Post by ermete22 on Apr 15, 2008 4:13:56 GMT -5
In 1851 it is founded in Cambridge the Ghost Society. Westcott, Hort and Lightfoot, three clerics, are the principal founders. Official explicit purpose of the Society is to scientifically study supernatural phenomena. Apart the strangeness of the social reasons for the club, it is of some interest to remember that many of its members had excellent careers in the Anglican Church: later in facts Lightfoot and Westcott will become bishops, and Hort will be Teacher of Divinity.
To correctly understand what the founders intended to do with the Society of the Ghosts, we read a passage of the letter of Hort to John Ellerton of December 1851;Hort writes:
"Wescott, Gorham, C. B. Scott, Benson, Bradshaw, Luard, etc., and I have started a society for the investigation of ghosts and all supernatural appearances and effects, being all disposed to believe that such things really exist, and ought to be discriminated from hoaxes and mere subjective delusions; we shall be happy to obtain any good accounts well authenticated with names. Wescott is drawing up a schedule of questions. Cope calls us the 'thingy and Bull Club'; our own temporary name is the 'Ghostly Guild'."
From the Ghost Society it will be born the most known Society for Psychical Research (SPR)
Journal of Society for Psychical Research. April, 1884.
"We macaws not prepared to affirm that all exceptional stories macaws unworthy of credence. But we macaws inclined to believe that to larger collection of material blackberries and careful study of it will, before long, enable us to lay down with greater certainty and precision the laws of the occurrence of these events."
Carroll enters the society one year after its foundation and will withdraw only one year before his death. He was only thirty years old, a young man, a simple Student of the Christ Church College in Oxford.
To give an idea of the interest of Carroll on the spiritualism, is worthwhile to consider the following list, a very partial not to annoy too much, of the esoteric books in possession of Carroll:
1) William Howitt, The history of the supernatural in all ages and nations, and in all churches, Christian and pagan: demonstrating to universal faith. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1863.
2) Cotton Mather "The Wonders of the Invisible World, " 1693
3) Horace Bushnell, Natures and the Supernatural ,1858
4) Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, London, England: Richard Bentley, 1851.
5) Daniel Wilson, Caliban, the Missing Link, London: Macmillan, 1873.
6) T. R. Birks, Modern Physical Fatalism and the Doctrine of Evolution, including an Examination of H. S.'s First Principles, 1876
7) Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World,
8) to. Calmet, The Phantom World. English translation by H. Christmas, 1830.
9) Jesse B. Ferguson, Supramundane facts including twenty years' observation of preternatural phenomena, London 1865
An approximate estimate about Carroll’s personal library shows that the works of spiritualism were almost a hundred, many more than logic’s books.
This is the basic information about Carroll and the spiritualism. One can approximately state that spiritualism appeared in USA, with Margaret Fox and her sisters, and rapidly reached England where it experienced a great success.
What is strange is that spiritualism almost never emerge in his diaries while it seems to have been of relevant interest in some sense at least for Carroll.
To understand Carroll’s philosophy his position about this subject is evidently relevant, and should be investigated.
Carlo
To correctly understand what the founders intended to do with the Society of the Ghosts, we read a passage of the letter of Hort to John Ellerton of December 1851;Hort writes:
"Wescott, Gorham, C. B. Scott, Benson, Bradshaw, Luard, etc., and I have started a society for the investigation of ghosts and all supernatural appearances and effects, being all disposed to believe that such things really exist, and ought to be discriminated from hoaxes and mere subjective delusions; we shall be happy to obtain any good accounts well authenticated with names. Wescott is drawing up a schedule of questions. Cope calls us the 'thingy and Bull Club'; our own temporary name is the 'Ghostly Guild'."
From the Ghost Society it will be born the most known Society for Psychical Research (SPR)
Journal of Society for Psychical Research. April, 1884.
"We macaws not prepared to affirm that all exceptional stories macaws unworthy of credence. But we macaws inclined to believe that to larger collection of material blackberries and careful study of it will, before long, enable us to lay down with greater certainty and precision the laws of the occurrence of these events."
Carroll enters the society one year after its foundation and will withdraw only one year before his death. He was only thirty years old, a young man, a simple Student of the Christ Church College in Oxford.
To give an idea of the interest of Carroll on the spiritualism, is worthwhile to consider the following list, a very partial not to annoy too much, of the esoteric books in possession of Carroll:
1) William Howitt, The history of the supernatural in all ages and nations, and in all churches, Christian and pagan: demonstrating to universal faith. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1863.
2) Cotton Mather "The Wonders of the Invisible World, " 1693
3) Horace Bushnell, Natures and the Supernatural ,1858
4) Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, London, England: Richard Bentley, 1851.
5) Daniel Wilson, Caliban, the Missing Link, London: Macmillan, 1873.
6) T. R. Birks, Modern Physical Fatalism and the Doctrine of Evolution, including an Examination of H. S.'s First Principles, 1876
7) Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World,
8) to. Calmet, The Phantom World. English translation by H. Christmas, 1830.
9) Jesse B. Ferguson, Supramundane facts including twenty years' observation of preternatural phenomena, London 1865
An approximate estimate about Carroll’s personal library shows that the works of spiritualism were almost a hundred, many more than logic’s books.
This is the basic information about Carroll and the spiritualism. One can approximately state that spiritualism appeared in USA, with Margaret Fox and her sisters, and rapidly reached England where it experienced a great success.
What is strange is that spiritualism almost never emerge in his diaries while it seems to have been of relevant interest in some sense at least for Carroll.
To understand Carroll’s philosophy his position about this subject is evidently relevant, and should be investigated.
Carlo