Science and Spiritualism in an Irish Context

William Fletcher Barrett (1844–1925) has long been recognised for his key role in the foundation of the Society for Psychical Research in 1882, but this came after years of working as a physicist and psychical researcher between Ireland and Britain, conducting mesmeric experiments, maintaining correspondence, and sharing research ideas at forums like the British Association for the Advancement of Science. This article re-evaluates Barrett’s career by focusing on his networks, projects, and organisations in Ireland. These acted as bridges connecting his work as a teacher of physics with his work as a psychical researcher and investigator of spiritualism. In doing so, this article also contributes to the history of spiritualism in Ireland by demonstrating the rich connections which existed between scientists, intellectuals, and amateur investigators in the area of spiritualism and psychical research.

Arthur Conan Doyle in Mesmeric Edinburgh and Hypnotic London

Arthur Conan Doyle's spiritualist interests are often viewed today as idiosyncratic for a medical professional and anachronistic for the late Victorian era. However, historians of the era recognise that there was widespread fascination at this time in the possibility of communicating with the dead and the development of extraordinary mental powers like telepathy. Conan Doyle studied medicine in Edinburgh where the study of mesmerism and its role in therapy continued for much longer than the rest of Britain. The university and medical school produced most of the major names of British medical mesmerism including the physician James Braid, who coined the term hypnotism. By the late nineteenth century, there were many distinguished physicians and scientists who shared Conan Doyle's spiritualist views. The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was the elite London association that investigated these possibilities using a scientific methodology. Hypnotism and the trance state were important tools in this study. Over the course of his thirty-six-year membership, Conan Doyle's convictions strengthened. The backdrop of Edinburgh and mesmerism is key to Conan Doyle's story ‘ John Barrington Cowles’ (1884) , while the scientific investigation of hypnotism described in The Parasite (1894) relies upon his experiences with London's SPR based in Dean's Yard, Westminster, and Hanover Square in Mayfair.

Carlos's First Steps in Parapsychology

In this short commentary I describe the early interest that Dr. Carlos S. Alvarado demonstrated toward parapsychology and psychical research. I present some anecdotes when Carlos was in his late teens and his deep interest in the history of the field.

Walls Falling & the Drive Inward

T. S. Eliot’s “East Cooker” in 1940 encouraged H.D. as she wrote a vatic and communal antiwar poem, The Walls Do Not Fall. This volume of Trilogy explores survival and “ancient rubrics,” provoking her readers to practice “spiritual realism,” addressing those who need to do their “worm-cycle.” Bryher left Lowndes on jaunts to Trenoweth or Eckington, always inviting H.D., who visited Cornwall twice. Her first “escape” led H.D. to “R.A.F.,” an unusual narrative poem for her, pivoting upon sitting next to a pilot on sick leave on the train from Cornwall to London. She envisioned him at her writing desk. This experience led her to the Institute for Psychical Research; Air Marshall Dowding was himself a member. She met Arthur Bhaduri, a “seer” who would conduct séances for H.D. and Bryher. Perdita worked at Bletchley Park unscrambling codes.