim Coleman, for example, has long been fighting pirates who have illegally uploaded his film The Afterlife Investigations, but that is commercially available, whereas This Life, Next Life never has been.  iDigitalMedium seems a reputable organisation judging by its website so it is likely that Keith gave his permission.  The YouTube film is the same length as the DVD Keith sent me in 2010, so either copyright issues have been resolved, or simply ignored.  The film may disappear as suddenly as it appeared, but for the moment it can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5RpbveVC_4&feature=youtu.be

Update 25 August 2015

Keith wrote to me to tell me about the film’s availability (24 August 2015).  I hadn’t been sure if he was aware that it is now on YouTube, but it was indeed done with his consent; a copy had been seen by someone in the US who asked Keith if he could upload it.  To date it has been viewed almost 15, 500 times and Keith was pleased with its reception, which has been largely positive.  As to copyright, the start of the online video has a declaration: ‘Produced for free, educational viewing only.  THIS IS NOT A COMMERCIAL VIDEO PRODUCT. Copyright – Keith Parsons – 2009.  Unlicensed materials are included under applicable Fair Use provisions.’  The first and last statements have been added to the beginning for the YouTube presentation (the middle two were on the original DVD).  Perhaps the copyright owners will be content to acknowledge fair use, or alternatively waive fees on the grounds that Keith is not making any money out of it, or they may not even notice his incorporation of their material.  It is certainly gratifying for Keith that after being in limbo for so long his labour of love is finally reaching an enthusiastic audience.

Tony Cornell: An Appreciation

Part of the display at Tony's memorial

Veteran psychical researcher Anthony Donald Cornell died on 10 April 2010.  His memorial service was held at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, on 20 June, on what would have been his 87^th birthday.  The event, ably organised by Ali Cornell and Tony’s sons David, Martin and John, was very moving.  We had reminiscences from Alan Gauld, who had known Tony for almost sixty years, and carried out investigations with him (‘Tony as I knew him’), and Bernard Carr, a member of the Cambridge University Society for Psychical Research (CUSPR) in the late 1960s/early 70s, and a firm family friend ever since (‘Tony Cornell: Psychical researcher, intrepid investigator and mischievous spirit’).  Both Alan and Bernard are of course senior figures in the London-based Society for Psychical Research (SPR).  David Cornell spoke about his father’s role - extremely underrated - as a councillor active in planning matters in Cambridge.  We sang For Those in Peril on the Sea, which tied in with Tony’s wartime naval career, and there were some touching readings.  The chapel was packed with his friends, and while the mood was one of sadness, there was much humour, to reflect Tony’s irrepressible extravert nature.

Along with a buffet afterwards, we were treated to a slide show and display of photographs and articles on Tony’s life and manifold activities, covering his schooldays, his naval service, his travels, his politics, and his psychical research, not to mention his fondness for dressing in silly costumes and headgear.  There was also a loop of his appearances in television programmes discussing ghost hunting, though alas not my favourite, mentioned by Alan, in which Tony set out to test G W Lambert’s ‘underground water’ hypothesis to account for poltergeist phenomena.  It featured Tony, hanging out of an upstairs window while the house was shaken to pieces round him, shouting out that the poltergeist effects, which he argued should have occurred if the theory was valid, had not happened. (Tony’s mad antics, before the days of risk assessments, were great television but of course the sorts of vibrations Lambert suggested were responsible for poltergeists were of a different kind to those produced in this demonstration.)  Obituaries of Tony will appear in the SPR Journal and Fortean Times in due course which will describe his life, and particularly his significant contributions to psychical research, but in the meantime I want to record some personal thoughts of my own.

I first met Tony in 1989, when I was co-opted onto the SPR Council. Eventually I moved to Cambridge and we lived quite close to each other, so I would regularly pop round and spend a couple of hours drinking coffee and eating cake while telling him bits of SPR news and listening to his views on the state of psychical research, notably the lack of cases these days, the absence of decent photographic evidence for the paranormal, and generally whether we were all wasting our time.  I thoroughly enjoyed these visits, mainly because he had a vast amount of experience in the subject he was willing to impart, but also because he was astonishingly indiscreet and had an amazing store of anecdotes, both about psychical research and his life.  We would chat, often with the indoor rabbits underfoot, and I would look out of the window at the birds, mostly feral pigeons, and squirrels in the garden.  He bought seed in large sacks and must have spent a fortune on feeding wildlife over the years (including foxes as we were told at his memorial).

