Ghost Hunters: The Victorians and the Hunt for Proof of Life After Death

by Deborah Blum

  158: Christianity and Agnosticism: Huxley’s essay “Agnosticism” first appeared in The Nineteenth Century in Feb. 1889 and was reprinted in a collection of essays on the subject, Christianity and Agnosticism (London: D. Appleton, 1889).

  159: “Mrs. Piper ... flatly refused”: For Mrs. Piper’s refusal and eventual agreement and Myers’s letter, see Piper, Life and Work, 47-53.

  160: “Don’t ky, Alta”: Ibid., 50.

  161: “Why Mrs. Piper”: Ibid., 53

  163: fanatical preparations: For the sittings with Myers and Lodge and descriptions of house and hospitality, see ibid., 54—61; Oliver Lodge, The Survival of Man (London: Methuen, 1909), 458-59; Funk, Widow’s Mite, 240-42; and Barrett, Threshold of the Unseen, 26-30.

  167: “I am filled with confusion”: Shepard, Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, 1:522. For background on Eusapia Palladino, see also Carrington, Eusapia Palladino; and Flournoy, Spiritism and Psychology, 242-60.

  168: The Principles of Psychology: William James, The Principles of Psychology (Boston: Henry Holt, 1890).

  168: “No one ... ever had a simple sensation”: Ibid., 1:224-46.

  168: “Objects of rage, love”: Ibid., 2:449.

  169: “a man has as many social selves”: Ibid., 1:300-302.

  169: “Dear Bill”: Holmes to WJ, Nov. 10, 1890, Houghton.

  170: “your magnificent book”: Hall to WJ, Oct. 14, 1890, Houghton.

  170: “It is literature”: Cited in Ernest R. Hilgard, Psychology in America: A Historical Survey (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987), in an excellent section titled “James as an Unsystematic Psychologist,” 48-56, which gives an overview of scientific reception, including further comments from Hall and from William Wundt.

  170: “big and good book”: Myers to James, Jan. 12, 1891; James response, Jan. 20, 1891, Houghton.

  170: “the most incorrigibly and exasperatingly critical”:“What Psychical Research has Accomplished,” Scribner’s, 1890, revised and expanded for Forum, Aug. 13, 1892, 727-47.

  171: the “nervous weakness”: WJ to his sister, July 6, 1891, Houghton.

  172: “when I am gone”: Alice to WJ, July 30, 1891, Houghton.

  172: “She talks death”: WJ to his wife, Sept. 25, 1891, Houghton.

  172: “the dreadful Mrs. Piper”: Alice James, Diary of Alice James (New York: Mead, 1964), 231.

  172: Mark Twain published a personal endorsement: Mark Twain, “Mental Telegraphy: A Manuscript with a History,” Harpers New Monthly Magazine, v. 84 (Dec. 1891): 95-104.

  174: inspired response appeared in Scribner’s: “The Logic of Mental Telegraphy”, Joseph Jastrow, Scribner’s, Jan. 1892. For more perspective on the increasing hostility of scientists like Jastrow toward psychical research, see Joseph Jastrow, “The Problems of Psychical Research,” Harper’s Magazine 79 (June 1889).

  175: insider exposé of spiritualism: A. Medium, Revelations of a Spirit Medium (St. Paul, Minn.: Farrington, 1891). This was one of two books considered by Richard Hodgson to be the best insider guides to the medium trade. The other was John Truesdell, The Bottom Facts Concerning the Science of Spiritualism: Derived from Careful Investigations Covering a Period of Twenty-five Years (New York: G. W Dillingham, 1892).

  177: Census of Hallucinations: For background on the census, see Sidgwick, Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, 121-25; and Sidgwick and Sidgwick, Henry Sidgwick, 501-2.

  179: “Her neurotic temperament”: WJ to Henry James, Mar. 6, 1892, Houghton.

  179: “If you were here”: Mar. 7, 1892, Houghton; cited in Simon, Genuine Reality, 241.

  179: “God (or the unknowable)”: WJ to Hodgson, May 15, 1892; letter on census, May 25, 1892, Houghton.

  180: “No one is saying”: Sidgwick’s journal, May 2, 1892, in Sidgwick and Sidgwick, Henry Sidgwick.

  181: first report on Mrs. Piper: Hodgson, “Certain Phenomena of Trance.”

  181: “Oh, how black”: Piper, Life and Work, 67.

  182: “Between the deaths”: “The Report on the Census of Hallucinations,” Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 10 (1894): 25-422; William James, “Review of the ‘Report on the Census of Hallucinations,”’ Psychological Review, Jan. 2, 1895, 69-75. Publication followed Sidgwick’s 1892 report to the Congress of Experimental Psychology.

