When Professor William Crookes announced his intention to investigate psychical phenomena, he had been a prominent chemist for two decades.  In 1861 he discovered the element thallium, and two years later was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.  He provided solutions to problems in many fields including photography, food manufacture, agriculture and the water supply.  A lecturer and science journalist, he also brought science to a wider public.   

He was born on 17 June 1832 in London.  The eldest of sixteen children, he was the only one to take an interest in science.  He began his career aged sixteen at the Royal College of Chemistry in Oxford Street.  He became a personal assistant to the director August Hofmann. In 1856 he married Ellen Humphrey who bore him ten children, though only four survived into adulthood.

In 1867 his much-loved brother Philip died at sea of yellow fever aged 21.  In July 1869 he had a sitting with medium Mary Marshall (1842-1884) and in December with the powerful trance medium and lecturer J. J. Morse (1848-1919).  

(There must have been sittings before then, for on New Year’s Eve 1870 he wrote in his diary that he had been in communication with Philip for three years.)  

This though was mental mediumship.  When he announced his intention of investigating physical phenomena he was more cautious.

"The increased employment of scientific methods promotes exact observation . . . and will produce a race of observers who will drive the worthless residuum of Spiritualism hence into the unknown limbo of magic and necromancy.”       

In July 1870 the outstanding physical medium, Daniel Dunglas Home arrived in London from St. Petersburg, where he had been giving séances.  He had an introduction to Crookes from the Russian chemist, Alexander Butlerof.

  

Crookes constructed a cage for “the playing of tunes upon musical instruments (generally an accordion, for convenience of portability) without direct human intervention, under conditions rendering contact or connection with the keys impossible.”      

Not only were the experiments completed to Crookes’s satisfaction, but spirit extras also took part.

Once, he and the sitters saw an accordion floating in mid air.  Then, he wrote, “A phantom form came from a corner of the room, took an accordion in its hand, and then glided about the room playing the instrument.

“The form was visible to all present for many minutes, Mr. Home also being seen at the same time.  Coming rather close to a lady who was sitting apart from the rest of the company, she gave a slight cry, upon which it vanished.”

He also conducted experiments with Kate Fox, the youngest of the three famous Fox sisters who had had started the Spiritualist movement in 1848.

Crookes told how with his wife and a lady relative present, he held Kate’s hands in one hand while her feet rested on his.  “Paper was on the table before us, and my disengaged hand was holding a pencil.

"A luminous hand came down from the upper part of the room, and after hovering near me for a few seconds, took the pencil from my hand, rapidly wrote on a sheet of paper, threw the pencil down, and then rose over our heads, gradually fading into darkness.”

He duly reported his investigations in the “Quarterly Journal of Science” and the “Quarterly Review” in 1870/1.  

His scientific peers, however, were highly sceptical and suggested that his investigative methods must be at fault. One of the few who encouraged him was Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913), the co-evolutionary theorist with Darwin and a convinced Spiritualist.  

Towards the end of 1873 a medium just as remarkable came to Crookes’s attention.   Florence Eliza Cook (1856-1904) had sat in a family circle for over two years at her home in Eleanor Road, Hackney.

In the circle were her parents Henry and Emma Cook, her two younger sisters and Mary, a maid.  In April 1872 a face like a mask materialised in the cabinet.  Over a year the face and then a body built up, until a fully materialised woman stepped from the cabinet.

Calling herself Katie King, she walked among the sitters at séances in gaslight, conversed with them and even allowed them to touch her.  

Crookes began his investigations in December 1873.  He first attended a séance, at the invitation of Florrie Cook herself, at the house of a Mr Luxmore.     

In “The Spiritualist” in 1873, he wrote: “After a little time the form of Katie appeared at the side of the curtain, but soon retreated, saying her medium was not well and could not be put into a sufficient deep sleep to make it safe for her to be left.”

He added that though moaning and sobbing was later heard from inside the cabinet, while Katie was standing before him, he was not entirely convinced that they were different persons.    

