James Hervey Hyslop, Ph.D., LL.D, (August 18, 1854 – June 17, 1920) was an American psychical researcher, psychologist, and professor of ethics and logic at Columbia University. He was one of the first American psychologists to connect psychology with psychic phenomena. In 1906 he helped reorganize the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) in New York City and served as the secretary-treasurer for the organization until his death.
Education and academic career
Hyslop was educated at Wooster College, Ohio (B.A., 1877), the University of Leipzig (1882–84), and Johns Hopkins University (Ph.D., 1877).
He served as an instructor in philosophy in Lake Forest University in Illinois during 1880–82 and 1884–85, as the head of Department of Philosophy in Smith College in Massachusetts during 1885–86, and as a faculty member in Bucknell University in Pennsylvania during 1888–89. From 1889 to 1891 he worked as a tutor in philosophy, ethics and psychology. From 1891 to 1895 he worked as an instructor in ethics and from 1895 to 1902 as the professor of logic and ethics in Columbia University.
During his years at Columbia University Hyslop wrote several textbooks, including The Elements of Logic (1892), Elements of Ethics (1895), and Problems of Philosophy (1905), and also became deeply involved with psychical research.
In 1902 he received an honorary degree (LL.D) from the University of Wooster.
Psychical research
Hyslop took interest in psychical research in the 1880s. After retiring from his teaching post due to ill health, Hyslop founded the American Institute for Scientific Research in 1904 to stir interest and raise funds for psychical research."American Institute for Scientific Research". Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. He had initially planned one section of it to be devoted to the study of abnormal psychology and another section to psychic research, believing, as he said, that "at certain points the two fields tend to merge and at others they are widely separated".
He became an active member of the Society for Psychical Research and of its American branch, working closely with the secretary of the American group, Richard Hodgson, and with William James. However, the year following Richard Hodgson's death in 1905, the American Society for Psychical Research was dissolved. Hyslop revived ASPR as a section of his institute, and it soon absorbed and replaced the institute altogether. He assumed Hodgson's role as chief investigator of Leonora Piper's mediumship. He issued the first Journal in January 1907. He recruited both Hereward Carrington and Walter Franklin Prince to assist in the work. Hyslop was the secretary-treasurer and director of the organization from 1907 to 1920.
Hyslop's first book on psychical research, Science and a Future Life, was published in 1905, and many more followed, including Enigmas of Psychic Research (1906), Borderland of Psychical Research (1906), Psychical Research and the Resurrection (1908), Psychical Research and Survival (1913), Life After Death (1918), and Contact with the Other World (1919). He wrote for the Journal and Proceedings of the ASPR and the SPR and for such publications as Mind, The Philosophical Review, and The Nation. He became convinced in the existence of an afterlife.
Mental mediumship
Originally an agnostic and materialist, Hyslop's interest in psychic investigation increased after sessions with the Boston medium Leonora Piper, whom he first met as early as 1888. Hyslop's first major experimental account of personal settings he had with Mrs. Piper was published in 1901 in the English proceedings. The issue as he saw it in this report was whether spiritism or telepathy exclusively from living people was the most rational explanation for the phenomena associated with Piper, in particular, messages allegedly received from his deceased relatives. He concluded his lengthy account by saying that these messages forced him to ”give my adhesion to the theory that there is a future life and persistence of personal identity.... [and] to tolerate the spiritistic theory as rationally possible and respectable, as against stretching telepathy and its adjuncts into infinity and omniscience.” He believed that through her he had received messages from his father, his wife, and other members of his family, about which he reported in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (London, 1901).
In his book Science and a Future Life (1905), Hyslop wrote of his séance sittings with the medium Leonora Piper and suggested they could only be explained by spirits or telepathy. Hyslop favoured the spiritualist hypothesis.Henry W. Wright. (1907). Some Interpretations of the Supernatural. Le divin experience et hypothèse by Marcel Hébert; L'infinité divine depuis Philon le Juif jusqu'à Plotin by Henri Guyot; Science and a Future Life by James H. Hyslop; Borderland of Psychical Research by James H. Hyslop; The Spirit World by Joseph Hamilton. The American Journal of Theology. Vol. 11, No. 2. pp. 358-362. However, Frank Podmore wrote that Hyslop's séance sittings with Piper "do not obviously call for any supernormal explanation" and "I cannot point to a single instance in which a precise and unambiguous piece of information has been furnished of a kind which could not have proceeded from the medium's own mind, working upon the materials provided and the hints let drop by the sitter."Frank Podmore. (1902). Modern Spiritualism: A History and a Criticism. Volume 2. p. 345
Beginning in 1907, he worked with different mediums to investigate spirit possession and obsession. He made a deep study of multiple personalities and of obsession, and came to the conclusion that in many cases it could be attributed to spirit possession. Hyslop investigated the alleged spirit possession case of Doris Fischer. After investigation, Hyslop began to believe that the personalities of Fischer were discarnate spirits. Hyslop claimed that a spirit known as Count "Cagliostro" was the leader of the possessing spirits and performed an exorcism. Hyslop quit the case hoping Fischer had been cured, however, she died in a mental hospital years later.Rosemary Guiley. (2009). The Encyclopedia of Demons and Demonology. Checkmark Books. p. 69. .
