Eric Dingwall a well known psychical researcher is usually portrayed as a skeptic when it came to the paranormal. However, Arthur Conan Doyle argued that Dingwall was a secret believer in the paranormal, but he pretended to be skeptical to colleagues at meetings.
I would have to partly agree with Doyle. On closer inspection, Dingwall appears to be a big time believer in the paranormal but there is nothing really 'secret' about this, it has just not been widely acknowledged and many later researchers have not really dug into Dingwall's writings.
Dingwall later distanced himself from psychical research and became a brief member of CSICOP before resigning. But he does not appear to have retracted any of his supportive opinions about the paranormal. A read through various articles in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (JSPR) reveals that Eric Dingwall was far from a skeptic. I would go as far as saying he was a staunch believer in the paranormal.
It appears later skeptic writers are unaware about Dingwall's actual writings on such topics. He is mistakenly portrayed as a skeptic.
Gordon Stein for example dedicated the book The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal (published by Prometheus Books) to Dingwall.
I will look at some cases below, these are various mediums or psychics that Dingwall wrote positive things about.
Alexis and Adolphe Didier
Alexis and Adolphe Didier were two French clairvoyant mediums. They were dismissed as frauds by psychical researchers such as Frank Podmore. But Dingwall rejected Podmore's conclusions.
According to Dingwall:
Eric Dingwall. Abnormal Hypnotic Phenomena. pp. 176-193
Einer Nielsen
Einer Nielsen was a physical medium from Denmark. He was investigated by a team of researchers from Kristiania University who considered his phenomena fraudulent and published a critical report on the medium.
Eric Dingwall in a SPR article took issue with their report and rejected any claim of fraud about Nielsen claiming:
Note that Harry Houdini dismissed this medium as a blatant fraud. Johs Carstensen an associate of Nielsen even came out against the medium describing his fraud in a booklet.
http://ift.tt/2hnjTRX
Kathleen Goligher
Kathleen Goligher was a physical medium from Ireland who was investigated by a physicist called William Jackson Crawford. She held séances in the dark with her family members whilst Crawford would investigate.
Crawford was an eccentric, he had a strange obsession with collecting female underwear. He investigated Kathleen Goligher at her house, took a bunch of strange looking photographs of her ectoplasm (some of which look like cheesecloth or muslin descending from her genital area) and declared the ectoplasm and table 'levitations' to be genuine. Crawford later committed suicide for unknown reasons.
A different investigator Edmund Edward Fournier d'Albe (a well known physicist of the time and inventor) later investigated. He shot down Crawford's conclusions and claimed to have detected Kathleen Goligher in fraud. He reported his findings in a booklet. After the booklet was published, Goligher was not investigated again.
Eric Dingwall rejected the findings of d'Albe in a review and defended Crawford:
http://ift.tt/2hnm4Fb
This is an odd statement from Dingwall. In one of Crawford's own books, he admitted in his own words that none of the hands or feet of the Goligher family were controlled during the séances at any time (his reason for this was that he trusted the family). Fraud was thus extremely likely. Crawford was not reliable at all.
Note that Charles Marsh Beadnell published a book The Reality or Unreality of Spiritualistic Phenomena: Being a Criticism of Dr. W.J. Crawford's Investigation into Levitations and Raps which completely demolished the Crawford experiments with Goligher.
Eva C
Dingwall wrote supportive things about the medium Eva C (Eva Carrière):
Eric Dingwall. (1922). The Hypothesis of Fraud. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 32: 309-331.
Eva C had been caught in fraud by other researchers. For a good review see Georgess McHargue's book Facts, Frauds, and Phantasms: A Survey of the Spiritualist Movement. Much of her ectoplasm was made from cloth, cut out newspaper clippings or magazines.
Stefan Ossowiecki
Stefan Ossowiecki was a Polish psychic.
Eric Dingwall organized a test for this psychic in 1923. It involved the attempt to identify the contents of a sealed letter. Dingwall stated the test was successful. He rejected coincidence or fraud as an explanation. You can read more about the experiment in Dingwall's article in the SPR cited below.
http://ift.tt/2hnnLCD
Gladys Osborne Leonard
Gladys Osborne Leonard was a trance medium known for conducting 'book tests'. These tests were alleged to have proven she was in contact with deceased spirits.
