Some References To Intriguing Characters

[dharlow]

As the thread to which I posted has been centered around a different debate, I have decided to repost under this new topic. This was in response to Slimshady's request for some references to some interesting supernatural phenomena. It was asked if I might repost this somewhere else, so I have.

Post was as follows:

I should state that my main area of interest is in that which may perhaps be considered the most incredible, controversial, and unbelievable of all supernatural phenomena....that of physical mediumship. While it has seemingly died out in recent years, I think it presents some of the more interesting case studies. Two, in particular, stand out...D.D. Home and Eusapia Palladino. I would recommend studying one of them carefully, as there is a lot of material available on them, some of which is very difficult to find and is expensive. If interested, start with the inexpensive books below, and if there is a continued interest, consult the more expensive sources I provide.

Some inexpensive books:

Incidents in My Life - D.D. Home

Written by the medium (actually dictated), which is usually grounds for extreme caution. However, it mainly consists of testimony from sitters which was published in other sources which are difficult to access. Time-Life republished it, and it should be obtainable for about $10.

Sittings With Eusapia Palladino and Other Studies - Everard Feilding

The work of the S.P.R. investigator Everard Feilding, with the main bulk of the book being a reprint of his 11 sittings with Eusapia Palladino (along with investigators W.W. Baggally, and Hereward Carrington). These 11 sittings were stenographically recorded and are of interest. Should be obtainable for a reasonable price.

Very Peculiar People - E.J. Dingwall

Not as inexpensive as the two previous, but contains a useful chapter summarizing the research done with Palladino.

Expensive:

Eusapia Palladino and Her Phenomena - Hereward Carrington
The co-investigator with Feilding. The book contains a useful summary of the studies done with Palladino, including the author's own.

Experiences in Spiritualism With D.D. Home
Sittings with the medium written up by Lord Adare. Republished in the 70s by Arno Press, but still somewhat pricey if I recall.

Report of the Dialectical Society on Spiritualism
Useful summary of the contemporary Spiritualist scene around 1870. Much testimony and cross-examination regarding D.D. Home is provided. Also reprinted by Arno, but also expensive.

Crookes and the Spirit World - Medhurst/Goldney
Reprinting of Sir William Crookes' experiments with D.D. Home. Highly valuable.

Founders of The Society For Psychical Research Alan Gauld
Very useful summary of early research in the Society, with some unpublished archive material presented. Good summary on the Society and Palladino

 

[dharlow]

I also mentioned some general references to psychical research. The following I find useful:

The Unknown - Is It Nearer? By John Langdon-Davies and E.J. Dingwall

Psychical Research Today - D.J. West

Both books cover essentially similar material, and both handle them in a critical, but sympathetic viewpoint. Both are paperback, and should be obtainable for less than $10.

A much more recent work, covering more of the experimental side of parapsychology, is:

Introduction To Parapsychology - H.J. Irwin

This is in three editions (1989/1994/1999). I have the 1999 edition and it was not inexpensive. Irwin provides and addresses possible counterexplanations for positive results in parapscychology. The book contains an extensive bibliography. Irwin's own field of research, on belief in the paranormal, is unique in books of this kind.

None of the above books will be found in popular bookstores. I have used Amazon and Barnes and Noble's Used and Out of Print search engines to locate these books. Abebooks.com also will have a good selection of these books, for those who are interested. As I am not a book collector, and do not much care for the condition of the book(as long as it's not coming apart), I often opt for the one available that is most cheaply priced, and I often find that it is in very good condition. These books, at least some of them, should also be available in the parapsychology section of any large university library.

 

[Clancie]

Hi dharlow. I know you are very well read in this area. Thank you for these recommendations.

I just ordered the first three (about $13 at bn including s/h, if anyone's interested). I notice the Home book was originally published in 1864.

My question....Do you think that so much of the past mediumship research is ignored and/or discredited by contemporary skeptics because they think it is somehow invalidated by being so "old"?

And, if so, what is your feeling about that, having read so many of these studies? For example, aside from the possibility today of audiotaping or videotaping the work of physical mediums, do you feel the "old" research is necessarily (1) invalidated by the passage of time or (2) is necessarily weaker research than that which could be conducted by parapsychologists today? In what way would "time make a difference", if at all, iyo?

