Phantasms of the Living (Classic Reprint)

Phantasms of the Living, published in 1886, which embodies much of the early work of the Society for Psychical Research, and in particular much valuable discussion by its earliest honorary secretary, Edmund Gurney, has long been out of print. But as its value has been but little afl Eected by subsequent investigations, and it still forms the basis on which much of the present-day work on telepathy, and especially on apparitions, rests, it is thought that a new edition is likely to be appreciated by the public. Had the authors been with us still, a new edition would no doubt have been brought up to date. New evidence would have been included, and the discussion might perhaps have been added to or diminished, to suit the new atmosphere which the book itself has helped to create. Changes of this sort I have not felt justified in attempting. The text is substantially as jbheuthors left it with theexception of omissions for the sake ofbrevityin Chapters IV and XIII (indicatedjn their places), and no new cases have been introduced. The original edition, however, occupies two large volumes and it was desired to reduce the present one by nearly half. This has been effected mainly by omitting a large number of the cases quoted. In the original work, besides descriptions of experiments, accounts of some 700 numbered incidents, prima facie telepathic, were given. Of these the present edition includes only 186. The whole of the supplement which contains more than half the cases the less well-evidenced ones has been omitted. Of the rest the cases retained are selected first as required to illustrate Gurney sremarks, and secondly as being, in my judgment, the best evidenced of their class. They must be regarded as typical cases, not as exhibiting the mass of evidence obtainable at the time, and which for reasons explainc I in the introduction, it was an important part of (Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.) Read more