Leo Ruickbie Steps Down as Editor of the Magazine for the Society for Psychical Research It is the end, my friends. After nine years at the helm, I am steppingdown as editor of our Magazine. It has been a wonderful nine years,but not without its lows as well as highs. Since the first terrifyingmoment I…
Tag: Magazine of the Society for Psychical Research
The Best Evidence
One of the best things about editing this magazine is getting toshoot the cover image and the abstract simplicity of this issue’scover is one of my favourite images. Typically, though, a pictureis not worth a thousand words. Pictures and words do quite differentthings. Imagine the Bible as a set of postcards from the Patriarchs, withsome…
Secrets of the Raven Master
Following the disapearance of Merlina, Dr Leo Ruickbie interviewed Yeoman Warder Chris Skaife, the Tower of London’s Raven Master.
The $1,500,000 Question: Is There Life After Death?
Shook up the world of psychical research At the beginning of 2021, an American businessman shook up the world of psychical research by unexpectedly announcing an essay competition to present the best evidence for proof of life after death. Robert T. Bigelow, property developer and aerospace entrepreneur, offered $1.5 million in prize money to try…
Interview with Robert Bigelow
US Billionaire puts up $1.5 million in prize money for the best essay on ‘life after death’ It had been snowing in Las Vegas – something so rare that people were taking photographs of it – and Robert Bigelow had been delayed by the weather. John Waite’s 1984 No. 1 hit ‘Missing You’ played over…
Elves, Erlendur
Tribute Issue to Erlendur Haraldsson Bringing the Paranormal Review to an end seemed the sensible thing to do, after all, I always had to preface it as ‘the magazine of the Society for Psychical Research’. The simplest thing, then, was just to call it that. And now, along with the Journal of the SPR and…
26 Reasons Why the Evidence Has Been Ignored or Rejected
The Magazine of the Society for Psychical Research, 1 (2021) The global pandemic has re-focused attention on the ultimate questions. The new year has crept slowly out of its hole, only to be greeted with more of the same. A raven has forsaken the Tower of London prompting suspicions that the old prophecy is fulfilling…
Leicester Through the Looking Glass
The 43rd Annual International Conference of the Society for Psychical Research, Leicester, 2019 Eyes closed, I held the folded piece of paper to my forehead. Nothing. A dried sheet of bleached wood pulp at room temperature. Then close to my ear, as if it might speak to me. Now, I began to get something: it…
The Catacombs of Paris
In the Empire of the Dead: A Journey Through the Catacombs of Paris There is a queue, there is always a queue. It curls round an unexpectedly uninteresting eighteenth-century building surrounded by busy roads in the Montparnasse district of Paris. And as we stand there in the summer sunshine, high spirits fade into boredom, tempered…
Psi Theories
For the Love of Theory: A Report on the Paris Workshop on Psi Theories With funding from the Society for Psychical Research and other organisations, a special meeting held before the 2019 Parapsychological Association Convention sought to bring together twenty-nine invited speakers and participants from a diverse range of the sciences to address the problem…
Psi on the Tyne
The 42nd Annual International Conference of the Society for Psychical Research, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2018 Newcastle made a singular impression on me as I stepped off the train. The familiar Victorian station led out into a strange landscape. The Lady Boys of Bangkok had encamped before the rearing block of Jury’s Inn, the venue for…
The SPR at War
The Society for Psychical Research and the First World War On the evening of 6 August 1914, two days after Britain had declared war on Germany, Miss Ann Jones (a pseudonym)1 was sitting in her room, waiting for some friends to call, when she was overcome by what she described as ‘a feeling of great…