WCP4654

Letter (WCP4654.4971)

[1]

1Holly House, Barking, E[ssex].2

Oct[ob]er. 8th. 1871

Dear Mr. Crookes3

Many thanks for the copy of your papers on Psychic Force.4 The 2nd. is most admirable; both in the tone & spirit with which it answers criticisms, & the irresistible force of its new facts. Spiritualists are greatly indebted to you for furnishing them, in your self registered experiments, with a final [2] answer to the "biologising" objection, recently put forth by Balfour Stewart5 & still more recently made the subject of a book supposed to crush spiritualism,6 by Mr. Zereffi.7

I hope you may soon be able to exhibit these self registering experiments in the theatre of the Royal Institution.8

Yours very faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

W. Crookes Esq[uire].

1
The number "1616" is written just to the left of the words "Holly House".
2
Wallace rented Holly House, Tanner Street, Barking from 22 March 1870 to 25 March 1872.
3
Crookes, William (1832-1919). British chemist, physicist, and spiritualist. On Crookes and spiritualism, see Brock, W. H. 2008. William Crookes (1832-1919) and the Commercialization of Science. London: Ashgate. [chapters 7, 8, 10, and 11]; Raia-Grean, C. 2008. Picturing the Supernatural: Spirit Photography, Radiant Matter, and the Spectacular Science of Sir William Crookes. In: Kang, M. and Woodson-Boulton, A. Visions of the Industrial Age, 1830-1914: Modernity and the Anxiety of Representation in Europe. London: Ashgate. [pp. 55-80]; and Noakes, R. 2004. Spiritualism, science, and the supernatural in Mid-Victorian Britain. In: Brown, N., Burdett, C., and Thurschwell, P. (Eds.). The Victorian Supernatural. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [pp. 23-43, on pp. 33-39]. On Victorian science and spiritualism in general, see Noakes R. 2019. Physics and Psychics: The Occult and the Sciences in Modern Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
4
Probably Crookes, W. 1871. Experimental Investigation of a New Force. Quarterly Journal of Science. 8: 339-349; and Crookes, W. 1871. Some Further Experiments on Psychic Force. Quarterly Journal of Science. 8: 471-493. These were published separately as Crookes, W. 1871. Experimental Investigations on Psychic Force. London: Henry Gillman.
5
Stewart, Balfour (1828-1887). Scottish physicist, meteorologist, and director of Kew Observatory (1859-71). In Stewart, B. 1871. Mr. Crookes on the "Psychic" Force. Nature. 4: 237, Stewart questions whether spiritualists are, rather than trying to deceive observers, deceiving themselves, for the 'phenomenon may be subjective rather than objective, the result of an action upon the man's brain rather than an outstanding reality'.
6
Zerffi, G. G. 1871. Spiritualism and Animal Magnetism: A Treatise on Second Sight, Somnambulism, Magnetic Sleep, Spiritual Manifestations, Hallucinations and Spectral Visions. London: Robert Hardwick. In this book, Zerffi proposed a non-spiritual, material theory of spiritual phenomena.
7
Zerffi, George Gustavus (1820-1892). Hungarian writer on art and history.
8
It does not appear that Crookes lectured or conducted spiritualist experiments at the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

Editorial information

Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP4654.4971)]

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Revision history

Transcribed by Parfitt, Elisabeth [2013-01-04] Transcription checked by Barton, Michael [2020-06-09]

Please cite as “WCP4654,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP4654