Psychic Research

Large-scale flower apports from materializing medium Elizabeth d’Esperance and her spirit guides. And some less impressive floral offerings from Mrs Guppy.

In 1871 the David Hoffman family of Wooster was attacked by an entity they called “IT.” The poltergeist stole money, food, and seemed to have a special hatred for clothing, which it slashed and shredded. Here is the story of a family haunted and tortured by malignant spirits.

The Shakers of Union Village, Ohio were in the midst of a Spiritualist revival: child mediums fell into trance, were dictated songs by angels, and were visited by Indian spirits. As an experiment, one telepathic Shaker girl was sent on a strange errand–to fly a message from Ohio to New York state.

A sweet odor, seen as a sign of heavenly grace, the proverbial “odor of sanctity” is well-known in the literature of hagiography. It is also sometimes reported in connection with paranormal phenomena. What are we to make of the reports of phantom incense at and around Glastonbury Abbey?

A chilling story of two occultists using a bowl of blood to summon a blood elemental and the ghost of a dead torturer.

In honor of the 150th birthday anniversary for Welsh horror and fantasy author Arthur Machen, we look at a 1915 article discussing the evidence for the Angels of Mons visions. Machen’s story, “The Bowmen,” may have inadvertently helped to create this legend of the Great War. Despite Machen’s protests that the story was fictional, the stories of angels on the battlefield took on a life of their own and became hoplessly tangled in false memories, hoaxes, and a twisted kind of ostension.

The classic story from Froissart about “Orton” or “Orthon,” a helpful spirit or demon who brought news from afar to the Lord de Corasse.

A selection of stories about mysterious fiery hands and scorched hand-prints–are they a religious or a paranormal phenomenon?

Were the results shown by Dr Joire’s Sthenometer the result of neurasthenia, “psychic force,” or merely body temperature? 1906 experiments by two psychic researchers.