Talk:Frederic W. H. Myers

Psychical research work and theories

This article is unintelligible within its "SPR" section. There is no scholarly survey of Myers' work or theorisations in this field, no indication of his unique discoveries, etc., his theoretical exchanges with William James ... This section will require much work to render it to an even trivially encyclopedic form. Best it were put to bed until then. Rodgarton (talk) 10:44, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Metetherial world

Under the subheading "Metetherial world," at the end of the paragraph is an incomplete sentence beginning with "But". I hesitate to join it to the previous sentence because I am not sure if that would be correct. Someone who knows this topic would need to decide how to complete that sentence.CorinneSD (talk) 02:09, 3 April 2013 (UTC)CorinneSD (talk) 02:10, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

It appears that someone fixed this grammatical error by joining the two sentences. Today I fixed other syntax and word usage problems in this paragraph.CorinneSD (talk) 22:12, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Ronald Pearsall

Calling User:Shii: where are the sources that say this person was either a sexologist or a skeptic? I can't find mention of either in the Wikipedia biography, which just describes him as a prolific writer. MartinPoulter (talk) 14:11, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Because it's just a mass market book and not an academic publication, we should note what kind of person is doing the writing. I thought I made an accurate summary of his two-line biography, but if you can think of better words please use them. Shii (tock) 14:33, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

According to his obituaries he was an author, and was described as a "historian of Victorian sub-culture". [1] There is no evidence from any sources that he was a "skeptic" or "sexologist". Doubter12 (talk) 17:36, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Shii the comment from Pearsall is less controversial than it seems. Annie Marshall was the cousin of Myers and he a sexual affair with her. It appears Annie Marshall claimed to be a medium and Myers investigated her a number of times. So the statement that he had sexual interests in the mediums he investigated is not made up to attack Myers from a "skeptic". Annie commited suicide. I did some further research and it appears she committed suicide in 1875 by drowning herself. I will try and dig up some further references apparently Myers had homosexual relationships with his fellow SPR members as well as with other female mediums. Doubter12 (talk) 18:06, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

User:Shii, I asked, "where are the sources that say this person was either a sexologist or a skeptic?" You respond "I thought I made an accurate summary of his two-line biography" and so my question is unanswered. To call someone a sexologist I would expect there to be a source saying they held a research post in sexology, or published in relevant journals. To call someone a skeptic I would expect there would be sources linking them to the skeptical movement, unless you mean the older sense of "skeptic" in which case I'd expect a third-party source calling them that. I'm still in the dark as to why you chose those two terms to describe "what kind of person" Pearsall was. Thanks Doubter12 for the relevant sources and quotations. MartinPoulter (talk) 19:25, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Sexual life

• Raymond Buckland has written:

"Myer's personal life was checkered. As a young man, he was homosexual. He later fell in love with Annie Eliza, the wife of his cousin Walter James Marshall. She returned the love, though it was never consummated. Annie committed suicide in September 1876, but both she and Myers believed they would be together in the afterlife. On March 12, 1880, Myers married Eveleen Tennant and they had three children. By 1900, Myers was seriously ill and traveled to Rome for unorthodox medical treatment. He died in Rome on January 17, 1901."

p. 276 in his book The Spirit Book: The Encyclopedia of Clairvoyance, Channelling, and Spirit Communication. Buckland is not a reliable source for all of this, if these statements can be backed up by other reliable references then it can be added into the article.

• Janet Oppenheim has written:

"Whether Myer's relationship with his cousin's wife was sexual or platonic evidently matters a great to those people who want to know it he was merely a gross sensualist or a platonist through and through. He was both, it seems, in alternating moods."

p. 429 in her book The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850-1914.

• The book by Alan Gauld Founders of Psychical Research pp. 116-124 discusses the affair between Mrs. Marshall (Annie Eliza) and Myers.

• Richard Cavendish in his book Man, myth, and magic: the illustrated encyclopedia of mythology, religion, and the unknown wrote on page 1800:

"According to his own statement, he [Myers] had very strong sexual inclinations, which he indulged. These would seem to have been mainly homosexual in his youth, but in later life he was wholly heterosexual." Doubter12 (talk) 18:23, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Myers homosexual relationships

• Trevor H. Hall in his book The strange case of Edmund Gurney on page 28 wrote:

"Arthur Sidgwick, Frederic Myers and John Addington Symonds were all linked by homosexual relationships."

His source for that claim is John Addington Symonds: A Biography by Phyllis Grosskurth. I will have to dig up this biography to investigate this any further.

