The Ghost Hunters - Deborah Blum [184]
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,