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Harry Price was one of the most
influential figures in the formative years of ghost research. He was
a charismatic person whose energy and enthusiasm for the paranormal
made him the first well known ghost hunter.
Price was instrumental in bringing ghost
research to the attention of the general public, realizing that
by making his research entertaining, he could he attract the attention
of the masses. Because of this “colleagues” would attack
not only Price's research, but the man himself, staining his reputation
for years to come. |
Price was regarded as an embarrassment during his
time and lingering effects can still be felt to this day. Despite more
recent work supporting his claims and methods, many British researchers
still regard Price as something of an enigma. Because of his flamboyant
manner and continuous self promotion, Price made a number of enemies within
the psychic research field, especially within the Society of Psychical
Research (SPR).
Most of the resentment directed at Price
revolved around that fact that he had no real scientific training, as
most of the SPR investigators had. He was also skillful in his practices.
As a skilled magician and an expert at detecting fraud, he was not taken
in by many of the fraudulent cases that plagued the SPR. His success was
a insult to what many considered to be the “established” psychical
researchers. Regardless, his work is considered to be groundbreaking,
even by modern standards.
Harry Price was born in London in 1881, and his
interest in the paranormal began in 1889 when he saw his first performance
by a stage magician. From that point on, he became an amateur magician
and began collecting what would eventually become an immense library of
books on magic and its practices.
Price had his first encounter with the supernatural
around the age of 15, when he and a friend locked themselves overnight
in a haunted house. After hearing noises in an upstairs room that appeared
to be footsteps on the staircase, they set up an old fashioned powder
flash camera at the bottom of the stairs. About an hour later, they clearly
heard the footsteps descending the stairs again and fired the camera.
When the plate was developed, it showed nothing but an empty staircase.
Price would always consider this as his first encounter with a ghost.
After graduating from college, Price worked at
a number of jobs before he met and married a wealthy heiress named Constance
Mary Knight in 1908. Price joined the SPR in 1920 and had already established
his career as Britain's most famous ghost investigator. He had spent many
hours at alleged haunted locations and participated in the
investigation of Spiritualist mediums. He was also an expert magician
and soon made a name for himself within the SPR for using his skills in
magic to debunk fraudulent psychics, which was the main thrust of the
SPR investigations at the time.
One of Price's first efforts was to expose the
work of spirit photographer William Hope, who was making a fortune taking
portraits of people and their dead relatives. He claimed that Hope used
pre exposed plates in his camera, which he learned by secretly switching
the plates the photographer was using with plates of his own.
Soon Price entered into another aspect of his career.
One afternoon, he met a young woman named Stella Cranshaw. The two happened
to strike up a conversation about psychic anomalies, during which Stella,
who was a hospital nurse, told the investigator that she had been experiencing
strange phenomena for years. She said that rapping noises, cold chills
and household objects inexplicably taking flight had been bothering her
for some time. Price, excited at the prospect of a new test subject, told
her that he was a psychic investigator and asked if she would submit to
being tested as a medium.
Price who had become an amateur inventor, immediately
designed new equipment to test the young woman's abilities. One of them
was the “telekinetoscope”, a clever device that used a telegraph
key that when depressed would cause a light to turn on. The key was then
covered by a glass dome so that only psychic powers could operate it.
During 13 seances, conducted between March and October
1923 in front of witnesses, Stella managed to produce all sorts of strange,
physical phenomena. During one seance, she even managed to levitate a
table so high that the sitters had to rise out of their chairs to keep
their hands upon it. Suddenly, three of the table legs broke away and
the table itself folded and collapsed.
Price kept a journal of the events and also noted
a number of temperature fluctuations during each seance and the fact that
Stella was able to manipulate the foolproof telegraph key device. In the
end, Stella’s career as a medium would be short lived, but Price's
investigations would earn her much respect in psychic circles. In addition,
Price's handling of the investigations would earn him prestige and respectability.
Price then journeyed to Munich to investigate the
famous medium brothers, Willi and Rudi Schneider, at the laboratory of
Baron Albert von Schreck-Notzing, a flamboyant investigator. Price was
so impressed with what he saw during the seances there, he invited the
brothers to his own laboratories in 1929.