 

[Suezoled]

(snipped)

My question....Do you think that so much of the past mediumship research is ignored and/or discredited by contemporary skeptics because they think it is somehow invalidated by being so "old"?

(snipped)

Clancie, part of it is not so much it's so old, as there is nothing new or verifiable since then. No breakthrough studies, no verifiable and measurable progress since then, nuttin.

 

[Clancie]

...And, one other quick, related question....

It seems odd to me that so many of the -best- studies were done so very long ago. I would have expected that we could look back to 1864, from the vantage point of 2003, and feel we'd "come a long way"....or at least had greatly added to the store of knowledge and research of mediumship. And yet....that doesn't seem to be the case.

Do you agree that it doesn't? And, if so, do you have any ideas...well, basically, what happened? Why -didn't- the research build and why -don't- we have a lot more knowledge of what physical mediums were (and are) doing than we did in, say, 1900?

Personally, I don't think it can -only-be due to a shortage of very visible physical mediums, but then....what else?



edited to make it clear the question is not only about physical mediumship then...but -also- since, and now...

 

[Suezoled]

...And, one other quick, related question....

It seems odd to me that so many of the -best- studies were done so very long ago. I would have expected that we could look back to 1864, from the vantage point of 2003, and feel we'd "come a long way"....or at least had greatly added to the store of knowledge and research of mediumship. And yet....that doesn't seem to be the case.

Do you agree that it doesn't? And, if so, do you have any ideas...well, basically, what happened? Why -didn't- the research build and why -don't- we have a lot more knowledge of what these people were doing than we did in, say, 1900?

Personally, I don't think it can -only-be due to a shortage of very visible physical mediums, but then....what else?

Or, Clancie, it's because it doesn't exist in the first place.

 

[Clancie]

Posted by Suezoled

Or, Clancie, it's because it doesn't exist in the first place.

Suezoled, I think you're missing the point of my question. It's about the quality and quantity of existing research itself, not what it shows. (And, of the credible research that -has- been done, from Home onward, none of it that I can see completely lays the questions about "what is happening here?" to rest....Not one way or the other.....)

 

[Suezoled]

Suezoled, I think you're missing the point of my question. It's about the quality and quantity of existing research itself, not what it shows. (And, of the credible research that -has- been done, from Home onward, none of it that I can see completely lays the questions about "what is happening here?" to rest....Not one way or the other.....)

No, you said this:

My question....Do you think that so much of the past mediumship research is ignored and/or discredited by contemporary skeptics because they think it is somehow invalidated by being so "old"?

and then you said this:

It seems odd to me that so many of the -best- studies were done so very long ago. I would have expected that we could look back to 1864, from the vantage point of 2003, and feel we'd "come a long way"....or at least had greatly added to the store of knowledge and research of mediumship. And yet....that doesn't seem to be the case.

With the advent of technology, including methodology, communication, and the flow of ideas, the indication for psychic phenomena is so low in this day and age is.... brace yourself.... there is less reason to believe it exists.

 

[Suezoled]

...ah, but Clancie will have reason, regardless...

 

[Darat]

Suezoled, I think you're missing the point of my question. It's about the quality and quantity of existing research itself, not what it shows. (And, of the credible research that -has- been done, from Home onward, none of it that I can see completely lays the questions about "what is happening here?" to rest....Not one way or the other.....)

If a field of research, after a considerable amount of time failed to produce consistent "positive" results then you would expect research to slowly die away, because there is nothing to research.

 

[Suezoled]

ah, but Darat, you know Clancie believes, and will continue to find positive results because she believes. She will keep looking, because she believes. And believe and believe....

 

[voidx]

...And, one other quick, related question....

It seems odd to me that so many of the -best- studies were done so very long ago. I would have expected that we could look back to 1864, from the vantage point of 2003, and feel we'd "come a long way"....or at least had greatly added to the store of knowledge and research of mediumship. And yet....that doesn't seem to be the case.

Do you agree that it doesn't? And, if so, do you have any ideas...well, basically, what happened? Why -didn't- the research build and why -don't- we have a lot more knowledge of what these people were doing than we did in, say, 1900?

Personally, I don't think it can -only-be due to a shortage of very visible physical mediums, but then....what else?

