Physics and Psychic Research in Victorian and Edwardian England

MAY 01, 1986

Lord Rayleigh, J. J. Thomson, William Crookes and Oliver Lodge were among the physicists who joined the Society for Psychical Research in the late 19th century, a time of public fascination with spiritualism and psychic phenomena.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881027

Janet Oppenheim

Scientists in industrialized England commanded public respect, even veneration. Their widely publicized discoveries promised to elucidate the mysteries of nature, to harness natural forces for human purposes, to increase productivity in fields and factories and to improve the odds in the struggle against disease. The scientific method itself was celebrated as the surest means of attaining truth.

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References

1. Both letters are quoted in R. J. Strutt (fourth Baron Rayleigh), Life of John William Strutt, Third Baron Rayleigh, O.M. F.R.S. [1924],
Univ. Wisconsin Press, Madison (1968), pp. 67, 361.
2. J. J. Thomson, Recollections and Reflections, G. Bell, London (1936), p. 158.
3. Barrett Papers, box 2, A2, no. 19, 26 December 1881, Archives of the Society for Psychical Research, London.
4. B. Stewart, Nature 4, 237 (27 July 1871).https://doi.org/NATUAS
5. A. Schuster, Biographical Fragments, Macmillan, London (19321, p. 215;
P. G. Tait, Proc. R. Soc. London 46, xi (1889).https://doi.org/PRSLAZ
6. See the diary extracts and correspondence in E. E. Fournier D’Albe, The Life of Sir William Crookes. O.M., F.R.S., T. Fisher Unwin, London (1923), pp. 141, 170, 198.
7. W. Crookes, Q. J. Sci., July 1871, reprinted in M. R. Barrington, K. M. Goldney, R. G. Medhurst, eds., Crookes and the Spirit World, Souvenir, London (1972), p. 22.
8. W. Crookes, Proc. Soc. Psychical Res. 6, 114 (1889).
9. See Crookes’s three lengthy letters to the Spiritualist Newspaper in 1874, reprinted in M. R. Barrington, K. M. Goldney, R. G. Medhurst. eds., Crookes and the Spirit World, Souvenir, London (1972), p. 130.
10. See T. H. Hall, The Spiritualists: The Story of Florence Cook and William Crookes, Helix, New York (1963).
11. C. Brookes‐Smith, J. Soc. Psychical Res. 43, 26 (March 1965).
12. Lodge Collection, box 2, no. 357, 5 July 1909, Archives of the Society for Psychical Research, London.
13. Three letters between Crookes and Lodge, in Lodge Collection, box 2, nos. 363‐5, December 1916, Archives of the Society for Psychical Research, London.
14. W. B. Carpenter, Nineteenth Century 1, 256 (April 1877).
15. Quoted in E. E. Fournier D’Albe, The Life of Sir William Crookes. O.M., F.R.S., T. Fisher Unwin, London (1923), p. 284.
Also see R. K. DeKosky, Isis 67, 36 (March 1976).https://doi.org/ISISA4
16. Quoted in E. E. Fournier D’Albe, The Life of Sir William Crookes, O.M., F.R.S., T. Fisher Unwin. London (1923), p. 290.
17. O. J. Lodge, Raymond, or Life and Death, Methuen, London (1916).
18. O. J. Lodge, Proc. Soc. Psychical Res. 2, 190 (1884).
19. F. W. H. Myers, O. J. Lodge, W. Leaf, W. James, Proc. Soc. Psychical Res. 6, 446, 648 (1889–90).
20. I. Tuckett, Bedrock 1, 204 (July 1912).
21. O. Lodge, Continuity. The Presidential Address to the British Association for 1913, Putnam, New York (1914), pp. 21, 29.
22. O. Lodge, Reason and Belief, Methuen, London (1910), p. 47.
23. J. J. Thomson, On the Light Thrown by Recent Investigations on Electricity on the Relation Between Matter and Ether. The Adamson Lecture Delivered at the University on November 4. 1907, Manchester U.P., Manchester (1908), p. 5.

More about the Authors

Janet Oppenheim. American University, Washington, DC.