Telepathy and the Society for Psychical Research

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shane McCorristine
2021 ◽  
pp. 146906672110505
Author(s):  
Kevin M. Downard

Joseph John Thomson is best known for detecting two isotopes of neon within cathode ray tubes that lay the foundation of the field of mass spectrometry. He was awarded the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the electron and for his work on the conduction of electricity in gases in the same devices. He is less known for his strong religious beliefs and his interest in psychical research and the paranormal. Thomson served as a member of the Society for Psychical Research for over 50 years and even became its Vice President. During this time, he attended a number of séances and demonstrations by professed psychics and mediums. This article traces those who influenced his interest in the paranormal, from Balfour Stewart to Lord Rayleigh and William Crookes. It reports and illustrates his beliefs and experiences investigating the paranormal in his own words.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 597-601
Author(s):  
Zofia Weaver

Mary Rose Barrington was born in London; her parents were Americans with Polish-Jewish roots who decided to settle in England. By her own account (she very considerately left a biographical note for her obituary writer), her childhood was idyllic, mostly spent riding her pony and playing tennis, as well as reading her older brother’s science fiction.  Later she became interested in classical music (she was an accomplished musician, playing cello in a string quartet and singing alto in a local choir) and in poetry, obtaining a degree in English from Oxford University. She then studied law, qualified as a barrister and a solicitor, and spent most of her professional life as a lawyer; her duties included acting as charity administrator for a large group of almshouses. Having a career in the law helped in pursuing two interests of special significance to her, animal protection and the right to voluntary euthanasia. She was responsible for drafting three parliamentary Bills relating to these subjects; none of them passed, but they produced some useful discussions. However, her main interest was in psychical research. When she was 15 she read Sir Oliver Lodge’s Survival of Man, and at Oxford she joined the Oxford University Society for Psychical Research, at that time headed by the philosopher H.H. Price and ran by Richard Wilson, later physics professor at Harvard. The society was very active and hosted knowledgeable invited speakers such as Robert Thouless, Mollie Goldney, and Harry Price. Eventually Mary Rose herself became the Oxford society’s President. 


Author(s):  
Krister Dylan Knapp

Chapter three charts James's contributions to the Society for Psychical Research and the American Society for Psychical Research a researcher, investigator, officer, committee chairman, financial supporter, and cheerleader.


2019 ◽  
pp. 88-115
Author(s):  
N.J. Lowe

This chapter looks at E.R. Dodds’s engagement with the paranormal. Dodds’s career in psychic research had three distinct phases: before, during, and after his tenure of the Oxford chair. His own paranormal beliefs, however, solidified early and remained consistent over his long career in the field. Telepathy was real, an innate part of human development, and a default explanation for other forms of clairvoyance and mediumship. On the other hand, disembodied intelligences—including demons, ghosts, and spirit guides—were a delusion. Though marginalized in modern histories of psychic studies, Dodds’s long and active association with the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) made him a central figure in the history of twentieth-century paranormal research in Britain, and one of the most thoughtful and hard-nosed embedded observers of its journey from the Victorian parlour to eventual extinction in the laboratory environment he had spent his adult life advocating.


Nature ◽  
1923 ◽  
Vol 111 (2781) ◽  
pp. 211-212
Author(s):  
T. W. MITCHELL

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