Editing William Crookes (section)

==Spiritualism==
<!-- This section is linked from [[Spiritualism (movement)|Spiritualism]] -->
Crookes became interested in [[Spiritualism (movement)|spiritualism]] in the late 1860s, and was most strongly involved around 1874–1875. Eric Deeson notes that Crookes's studies of the occult are related to his scientific work on radiometry in that both involved the detection of previously undiscovered forces.<ref name="Deeson">{{cite journal |last1=Deeson |first1=Eric |title=Commonsense and Sir William Crookes |journal=New Scientist |date=26 December 1974 |pages=922–925 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=khzDRYfj97AC&pg=PA922 }}{{Dead link|date=May 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

Crookes was possibly influenced by the death of his younger brother Philip in 1867 at 21 from yellow fever contracted while he was on an expedition to lay a telegraph cable from Cuba to Florida.<ref name="Oppenheim 1988">Janet Oppenheim. (1988). ''The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850–1914''. Cambridge University Press. pp. 343–347. {{ISBN|978-0521265058}}</ref><ref>John Hannavy. (2007). ''Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography''. Routledge. p. 350. {{ISBN|978-0415972352}} "Crookes' beloved younger brother had died in 1867 and the scientist hoped that spiritualism could provide a reunion. Although warned of the risk of ridicule, Crookes announced his intent to investigate mediums."</ref> 
In 1867, influenced by [[C. F. Varley|Cromwell Fleetwood Varley]], Crookes attended a [[séance]] to try to get in touch with his brother.<ref>[[Sherrie Lynne Lyons]]. (2010). ''Species, Serpents, Spirits, and Skulls: Science at the Margins in the Victorian Age''. State University of New York Press. p. 92. {{ISBN|978-1438427980}} "Crookes appears to have been initially attracted to spiritualism when his youngest brother, whom he was quite close to, died of yellow fever. Brought up with the traditional Christian belief in the afterlife, Crookes was persuaded to attend a séance in 1867 to try to make contact with his brother."</ref><ref>Martyn Jolly. (2006). ''Faces of the Living dead: The Belief in Spirit Photography''. Miegunyah Press. p. 30. {{ISBN|978-0712348997}} "In 1867, he was devastated by the death of his much-loved youngest brother who, at the age of twenty-one. had caught yellow fever while laying a submarine telegraph cable in Cuba. At the time, Crookes was collaborating with a fellow electro-physicist Cromwell Fleetwood Varley, who was a pioneer of intercontinental telegraphy, as well as a clairvoyant. He persuaded Crookes to try to get in touch with his dead brother by spiritualist means."</ref>

Between 1871 and 1874, Crookes studied the mediums [[Fox sisters|Kate Fox]], [[Florence Cook (medium)|Florence Cook]], and [[Daniel Dunglas Home]]. After his investigation, he believed that the mediums could produce genuine [[paranormal]] phenomena and communicate with spirits.<ref>[[Daniel Cohen (children's writer)|Daniel Cohen]]. (1971). ''Masters of the Occult''. Dodd, Mead & Company. p. 111. {{ISBN|978-0396064077}}</ref><ref>Andrew Neher. (2011). ''Paranormal and Transcendental Experience: A Psychological Examination''. Dover Publications. p. 214. {{ISBN|978-0486261676}} "William Crookes, the noted English physicist, had endorsed Catherine Fox as genuine... Crookes also endorsed several other mediums who were later exposed, including Anna Eva Fay (who was exposed more than once and who eventually explained how she duped Crookes), Florence Cook (who was the subject of more than one expose), and D. D. Home."</ref> Psychologists [[Leonard Zusne]] and Warren H. Jones have described Crookes as gullible as he endorsed fraudulent mediums as genuine.<ref>[[Leonard Zusne]]; Warren H. Jones. (2014). ''Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking''. Psychology Press. p. 216. {{ISBN|978-0-805-80508-6}} "The fact is that William Crookes, although very good at physics experiments, was rather weak on drawing inferences and on theorizing. Besides, he was gullible. He endorsed several mediums in spite of their demonstrated trickery. Having witnessed a single seance with Kate Fox, he became convinced that the Fox sisters' rappings were genuine."</ref>
[[File:William Crookes Katie King.png|thumb|left|Crookes with Katie King]]
The anthropologist [[Edward Clodd]] noted that Crookes had poor eyesight, which may have explained his belief in spiritualist phenomena and quoted [[William Ramsay]] as saying that Crookes is "so shortsighted that, despite his unquestioned honesty, he cannot be trusted in what he tells you he has seen."<ref>[[Edward Clodd]]. (1917). ''The Question: A Brief History and Examination of Modern Spiritualism''. Grant Richards, London. p. 100</ref> Biographer [[William Hodson Brock]] wrote that Crookes was "evidently short-sighted, but did not wear spectacles until the 1890s. Until then he may have used a monocle or pocket magnifying glass when necessary. What limitations this imposed upon his psychic investigations we can only imagine."<ref name="Brock"/>{{rp|140}}

