ABSTRACT
In the nineteenth century we find the beginnings of a systematic examination of supernatural phenomenon, driven by the natural sciences (Potts 2004: 212–14). There were admittedly earlier spectacular reasons for intensive fieldwork – for example, the English case of the ‘Tedworth Drummer’, which caused a sensation between 1661 and 1663 and which was examined by the priest Joseph Glanvill (Finucane 2001: 10–13), as well as the phenomenon surrounding the ‘Cock Lane ghost’ (1762), which was investigated by a commission of various people (ibid.: 13–14). However, the possibility of anomalistic explanations as alternatives to the spiritual interpretation of supernatural manifestations only met a sufficiently wide response in the nineteenth century. German medic Justinus Kerner called for research into ‘nature’s darker areas’ (Kerner 1836), in which he included supernatural phenomena, which he regarded as being part of ‘nature’, and therefore the responsibility of the natural sciences to research (Bauer 1989: 15). Kerner himself examined, amongst other cases, a supernatural manifestation at the county court in Weinsberg, which caused something of a sensation in 1835, and which was followed by academic debates. A further systematisation of paranormal investigations then occurred around the end of the nineteenth century with the formation of groups such as the Cambridge Ghost Club (founded in 1851) or the London-based Ghost Club (founded in 1862) (Guiley 2000: 151–3). Additionally, a particular role in the history of organised examinations of supernatural phenomena must be attached to the British Society for Psychical Research (SPR, founded 1882).