“I pass on,” he continued, “to a séance held last night at Hackney (the medium’s home).  Katie never appeared to greater perfection, and for nearly two hours she walked about the room conversing familiarly with those present.

“On several occasions she took my arm when walking . . . Feeling, however, that if I had not a spirit I had at all events a lady close to me, I asked her permission to clasp her in my arms . . .  

“Permission was graciously given, and I accordingly did – well, as any gentleman would do under the circumstances.

“Katie now said she thought she should be able this time to show herself and Miss Cook together. I was to turn the gas (jets) out and then come with my phosphorus lamp into the room now used as a cabinet.  

“I went cautiously into the room, it being dark, and felt about for Miss Cook. I found her crouching on the floor.

“Kneeling down, I let air enter the lamp, and by its light I saw the young lady dressed in black velvet, as she had been in the early part of the evening, and to all appearance perfectly senseless . . .  

“Raising the lamp, I looked around and saw Katie standing close behind Miss Cook. She was robed in flowing white drapery as we had seen her previously during the séance.”

Crookes did further tests to satisfy himself that Florrie and Katie were different persons.  Yet this was at her home.  Could it be repeated at his?  

A series of séances were arranged at 20 Mornington Road, the Crookes family residence.  He wrote that “she has been a frequent visitor at my house, remaining sometimes a week at a time.

“She brings nothing with her but a little handbag, not locked; during the day she is constantly in the presence of Mrs. Crookes, myself, or some other member of my family . . .”

The experiments continued for six months.  He had plenty of opportunity to note the differences between Florrie and Katie, and even took forty-four photographs, some showing them together.

Then came 21 May 1874, the date that Katie said she must bid farewell.

“Katie invited me into the cabinet with her and allowed me to remain there to the end.  After closing the curtain she conversed with me for some time, and then walked across the room to where Miss Cook was lying senseless on the floor.

“Stooping over her, Katie touched her, and said: ‘Wake up, Florrie, wake up! I must leave you now.’  Miss Cook then woke and tearfully entreated Katie to stay a little time longer.

“’My dear, I can’t; my work is done. God bless you,’ Katie replied, and then continued speaking to Miss Cook. For several minutes the two were conversing with each other, till at last Miss Cook’s tears prevented her speaking.

“Following Katie’s instructions, I then came forward to support Miss Cook, who was falling on to the floor, sobbing hysterically.  I looked round, but the white-robed Katie had gone.”

(Two independent witnesses later recorded having seen Florrie and a materialised form as two distinct persons.  

Florence Marryat published over seventy-five novels and other books.  In “There is No Death” (1891) she stated that not only had she seen Katie and the medium together, but also Katie had shown herself naked.

In “Materialisations” (1938), reviewed here, “author Harry Boddington told of a series of séances with Florrie, then Mrs Corner, about the turn of the century.  Katie had been replaced by Marie, a Breton fishergirl.

Over three months, he and eighty members of the Battersea Spiritualist Society saw materialisations of Marie in his wife Muriel’s kitchen.  She walked about outside the cabinet and sometimes allowed herself to be physically examined.)

Nevertheless, when Crookes’s psychical researches were still dismissed by fellow scientists, he abandoned them.  He pursued an academic career that made him one of the country’s most decorated scientists.  

He was the president of many scientific bodies, including the Society for Psychical Research in 1897.  

He introduced the radiometer, discovered radiant matter and invented the spinthariscope.  His invention of a highly accurate vacuum made possible the discovery of X-rays and the electron.    Knighted in 1897, he was given the Order of Merit in 1910.

He published “Researches into the Phenomena of Spiritualism” and was working on a re-issue at the time of his passing on 4 April 1919.  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published a revised edition in 1926 with additional material.

As late as 1917  Crookes reiterated: "I have never had any occasion to change my mind on the subject.  I am perfectly satisfied with what I have said in earlier days. It is quite true that a connection has been set up between this world and the next."

Originally published in Two Worlds magazine

Copyright:  Graham Jennings

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