• In the book Nameless Offences: Homosexual Desire in the 19th Century by H.G. Cocks on page 185 it is mentioned that Myers was an undergraduate of John Addington Symonds, so they both knew each other. The homosexuality of Symonds was well known. The chapter is entitled "Cosmic Consciousness and Homosexuality" and mentions the homosexuality of Walt Whitman and his poetry which Myers introduced Symonds to. Doubter12 (talk) 19:22, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

These citations are good, and probably more useful for readers of this article than the bare claim that he had an affair. Shii (tock) 01:09, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Jamenta's essay up for deletion

I've nominated the sub-page Talk:Frederic William Henry Myers/Comments for deletion as it seems to violate WP:NOTFORUM and does not advance improvement of the article. MartinPoulter (talk) 19:36, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

The user Jamenta (talk) has been blocked for "Making legal threats: edit warring; personal attacks". He has now turned up on his IP address and is posting more abusive comments on this talk page. His essay is original research and should be deleted. I am a bit busy at the moment but will try and add some sources in the next week to the article. Doubter12 (talk) 22:34, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Reception

In this section on how Myers' work was received, there are two sentences. The first one is serious and to the point. The second one is less serious, and does not speak directly to how his work was received at that time, but also, no connection was made between the first and second sentences. I even wonder why this second sentence is there in the first place, unless it became some kind of scandal or detracted from his reputation, in which case there should be evidence cited to support it. Does anybody have any ideas for improving this paragraph or any evidence that can be cited?CorinneSD (talk) 22:17, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Edits of November 29, 2013, by Fodor Fan

I'm just wondering why the following paragraph was deleted from the article:

"Frederic Myers has been described as an "important early depth psychologist" who influenced William James, Pierre Janet, Théodore Flournoy and Carl G. Jung.

Since I am not an expert in this field, I will wait to see if the edits made today by Fodor Fan stand. If they do, then in a while I will edit the added material to improve syntax and punctuation. – CorinneSD (talk) 21:12, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

It was deleted because it's undue weight to a fringe view (Myers was not a psychologist) and there's no evidence he influenced any scientists, the sentence is just plain flat wrong and contradicted by practically every other reference out there. Also the reference is a book review for a paranormal book by Bruce Greyson. Irreducible Mind is a pseudoscience book. It's been negatively reviewed by the scientific community. See Mitchell G. Ash, Horst Gundlach, Thomas Sturm. (2010). Book Review: Irreducible Mind. American Journal of Psychology. Volume 123, Number 2. pp. 246-250 etc. Myers views on spirits were never accepted by the scientific community. Fodor Fan (talk) 01:17, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

CorinneSD I just spent about 20 minutes looking on Google books for Myers being described as a "psychologist" could not find a single reliable reference. It's misleading to call Myers a psychologist because he wasn't one, but I agree about him influencing William James. Fodor Fan (talk) 01:45, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. As I mentioned above, I am not an expert, and I defer to your greater knowledge and appreciate the search you made. I just want to point out that "depth psychologists" were not exactly the same as general, or even modern, psychologists. (I have personal knowledge regarding that; my grandmother was one.) I will try to do some reading on my own to see what I can find.CorinneSD (talk) 01:55, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I have read all Myers books, they are interesting, unfortunately he was seriously duped by fraudulent mediums. See [2] for an introduction to how he was fooled by Eusapia Palladino. I apologize for my bad spelling, obviously feel free to correct any mistakes. Fodor Fan (talk) 02:00, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I have put the reference back in which describes Myers as a depth psychologist. The journal is itself notable The Journal of Mind and Behavior. I believe it's wrong but I'm not going to moan about one line. I'm not working on this article anymore, perhaps you can fix the spelling errors. I apologize for the error with the full stop in the image description. Thanks. Fodor Fan (talk) 02:04, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't mind reviewing the article for spelling errors and such. Please don't feel you have to apologize for things like the full stop/period in the image description. Even I wasn't sure about that and had to ask a fellow editor who is more of an expert on things like that. This is a collaborative effort. Also, it is very possible you are correct about that reference. I think it would be interesting to find out exactly what Myers was.CorinneSD (talk) 15:32, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Off-topic material

There is a long section on Eusapia Palladino which seems only tangentially relevant to Myers. So I've added an off-topic tag, and suggest that most of it is removed. Much of it already appears in the Palladino article, which is a better place for it. Johnfos (talk) 02:37, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

corrections

Out of curiosity, I purchased Pearsall's book "The Table Rappers" for its allegation concerning Myers. I (using my previous username Myerslover, which I am no longer sing since I forgot the password) felt that it was an inappropriate source to cite, since the author did not back up his claim. Nevertheless, the citation is misconstrued - Pearsall merely stated that "It is certainly true that Myers; interest in young lady mediums was not solely due to their spiritualistic talents." - so his claim is more innocuous than as rendered in the article, since as previously cited in the article, it implies conflict of interest. I found other false statements, like a false citation of a text regarding Myers' alleged endorsement of David Duguid.