  184: “I never believed”: WJ to Henry Sidgwick, July 11, 1896; cited in Berkhardt and Bowers, Essays in Psychical Research, 74.

  8. The Invention of Ectoplasm

  185: among that season’s many victims: The strange story of George Pellew is told in Piper, Life and Work, 77-79, 104-7; Baird, Life of Richard Hodgson, 65-73; Tanner, Studies in Spiritism, 26-27; and Richet, Thirty Years, among others.

  189: “Your letter rec’d”: WJ to Myers, Nov. 14, 1892, Houghton.

  190: “So runs the world away!”: William James, “Frederic Myers’ Service to Psychology,” Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 17 (1901): 13-23.

  191: “The first reason”: Myers to WJ, Oct. 10, 1893, Houghton.

  191: “It seems to me you lack”: Myers to WJ, Nov. 16, 1893, Houghton.

  192: “James accepts”: WJ to Myers, telegraphed acceptance, Dec. 17, 1893, Houghton.

  192: scientific investigations of Eusapia Palladino: Richet, Thirty Years, 400-410, 454-58; Gauld, Founders of Psychical Research; and Everard Feilding, Wortley Baggally, and Hereward Carrington, “Report on a Series of Sittings with Eusapia Palladino, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 23 (1909): 309-20.

  194: Lodge remembered the journey: Account of the sittings on Ile Roubaud is taken from Lodge, Past Years, 292-306; see also Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 6 (1894): 350-57.

  196: “crisis”: Sidgwick to H. G. Dakyns, July 29, 1894; in Sidgwick and Sidgwick, Henry Sidgwick.

  197: “greatest donkey of the age”: WJ to Myers on Lombroso, Sept. 9, 1894, Houghton.

  198: “You ask what I think”: WJ to Lodge regarding caution in publishing, Oct. 4, 1894, Houghton.

  199: She published his analysis: R. Hodgson, Journal of the Society of Psychical Research 7 (1895): 55-79.

  201: they would test Eusapia on their terrain: Eusapia’s sittings in Cambridge and response described in Sidgwick, Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, 138—40; Inglis, Natural and Supernatural, 387-88; and Podmore, Mediums of the Nineteenth Century, 198-203.

  201: “Sidgwick has to flirt with her”: Myers to WJ, Aug. 8, 1895, Houghton.

  203: “Well, our countries”: WJ to Myers, Jan. 1, 1895, Houghton.

  204: “It has not been the practice”: Sidgwick in Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 7 (1895); “I fear the Eusapia business”: WJ to Sidgwick, Nov. 8, 1895, Houghton.

  204: “The Presidency of the Society”: William James, “Address by the President,” Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 12 (1896): 2-10.

  205: “too hasty assumption”: Haynes, Society for Psychical Research, 180.

  9. The Unearthly Archive

  209: “Do not allude to all this”: Myers to WJ, Dec. 21, 1900, Houghton.

  210: “I do not say that facts”: To Lodge, Oct. 10, 1893; cited in Gauld, Founders of Psychical Research.

  211: “Studies in Hysteria”: Cerullo, “Secularization of the Soul,” 133-34, 221.

  211: compared the range of human consciousness to the light spectrum: Flournoy, Spiritism and Psychology; Moore, In Search of White Crows, 149-52.

  212: “a narrowish intellect”: WJ to Charles William Eliot, Feb. 21, 1899, Houghton.

  213: letter to the Psychological Review: J. Cattell, “Psychical Research,” Psychological Review 3 (1896): 582-83.

  213: “snarling logicaliry”: “The Will to Believe,” address to the Philosophical Clubs of Yale and Brown Universities, New World, 1896; reprinted in Stephen Rowe, The Vision of James (London: Vega, 2001).

  214: “About the narrowest minded”: Barrett to Lodge, Oct. 14, 1893; quoted in Oppenheim, Other World, in section on dowsing, 362-64. The Divining-rod en
try, Shepard, Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, 250-52, includes a summary of Barrett’s report.

  218: second report on Leonora Piper: Richard Hodgson, “A Further Record of Observations of Certain Phenomena of Trance: Additional Report on Mrs. Piper,” Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 13 (1898): 284-583.

  220: “If Professor Sidgwick”: For Hodgson’s theories of communication from Barrett, see Barrett, Threshold of the Unseen, 243-49; for further discussion, see Frederic Myers, “On Some Fresh Facts Indicating Man’s Survival of Death,” National Review, Apr. 1898, 230-42.

