Background
Edmund Gurney was born at Hersham, near Walton-on-Thames, on the 23rd of March 1847.
(Excerpt from Phantasms of the Living, Vol. 2 28. And aft...)
Excerpt from Phantasms of the Living, Vol. 2 28. And after clairvoyant dreams the fact of the clairvoyant invasion may be forgotten till revived by accidental presence in the scene thus. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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(Society for Psychical Research ;and the book is published...)
Society for Psychical Research ;and the book is published with the sanction of the Council of that Society. The division of authorship has been as follows. As regards the writing and the views expressed, Mr. Myers is solely responsible for the I ntroduction, and for the Note on a Suggested Mode of Psychical I nteraction, which immediately precedes the Supplement; and Mr. Gurney is solely responsible for the remainder of the book. But the most difficult and important part of the undertaking the collection, examination, and appraisal of evidence has been a joint labour, of which Mr. Podmore has borne so considerable a share that his name could not have been omitted from the title-page. In the free discussion and criticism which has accompanied the progress of the work, we have enjoyed the constant advice and assistance of Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick, to each of whom we owe more than can be expressed by any conventional phrases of obligation. Whatever errors of judgment or flaws in argument may remain, such blemishes are certainly fewer than they would have been but for this watchful and ever-ready help. Professor and Mrs. (Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.) About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology. Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made to accurately preserve the original format of each page whilst digitally enhancing the aged text. Read books online for free at www.forgottenbooks.org
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(Les hallucinations télépathiques (3e édition, revue) / pa...)
Les hallucinations télépathiques (3e édition, revue) / par MM. Gurney, Myers et Podmore; traduit et abrégé... par L. Marillier; avec une préface de M. Charles Richet Date de l'édition originale: 1899 Sujet de l'ouvrage: TélépathieHallucinations et illusions Titre original: Phantasms of the living Le présent ouvrage s'inscrit dans une politique de conservation patrimoniale des ouvrages de la littérature Française mise en place avec la BNF. HACHETTE LIVRE et la BNF proposent ainsi un catalogue de titres indisponibles, la BNF ayant numérisé ces oeuvres et HACHETTE LIVRE les imprimant à la demande. Certains de ces ouvrages reflètent des courants de pensée caractéristiques de leur époque, mais qui seraient aujourd'hui jugés condamnables. Ils n'en appartiennent pas moins à l'histoire des idées en France et sont susceptibles de présenter un intérèt scientifique ou historique. Le sens de notre démarche éditoriale consiste ainsi à permettre l'accès à ces oeuvres sans pour autant que nous en cautionnions en aucune façon le contenu. Pour plus d'informations, rendez-vous sur www.hachettebnf.fr
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parapsychologist psychologist writer
Edmund Gurney was born at Hersham, near Walton-on-Thames, on the 23rd of March 1847.
Edmund was educated at Blackheath and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took a high place in the classical tripos and obtained a fellowship. His work for the schools was done, says his friend F. W. H. Myers, “in the intervals of his practice on the piano. ” He then studied medicine with no intention of practising, devoting himself to physics, chemistry and physiology. In 1880 he passed the second M. B. Cambridge examination in the science of the healing profession. In 1881 he began the study of law at Lincoln's Inn.
These studies, and his great logical powers and patience in the investigation of evidence, Edmund devoted to that outlying field of psychology which is called “Psychical Research. ” He asked whether, as universal tradition declares, there is an unexplored region of human faculty transcending the normal limitations of sensible knowledge. That there is such a region it was part of the system of Hegel to declare, and the subject had been metaphysically treated by Hartmann, Schopenhauer, Du Prel, Hamilton and others, as the philosophy of the Unconscious or Subconscious.