In 1913, Edwin William Friend was employed by Hyslop as his assistant and with help of Theodate Pope became the editor for the Journal of American Society for Psychical Research. Friend was sent articles that were to be published in the journal but instead decided to write his own articles. In response, Hyslop repossessed the editorship of the journal and both Friend and Pope resigned from the ASPR in 1915.Arthur Berger. (1988). Lives and Letters in American Parapsychology: A Biographical History, 1850-1987. McFarland. p. 62. . The charges made against Hyslop by Pope and Friend when they resigned from the ASPR in 1915 have been reechoed recently by the historian R. Laurence Moore: Hyslop ran the ASPR "like a dictator". It was a one-man rule and Hyslop was no angel. James thought him crude. Funk told Hyslop bluntly: "[Y]ou antagonize." Hyslop's conduct in the Palladino case seems to have been costly to the ASPR. Hyslop's writings were criticized not only for their inadequacies but for his convoluted style. James's letters in 1901 and 1902 are full of complaints about it. To Hodgson he remarked: "I think Hyslop's discussions and methods admirable in all but literary style," and in his correspondence with Flournoy, he said: "[Hyslop's] report is intolerably ill written and I have not been able to read the whole of it. Sir Oliver Lodge deplored the fact that Hyslop did not have "the gift of expressing himself in clear and simple English. Throughout his voluminous writings the sentences are frequently involved, and sometimes so curiously constructed that it is difficult to disentangle their meaning." Sir William Barrett lamented similarly: "Hyslop would have gained a wider and more respectful hearing had he cultivated a better and more restrained style of writing, and been less dogmatic and combative in the expression of his opinions.""Professor Edwin William Friend". The Lusitania Resource. On May 1, 1915, both Friend and Pope set sail on the British passenger ship RMS Lusitania with plans of forming a new psychical organization with cooperation from the British Society for Psychical Research. On May 7, the ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat. Three days after the loss of the ship, Hyslop held séance sittings with the medium Mrs. Chenoweth in an attempt to contact Friend.Michael Goss, George Behe. (1994). Lost at Sea: Ghost Ships and Other Mysteries. Prometheus Books. pp. 268-274. .Diana Preston. (2002). Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy. Walker Publishing Company. p. 105. .
In 1916, Hyslop wrote that the whole case for Pearl Curran's mediumship was based on fraud. Hyslop in the Journal for the American Society for Psychical Research claimed that Curran had known people from the Ozarks who spoke a dialect reminiscent of Patience Worth and Curran's husband had studied Chaucer and educated her on the subject.Alfred Douglas. (1982). Extra-Sensory Powers: A Century of Psychical Research. Overlook Press. pp. 170-171. . According to Hyslop the case of Patience Worth was "a fraud and delusion for any person who wishes to treat it seriously." Hyslop also accused Casper Yost and the publisher of his book Henry Holt of knowing about the fraud but covering it up to increase sales of the book. In the Mirror articles appeared by Emily Hutchings and Yost defending Curran against allegations of fraud. In response, Hyslop wrote a letter to the Mirror which claimed he had been told of Curran's knowledge of Chaucer by a "scientific man" who had heard it from Mr Curran himself. In 1938 the ASPR journal published an anonymous article which refuted all of Hyslop's accusations. According to the article the Ozark dialect did not resemble the language of Patience Worth and knowledge of Chaucer would not have given Curran the vocabulary to compose the Patience Worth literature.
Physical mediumship
Although a believer in mental mediumship, Hyslop is said to have found the physical phenomena of spiritualism "repulsive".Jenny Hazelgrove. (2000). Spiritualism and British Society Between the Wars. Manchester University Press. p. 163. . In 1906, Hyslop criticized the famous experiments of Johann Karl Friedrich Zöllner with the medium Henry Slade and pointed out eleven possible sources of error. Psychical researcher Hereward Carrington described Hyslop's criticisms as "very fine".Hereward Carrington. (1907). The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism. Herbert B. Turner & Co. Chapter The Slade-Zöllner Investigation. pp. 19-47
In a review for the Journal of American Society for Psychical Research in 1917, Hyslop wrote that various occurrences of levitation could have been faked by trickery. He also reviewed the psychical researcher William Jackson Crawford's experiments with the medium Kathleen Goligher and suggested that reported physical phenomena in the séance room could be unreliable.Peter Aykroyd. (2009). A History of Ghosts: The True Story of Séances, Mediums, Ghosts, and Ghostbusters. Rodale. p. 124. . "A review written by James H. Hyslop and published in a 1917 issue of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research suggests that several occurrences of levitation at séances could, in fact, have been staged. In his review of W. J. Crawford's three titles covering his experiments with the Goligher cicle... Hyslop suggests that tampering and embellishment are all too possible in a séance situation, particularly where physical phenomena are involved."
Personal life and family