Paranormal Pioneers and other Strange Phenomena

Henry Sidgwick (1838-1900)

Henry Sidgwick was born at Skipton in Yorkshire, where his father, the Reverend W. Sidgwick (d. 1841), was headmaster of the local grammar school. Henry himself was educated at Rugby and at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1859 he received several academic distinctions and in the same year he was elected to a fellowship at Trinity, and soon afterwards became a lecturer in classics there, a post he held for ten years. In the same year, deciding that he could no longer in good conscience declare himself a member of the Church of England, he resigned his fellowship. He retained his lectureship, and in 1881 was elected an honorary fellow.

Besides his lecturing and literary labors, Sidgwick took an active part in the business of the university, and in many forms of social and philanthropic work. When, in 1880, the North Hall was added, Sidgwick, who in 1876 had married Eleanor Mildred Balfour, lived there for two years and in 1892 Mrs. Sidgwick became principal of the college, and she and her husband lived there for the rest of his life.

Sidgwick was one of the founders and first president of the Society for Psychical Research and a member of the Metaphysical Society. He was deeply interested in psychical phenomena, but his energies were primarily devoted to the study of religion and philosophy.

Brought up in the Church of England, Sidgwick drifted away from traditional Christianity. His interest in parapsychology was clearly an extension of his religious studies. However, he thought that mere study of the Bible could not answer many of the most important issue, which necessarily called for free and open inquiry into the possibility of miracles and paranormal phenomena. Regrettably, he found that traditional religion was all too often unreceptive and even openly hostile to such forms of inquiry, an attitude that tends to be prevalent in the church even today. For the rest of his life, though, he regarded Christianity as "indispensable and irreplaceable" although he found himself unable to return to it as a religion.

He conducted methodical research into psychic phenomena in hopes of finding scientific support for religious beliefs. The investigation of personal survival after death turned out to be inseparable from the investigation of many other reported paranormal phenomena, including trance mediumship, apparitions of the living as well as the dead, as well as telepathy. This was only natural since it was thought that a medium allegedly relaying information from the dead might instead be picking up the thoughts of those present through telepathic communication. Consequently, in order to establish that communication from the “other world” had truly occurred, it was necessary to rule out the possibility of telepathy.

Sad to say, Sidgwick’s study of life after death never yielded the hard proof of survival that he sought and in the end he concluded that it had been largely a waste of time, but that there were some positive results from it and further study was necessary.

The Society for Psychical Research

The period which saw the formation of the Society for Psychical Research was a time of intense intellectual turmoil and uncertainty, with natural sciences making great strides in explaining the world in terms which challenged the traditional religious view. However, it was also a time of intense interest in paranormal activity in all of society throughout the Western world, related to the spread of the new religion of Spiritualism.

The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was founded in London in 1882. Among its founders were Henry Sidgwick and Frederic Myers. The SPR was the first learned society of its kind for the purpose of investigating “… phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric, psychical and "spiritualistic” and aimed to do so in the same manner of exact and unimpassioned enquiry which has enabled science to solve so many problems.

Working in that scientific spirit, the leaders of the SPR created a methodological and administrative framework for investigating the phenomena, including a scholarly journal for reporting and discussing psychical research worldwide. Because of their efforts, psychical research became more of a science, with disciplined and standardized methods of description.

The idea behind using scientific research to document the paranormal was to make it as detailed and as painstaking as possible. This is evidenced by a book produced in1886 by Frederick Myers, Edmund Gurney, and a postal worker named Frank Podmore entitled Phantasms of the Living. The book was over 2,000 pages long and detailed the first-hand evidence of “ghosts” of living persons.

At the center of the Society’s activities was the collection and investigation of data, which consisted, among other things, of the study of investigated thought-reading (now called telepathy), clairvoyance, physical phenomena and apparitions.

Much of the early work involved investigating, exposing and in some cases duplicating fake phenomena. However, there were a number of mediums, both physical and mental, who seem to have produced striking phenomena and verifiable information under strictly controlled conditions.

Field investigations were carried out, and further collections, analyses and surveys of spontaneous phenomena were published. Following the general trend towards an experimental, more biological approach discerned also in psychology, experimental methods kept undergoing refinements and improvements.

Much important pioneering work on free-response and quantitative experiments was done in the 1920s and 1930s, by researchers such as George Tyrrell. Mathematician and physicist by education, he explored a variety of methods for inducing altered states of consciousness, techniques to distinguish between telepathy and clairvoyance, and made attempts to automate the randomization of targets.

In the years that followed, the SPR concentrated on the debunking of mediums, until interest in Spiritualism began to die down, and then turned more toward laboratory work, rather than field investigations, as the American branch of the group had already done.