I spent a lot of time with him for an extended period helping to clear decades of possessions and rubbish from the damp-riddled basement of his house in Victoria Street, venue for the CUPSR, and immortalised in the large number of interviews that Tony gave for both television and print media.  I decided that Tony was himself a squirrel of the first order, partly because he had accumulated so much junk over the years, and partly because he remained reluctant to part with a lot of it. I did many trips to the tip with enormous bags of rubbish, but even so I would regularly say, “shall I throw this out Tony?”, and he would frown and reply, “no, it could come in useful,” even though he must have realised it probably never would.  These visits were particularly noteworthy for the drive there and back in his car.  After his stroke he had limited mobility in one arm and although he continued to drive, he tended to disregard the road markings.  At Mitcham’s Corner in particular he would always be on the wrong side of the line and would swoop across at the last moment to take the left turn, occasionally prompting a vigorous honking behind us.

One of my regrets is not having been around during the glory days of the CUSPR.  Those Sunday evenings in Tony’s basement sound as if they were great fun, even though Tony and his colleagues were conducting serious research.  Tony was always disappointed that there was insufficient interest among the university’s undergraduates to keep CUSPR going.  Another disappointment was that his book Investigating the Paranormal was not distributed as widely as its importance merited.  Hopefully now that the rights are in other hands this will be rectified and marketing will be more vigorous.  Who knows, we might one day even see a second edition with the bits that Helix Press cut out the first time round reinstated.

Sadly I never accompanied Tony on a proper investigation; the closest I came was when we went to The Bell at Thetford to participate in the making of a television programme for a series called Ghosthunters.  I was there with my local group, and we tried to simulate a vigil while the room was bathed in bright light aimed in from a cherry picker parked outside.  I also had to describe Tony’s SPIDER (Spontaneous Psychophysical Incident Data Electronic Recorder) to camera after Tony had given the background to the case.  Alas while Tony’s contribution remained the rest never made it into the programme. (Rather curiously, as I was typing this the magazine produced by the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena arrived, and on opening it the page fell open at an article by Lionel Fanthorpe describing his recent visit to The Bell.  No mention of Tony though.)

The overarching theme of the memorial, which tied together his various interests, was his essential decency.  In his public life he always tried to do the right thing.  David Cornell’s account of his father’s tenacity as chair of the Council’s planning committee – not you would have thought the world’s most exciting topic, but as Tony was involved it was bound to be lively – was punctuated with “…and then there was an almighty row.”  Tony did not curry favour, and although a staunch Conservative, was not a party hack. That could be why, despite his long service to the City, he never obtained the gong which those of lesser achievement often receive.  He was willing to challenge developers and fellow Councillors if he thought they were in the wrong, and Cambridge is the richer for it.  In particular, as David pointed out, Tony was the inspiration for the Cambridge Science Park, an achievement of which he was enormously proud, but for which he never received his due recognition.   It was also this tenacity which led to his long tenure (over twenty years) as Hon Treasurer of the SPR during some financially difficult times.

I last saw Tony two days before he died.  He had come home from Addenbrooke’s and was installed in his room at the front of the house, in a peaceful road with the sun streaming in and spring flowers in the garden.  Ali said that I could hold his hand, but I was reluctant as holding hands with Tony was not something I would normally have done.  He was heavily sedated and although he was conscious I didn’t know if he could understand what I was saying to him.  While Ali made coffee I told him some news about the SPR, and mentioned the names of people I knew annoyed him, hoping that doing so would engage his attention.  If nothing else I thought that he would at least know he was not alone.  Shortly afterwards the nurse came and I felt I was in the way and should leave.  Before doing so I did hold Tony’s hand briefly and said goodbye.  I told Ali I would like to come back to see him again but he died before I could.

After the memorial, resolutely not called that on the programme, but “A celebration of the life of Tony Cornell”, Karen and I walked back to the car which was parked at the front of the college.  I sat in it while Karen changed her shoes, and something on the grass by the car caught my eye.  For a moment I could not work out what it was, and then realised it was a green woodpecker, just a few feet away, on the ground with its wings spread.  I told Karen not to move and for about half a minute we watched it sit there before it flew away through the trees and across the Huntingdon Road. Karen reckoned it had a glint in its eye so was probably Tony, wearing one of the masks of which he was so fond, saying cheerio.