  221: “fired off an essay”: James McKeen Cattell, “Mrs. Piper, the Medium,” Science, Apr. 15, 1898. Science, May 6, 1898, published James’s “Letter on Mrs. Piper, the Medium,” along with Cattell’s response; James’s review of Hodgson’s report was published in Psychological Review, July 1898, 420-24.

  223: “art of unveiling fraud”: Hodgson’s report is discussed in the Saturday Review, July 16, 1898, 81.

  224: “a cosmic record of sorts”: James’s discussion of the “cosmic consciousness” is best explained in one of his last works, “Confidences of a Psychical Researcher,” published in American Magazine 69 (Oct. 1909): 580-89.

  225: “eleven reported poltergeist cases”: Podmore’s poltergeist investigations and his belief that they helped explain Palladino are also discussed in “On Poltergeists,” a chapter in his Mediums of the Nineteenth Century.

  226: Theodore Flournoy: An excellent review of the relationship between William James and Theodore Flournoy can be found in the introduction to The Letters of William James and Theodore Flournoy, ed. Robert C. Le Clair (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966).

  226: “every finger of”: Flournoy to WJ, Dec. 11, 1898, Houghton.

  227: “intentional and systematic fraud”: Sidgwick cited in Gauld, Founders of Psychical Research, 241, based on a report in Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 35 (1938): 165.

  227: “a grave moment for all of us”: WJ to Lodge, Oct. 4, 1894, Houghton.

  227: “The Canterville Ghost”: In Oscar Wilde, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories (London: James Osgood, 1891).

  228: “Turn of the Screw”: Sheppard, Henry James, 141—43.

  230: “a manifestation of persistent energy”: Proceedings of the Society of Psychical Research 6 (1889): 15—16. Henry James’s knowledge of the psychical research movement is discussed in Epperson, Mind of Edmund Gurney, 116-212; and Beidler, Ghosts, Demons and Henry James.

  230: “perhaps among my audience”: Crooke’s presidential address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Oct. 1898, Bristol, England.

  230: James Hervey Hyslop: The story of James Hyslop is drawn primarily from his unpublished biography in the archives of the American Society for Psychical Research, and all quotes about his childhood are from those documents. Hyslop describes his early experiments with Mrs. Piper in those documents and in nearly all the books he wrote later in life. Moore, In Search of White Crows (159-65), offers a concise biography; and Berger, Lives and Letters in American Parapsychology (35—65), also provides an excellent portrait of Hyslop.

  232: “No scientifically-minded psychologist”: Berkhardt and Bowers, Essays in Psychical Research, 167-79, reprints the letters exchanged by James and Titchener in Science. Titchener to WJ on psychical research, May 28, 1899, following two letters from WJ, May 6, 1899, and May 21, 1899.

  234: Rosina Thompson: Thompson’s mediumship is recounted in “On the Trance Phenomena of Mrs. Thompson,” Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 17 (1902): 67-74, an article based on a talk given by Frederick Myers in July 1900. Additional information can be found in Richet, Thirty Years, 284—91; Gauld, Founders of Psychical Research, 268-74; Berger, Lives and Letters in American Parapsychology, 27-29; Podmore, Mediums of the Nineteenth Century, vol. 2, 357; and John Piddington, “On the Types of Phenomena Displayed in Mrs. Thompson’s Trance,” Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 18 (1904): 104-307.

  235: “My first sittings”: Myers to WJ, Oct. 14, 1899, Houghton.

  10. A Prophecy of Death

  239: “He called the response ‘anaphylaxis’”: Richet’s work on anaphylaxis from the Nobel Prize for Medicine presentation speech by Professor C. Sundberg, vice-chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, Dec. 10, 1913. The text can be found at: http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1913/press.html.

  240: “So low had this unfortunate woman sunk”: Funk, Widows Mite, 241.

  241: “will was recovered”: “Says Will Was Found through Spirit Medium; Mrs. Mellen Tells of Feat of One of the Fox Sisters,” New York Times, Mar. 16, 1905.

  241: From India to the Planet Mars: Theodore Flournoy, From India to the Planet Mars: A Study of a Case of Somnambulism (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1900).

  243: “Your book has only one defect”: WF to Flournoy, Jan. 1, 1900, Houghton.

  243: “tho with extreme slowness”: WF to Hodgson, Jan. 19, 1900, Houghton.

  244: “We are having the D—l’s own time”: WJ to Henry James III, Feb. 23, 1900.

  244: “Your mother is extremely rosy”: WJ to Margaret Mary James, Mar. 10, 1900.

  244: “My Dear Mother”: Hyslop’s questions home and the answers from his family are archived in his correspondence files at the American Society for Psychical Research, as are the letters between Hyslop and Hodgson.