Gurney's purpose was to approach the subject by observation and experiment, especially in the hypnotic field, whereas vague and ill-attested anecdotes had hitherto been the staple of the evidence of metaphysicians. The tendency of his mind was to investigate whatever facts may give a colour of truth to the ancient belief in the persistence of the conscious human personality after the death of the body. Like Joseph Glanvill's, the natural bent of Gurney's mind was sceptical. Both thought the current and traditional reports of supernormal occurrences suggestive and worth investigating by the ordinary methods of scientific observation, and inquisition into evidence at first hand. But the method of Gurney was, of course, much more strict than that of the author of Sadducismus Triumphatus, and it included hypnotic and other experiments unknown to Glanvill. Gurney began at what he later saw was the wrong end by studying, with Myers, the “séances” of professed spiritualistic “mediums” (1874-1878). Little but detection of imposture came of this, but an impression was left that the subject ought not to be abandoned.
In 1882 the Society for Psychical Research was founded. Paid mediums were discarded, at least for the time, and experiments were made in “thought-transference” and hypnotism. Personal evidence as to uninduced hallucinations was also collected. The first results are embodied in the volumes of Phantasms of the Living, a vast collection (Podmore, Myers and Gurney), and in Gurney's remarkable essay, Hallucinations. The chief consequence was to furnish evidence for the process called “telepathy, ” involving the provisional hypothesis that one human mind can affect another through no recognized channel of sense. The fact was supposed to be established by the experiments chronicled in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, and it was argued that similar experiences occurred spontaneously, as, for example, in the many recorded instances of “deathbed wraiths” among civilized and savage races. (Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. chapter xi. , especially pp. 449-450, 1873. Lang, Making of Religion, pp. 120-124, 1898. ) The dying man is supposed to convey the hallucination of his presence as one living person experimentally conveys his thought to another, by “thought-transference. ”
Gurney's hypnotic experiments, marked by great exactness, patience and ingenuity, were undertaken in 1885-1888. Their tendency was, in Myers's words, “to prove — so far as any one operator's experience in this protean subject can be held to prove anything — that there is sometimes, in the induction of hypnotic phenomena, some agency at work which is neither ordinary nervous stimulation (monotonous or sudden) nor suggestion conveyed by any ordinary channel to the subject's mind. ” These results, if accepted, of course corroborate the idea of telepathy.
Experiments by MM. Gibert, Janet, Richet, Héricourt and others are cited as tending in the same direction. Other experiments dealt with “the relation of the memory in the hypnotic state to the memory in another hypnotic state, and of both to the normal or waking memory. ” The result of Gurney's labours, cut short by his early death, was to raise and strengthen the presumption that there exists an unexplored region of human faculty which ought not to be neglected by science as if the belief in it were a mere survival of savage superstition. Rather, it appears to have furnished the experiences which, misinterpreted, are expressed in traditional beliefs. That Gurney was credulous and easily imposed upon those who knew him, and knew his penetrating humour, cannot admit; nor is the theory likely to be maintained by those whom bias does not prevent from studying with care his writings. In controversy “he delighted in replying with easy courtesy to attacks envenomed with that odium plus quant theologicum which the very allusion to a ghost or the human soul seems in some philosophers to inspire. ”
In discussion of themes unpopular and obscure Gurney displayed the highest tact, patience, good temper, humour and acuteness. There never was a more disinterested student. In addition to his work on music and his psychological writings, he was the author of Tertium Quid (1887), a collection of essays, on the whole a protest against one-sided ideas and methods of discussion. He died at Brighton on 23rd June 1888, from the effects of an overdose of narcotic medicine.
(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
(Society for Psychical Research ;and the book is published...)
(Les hallucinations télépathiques (3e édition, revue) / pa...)
(Excerpt from Phantasms of the Living, Vol. 2 28. And aft...)
Edmund Gurney was a Member of the Society for Psychical Research.
In 1877 Gurney married Kate Sara Sibley. They had one daughter, Helen, born in 1881. After Gurney's death, Kate married Archibald Grove, a journalist and politician, in 1889.