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This chapter describes the birth of spiritualism, influenced by the events of the American Civil War, and finally by the First World War. Spiritualism is partly a legacy of Swedenborgianism, and partly an attempt to prove survival after death scientifically. The first claimed spiritualist phenomena were in Hydesville, New York, and then Massachusetts. Many distinguished intellectuals gave credence to Spiritualism. The chapter explores the apparent credulity of members of the Cambridge (England)–based Society for Psychical Research, especially toward the famous medium D. D. Home (“Mr Sludge the Medium”). The First World War and its losses encouraged the cult, which was accepted by many as a New Revelation. The astonishing resemblance of the actions of mediums to those of conjurors is described, as is the skepticism of Harry Houdini.

Chapter three charts James's contributions to the Society for Psychical Research and the American Society for Psychical Research a researcher, investigator, officer, committee chairman, financial supporter, and cheerleader.

This chapter discusses Murray's experiments in telepathy. It is argued that Murray was England's leading telepath, and that the account of Murray's experiments in this underlines with especial force the width of Murray's interests and achievements.

This chapter explores the fascinating confluence of medicine and metaphysics during the nineteenth century, central to which was the discovery of anesthetics. Often a visit to the dentist led not only to a tooth extraction but also to a “sublime vision” and a revised understanding of the nature of reality. Accounts of such experiences inspired not only revealing popular works on the “laughing gas” phenomenon, such as Doctor Syntax in Paris or A Tour in Search of the Grotesque, but also discussions of the nature of mystical experience. This chapter analyzes the work of key figures influenced by the inhalation of nitrous oxide, including Humphry Davy, Benjamin Paul Blood, and William James, as well as its impact on the work of the Society for Psychical Research.

This chapter looks at E.R. Dodds’s engagement with the paranormal. Dodds’s career in psychic research had three distinct phases: before, during, and after his tenure of the Oxford chair. His own paranormal beliefs, however, solidified early and remained consistent over his long career in the field. Telepathy was real, an innate part of human development, and a default explanation for other forms of clairvoyance and mediumship. On the other hand, disembodied intelligences—including demons, ghosts, and spirit guides—were a delusion. Though marginalized in modern histories of psychic studies, Dodds’s long and active association with the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) made him a central figure in the history of twentieth-century paranormal research in Britain, and one of the most thoughtful and hard-nosed embedded observers of its journey from the Victorian parlour to eventual extinction in the laboratory environment he had spent his adult life advocating.

T. S. Eliot’s “East Cooker” in 1940 encouraged H.D. as she wrote a vatic and communal antiwar poem, The Walls Do Not Fall. This volume of Trilogy explores survival and “ancient rubrics,” provoking her readers to practice “spiritual realism,” addressing those who need to do their “worm-cycle.” Bryher left Lowndes on jaunts to Trenoweth or Eckington, always inviting H.D., who visited Cornwall twice. Her first “escape” led H.D. to “R.A.F.,” an unusual narrative poem for her, pivoting upon sitting next to a pilot on sick leave on the train from Cornwall to London. She envisioned him at her writing desk. This experience led her to the Institute for Psychical Research; Air Marshall Dowding was himself a member. She met Arthur Bhaduri, a “seer” who would conduct séances for H.D. and Bryher. Perdita worked at Bletchley Park unscrambling codes.