Simeon Edmunds

Simeon Edmunds
Occupation Psychical researcher, skeptic of spiritualism

Simeon Edmunds (1917 – 1969) was a British psychical researcher and writer on hypnotism.[1]

Career

Edmunds was a research secretary for the College of Psychic Science and member of the Society for Psychical Research. He was the associate editor of the Tomorrow magazine.[2]

He is most well known for his skeptical books on spiritualism.[1] His 1965 booklet Spirit Photography was published by the Society for Psychical Research. It exposed the fraudulent methods involved in producing spirit photographs.[3][4] According to Edmunds "not one professional spirit photographer of any note ever escaped convincing exposure as fraudulent."[5]

His 1961 work, Hypnotism and the Supernormal was described in a review as a "classic and serious study".[6][7]

In 2016, Edmunds booklet Spirit Photography was republished in limited quantities.[8]

Publications

Notes

  1. 1 2 Ashby. Robert. (1972). The Guidebook for the Study of Psychical Research. Weiser. p. 141. ISBN 978-0877281887 "Simeon Edmunds, 1917-69. Former research secretary of the College of Psychic Science (now studies) in London, psychical researcher, writer, hypnotist. A highly critical student of paranormal phenomena, his study of "spirit photography" published by the Society for Psychical Research dismisses as fraudulent all such claims, while his study of spiritualism, Spiritualism: A Critical Survey, is a strong attack upon the movement's credulity, widespread fraud, and self-delusion."
  2. ↑ "Simeon Edmunds". Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. 2001.
  3. ↑ British Journal of Photography, Volume 113. Henry Greenwood & Company, 1966. p. 703
  4. ↑ The Photographic Journal, Volume 107. Royal Photographic Society, 1967. p. 97
  5. ↑ Sladek, John. (1974). The New Apocrypha: A Guide to Strange Science and Occult Beliefs. Stein and Day. p. 215. ISBN 978-0812817126
  6. ↑ The Contemporary Review, Volume 241. Alexander Strahan, 1982. p. 56
  7. ↑ This entire work (an excellent, rational, and sceptical examination of hypnotism) was based on research that Edmunds had specifically undertaken for the British Parapsychological Society on the nature of (and the phenomena associated with) hypnotism. Edmunds explained that the entire enterprise was driven by the Society's need that, in order to be able to prove the existence of certain specific psychic phenomena, hypnotism and its attendant phenomena had to be thoroughly understood (thus, its title, "Hypnotism and the Supernormal"; or, in it's later, U.S. version, "Hypnotism and Psychic Phenomena") — so that, from this understanding of the wide range of hypnotic phenomena, great care could be taken not to produce phenomena that could be replicated with hypnotism as evidence of supposed "psychic events".
  8. ↑ "The SPR in the Journal of the London Institute of ’Pataphysics". Society for Psychical Research.
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