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Libra Esoterica

Researches in the phenomena of spiritualism

by William Sir Crookes, William Crookes & Harry Houdini Collection DLC

  • First published:
  • 19th century
  • Language: English
  • Content type: Primary source
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Description

Description from OpenAlex (opens in a new tab)

Published in 1874, this collection of reports by the chemist and scientific journalist Sir William Crookes (1832–1919) describes his controversial research into psychic forces. In 1870, Crookes decided that science had a duty to study preternatural phenomena associated with spiritualism, and he spent the next four years carrying out experiments which tested famous mediums including D. D. Home, Kate Fox and Florence Cook. This fascinating work describes Crookes' witnessing of the movement of bodies at a distance, rappings, changes in the weights of bodies, levitation of individuals and automatic writing. Although he was strongly criticised by his contemporaries, Crookes would not be deterred from his psychical research, demonstrating that he thought all natural phenomena worthy of scientific investigation. A great experimentalist, Crookes refused to be bound by tradition and convention, and his story reveals one of the important episodes in the history of the spiritualist movement.

Provenance

Why this book is in the catalog

Included because retained bibliographic metadata links this work to Parapsychology and psychical research, Spiritualism, mediumship, and channeling, and Telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition.

  • Spiritualism, mediumship, and channeling

    Controlled discovery queries from crossref, internet-archive, openalex, openlibrary-historical, and wellcome matched “spiritualism” and “Spiritualism”. Retained metadata contains “Spiritualism” in the title, “Automatic writing” in the description, “Mediums” in the description, and 3 additional metadata match(es).

    • “spiritualism”· via Crossref
    • “Spiritualism”· via Internet Archive
    • “spiritualism”· via OpenAlex
    • “Spiritualism”· via Open Library
    • “spiritualism”· via Wellcome Collection
    • “Spiritualism”· in title
  • Parapsychology and psychical research

    Controlled discovery queries from internet-archive, openlibrary-historical, and wellcome matched “Parapsychology” and “psychical research”. Retained metadata contains “Psychical research” in the description and “Parapsychology” in the subject metadata.

    • “Parapsychology”· via Internet Archive
    • “Parapsychology”· via Open Library
    • “psychical research”· via Wellcome Collection
    • “Psychical research”· in description
    • “Parapsychology”· in subject
  • Telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition

    Retained metadata contains “Telepathy” in the subject metadata.

    • “Telepathy”· in subject

Membership records how this book met the catalog’s discovery criteria — relevance to a tradition, not a judgment of the book’s claims.

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Links to ISBN 1108044131; other editions may be cheaper. WorldCat shows libraries near you that hold a copy.

Editions

3 editions cataloged here.

Crossref publisher-supplied book record

2012-03-08Cambridge University Press; Cambridge University Press eBooksEnglish
  • 9781108044134
  • 9781139176316
Unknown

Internet Archive institutional pre-1900 scan

1874-01-01T00:00:00ZLondon : J. BurnsEnglish—Public digitized item

Wellcome Collection bibliographic record

112 pages : illustrations, diagrams ; 23 cm

1874J. BurnsEnglish—Public digitized item

Subjects

25 subject headings

Identifiers & provenance

How this record was assembled, and the authority identifiers it carries.

Cataloging notes

  • Contributing institution: Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine
  • Contributing institution: University of Michigan
  • Contributing institution: unknown library
  • Digitization sponsor: Google
  • Digitization sponsor: Open Knowledge Commons and Harvard Medical School
  • Discovery required Internet Archive search metadata to report a PDF format; the exact direct-file URL is added only after the item's file listing confirms an unrestricted PDF filename.
  • Internet Archive institutional collection: americana
  • Internet Archive institutional collection: americana; medicalheritagelibrary
  • Open Library reports 1 editions; this snapshot catalogs one representative edition and preserves work-level ISBN, date, and publisher aggregates.
  • Open Library reports 2 editions; this snapshot catalogs one representative edition and preserves work-level ISBN, date, and publisher aggregates.
  • Scanner: google
  • Scanner: scribe4.boston.archive.org
Catalog id
openlibrary-work:OL15437094W
Edition coverage
Multi source partial
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