Background
William Crookes was born June 17, 1832, in London, England, United Kingdom.
(Excerpt from The Wheat Problem: Based on Remarks Made in ...)
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William Crookes was born June 17, 1832, in London, England, United Kingdom.
He was educated at Chippenhurst Grammar School and the Royal College of Chemistry, London.
Even without a graduate education, he became one of the most decorated scientists of his era.
In 1855 Crookes became superintendent of the Meterological Department, Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford.
Crookes seems to have been led into research on Spiritualism because of the untimely death of his brother Philip in 1867.
He was further intrigued by trance speaker J. J. Morse in December, and in July 1870, after the arrival of Henry Slade in London, he announced his intention to investigate the phenomena of Spiritualism. The investigation had been suggested to him "by eminent men exercising great influence on the thought of the country. "
"Newspaper reporters received the announcement with jubilation.
It was taken for granted that Spiritualism would be shown as clear and simple humbug.
They were disappointed.
The investigation began in May 1871, after the return of D. D. Home from Russia.
It was witnessed by Crookes's chemical assistant, Williams; his brother Walter; Sir William Huggins, the eminent physicist and astronomer, and ex-president of the Royal Society; and Sergeant E. W. Cox, a prominent lawyer. The secretaries of the Royal Society refused Crookes's invitation to participate.
His report was submitted to the Royal Society on June 15, 1871, but his communications were refused because they did not demonstrate the fallacy of the alleged marvels of Spiritualism. Even the inscription of the title of the paper in the society's publications was denied. It was only from the July 1871 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Science that the public became acquainted with the first account of Crookes's observations. This account contained the description of a séance held at Crookes's house in a well lit room, in which the alteration of the weight of bodies and the playing of an accordion without hands was attested by specially designed apparatus. In a letter published in The Spiritualist (June 5, 1874), Crookes describes the photographing of Katie King: "But photography is as inadequate to depict the perfect beauty of Katie's face, as words are powerless to describe her charms of manner. Photography may, indeed, give a map of her countenance, but how can it reproduce the brilliant purity of her complexion, or the ever-varying expression of her most mobile features, now overshadowed with sadness when relating some of the bitter experiences of her past life, now smiling with all the innocence of happy girlhood when she had collected my children round her, and was amusing them by recounting anecdotes of her adventures in India? Round her she made an atmosphere of life; the very air seemed lighter from her eyes, They were so soft and beautiful, and rife. With all we can imagine of the skies; Her overpowering presence makes you feelIt would not be idolatory to kneel.
The description of these experiments and the summary produced a furious anonymous attack, now known to have emanated from Dr. W. B. Carpenter, in the October 1871 issue of the Quarterly Review.
Many other scientists questioned the experiments on every conceivable ground.
E. B. Tyler quoted Alfred Russel Wallace, who suggested, for a different purpose, that the werewolf superstition might have been due to mesmeric influence.
Extending the suggestion to Spiritualistic marvels, he conjectured that Home and Agnes Guppy might have been werewolves, capable of influencing sensitive spectators. But nothing could shake Crookes' belief in the accuracy of his scientific observations.
As part of his observations of Cook and King, he measured the difference in height, noted the absence of a blister on Katie's neck, the absence of perforation in Katie's ears, and the difference in complexion, bodily proportion, manner, and expression.
He had himself photographed with Katie King and Florence Cook in the same position and while his picture was the same in the two photographs, the discrepancy between the girls' photos was obvious.
Later Crookes reported that he had been allowed to enter the study with Katie and saw, by the light of a phosphorus lamp, the medium in trance, while Katie was standing by her side.
Another time, in the full blaze of the electric light, Katie and Cook were seen together by Crookes and eight other people. Forty-four photographs showed differences between the medium and the apparition.
"In the same letter, Crookes deals with accusations of fraud on the part of Cook: "Every test that I have proposed she has at once agreed to submit to with the utmost willingness; she is open and straightforward in speech, and I have never seen anything approaching the slightest symptom of a wish to deceive.
Indeed, I do not believe she could carry on a deception if she were to try, and if she did she would certainly be found out very quickly, for such a line of action is altogether foreign to her nature. "
After the Cook experiments, Crookes conducted another set of experiments in his home with the American medium Annie Eva Fay.
She produced a variety of psychokinetic effects and Crookes wrote a favorable report on her which was published in the March 12, 1875, issue of The Medium.
He served as president of the Society for Psychical
Research (SPR) for the years 1896-99. It was not generally
known, however, that from time to time he attended séances,
and at one of these, around 1916, the spirit of his late wife apparently
manifested. Crookes went on to become one of
England's most celebrated and decorated scientists.
At different times he served as president of the Royal Society, the Chemical Society, the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and the British Association.
He responded to the fury of the controversy and became cautious.
For example, he never allowed the circulation of a photograph in which he stood arm-in-arm with Katie King.
While much of the controversy surrounding Crookes died as he withdrew from further psychical research, it never entirely disappeared.
