1895 – SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH – OCCULT SPIRITUALISM MAGIC GHOSTS PSYCHIC Online

1895 – SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH – OCCULT SPIRITUALISM MAGIC GHOSTS PSYCHIC

Publisher: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co.
City: London 
Year: 1895 (First Edition)
Binding Style: Hardcover 
Pagination: 637 pages, Plus Index
Illustrated: Yes

In 1886 and 1887 a series of publications by S.J. Davey, Hodgson and Sidgwick in the SPR journal exposed the slate writing tricks of the medium William Eglinton. Hodgson with his friend, S. J. Davey had staged fake séances for educating the public. Davey gave sittings under an assumed name, duplicating the phenomena produced by Eglinton, and then proceeded to point out to the sitters the manner in which they had been deceived. Because of this, some spiritualist members such as Stainton Moses resigned from the SPR. Among the Societies first important works of the was the two-volume publication in 1886, Phantasms of the Living, concerning telepathy and apparitions, co-authored by Gurney, Myers and Frank Podmore. In 1891, Alfred Russel Wallace requested for the Society to properly investigate spirit photography. Eleanor Sidgwick responded with a critical paper in the SPR which cast doubt on the subject and discussed the fraudulent methods that spirit photographers such as Édouard Isidore Buguet, Frederic Hudson and William H. Mumler had utilized.