I have had a long interest in Myers, and his output is underrepresented. Of course parapsychology was criticized then, but Myers' output on the subject of hypnotism was taken seriously by scholars of the time.

What I propose to do at a later time is make a very strongly pro-Myers article, using only reliable sources. I will then revert it to the article as it stands now, and editors can choose what aspects of it they'd like to incorporate. I will link to that edit in a comment to this talk page.

Unlike some of the other edits I encountered before I began fact-checking claims in this article, I will take every effort to make claims in my future edit independently verifiable.Psychicbias (talk) 21:17, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Regading the spirit photographer David Duguid, the article never said that Myers sat with the medium. On pages 12-13 of Edward Bennett's book, Myers wrote a supportive mini biography or summary about Duguids automatic writings. Nowhere did Myers dismiss Duguid as a fraud, so the statement that you removed that Myers was impressed by the medium was actually accurate. Duguid was a complete fraud but Myers wrote supportive things about him. It is clear from what critics have written Myers was gullible and duped by many mediums.

But it doesn't really matter, Bennett's book is hardly a reliable source, so it doesn't matter if you removed it. As for the sexual allegations there are plenty of those. Myers was a sexual deviant. 82.132.219.203 (talk) 12:47, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Here is Bennet's book: http://www.iapsop.com/ssoc/1908__bennett___direct_phenomena_of_spiritualism_speaking_writing_drawing.pdf

I was unable to find anything about Myers and Duguid. The only mention of Myers I found on pp. 12-13 was "These remarks are introduced here, following the precedent of Mr. F. W. H. Myers in his introduction to his descriptions of the W. Stainton-Moses phenomena. It seemed important to Mr. Myers, in view of what was to follow, that the reader should be in possession of some account of Mr. Stainton-Moses, his work and his friends. For over forty years Mr. Duguid's life as a faithful servant and a skilled artisan was intermixed with experiences of a very different character. Again paraphrasing Mr. Myers' introduction to the Stainton-Moses phenomena, our narrative will now pass from the ordinary and commonplace to the extraordinary and the almost incredible."

So the book used Myers' paper on Stainton-Moses as a template for its overview of Duguid, but doesn't mention Myers' positive comments on Duguid.Psychicbias (talk) 18:44, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

more corrections

I made a controversial pro-Myers edit here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frederic_W._H._Myers&diff=785836912&oldid=784762089#Early_life

this will no doubt arouse the opprobrium of skeptics, but there are many good sources here, that could be included for a more balanced article. With the full spectrum of sources, Myers comes out looking very good, and his critics - not so good.

This just exists here for future reference.Psychicbias (talk) 18:00, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Frederic W. H. Myers. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160328031548/http://www.spr.ac.uk/main/page/past-presidents-parapsychology to http://www.spr.ac.uk/main/page/past-presidents-parapsychology

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 06:53, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Sock-puppeting from Ben Steigmann

Ben Steigmann has been blocked on a lot of sock-puppets for editing this article such as psychicbias, his agenda is to try and remove valid criticisms of Myers or add supportive fringe sources that glorify Myers' discredited psychic studies. This is all in violation of NPOV, undue weight and rules regarding fringe theories. He is now back on an IP editing the article again here. A clever tactic that this user utilizes is to make a large controversial edit and then revert it. He does this so his initial controversial edit remains in the Wikipedia database for the page and it is stored, so he can revert it back later. He has done this a number of times on different accounts and IPs (example 1, example 2). It is the same fringe material he keeps uploading. He also links to his version of the article elsewhere on the internet. I just am giving a heads up here. It seems this user has an obsession with trying to push fringe content on the Myers article for years. 117.20.41.10 (talk) 19:01, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

The article does not omit skeptic sources - it refutes them. And the above IP is likely a sock of the blocked user Goblin Face.12.104.177.146 (talk) 17:33, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Your biased agenda is trying to refute skeptics and support bogus psychics as genuine. You are copying and pasting nonsense from your Wikiversity project onto Wikipedia. This is cross-wiki vandalism and constitutes nothing more than spam. You have not refuted any skeptics, all you have done is upload nonsense from unreliable psychic sources. There is an open SPI case against you here. You are currently using several different accounts on Wikipedia to promote your pseudoscience and conspiracy theories on different articles. Your edits on Joseph Banks Rhine have already been removed by an admin. I am going to request to have all your edits striked and removed, there also seems to be copyvio concerns about some of your material on this article.

It seems you turn up on this Myers biography every few months on a new account or IP to push the same sort of pseudoscientific nonsense. You have been blocked many times before. It really needs to stop Ben. This is getting obsessional. Btw if you think I am a banned user feel free to report me. Problem is you cannot link a single IP to an old account, you need evidence. I can assure you I am not a banned user, but good luck with that if you think I am. 117.20.41.10 (talk) 20:11, 30 November 2017 (UTC)