The Magazine of the Society for Psychical Research 13 (2024)
A range of things for this issue. First, sadly, there are several deaths of note to report. Peter Fenwick, end of life researcher, past SPR President Alan Gauld, SPR committee member Dennis Bury and renowned parapsychological researcher Charles Tart. If anyone has any thoughts they would like to share about any of these people please send them to the usual editorial address.
Article-wise we start off with our President's Piece, entitled Swearing in Church – this relates to one or two mentions of an area that many feel is taboo in Parapsychology. Politics. Do you agree it should be taboo?
Peter McCue then takes us through a thoughtful piece ‘Hauntings’ and ‘Poltergeists’: Time for New Terminology? This is part one of two, with the next part appearing in issue 14 of The Magazine.
Next up we have a personal story of a haunting from Sally Collins, as passed on by Ciaran Farrell: The Ghosts of Romney Marsh.
We then have a welcome look at some of the SPR library's latest books. A reminder that the library can be visited in person on Wednesday afternoons between 1 and 5 and that books can be borrowed by members. Full details are on the SPR library webpage.
Suitably profusely illustrated is a review of the 47th SPR International Annual Conference celebrating, in Derby, 142 years of the SPR. If you've never been to one of the conferences perhaps the 48th will be the one for you? My personal experience, for what it's worth, is that I have enjoyed every SPR conference I have attended, as you will see by reading my review, and I look forward to attending many more to come. One of the many benefits of attending the annual conference is the chance to buy various books and SPR publications, but of course they are also all available at any time from the Shop section of the Society's website.
The SPR lecture series is continuing online; full details are on the SPR website. You can also find details of upcoming meetings and Study Days on the website. The Magazine will carry reviews of many of these, where possible.
With the internet and the access it gives us we have possibly never had it so good. Access to lectures and their recordings is a few clicks away. Many archival SPR recordings are available to members but we also have the ever-growing Psi Encyclopaedia and through LEXSCIEN we all have instant access to past SPR publications — many of which most of us would not be able to access otherwise.
I look forward to hearing from you at [email protected] and I am excited about sharing the next issue of The Magazine with you.
Gordon Rutter
Editor