Census of Hallucinations
An early survey of public encounters with paranormal apparitions,
occasioned by the publication of Phantasms of the Living,
by Edmund Gurney, F. W. H. Myers, and Frank Podmore
(1886), expanded on in 1889 by a committee of the Society for
Psychical Research, London. Under Henry Sidgwicks chairmanship
the committee consisted of Mrs. Henry Sidgwick,
Myers, Podmore, and Alice Johnson. The report of the committee,
drawn up by Mrs. Sidgwick, was published in 1894. Seventeen
thousand people were canvassed, of which 1,684 answered
claiming to have seen apparitions.
Sources
Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. The Encyclopedia of
Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York Paragon
House, 1991.
Gurney, Edmund, F. W. H. Myers, and Frank Podmore.
Phantasms of the Living. 2 vols. London Society for Psychical Research,
Trubner & Co., 1886.
Report of the Census of Hallucinations. Proceedings of the
Society for Psychical Research 10 (1894) 25
