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THE BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF PARAPSYCHOLOGY

HEREWARD HUBERT LAVINGTON CARRINGTON

Psychic researcher, author. B. October 17, 1880, St. heliers, Jersey, Channel Islands, England; d. December 26, 1958, Los Angeles, California. Attended schools in London and Cranbrook, Kent; Ph.D., 1918, William Penn College, Iowa. Founder and director, American Psychical Institute. Member Society for Pscychial Research, London' delegate to First International Psychical Congress (1921) in Copenhagen, and subsequent congresses in Warsaw (1923), Paris (1937), Athens (1930), and Oslo (1935).

Dr. Carrington came to the United States in 1899 and worked briefly as an editor, then went on to write well over one hundred books and scores of articles whose subjects ranged from nutrition, magic, and bridge playing to studies of spiritualistm and yoga philosophy. Most of his works, however, dealth with various aspects of psychic research and parapsychology, his chief interest for moer than half a century. An indefatigable researcher, he combined a driving curiosity and a practical skepticism with an ability to write clearly and with conviction. In his book Essays in the Occult (1958), published three weeks before his death, he declared himself "quite assured of the reality of psychic phenonmena." "But as to the explanation of such occurrences," he wrote, "I can only fall back on a sort of agnosticism."

Dr. Carrington devoted particular attention to the study of mediumship. In 1908 he investigated the Neapolitan psychical medium Eusapia Palladino (q.v.) in Italy with Everard Feilding (q.v.) and W. W. Baggally, and later brought her to the United states for carefully controlled experiments (1909-10) that were attended by much newspaper publicity. Thought the medium was known to resort to trickery and Carrington himself observed her at it and reported it, he was satisfied that some of her phenomena was genuine and not to be explained by known physical laws. He report on the Palladino investigation in the book Personal Experiences with Spiritualism (1913) and in more detail in The American Sèances with Eusapia Palladino (1954). The psychological testing of the medium Eileen J. Garrett (q.v.), which Carrington stated "seems to have furnished material which is at least indicative of survival," is subject of his book The Case for Psychic Survival (1957).

Other books by Carrington include The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism (1907); The Coming Science (1908); Eusapia Palladino and Her Phenomena (1909); Death - Its Causes and Phenomena (with J.R. Meader; 1911); The Natural Food of Man (1912); Hindu Magic (1913); The Problems of Psychical Research (1914); True Ghost Stories, (1915); Psychical Phenomena and the War (1918); Your Psychic Powers and How to Develop Them (1920); Higher Psychical Development: Yoga Philosophy (1920); Spiritualism (with Dr. James J. Walsh; 1925); Bridge Simplified (1928); A Primer of Psychical Research (1932); Houdini and Conan Doyle (with B.M. Ernst; 1932); Loaves and Fishes (1935); Telepathy and Clairvoyance (1938); Laboratory Investigations into Psychic Phenomena (1939); The Invisible World (1946); The Phenomena of Astral Projection (with S. J. Muldoon; 1951); Haunted Peole (with Nandor Fodor, q.v.; 1951).

Taken from Helene Pleasants (1964) Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology with Directory and Glossary 1946-1996 NY: Garrett Publications


 
 

 

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