After studying the reports of Florence Cook, the science historian [[Sherrie Lynne Lyons]] wrote that the alleged spirit "Katie King" was at times Cook herself and at other times an accomplice. Regarding Crookes, Lyons wrote, "Here was a man with a flawless scientific reputation, who discovered a new element, but could not detect a real live maiden who was masquerading as a ghost".<ref>[[Sherrie Lynne Lyons]]. (2010). ''Species, Serpents, Spirits, and Skulls: Science at the Margins in the Victorian Age''. State University of New York Press. p. 101. {{ISBN|978-1438427980}}</ref> Cook was repeatedly exposed as a fraudulent medium but she had been "trained in the arts of the séance" which managed to trick Crookes.<ref>[[M. Lamar Keene]]. (1997). ''[[The Psychic Mafia]]''. Prometheus Books. p. 64. {{ISBN|978-1573921619}} "The most famous of materialization mediums, Florence Cook-- though she managed to convince a scientist, Sir William Crookes, that she was genuine-- was repeatedly exposed in fraud. Florence had been trained in the arts of the séance by Frank Herne, a well-known physical medium whose materializations were grabbed on more than one occasion and found to be the medium himself."</ref> Some researchers such as [[Trevor H. Hall]] suspected that Crookes had an affair with Cook.<ref>[[Trevor H. Hall]]. (1963). ''The Spiritualists: The Story of Florence Cook and William Crookes''. Helix Press.</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Brandon |first1=Ruth |title=Unsavoury Spirits |journal=New Scientist |date=18 July 1985 |page=52 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p6DGWU27baYC&pg=PA52 }}{{Dead link|date=May 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Brandon |first1=Ruth |title=Scientists and the Supernormal |journal=New Scientist |date=16 June 1983 |pages=783–786 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BX7c6gVuyVQC&pg=PA783 }}{{Dead link|date=May 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>[[John Sladek]]. (1974). ''The New Apocrypha: A Guide to Strange Sciences and Occult Beliefs''. Panther. p. 194. {{ISBN|978-0586039748}} "Crookes was forty-one, and his wife was pregnant with their tenth child. Florence was eighteen and pretty, and willing to spend considerable time at Crookes home, locked into a dark room alone with him, while beautiful apparitions were shown to him. The man Florence had secretly married, Captain Corner, put an unspiritual construction on the proceedings, and gave Crookes a beating. By 1875 the situation was becoming obvious to outsiders, who published hints that the next manifestation might be an infant phenomenon. As for the apparitions, no one but Crookes is reported to have ever seen them&nbsp;... By 1880 Florence had been exposed as a fraud by Sir George Sitwell."</ref><ref>Amy Lehman. (2009). ''Victorian Women and the Theatre of Trance: Mediums, Spiritualists''. McFarland. p. 158. {{ISBN|978-0786434794}} Crookes took 44 photographs of "Katie King", in some of which he, or Florence Cook appear alongside her. He described in detail the physical differences between the spirit and her medium. The fact that some of these photographs, which still exist, show a Katie King who looks almost identical to Florence Cook calls Crookes's judgment, not to mention his veracity, into question. Skeptics at the time who were convinced that Florence was a fake thought that either Crookes was being completely hood-winked or that he had agreed to perpetrate the fraud with Florence. And the only explanation in either case had to be that Crookes was smitten with Florence—at the very least besotted with her and probably having an affair."</ref>

