Call Number:

C1159

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 4 boxes
• 1.4 linear feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Hereward Carrington Papers, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1899-1973 (inclusive) and 1908-1932 (bulk)

Creator:

Carrington, Hereward (1880-1959)

Form:

Correspondence -- 20th century, Diaries. -- 20th century, Manuscripts. -- 20th century, and photographs -- 20th century

Abstract:

Consists of papers of Hereward Carrington, a British spiritualist and investigator of psychic phenomena, including correspondence with other notable figures in his field, photographs of mediums and psychic phenomena, several manuscripts, and two diaries.

Hereward Carrington was a well-known British investigator of psychic phenomena. Born in 1880, he joined the Society for Psychical Research in 1900, later working as assistant to James Hyslop with the American Society for Psychical Research until 1908. In 1921, Carrington was the American delegate to the first International Psychical Congress in Denmark. In the same year, he founded the American Psychical Institute and Laboratory, which operated for two years and was reconstituted in 1933 in New York City. His best known investigations were in the case of Mina Stinson Crandon ("Margery") in 1924 by the Committee of The Scientific American (Carrington, Harry Houdini, Malcolm Bird, William McDougall, Walter Franklin Prince, and Daniel Frost Comstock) and that of Eusapia Palladino in 1908.

Carrington's published works include The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism (1907), Eusapia Palladino and her Phenomena (1909), and The Problems of Psychical Research (1914). Carrington died in 1959.

This collection consists of Carrington's papers on spiritualism, including correspondence with literary and scientific figures of the day, such as William Barrett, Ernesto Bozzano, Gustave Geley, Stanley Hall, Joseph Jastrow, Sinclair Lewis, Eusapia Palladino, and Mrs. A. W. Verrall. Also included are photographic documentation of psychic phenomena, stills from the film series "The Mysteries of Myra," several short Carrington manuscripts, and two of his diaries (1923, 1930). In addition, there is a group of approximately 30 letters (1931-1940) to Carrington from a broad group of American and European psychical researchers, as well as typed transcripts of responses from many of them supporting his proposed Psychical Laboratory and agreeing to be on its International Council.