Psychical phenomena and spiritualism

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33373, 3 November 1973, Page 10

Psychical phenomena and spiritualism

Crookes And the Spirit World. Collected by R. G. Medhurst. Souvenir One of the most outstanding figures of the nineteenth century. Sir William Crookes not only had numerous scientific achievements and honours to his name but was also deeply interested in psychical phenomena and spiritualism. This book is a collection of his writings in the field of psychical research which were collected by the late Dr R G. Medhurst, a leading member of the British Society for Psychical Research who also had a prodigious knowledge of the Victorian spiritualist scene.

It is roughly divided into three sections. The first gives Crookes’s writings between July, 1870, and December, 1871, and deals with his experiments with the amazing and well authenticated medium, Daniel Douglas Home His testimony and championship for Home were not well received bv his scientific fellows and some of the resulting arguments and exchanges

The second section is a survey covering the sears up to 1874 in which the names of Home and another medium '■ailed Kate Fox are prominent. Then comes the section dealing with Florence

Cook and Katie King, described in Crookes’s reports dated February and June, 1874. Crookes set up experiments into all the phenomena of the day: moving objects, unexplained noises, levitation of human beings, luminous bodies and phantom forms and it is not surprising that his belief in such materialisations was sceptically received by his colleagues. Crookes already had a reputation for being a vain and egocentric man and the results of his experiments were dismissed as delusions. in his writings he does admit that some mediums were arrogant imposters who took advantage of the public but he remained convinced that there were also some thoroughly genuine mediums. A considerable part of his writings are given over to self-defence and counter attack, but he remained convinced that there was a psychic force in the world unaccounted for by orthodox science. As a fatal illness prevented Dr Medhurst from completing the editing of the collection, the work was finished by two women members of the British Society for Psychical Research, Mrs K. M. Goldney and Miss M. R. Barrington. both of whom contribute an introduction. The book also contains diagrams, graphs and an index.