In a series of experiments in [[London]], England at the house of Crookes in February 1875, the medium [[Anna Eva Fay]] managed to fool Crookes into believing she had genuine [[psychic]] powers. Fay later confessed to her fraud and revealed the tricks that she had used.<ref>[[Massimo Polidoro]]. (2000). ''Anna Eva Fay: The Mentalist Who Baffled Sir William Crookes''. Skeptical Inquirer 24: 36–38.</ref> Regarding Crookes and his experiments with mediums, the magician [[Harry Houdini]] suggested that Crookes had been deceived.<ref>[[Harry Houdini]]. (2011, originally published 1924). ''A Magician Among the Spirits''. Cambridge University Press. p. 205. {{ISBN|978-1108027489}} "There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that this brainy man was hoodwinked, and that his confidence was betrayed by the so-called mediums that he tested. His powers of observation were blinded and his reasoning faculties so blunted by his prejudice in favor of anything psychic or occult that he could not, or would not, resist the influence."</ref> The physicist [[Victor J. Stenger|Victor Stenger]] wrote that the experiments were poorly controlled and "his desire to believe blinded him to the chicanery of his psychic subjects."<ref>[[Victor J. Stenger]]. (1990). ''Physics and Psychics: The Search for a World Beyond the Senses''. Prometheus Books. pp. 156–157. {{ISBN|978-0-87975-575-1}}</ref>

In 1897, [[John Grier Hibben]] wrote that Crookes's idea of ether waves explaining [[telepathy]] was not a scientific hypothesis "he presents no facts to indicate its probability or to save it from being relegated to the sphere of bare conjecture."<ref>Hibben, J. G. (1897). ''Review of Presidential Address to the Society for Psychical Research, by W. Crookes''. ''[[Psychological Review]]'' 5: 362–387.</ref>

In 1916, [[William Hope (paranormal investigator)|William Hope]] tricked Crookes with a fake spirit photograph of his wife. [[Oliver Lodge]] revealed there had been obvious signs of double exposure, the picture of Lady Crookes had been copied from a wedding anniversary photograph, but Crookes was a convinced spiritualist and claimed it was genuine evidence for [[spirit photography]].<ref name="Brock"/>{{rp|474}}

The physiologist [[Gordon Stein]] suspected that Crookes was too ashamed to admit he had been duped by the medium Florence Cook or that he conspired with her for sexual favors. He also suggested that Crookes had conspired with Anna Eva Fay. He noted that contrary to popular belief, Hope had been exposed as a fraud on several occasions. Stein concluded that all feats of Hope were conjuring tricks.<ref name="Stein">{{cite book |last1=Stein |first1=Gordon |title=The sorcerer of kings : the case of Daniel Dunglas Home and William Crookes |date=1993 |publisher=Prometheus Books |isbn=0-87975-863-5}}</ref> In a review, biographer William Brock wrote that Stein made his "case against Crookes and Home clearly and logically."<ref>Brock, William. (1994). [http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1038/367422a0 ''Was Crookes A Crook?'']. ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' 367: 422–422.</ref>

Crookes joined the [[Society for Psychical Research]], becoming its president in the 1890s: he also joined the [[Theosophical Society]] and [[The Ghost Club]],<ref name="Oppenheim 1988"/> of which he was president from 1907 to 1912.<ref name="Brock"/>{{rp|440}} In 1890 he was initiated into the [[Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Alex Owen |title=The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern |pages=70 |year=2007 |location=Chicago |publisher=University of Chicago Press}}</ref>