Eric Dingwall rejected the idea that Leonard was fraudulent. He also rejected the view that her results were the due to chance.
In regard to the book tests, he says:
Eric Dingwall. The Unknown: Is it Nearer? pp. 162-166
So Dingwall rejected chance and fraud for this medium. A skeptic would not have done this. A notable skeptic at the time Edward Clodd for example dismissed Leonard as a fraud.
Joseph of Cupertino
Joseph of Cupertino was a Christian saint known for his alleged ability to levitate.
Dingwall took the levitation claims about Cupertino from the position of an advocate. He dedicated a chapter to Cupertino and levitation in his book Some Human Oddities. Dingwall took the eyewitness claims seriously. He rejected the hypothesis of fraud or misinterpretation.
Bashing skeptics
Dingwall seems to have taken pop shots at various skeptic writers, many examples exist but I will only cite two for now. A notable example he wrote several negative things about a skeptic book on spiritualism written by the rationalist writer Joseph McCabe.
You can read his review here:
http://ift.tt/2hnr5xj
He also criticised another skeptic of spiritualism, the magician Carlos María de Heredia author of the classic book Spiritism and Common Sense.
Despite admitting the book contains useful information on fraudulent mediums. Dingwall goes on to write:
http://ift.tt/2hnx59l
So Dingwall stated that fraud is overestimated, a weird comment from a supposed skeptic. Heredia's book only deals with physical mediums. Physical mediumship is 100% fraudulent to any skeptic and even cautious psychical researchers have admitted this (See for example Simeon Edmunds book Spiritualism A Critical Survey). You can see from the above statement Dingwall was not a skeptic.
He also says Edward Clodd and Joseph McCabe do not deserve "serious consideration". Why? Edward Clodd and Joseph McCabe were too well respected skeptic writers associated with the Rationalist Association.
Conclusion
The list goes on and on. Dingwall also wrote supportive things about the mediums Mina Crandon and Eusapia Palladino and would often contradict himself about these mediums also writing negative things. However, I scan through his name in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (sometimes appearing under the initials E.J.D) shows us he published far more positive things about psychical research than negative.
It is sometimes claimed that Eric Dingwall debunked loads of mediums. I cannot find any evidence to support this allegation. He defended Daniel Dunglas Home in one of his books, I will cover this later.
I find in the (JSPR) he published negative things about the fraudulent mediums Pasquale Erto, Jan Guzik and Maria Silbert (three blatant frauds of physical mediumship). But the mediums he was impressed by outweighs the few he dismissed as frauds.
He wrote many supportive things about Rudi and Willi Schneider. Some of his writings are sometimes contradictory but at a minimum what I have shown above beyond doubt is that this man was far from a skeptic. He was never anything to do with skepticism.
I believe Eric Dingwall is far from reliable. We should look into this mans original writings and not what later skeptics have written about him. History has been distorted. Deep research on this like I have done above, will get us closer to the truth. Please share any of your opinions.
I would have to partly agree with Doyle. On closer inspection, Dingwall appears to be a big time believer in the paranormal but there is nothing really 'secret' about this, it has just not been widely acknowledged and many later researchers have not really dug into Dingwall's writings.
Dingwall later distanced himself from psychical research and became a brief member of CSICOP before resigning. But he does not appear to have retracted any of his supportive opinions about the paranormal. A read through various articles in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (JSPR) reveals that Eric Dingwall was far from a skeptic. I would go as far as saying he was a staunch believer in the paranormal.
It appears later skeptic writers are unaware about Dingwall's actual writings on such topics. He is mistakenly portrayed as a skeptic.
Gordon Stein for example dedicated the book The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal (published by Prometheus Books) to Dingwall.
I will look at some cases below, these are various mediums or psychics that Dingwall wrote positive things about.
Alexis and Adolphe Didier
Alexis and Adolphe Didier were two French clairvoyant mediums. They were dismissed as frauds by psychical researchers such as Frank Podmore. But Dingwall rejected Podmore's conclusions.