  248: found himself in a fight for survival: Hyslop’s problems at Columbia began when he discussed his sittings with Mrs. Piper in conferences held at Cambridge in June 1899. It was from that meeting that reporters began writing that he planned to scientifically prove immortality. Although he sent denials to both Science and Psychology Review, his fellow faculty members were swayed by his continued public writings, repeating his belief in immortality, in national magazines; see, for example “Results of Psychical Research,” Harper’s Magazine 100 (Apr. 1900): 786-97.

  248: “It would be pretty absurd”: Hodgson’s letter to Hyslop, Feb. 23, 1900. This and all correspondence that I cite comes from unpublished letters between Hyslop and Hodgson, ASPR.

  249: “Life is very strange now”: Sidgwick to Myers, May 24, 1900, in Sidgwick and Sidgwick, Henry Sidgwick, 587.

  250: “Dear Mrs. Sidgwick”: WJ to Nora Sidgwick, Sept. 1, 1900, Houghton.

  250: “My brain power”: WJ to Myers, Dec. 6, 1900.

  251: “his subliminal is”: WJ to John Piddington, Jan. 5, 1901.

  251: “That intolerable babbler”: WJ to Frances Morse, Jan. 4, 1901.

  251: “I think of you”: WJ to Myers, Dec. 8, 1901.

  252: “His serenity”: WJ to Nora Sidgwick, Jan. 20, 1901, Houghton.

  252: “Is there going to be any difficulty”: For the A control and other secrets, see WJ to Lodge, Mar. 16, 1901; reply from Lodge, Mar. 19, 1901. Evie Myers response, including demands for destruction of documents, summarized in Berger, Lives and Letters in American Parapsychology, 30. Letters from Evie to WJ, Mar. 24, 1902, and Apr. 17, 1902, Houghton. A version with all references to Annie Marshall deleted was published in 1904 as Fragments of Prose and Poetry; the argument, though, continued for years. In the summer of 1906, James was still writing to Evie Myers, refusing to destroy letters and documents or to return all copies of the unabridged autobiography.

  254: “being absolutely fearless”: Lodge to WJ, Mar. 19, 1901.

  255: “I poured experimental telepathy”: Hyslop correspondence with Hodgson, July, 7, 1900, ASPR.

  257: his 1902 book: William James, Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study of Human Nature (New York: Longman, Green, 1902).

  258: “Only on 426 days of my life”: Myers, Fragments of Inner Life.

  260: “up to the time”: For the continued story of the Widow’s Mite, see Funk, Widow’s Mite, 155-77.

  261: “A batch of reporters came after me”: Hodgson to Hyslop, Apr. 7, 1903, beginning of an exchange of letters during that month, ASPR. />
  264: “ill-defined relations of the subliminal”: Henry James, “Review of Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death, by Frederic W. H. Myers (1903),” Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 18 (1903): 22-33.

  11. A Force Not Generally Recognized

  267: “Sometimes, I can hardly wait”: Berger, Lives and Letters in American- Parapsychology, 31.

  269: “Well, Lord Rayleigh”: quoted in “The King,” in Edwardian England, 1901-1914, ed. Simon Nowell-Smith (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 21; Barrett’s presidential address cited in Haynes, Society for Psychical Research, 185.

  269: “described in mocking detail”: “Pepper Seance a Lively One,” New York Times, Feb. 27, 1905; “General Montcalm’s Crown Bobs up at a Séance,” New York Times, Mar. 6, 1905.

  271: “all the heroic qualities”: WJ to Flournoy, Oct. 11, 1904, Houghton.

  271: “I didn’t at all”: WJ to Hyslop, Nov. 11, 1904, Houghton.

  271: “I have had a hard enough task”: Hyslop to WJ, Feb. 27, 1905, ASPR.

  272: “My Excellent Hyslop”: WJ to Hyslop, Feb. 28, 1905, Houghton and ASPR.

  273: “Go for the scoundrel”: Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 14 (1899): 367.

  273: “Absolutely sudden, dropt dead”: WJ to Schiller, Jan. 16, 1909, Houghton.

  273: Hodgson’s funeral: Description of funeral from a report on “semi-annual” history of the Tavern Club, given by Dr. M. A. DeWolfe Howe, on May 7, 1906, and from a letter from WJ to Horace Fletcher on Dec. 25, 1905, Houghton, which talks about the number of people in tears.

  274: “What is the matter?”: This and all other such sittings that involve the reputed return of Richard Hodgson’s spirit from William James, “Report on Mrs. Piper’s Hodgson-Control,” Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 23 (1909): 2-121.