On occasion throughout his later life Crookes was questioned about his opinions on psychic phenomena. No matter what extensive precautions Crookes employed, his results, in the eyes of the skeptics, were always unevidential.
And so was [Julien] Ochorowicz; but he repented, and said, as I do, smiting my breast "Pater, peccavi. "
The accusations against Crookes were fed by the fact that Mary Showers —who occasionally had performed joint séances (including one for Crookes, with Cook)—was later caught in a fraudulent materialization attempt and that Cook herself was caught cheating on two occasions in 1880 and 1889.
Cook continued to operate as a medium through the rest of the century and her sister Katie Cook succeeded her.
The most damaging allegations were made in June 1922, long after the death of Florence Cook.
Francis G. H. Anderson, called at the offices of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), London, and made a statement to E. J. Dingwall, then the research officer of the society, that he had had an affair with Cook many years ago, and that one night she told him that her mediumship was fraudulent.
Further more, he testified that she had confided in him that she had had an affair with William Crookes, and the famous séances were staged as a cover.
In 1949 Anderson repeated and expanded his story to Mrs. K. M. Goldney of the Society for Psychical Research.
Assuming his recollection of what Florence Cook said was reasonably accurate, the claim that the mediumship was fraudulent carried more weight than charges that William Crookes had been an accomplice in order to carry on a love affair.
Crookes's defenders argued that, if the materialization of Katie King was fraudulent, it is more likely that Crookes was deceived.
He became convinced of the reality of the phenomena of Home.
Crookes wrote enthusiastic letters to the press about the séances, openly admitting that he embraced the phantom Katie King, which appeared as flesh and blood.
He took photographs of himself and the phantom.
Hall built his case more upon Cook's association with Showers, who, he suggests, was possibly an accomplice in fraud.
Showers also claimed to materialize spirit forms, in particular the phantom "Florence Maple, " which reportedly had the same substantiality as Florence Cook's "Katie King. "
Showers and Cook gave a joint demonstration at the house of William Crookes in March 1874, when the spirit forms Florence Maple and Katie King walked around the room outside the cabinet, linked arm in arm, laughing and talking like real human beings.
E. W. Cox, who was present at this astonishing séance, expressed his extreme skepticism in a letter published in The Spiritualist (May 15, 1874).
In a letter to Home in November 1875, Crookes stated Showers had confessed to Fay that she was a fraud, and he had later obtained a written confession from Showers.
Fraud on the part of Showers provided valid doubts on the genuineness of the phenomena of Cook.
It may be that his fascination overrode his scientific and personal judgment.
Cook may have mesmerized him much as Madame Blavatsky dazzled Henry Steel Olcott with her apparently miraculous powers.
(Excerpt from The Wheat Problem: Based on Remarks Made in ...)
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
(This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfec...)
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
Quotations:
In an early article (1870), he declares: "Views
or opinions I cannot be said to possess on a subject I do not pretend to
understand…. "
"In a subsequent article, "Notes of an
Enquiry into the Phenomena Called Spiritual, during the years 1870-73, "
(Quarterly Journal of Science, January 1874), Crookes observes, "The
phenomena I am prepared to attest are so extraordinary, and so directly oppose
the most firmly rooted articles of scientific belief—amongst others, the
ubiquity and invariable action of the force of gravitation—that, even now, on
recalling the details of what I witnessed, there is an antagonism in my mind
between reason, which pronounces it to be scientifically impossible, and the
conciousness that my senses, both of touch and sight—and these corroborated, as
they were, by the senses of all who were present—are not lying witnesses when
they testify against my preconceptions. "
In a letter to
Angelo Brofferio in 1894 he said, "All that I am concerned in is that
invisible and intelligent beings exist who say that they are the spirits of
dead persons. But proof that they really are the individuals they assume to be
I have never received".
Before the British Association at Bristol in his
presidential address in 1898, Crookes declared: "Upon one other interest
I have not yet touched—to me the weightiest and farthest-reaching of all. No
incident in my scientific career is more widely known than the part I took many
years ago in certain psychic researches. Thirty years have passed since I
published an account of experiments tending to show that outside our scientific
knowledge there exists a Force exercised by intelligence differing from the ordinary
intelligence common to mortals. I have nothing to retract. I adhere to my
already published statements. Indeed, I might add much thereto. " As late as 1917, in an
interview published in The International Psychic Gazette, he reiterated:
"I have never had any occasion to change my mind on the subject. I am
perfectly satisfied with what I have said in earlier days. It is quite true
that a connection has been set up between this world and the next. "
Another sentence of
the article throws light on his expectations:"The increased employment of
scientific methods promote exact observation and greater love of truth among
inquirers, and will produce a race of observers who will drive the worthless
residuum of spiritualism hence into the unknown limbo of magic and necromancy. ”
He was an Elected Fellow of the Royal Society.
Quotes from others about the person
Charles Richet in his Thirty Years of Psychical Research (1923), published several years after Crookes's death, defended his colleague: "Until I had seen [Eusapia Palladino] at Milan I was absolutely sure that Crookes must have fallen into some terrible error. "