According to Dingwall:
Quote:
|
The evidence for the paranormal acquisition of information seems to me to be very strong: the travelling clairvoyance also and the discovery of lost objects can be linked with it; and the evidence for thought-transmission cannot just be put on one side. It is true that a good deal of the sealed letter reading and ecarte playing is very suspicious, as ample evidence exists that, in the majority of cases at the time, successes in these directions were almost certainly due to faulty blindfolding and other sources of error. But many of the phenomena with both Alexis and Adolphe seem to me to be of a different order from those reported with other somnambules; and even if we go so far as to assume that the sitters were merely getting back what they told the subject without knowing what they were doing, it would not account for correct facts being given which had to be verified later. |
Einer Nielsen
Einer Nielsen was a physical medium from Denmark. He was investigated by a team of researchers from Kristiania University who considered his phenomena fraudulent and published a critical report on the medium.
Eric Dingwall in a SPR article took issue with their report and rejected any claim of fraud about Nielsen claiming:
Quote:
|
Although the sittings were unsatisfactory it is difficult to accept the committee's findings as to fraud on the part of the medium. |
http://ift.tt/2hnjTRX
Kathleen Goligher
Kathleen Goligher was a physical medium from Ireland who was investigated by a physicist called William Jackson Crawford. She held séances in the dark with her family members whilst Crawford would investigate.
Crawford was an eccentric, he had a strange obsession with collecting female underwear. He investigated Kathleen Goligher at her house, took a bunch of strange looking photographs of her ectoplasm (some of which look like cheesecloth or muslin descending from her genital area) and declared the ectoplasm and table 'levitations' to be genuine. Crawford later committed suicide for unknown reasons.
A different investigator Edmund Edward Fournier d'Albe (a well known physicist of the time and inventor) later investigated. He shot down Crawford's conclusions and claimed to have detected Kathleen Goligher in fraud. He reported his findings in a booklet. After the booklet was published, Goligher was not investigated again.
Eric Dingwall rejected the findings of d'Albe in a review and defended Crawford:
Quote:
|
Whether we may think it just or not, the fact remains that Dr. Fournier's book will be generally taken as a complete exposure of the circle and as a refutation of all Dr. Crawford's findings. Such a conclusion is warranted neither by the book itself nor by common sense. However unfortunate Dr. Crawford's conditions may have been he obtained results for which it is extremely difficult to account on any theory of fraud. |
This is an odd statement from Dingwall. In one of Crawford's own books, he admitted in his own words that none of the hands or feet of the Goligher family were controlled during the séances at any time (his reason for this was that he trusted the family). Fraud was thus extremely likely. Crawford was not reliable at all.
Note that Charles Marsh Beadnell published a book The Reality or Unreality of Spiritualistic Phenomena: Being a Criticism of Dr. W.J. Crawford's Investigation into Levitations and Raps which completely demolished the Crawford experiments with Goligher.
Eva C
Dingwall wrote supportive things about the medium Eva C (Eva Carrière):
Quote:
|
There is no proof whatever that the medium possesses the power of regurgitation or has any acquaintance whatever with deceptive methods or contrivances... The materializations are clearly often not made of paper, chiffon, or any similar substance. This is evident from photographic enlargements, besides being excluded by the fact that on certain occasions they changed their shape whilst under direct observation. |
Eva C had been caught in fraud by other researchers. For a good review see Georgess McHargue's book Facts, Frauds, and Phantasms: A Survey of the Spiritualist Movement. Much of her ectoplasm was made from cloth, cut out newspaper clippings or magazines.
Stefan Ossowiecki
Stefan Ossowiecki was a Polish psychic.
Eric Dingwall organized a test for this psychic in 1923. It involved the attempt to identify the contents of a sealed letter. Dingwall stated the test was successful. He rejected coincidence or fraud as an explanation. You can read more about the experiment in Dingwall's article in the SPR cited below.
Quote:
|
The supernormal character of the incident seems to me quite clear and decisive. |
Gladys Osborne Leonard
Gladys Osborne Leonard was a trance medium known for conducting 'book tests'. These tests were alleged to have proven she was in contact with deceased spirits.
Eric Dingwall rejected the idea that Leonard was fraudulent. He also rejected the view that her results were the due to chance.
