Posted on 22 April 2024, 8:06

As a member of the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR), William Romaine Newbold (1865 – 1926, lower left photo), a University of Pennsylvania professor of philosophy and psychology, carried out considerable research with trance medium Leonora Piper of Boston, Mass.  Between 1891 and 1895, he had 26 sittings with her and studied the details of seven others held on his behalf by Dr. Richard Hodgson (upper right photo).

The predominant theory among researchers in 1891, before the emergence of George Pellew (G.P.) as a spirit “control” of Mr. Piper’s, was that Dr. Phinuit, her primary control at the time, was a secondary personality buried in her subconscious and this secondary personality had the ability to tap into the minds of the sitters, even into minds elsewhere, for the information coming out of Mrs. Piper’s mouth, then to somehow dramatize it and personalize it. In Newbold’s first sitting with Mrs. Piper after the G.P. control manifested in early 1892, his Aunt Sally communicated, but G.P. struggled to understand whether she was his aunt or his grandmother. Newbold understood G.P.’s dilemma perfectly, explaining that his paternal grandfather’s second wife had a sister whom his (Newbold’s) father married many years after his father’s death, that woman being his mother. Thus, Aunt Sally was both his aunt and his step-grandmother.

“The demand made by ‘Aunt Sally’ that I should identify myself by expounding the significance of ‘two marriages in this case, mother and aunt grandma’…admits of no satisfactory telepathic explanation,” Newbold offered in his report, wondering why the dim memories of his spinster aunt, who died when he was just 10 years old, were so clearly reflected when so many vivid memories of others might have been more easily picked up.

“Evidence of this sort does not suggest telepathy,” he reasoned. “It suggests the actual presence of the alleged communicators, and if it stood alone I should have no hesitation in accepting that theory. Unfortunately, it does not stand alone. It is interwoven with obscurity, confusion, irrelevancy, and error in a most bewildering fashion. I agree with Dr. Hodgson that the description give by the (spirit) writers themselves of the conditions under which they are laboring would, if accepted, account for a very large part of this matter. But, even after the most generous allowances on this score, there remains much which the writers cannot explain.”

Born in Wilmington, Delaware, Newbold received his Ph.D. in 1891 at the University of Pennsylvania and did further graduate study at the University of Berlin. He was on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania for 37 years, serving as dean of the university’s graduate school from 1896 to 1904.

In one sitting with Piper, who was in a trance state, Newbold observed G.P. writing while using Mrs. Piper’s hand, as Phinuit, who was sharing control duties with G.P. at the time, was talking through her. Newbold heard Phinuit say that he shouldn’t be in such a hurry and thought Phinuit was talking to him, thus telling Phinuit that he was in no hurry. Phinuit said he wasn’t talking to Newbold but rather to a young man in spirit who was in a great hurry to begin communicating. Hodgson was also there, recording the session. When the young man referred to by Phinuit communicated, he seemed confused, as Mrs. Piper’s hand felt Hodgson’s head. The young man then said that he did not know Hodgson. Since Mrs. Piper/Dr. Phinuit certainly knew Hodgson, this was deemed not consistent with the secondary personality hypothesis, unless it is claimed that Piper was play-acting.

Writing vs. Talking

At a June 17, 1895 sitting, Newbold asked G.P. the difference between the writing and talking.  G.P. responded that the difference was not apparent to him. “I only know I am writing by having been told so by Hodgson,” G.P. wrote through Piper’s hand. When Newbold asked G.P. what Phinuit was doing while he was controlling Mrs. Piper, G.P. said that Phinuit was “talking to John H. and a little million others at the same time helping me hold them back and keep them from interrupting me.”
 
Two days later, Newbold asked G.P. if it was possible to have W. Stainton Moses, an Anglican priest and medium who had died several years earlier, communicate.  A short time later, Phinuit began talking to Newbold (through Piper’s vocal cords), calling him by his nickname, “Billie,” although recorded as “Billy.”  Phinuit said that G.P. sent him to find Moses.  “I found him in another part of our world,” Phinuit stated.  Newbold asked Phinuit if it was far away.  “It would be a long way to you, Billie, but not so far to me.” Phinuit said he identified Moses by his bright light, “more than anybody.”  When Newbold asked for clarification, Phinuit responded by saying that spirits are “all light” and that they vary in light.

Newbold concluded his first report by saying he had no theory to offer relative to the origin of the information given. “I can frame none to which I cannot myself allege unanswerable objections.”  He noted that the alleged spirits of those who had died a violent death or had been bound to the sitter by emotional ties, would nearly always display great excitement and confusion. He went on to say that the scientific world, which had so tacitly rejected the idea of a supersensible world and the possibility of occasional communication between that world and this, should reconsider its position based on Mrs. Piper’s and kindred cases.

Not long after Hodgson died unexpectedly on December 20, 1905, he began communicating with Newbold and others through Mrs. Piper. Newbold, who had become a good friend of Hodgson’s, sat with Mrs. Piper on June 27, 1906 along with George Dorr, another ASPR member and also a good friend of Hodgson’s. After Mrs. Piper went into trance, Rector, who had replaced Phinuit and G.P. as Mrs. Piper’s control,  communicated briefly and turned it over to Hodgson, who told Newbold that it was much more difficult to communicate than he had anticipated when in the earth life.

Who’s Speaking?

Dorr asked whether Hodgson was communicating directly or Rector was relaying messages from him. “It is wholly done by Rector and it will continue to be,” Hodgson responded. “I shall take no part in that.”  When Dorr asked for clarification, Hodgson replied, “It is Rector who is speaking and he speaks for me.  I have no desire to take Rector’s place.  I trust him implicitly and absolutely.” Dorr asked if Rector speaks for all other spirits.  ‘Everyone,” Hodgson answered. “There is no question about that.  In the first place he is more competent to do it, he understands the conditions better than any individual spirit; he is fully capable and is under the constant direction of Imperator…” (Imperator was the name of the leader of the “group soul” communicating through Piper.)

The dialogue between Hodgson and Dorr and Hodgson and Newbold went on for some time, part of which is recorded in my book, Resurrecting Leonora Piper:  How Science Discovered the Afterlife.  On July 3, 1906, Newbold and Hodgson again dialogued.  After some initial greeting, the transcript reads: 

Hodgson:  “I am trying my level best to give you facts.”
Newbold:  “Very good.”
Hodgson:  “I said my pipe and my work would not be given up even for a wife.  Oh how you have helped me, Billy.  Yes, in clearing my mind wonderfully.  (Newbold noted that Hodgson made a very veridical remark at this point, but he had to omit it, as it was apparently too personal). You said you could not understand why so many mistakes were made, and I talked you blind trying to explain my idea of it.”
Newbold:  “Dick, this sounds like your own self.  Just the way you used to talk to me.”
Hodgson:  “Well if I am not Hodgson, he never lived.”

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, and Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I.
His latest book, No One Really Dies: 25 Reasons to Believe in an Afterlife is published by White Crow books.