Tom joined the Society in 1987 and Council in 1989. He became a member of the Publicity sub-committee in 1988, co-designing the SPR logo in 1990, and has served on its successor committees (currently the Education and Publicity Committee) ever since. Having assisted with the revamp of the website in 2007, he added news items to it until the appointment of a dedicated content manager in 2018. He was Hon. Appeals Secretary from 1989 to 1990, seeking financial donations from large businesses, and Hon. Testing Officer from 1992 to 2007, arranging tests for psychic claimants.
He has refereed papers for the SPR’s Journal, and was its book reviews editor from 2009 to 2018. Joining the Library Committee in 2010, he became its chair in 2016. Since 2011 he has served on the Conference Programme Committee. Also in 2011 he became Communications Officer: in that role he responds to general enquiries received through the website and manages the SPR’s Facebook page (since 2010) and general ‘X’ account (since 2013); he managed the Psi Encyclopedia X account from 2019 to April 2026. He has been instrumental in securing several collections for the SPR’s archives. In 2025 he joined the Survival Research Committee.
For some years he was a coordinator of the Anglia Paranormal Research Group and investigated a number of spontaneous cases. He has contributed to the SPR’s Journal and Magazine (and the latter’s predecessors), as well as Fortean Times and various online publications; blogs at http://tomruffles.blogspot.co.uk/; and is the author of Ghost Images: Cinema of the Afterlife. He is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society (by research), was an Honorary Visiting Research Fellow at Anglia Ruskin University from 2014 to 2019, and is a member of the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena and a Professional Member of the Parapsychological Association. He holds two PhDs, one awarded by the University of East Anglia on Life After Death in the Cinema, the other by Anglia Ruskin University on George Albert Smith (1864–1959): From Stage to Screen, which examines a significant figure in the early history of the SPR.
(Last updated 18 July 2026)