But who were the men who began this quest for answers? Let’s take a look at a few the personalities who have created what we think of as “ghost hunting” today.

The American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR)

The American Society for Psychical Research is the oldest psychical research organization in the United States. For more than a century, its mission has been to investigate unusual or unexplained phenomena that have been called psychic or paranormal, and their implication for our understanding of consciousness, the universe and the nature of existence. The ASPR addresses these exceptionally important questions with scientific research and related educational activities including lectures, conferences and other services.

The ASPR was founded in 1885 with astronomer Simon Newcomb as president and later became a branch of the British Society for Psychical Research. It functioned in Boston under the guidance of Richard Hodgson, formerly of Cambridge University, until his death in 1905.

Many of the early participants were pioneers in psychology, psychiatry, physics and astronomy. Freud and Jung were honorary members. People from a variety of disciplines have been drawn to the Society thought the course of its existence. Among the distinguished group of scholars who shared the courage and vision to explore the unexplored realms of human consciousness may be mentioned the physicists Sir William Barrett and Sir Oliver Lodge; the psychologists William James and Gardner Murphy, both of whom played major roles in the development of the ASPR.

Current research by the ASPR examines ESP in an altered state of consciousness. New case reports of personal experiences include premonitions of 9/11, as well as reports of near-death experiences, apparitions, awareness of death at a distance, and unusual experiences in the presence of the dying.

The ASPR library and archives are a primary repository of American and scientific history and include the earliest history of psychology and psychiatry in the United States, Eastern and Western religious philosophy, the mental healers movement and American visionary traditions. The library also includes rare manuscripts that date back to the 1600's, case reports, correspondence (William James, Henry James, W. B. Yeats, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Houdini and Upton Sinclair, to name a few), thousands of periodicals, books and pamphlets, most of which are now out of print and extremely rare. The library is constantly growing as new collections are added and the archives are a priceless, irreplaceable treasure that must continue to be preserved and protected for future generations. (www.aspr.com)

The Boston Society for Psychical Research

The BSPR was founded in May 1925 by Elwood Worcester, William McDougall, Lydia W. Allison and Walter Franklin Prince after breaking with the American Society for Psychical Research. The occasion for the break was the ASPR's strong advocacy of the mediumship of Mina Crandon ("Margery"). The ASPR board was strongly behind Margery; but Prince believed her to be a fraud.

When J. Malcolm Bird, former assistant editor of the Scientific American and author of several items favorable to Margery, was appointed ASPR’s co-research officer with Prince in 1925, Prince was infuriated. He resigned along with other disaffected members, including Gardner Murphy, William McDougall, Elwood Worcester, and Lydia Allison. Together this group founded the rival Boston Society for Psychic Research. Worcester, a distinguished Episcopal minister, served as the first president. Allison oversaw the publications program. Dr. Prince became the society's director of research and editor of its publications. He carried on a variety of investigations prior to his observations of Mina Crandon, better known as "Margery."

Bird served as research officer for the ASPR, but suddenly resigned from his position in 1930. Later it came to light that he had second thoughts on Margery. Bird had submitted a confidential report to the board suggesting that Margery had approached him to become a confidant in producing some phenomena for magician Harry Houdini.

After the death of Walter Franklin Prince in 1934, the Boston SPR began to struggle, and because the issue that caused it to be founded was not as important anymore, in 1941 the Society was reunited with the ASPR. Following the reunion, George Hyslop, the son of J. H. Hyslop, became president. Since 1925 he had been a lone voice decrying the slippage of research standards.

The Spirit Board

The first historical mention of something resembling a Ouija board © is found in China around 1200 B.C., a divination method known as "planchette writing." A Greek historical account of the philosopher Pythagoras, in 540 B.C. claims his sect would conduct séances at a table which moved on wheels towards signs. These signs were interpreted to the audience as being messages supposedly from an unseen world. The first undisputed use of the talking boards came with the Spiritualist movement in The United States in the mid-19th century. At that time, methods of telling the future used a variety of ways to spell out messages, including swinging a pendulum over a plate that had letters around the edge or an entire table to indicate letters drawn on the floor. Often used was a wooden tablet on casters, called a planchette. It was sometimes pierced by a pencil that would write out messages. These methods may predate modern Spiritualism.

During the late 1800s, planchettes were widely sold as a novelty. The businessmen Elijah Bond and Charles Kennard had the idea to patent a planchette sold with a board with the alphabet, numbers and other words pre-printed on it. They filed for a patent and on February 10, 1891 it was granted to them. Thus, they had invented the first Ouija board.

Although Ouija boards are viewed by some to be a simple toy, there are people who believe they can be harmful. Critics warn that "evil spirits" pretend to be cooperative ghosts in order to trick players into becoming spiritually possessed.