Soon thereafter, Price began testing his own psychics
and set about trying to measure some aspects of the seances in a scientific
manner. He managed to record strange temperature drops and other phenomena
that finally convinced him of the reality of the paranormal. From this
point on, he devoted his time to pursuing genuine phenomena rather than
debunking mediums, which, of course, did not sit well with the SPR.
The relationship between Price and the society
had always been strained so Price had formed the National Laboratory for
Psychical Research in 1923. It would take three additional years for the
laboratory to get up and running and would be aligned with the London
Spiritualist Alliance. This was the final straw for the SPR and in 1927,
they returned Price's massive book collection which he gave them as a
donation. To make matters worse, after Price's death, it would be three
members of the SPR who would attempt to discredit him. The American branch
of the society apparently did not hold a grudge however and Price would
serve as the foreign research officer for the American Society for Psychical
Research from 1925 to 1931.
In 1926, Price came across the case of a Romanian
peasant girl named Eleonora Zugan, who was apparently experiencing violent
poltergeist phenomena, including flying objects, slapping, biting and
pinching. The girl had been rescued from an insane asylum by a psychic
investigator who Price had met in Vienna. Price returned to London, with
the girl, and began a series of laboratory tests which were only partially
successful.
Testimony and reports from the testing claimed that
“stigmata” appeared on the girl's body under conditions that
precluded the possibility of the girl producing them by natural means.
It was also stated that she was able to move objects with her mind, although
no cause could be discovered for her abilities. Eleonora’s abilities
ceased abruptly at the age of 14 when she entered puberty.
In 1929, Rudi Schneider, whose abilities were said
to surpass those of his brother, traveled to England to be tested by Price.
The investigator was still adding new scientific technology to his array
of gadgets and one device wired the hands and feet of Rudi, and everyone
else seated around the seance table, to a display board. A light would
signal if anyone moved enough to break the electrical circuit.
Despite these controls, Rudi was said to have produced
an array of effects, including ectoplasmic masses, rappings and table
levitation. Lord Charles Hope, a leading SPR investigator, was astounded,
as was Price himself. At the end of the sessions, Price declared that
the phenomena produced by Rudi was “absolutely genuine” and
“not the slightest suspicious action was witnessed by any controller
or sitter.”
In the Spring of 1932, Price began testing Rudi
again. In these sessions, he planned to photograph Rudi’s manifestations
as further evidence of his psychic abilities. Although Price obtained
some favorable results, the sittings were not as successful as before
as Rudi’s talents seemed to have diminished with age. In the Fall,
Lord Charles Hope conducted more tests of the young man and maintained
that his powers were genuine.
Price then rocked the paranormal community
with the announcement that Rudi was a fraud. As evidence, he produced
a photograph that was taken during a seance and which showed Rudi reaching
for a table. The camera had been set to go off if there was any movement
by the medium. The resulting image was grainy and shadowed, but it managed
to destroy Rudi’s reputation and embarrass the investigators who
had declared him to be genuine. Those who claimed that Price was simply
a publicity seeking fraud were hard pressed to explain why he would have
made himself look ridiculous in this matter since he had previously claimed
the man was authentic.
By the time of Rudi Schneider’s downfall,
the appearance of credible new mediums had all but ceased. Soon, Price
had turned his attention from investigating mediums and psychics to investigating
haunted houses and bizarre phenomena.
Price also made some serious contributions,
although they were not as widely publicized. In 1933, he persuaded the
University of London to open a library and set up a University Council
for Psychical Investigation. The library still exists today at the university
and consists mainly of Price's enormous occult collection.
Borley Rectory
The year 1929 marked a turning point in Price's
career, although the case would not be made public for several years yet.
In was in that year that he became involved in a case which would take
over his life and for which he would become most famous. The case involved
a deteriorating Essex house called Borley Rectory. (See famous
hauntings).
Regardless of what some may think of his methods
and research, Harry Price must be remembered as a pioneer in the field
of paranormal research. He is the person who so many of modern researchers
emulate today.
Regardless of what some may think of his methods
and research, Harry Price must be remembered as a pioneer in the field
of paranormal research. He is the person who so many of modern researchers
emulate today.
Price managed to give ghost research a place in
the public eye and opened it up to those who don't fit into the categories
of professional scientists, hard-headed skeptics, nor fall into the realm
of gullible “true believer”.
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