I see two questions in here. One is why have we not accumlated more knowledge and research on the apparent level of these older mediums, and also, why have we not furthered our understanding of what it was these older mediums were doing. To the first many would argue, Steve among them that there is indeed a massive wealth of new and recent research and studies showing quality paranormal phenomena. However, it appears that almost all of these are mired in debate over their legitimacy and accuracy. We don't seem to have these clear cut disprovable cases like we did around the turn of the century, and I think its a decent arguement that a big part for that is that we are much more skepitcal, and precise in our questioning of what it is these people are doing, and how. As scrutiny has grown more scientific, the number of available mediums that do things that simply confound us has seemingly decreased. Its grown more vague, and answers are now searched for by means of meta-analysis and other such things. To your second arguement I think it in large part is because they only had written accounts, and on occasion photographs of what these people did. Its impossible for us to say what might have been tampered with, or what might have been embellished, or even if you think its true, what positive things may have been glazed over. We still only have the same amount of info on these mediums as we did before, and I believe there is only so much we can do with that information. I think if they were here now, or could be tested today, then perhaps some of these questions could be answered. Time does not in itself invalidate the data, although there are certainly things we know today that they did not back then, but it does make it harder to validate period, it makes it vunerable to misinterpretation and other such things without the possibility of double-checking with the original parties (tester and testee) for clarity. So we must take it with a grain of salt to make sure we're not reading in things that are not actually there.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Clancie, part of it is not so much it's so old, as there is nothing new or verifiable since then. No breakthrough studies, no verifiable and measurable progress since then, nuttin.

Well hello Suezoled. You certainly seem knowledgeable. But where did you obtain your information? References please.

BTW just saw your photo in the picture thread today. lol

 

[geni]

...And, one other quick, related question....

It seems odd to me that so many of the -best- studies were done so very long ago. I would have expected that we could look back to 1864, from the vantage point of 2003, and feel we'd "come a long way"....or at least had greatly added to the store of knowledge and research of mediumship. And yet....that doesn't seem to be the case.

Do you agree that it doesn't? And, if so, do you have any ideas...well, basically, what happened? Why -didn't- the research build and why -don't- we have a lot more knowledge of what these people were doing than we did in, say, 1900?

Personally, I don't think it can -only-be due to a shortage of very visible physical mediums, but then....what else?

Since it has become less popular science has become less interested. By contrast alturnative treatments are becomeing more popular so science is looking into them (and mostly getting negative results). If the whole mediumship thing becomes more popular I sure the amount of resurch into it will increase (I don't think it likely that any posertive results would be produced though). As an aside SteveGrenard said there would be some interesting resurch comeing out early in the new year so perhaps we shall see then.

 

[Interesting Ian]

We don't seem to have these clear cut disprovable cases like we did around the turn of the century, and I think its a decent arguement that a big part for that is that we are much more skepitcal, and precise in our questioning of what it is these people are doing, and how.

People are more skeptical now? Hmmmm. And our questions are more precise? Hmmmmm. Well thank you for informing me of this. Er . . . is it possible you could provide some corroboration of your assertions?

 

[voidx]

If a field of research, after a considerable amount of time failed to produce consistent "positive" results then you would expect research to slowly die away, because there is nothing to research.

Or the research beings to start making assumtions, or starts looking for data to support its conclusions, hense so many people attempting to try really hard to correlate paranormal instances by meta-analyzing large scores of data.

 

[Interesting Ian]

As scrutiny has grown more scientific, the number of available mediums that do things that simply confound us has seemingly decreased.

In what way has it become more scientific? Or to put it another way, in what way were the early investigators failing to be scientific?

Please understand I am not disagreeing with you. I genuinely don't know and would be interested in your answer.

 

[voidx]

People are more skeptical now? Hmmmm. And our questions are more precise? Hmmmmm. Well thank you for informing me of this. Er . . . is it possible you could provide some corroboration of your assertions?

Do you deny that we have perhaps a better grasp of techniques such as cold-reading and the like, that our understanding of statistics today does a better job of reducing many of these things to chance, than in days past? I should rephrase that people are not necessarily more skeptical now, but rather have better tools with which to support their skepticism. For example we have the advantage these days to point at years worth of studies now that are somewhat scientific, that still fail to provide any consistent evidence of paranormal phenomena, something skeptics of old did not have.

Besides, weren't you too busy to answer my inane and stupid posts because you were making a web page?

 

[voidx]

In what way has it become more scientific? Or to put it another way, in what way were the early investigators failing to be scientific?