A few contemporary paranormal researchers, such as demonologist John Zaffis, claim that the majority of the worst cases of so-called demon harassment and possession are caused by the use of Ouija boards. The American demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren stated that "Ouija boards are just as dangerous as drugs.”

The Spirit Cabinet

Spirit cabinets appeared during the peak of Spiritualism and were used by mediums as part of the trappings of the physical séance. The "cabinets" as they were called, were often either actual pieces of furniture, a curtained off corner of a room or even a doorway.

They became the physical medium's workspace and its purpose was to "attract and conserve spiritual forces". Paranormal researcher Hereward Carrington referred to a spirit cabinet as a "spiritual storage battery.“ The idea behind the cabinet was to be able to section off the medium from the sitters so that they would be out of direct view when producing strange phenomena.

The medium would enter the cabinet and be seated in a single chair - they would often be tied up to "prevent fraud". After slipping their bonds, the phenomena would begin. The medium could now amaze the sitters while hidden away behind curtains and wooden doors.

In most cases, the sitters would be invited to inspect the cabinet ahead of time so that they would be satisfied that no secret entrances or trap doors were present. (Note: secret entrances were usually located elsewhere in the room and accomplices would simply slip through the room in the darkness). For fraudulent mediums, the spirit cabinet was a great gift.

At the end of the 19th century, séances were all the rage, complete with ectoplasm, floating trumpets, table tilting, and other special effects. Séances were even conducted in the White House by Mary Todd Lincoln, who longed to contact her dead son.

Unfortunately, the height of the Spiritualist movement was riddled with cases of fraud. The genuine mediums and believers were often overshadowed by the crooks and con artists who preyed on those who wanted to communicate with their deceased loved ones.

Thanks to the obvious fraud that was taking place, committees of scientists and laypersons were formed to investigate the claims of the mediums. These groups became the first paranormal investigators and essentially founded what would go on to become the paranormal research field of today.

In addition to scientists, there were many magicians who got involved in exposing the fake mediums, thanks to the fact they easily recognized the slight-of-hand tricks and illusions that were being advertised as the work of "spirits".

Various tools of the séance trade included: chalk boards, bells, horns, musical instruments, tapping, knocking, ectoplasm, photographs and the Spirit Board.

Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772)

Emmanuel Swedenborg had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. At the age of fifty-six he entered into a phase in which he experienced dreams and visions. This phase of his life ended in a spiritual awakening, where he claimed he was appointed by the Lord to write a heavenly doctrine to reform Christianity. He said the Lord had opened his eyes, so that from then on he could freely visit heaven and hell, and talk with angels, demons, and other spirits. For the remaining 28 years of his life, he wrote and published 18 theological works, of which the best known is Heaven and Hell.

Swedenborg rejected the usual explanation of the Trinity as a Trinity of Persons. He explained in his writings how the Trinity exists in One Person, in One God, the Lord Jesus Christ. He also rejected the doctrine of salvation through faith alone; he considered both faith and charity necessary for salvation and neither could exist without the other.

Swedenborg's theological writings have elicited a range of responses. Toward the end of his life, small reading groups formed in England and Sweden to study “the truth” they saw in his teachings and a number of writers were influenced by him, including William Blake (though he ended up renouncing him), Elizabeth Barrett Browning and William Butler Yeats.

In contrast, one of the most important authors of Swedenborg's day, Johan Henrik Kellgren, called Swedenborg "nothing but a fool". A heresy trial was initiated in Sweden in 1768 against Swedenborg's writings, but it did not amount to anything.

There are three well known incidents of psychic ability reported about Swedenborg. The first was from July 29, 1759, when, at six o’clock during a dinner in Gothenburg, he told the guests that there was a fire in Stockholm, which was miles away. He went on to say that it destroyed his neighbor’s home and was threatening his own. Two hours later, he exclaimed with relief that the fire stopped three doors from his home. A few days later, all of this was confirmed to be accurate.

The second was in 1758 when he visited Queen Louisa Ulrika of Sweden, who asked him to tell her something about her deceased brother Augustus William. The next day, Swedenborg whispered something in her ear that turned the Queen pale and she explained that this was something only she and her brother could know about.

The third was a woman who had lost an important document and came to Swedenborg asking if a recently deceased person could tell him where it was. He is said to have successfully provided the information the woman was looking for.

Spiritist and spiritualist groups and individuals have long claimed Swedenborg as one of their own. For instance, Arthur Conan Doyle devoted the first chapter of his epic History of Spiritualism to Swedenborg. Some contemporary scholars have proposed that there is some ground for seeing Swedenborg as one of the greatest mediums of his time.