In regard to the book tests, he says:
Quote:
|
More than five hundred of these book tests were carried out by Mrs. Leonard and her various sitters, with results of varying accuracy. A large number were as suggestive as the one we have quoted, though few probably contained quite as many separate items. In order to get an idea of how chance results would compare, a careful experiment was carried out. Three ideas were selected and a page chosen out of one of a number of books on which something to do with the idea was to be found. Thus one "idea" was an allusion to circles of any kind, and page 150 of Emerson's English Traits was looked up. If there was anything to do with circles on it that scored a success. Of 1,800 trials 1.89 per cent were scored as successes, 4.72 per cent as successes or partial successes, and 7.67 per cent when "slight successes" were added to the others. In Mrs. Leonard's mediumistic tests the percentages were 17.2, 36, and 54.1 for all 532 results and with the best communicator 63.6, 68.2, and 77.2. That should settle the question as to whether the results were due to chance. |
So Dingwall rejected chance and fraud for this medium. A skeptic would not have done this. A notable skeptic at the time Edward Clodd for example dismissed Leonard as a fraud.
Joseph of Cupertino
Joseph of Cupertino was a Christian saint known for his alleged ability to levitate.
Dingwall took the levitation claims about Cupertino from the position of an advocate. He dedicated a chapter to Cupertino and levitation in his book Some Human Oddities. Dingwall took the eyewitness claims seriously. He rejected the hypothesis of fraud or misinterpretation.
Bashing skeptics
Dingwall seems to have taken pop shots at various skeptic writers, many examples exist but I will only cite two for now. A notable example he wrote several negative things about a skeptic book on spiritualism written by the rationalist writer Joseph McCabe.
You can read his review here:
http://ift.tt/2hnr5xj
He also criticised another skeptic of spiritualism, the magician Carlos María de Heredia author of the classic book Spiritism and Common Sense.
Despite admitting the book contains useful information on fraudulent mediums. Dingwall goes on to write:
Quote:
|
On the whole we are inclined to think that he overestimates the fraudulent aspect of the subject and would have done better by a serious consideration of some of the best cases brought forward by psychical researchers. Thus we cannot admit his explanation of Home's accordion test (p. 68), neither do we consider it in the least probable that mediumistic levitation, if it ever takes place at all, should be produced by methods similar to those employed by himself for his own levitation. We would also like to remind Father Heredia that neither Mr. Clodd nor Mr. Joseph MacCabe deserves serious consideration. |
So Dingwall stated that fraud is overestimated, a weird comment from a supposed skeptic. Heredia's book only deals with physical mediums. Physical mediumship is 100% fraudulent to any skeptic and even cautious psychical researchers have admitted this (See for example Simeon Edmunds book Spiritualism A Critical Survey). You can see from the above statement Dingwall was not a skeptic.
He also says Edward Clodd and Joseph McCabe do not deserve "serious consideration". Why? Edward Clodd and Joseph McCabe were too well respected skeptic writers associated with the Rationalist Association.
Conclusion
The list goes on and on. Dingwall also wrote supportive things about the mediums Mina Crandon and Eusapia Palladino and would often contradict himself about these mediums also writing negative things. However, I scan through his name in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (sometimes appearing under the initials E.J.D) shows us he published far more positive things about psychical research than negative.
It is sometimes claimed that Eric Dingwall debunked loads of mediums. I cannot find any evidence to support this allegation. He defended Daniel Dunglas Home in one of his books, I will cover this later.
I find in the (JSPR) he published negative things about the fraudulent mediums Pasquale Erto, Jan Guzik and Maria Silbert (three blatant frauds of physical mediumship). But the mediums he was impressed by outweighs the few he dismissed as frauds.
He wrote many supportive things about Rudi and Willi Schneider. Some of his writings are sometimes contradictory but at a minimum what I have shown above beyond doubt is that this man was far from a skeptic. He was never anything to do with skepticism.
I believe Eric Dingwall is far from reliable. We should look into this mans original writings and not what later skeptics have written about him. History has been distorted. Deep research on this like I have done above, will get us closer to the truth. Please share any of your opinions.
via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/2hylUZM
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire