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Mrs. Leonora Piper (1859-1950) was one of the most famous mediums who ever lived. She attracted a large following, and even aroused the curiosity of the renowned psychologist and skeptic William James. Avoiding the more obvious tricks of levitating tables and floating trumpets, Mrs. Piper would go into trances, during which she was allegedly taken over by spirits who controlled her voice and directed her hand to write messages. “Studies in Spiritism” is the verbatim record of six seances which psychologist and psychic researcher Dr. Amy Tanner attended with Dr. G. Stanley Hall in 1909, when Mrs. Piper was at the height of her fame. Although they went in with open minds, Tanner and Hall came away convinced that, while Mrs. Piper may well have been a classic case of a person with multiple personalities who emerged from her unconscious mind during these sittings, she was not above using deliberate deception. This monumental study still stands as a classic skeptical account of mediums and their methods.
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: : : '. II : ; ; : [HUlllllllllllll 111 II II 1 II 1 11 1 III1 li.fl IKIIIIIIIHIlKlilllllllilllllllillllli; 1 (Ttirl 1 ilti 1 li ill n I Uw BFio^x Class !' Book :• Copyright^ COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT; , IN STUDIES SPIRITISM STUDIES SPIRITISM IN BY AMY E. TANNER, Ph.D. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY G. D. STANLEY HALL, Ph.D., LL.D. NEW YORK AND LONDON APPLETON AND COMPANY 1910 r\0* "*- Copyright, D. Published, September, 1910, by APPLETON AND COMPANY 1910 ©CI.A2719 IS PREFACE When I entered upon the study of the work of the Psychical Research Society assistant to Dr. Gr. was it in my capacity of special Stanley Hall in his investigation of Spir- and not with the expectation of publishing anything of my own. But as the work progressed, and as it became evident that Dr. Hall's other writings and duties would itism, make impossible for it him to publish subject for some time to come, anything on this seemed best that it I should work in hand myself, because now seems to be the psychological of the case of moment to present the reverse side Spiritism. Though my name is appended to the take the book, and though I therefore, lie, am I responsible alone for under the greatest obligations my opinions, to Dr. Hall, not only for his encouragement, but for the opportunity to have sittings with Mrs. Piper, and for the unpublished manuscripts of his which have been at my disposal, to say nothing of the extensive citations from his notes which ap- pear in the book, and of his Introduction. I wish also to express B. Dorr, my who arranges Mrs. sense of obligation to Mr. G. Piper's sittings for her, and to Mrs. Piper herself for their unfailing courtesy desire that Dr. Hall the controls. The and I fact that and their should have a free hand with my v findings are unfavourable PREFACE to t