Please understand I am not disagreeing with you. I genuinely don't know and would be interested in your answer.

Ok. I kind of see it happening this way. I'm not saying the first investigators were unscientific, but it was the level of scientific knowledge and testing procedures that they had available to them, and with those, they couldn't seem to show any consistent result, or if they did, they couldn't seemingly explain how. You'd agree that the scientific research involved in investigating paranormal claims has tried many different methods since, as people truly seem to be searching for a method that could show any extremely convincing results conveying a likely existence of paranormal phenomena. It has also grown far more complex in its methodology, in an attempt to make any sense of the data when they consider it significant (what consistitutes significant, often being a case of heated debate). So we have become more complex in our testing methodologies from the turn of the century, I'm just of the opinion that we're in danger of looking for something we want to believe in, within data that so far still seems to not show any clear indication that this something exists.

For example if you read many of Steve's links, regardless of your opinion of the content, many of them are trying to use new technology to corroborate paranormal phenomena, like EEG or scans or whatever it is. I'll admit to not being well versed in this material. It just feels that its a pretty fine line between using new methods to prove an observable phenomena, and picking and choosing methods that if scrutinized on a large enough level with enough meta-analysis, might start to conform falsely to the answer we're looking for.

 

[dharlow]

My question....Do you think that so much of the past mediumship research is ignored and/or discredited by contemporary skeptics because they think it is somehow invalidated by being so "old"?

And, if so, what is your feeling about that, having read so many of these studies? For example, aside from the possibility today of audiotaping or videotaping the work of physical mediums, do you feel the "old" research is necessarily (1) invalidated by the passage of time or (2) is necessarily weaker research than that which could be conducted by parapsychologists today? In what way would "time make a difference", if at all, iyo?

Any research that is not subsequently validated must ultimately be regarded with skepticism. This is only natural. The situation with mediumship presents a difficult situation, for we are dealing with specific individuals claiming to contain unknown, unrecognized abilities. Once that individual dies, no follow-up research on that individual can be done, but in theory the phenomena can still be validated, presuming it is exhibited in other individuals. Up until the 1930s several notable physical mediums were tested rigorously, but by no means was the phenomena accepted in the scientific community. This brings up the old question of the bundle of sticks, in which one must ask whether the validation of several mediums serves to validate the phenomena, or whether each medium and the respective research done with them be treated on an individual basis. I incline to the latter view, but others might disagree.

Most contemporary skeptics (or parapsychologists for that matter) are intimately familiar with the two individuals I've listed. The ones who are almost completely derive their information from second-hand critical books written nearer to the time in question. Unfortunately, these books contain numerous errors, and display a rather obvious bias, and these errors often make their way into contemporary writings. As far as the material being "old", that certainly has something to do with it. "Old" material is often not of easy access, and can be expensive and time-consuming to obtain. I, myself, when I became interested in the subject, had absolutely no interest in reading 100 year old studies. However, I happened to peruse some summaries, and a domino effect ensued in which I tracked down reference after reference. Dingwall's books are especially valuable in this regard, containing extensive bibliographies.

In answer to your other question....no, nothing much has been added to mediumship research in recent years. I am interested in reading Roy's work with mental mediums, but mental mediumship interests me less than physical mediumship. As to why no progress has been made, I can think of many possible reasons...the phenomena do not exist, and the frauds who practiced it then do not do so now...scientists have turned their back on it, even those inclined to believe in the paranormal...the phenomena existed once in great power, but has now declined, at least in Western civilization...the mediums themselves no longer submit to scientific investigation. In reference to this last point, I urge you to go to survivalafterdeath.org, check out the latest news. An urge for inquiry into the Noah's Ark Society was recently turned down for the society, as they apparently had no interest in submitting themselves. Whatever might be said about the two mediums I listed, they seemed to welcome skeptical inquiry. This is no longer the case.

I must urge that in presenting this material, it is not a defense of a supernatural interpretation. Rather, I regard these figures and the work on them as historical mysteries which have never been solved. There are good grounds for not accepting them as "proving" anything, but ignoring them does not make a number of puzzles go away. Whether one finds them convincing or not is a personal decision, and I don't think one need to approach them that way. I think anyone interested in conjuring or conjuring history would find these subjects quite fascinating, and anyone who enjoys perplexing puzzles and their possible solutions will find them equally so.