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A. Campbell Holms
Archibald Campbell Holms (1861 - 1954) most well known as A. Campbell Holms was a Scottish shipbuilding expert and spiritualist. Career Holms was the author of the book ''Practical Shipbuilding'' (1904). He also authored ''The Facts of Psychic Science'' (1925). It was described in the '' Encyclopedia Britannica'' as an "uncritical summary". The book was heavily criticized by Leonard Woolf as an amusing and credulous study. According to Woolf, the book blindly accepted psychic claims at face value and lacked critical thinking. It was reprinted in 1969 with a new foreword from Leslie Shepard. According to a review of the book it is a "collection of all the dubious matter on which the cult and business of Spiritualism is based. The author believes in it himself, but there is little in the book which is likely to convince others. The "facts" are the usual narratives of wonders said to have occurred but which cannot be scientifically demonstrated." Spiritualists have positively rev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shipbuilding
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history. Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both commercial and military, are referred to as "naval engineering". The construction of boats is a similar activity called boat building. The dismantling of ships is called ship breaking. History Pre-history The earliest known depictions (including paintings and models) of shallow-water sailing boats is from the 6th to 5th millennium BC of the Ubaid period of Mesopotamia. They were made from bundled reeds coated in bitumen and had bipod masts. They sailed in shallow coastal waters of the Persian Gulf. 4th millennium BC Ancient Egypt Evidence from Ancient Egypt shows that the early Egyptians knew how to assemble planks of wood into a ship hull as early as 3100 BC. Egyptian potte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph McCabe
Joseph Martin McCabe (12 November 1867 – 10 January 1955) was an English writer and speaker on freethought, after having been a Roman Catholic priest earlier in his life. He was "one of the great mouthpieces of freethought in England". Becoming a critic of the Catholic Church, McCabe joined groups such as the Rationalist Association and the National Secular Society. He criticised Christianity from a rationalist perspective, but also was involved in the South Place Ethical Society which grew out of dissenting Protestantism and was a precursor of modern secular humanism. Early life McCabe was born in Macclesfield in Cheshire to a family of Irish Catholic background, but his family moved to Manchester while he was still a child. He entered the Franciscan order at the age of 15, and spent a year of preliminary study at Gorton Monastery. His novitiate year took place in Killarney, after which he was transferred to Forest Gate in London (to the school which is now St Bonaventure's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Parapsychologists
British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people British people or Britons, also known colloquially as Brits, are the citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the British Overseas Territories, and the Crown dependencies.: British nationality law governs mo ..., nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, the English language as spoken and written in the United Kingdom or, more broadly, throughout the British Isles * Celtic Britons, an ancient ethno-linguistic group * Brittonic languages, a branch of the Insular Celtic language family (formerly called British) ** Common Brittonic, an ancient language Other uses *''Brit(ish)'', a 2018 memoir by Afua Hirsch *People or things associated with: ** Great Britain, an island ** United Kingdom, a sovereign state ** Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1954 Deaths
Events January * January 1 – The Soviet Union ceases to demand war reparations from West Germany. * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York, at the head office of IBM. * January 10 – BOAC Flight 781, a de Havilland Comet jet plane, disintegrates in mid-air due to metal fatigue, and crashes in the Mediterranean near Elba; all 35 people on board are killed. * January 12 – Avalanches in Austria kill more than 200. * January 15 – Mau Mau leader Waruhiu Itote is captured in Kenya. * January 17 – In Yugoslavia, Milovan Đilas, one of the leading members of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, is relieved of his duties. * January 20 – The US-based National Negro Network is established, with 46 member radio stations. * January 21 – The first nuclear-powered subm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1861 Births
Statistically, this year is considered the end of the whale oil industry and (in replacement) the beginning of the petroleum oil industry. Events January–March * January 1 ** Benito Juárez captures Mexico City. ** The first steam-powered carousel is recorded, in Bolton, England. * January 2 – Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia dies, and is succeeded by Wilhelm I. * January 3 – American Civil War: Delaware votes not to secede from the Union. * January 9 – American Civil War: Mississippi becomes the second state to secede from the Union. * January 10 – American Civil War: Florida secedes from the Union. * January 11 – American Civil War: Alabama secedes from the Union. * January 12 – American Civil War: Major Robert Anderson sends dispatches to Washington. * January 19 – American Civil War: Georgia secedes from the Union. * January 21 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate. * January 26 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Society For Psychical Research
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to conduct organised scholarly research into human experiences that challenge contemporary scientific models." It does not, however, since its inception in 1882, hold any corporate opinions: SPR members assert a variety of beliefs with regard to the nature of the phenomena studied. Origins The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) originated from a discussion between journalist Edmund Rogers and the physicist William F. Barrett in autumn 1881. This led to a conference on 5 and 6 January 1882 at the headquarters of the British National Association of Spiritualists, at which the foundation of the Society was proposed. The committee included Barrett, Rogers, Stainton Moses, Charles Massey, Edmund Gurney, Hensleigh Wedgwood and Frederic W. H. Myers. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eric Dingwall
Eric John Dingwall (1890–1986) was a British anthropologist, psychical researcher and librarian. Biography Born in British Ceylon, Dingwall moved to England where he was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge (M.A., 1912), and the University of London (D.Sc., PhD). He wrote popular books on sexology. He became interested in paranormal phenomena in 1921 and served from 1922 to 1927 as a research officer for the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). Dingwall was described as an eccentric by those who knew him. Having developed his skills as a librarian at Cambridge University Library while an undergraduate, in 1946 he joined the Library of the British Museum as a voluntary assistant, but from 1947 was promoted to Hon. Assistant Keeper in the Reference Division, cataloguing private case material of erotica, magic and the paranormal. He co-edited the four-volume set ''Abnormal Hypnotic Phenomena'' (1967–68). The set was described in a review as of considerable historical i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poltergeist
In ghostlore, a poltergeist ( or ; German for "rumbling ghost" or "noisy spirit") is a type of ghost or spirit that is responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises and objects being moved or destroyed. Most claims or fictional descriptions of poltergeists show them as being capable of pinching, biting, hitting, and tripping people. They are also depicted as capable of the movement or levitation of objects such as furniture and cutlery, or noises such as knocking on doors. Foul smells are also associated with poltergeist occurrences, as well as spontaneous fires and different electrical issues such as flickering lights. They have traditionally been described as troublesome spirits who haunt a particular person instead of a specific location. Some variation of poltergeist folklore is found in many different cultures. Early claims of spirits that supposedly harass and torment their victims date back to the 1st century, but references to poltergeists became more comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruth Brandon
Ruth Brandon (born 1943) is a British journalist, historian and author. Biography Brandon began her career as a trainee producer for the BBC, working in radio and television. She moved to work in freelance journalism and as an author. She is the author of many works of both fiction and non-fiction. Brandon's popular book ''The Spiritualists: The Passion for the Occult in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries'' (1983) was republished by Prometheus Books. The book has been an influence on skeptics as it debunked spiritualism by documenting the absurdity and fraud in mediumship. Martin Gardner wrote "Thousands of books about spiritualism have been written by believers, skeptics, and fence-sitters, but none demonstrates as convincingly as ''The Spiritualists'' the unbelievable ease with which persons of the highest intelligence can be flimflammed by the crudest of psychic frauds." In the early 1980s Brandon was involved in a dispute with the paranormal author Brian Inglis over ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lamb's Conduit Street
Lamb's Conduit Street is a street in Holborn in the West End of London. The street takes its name from ''Lambs Conduit'', originally known as the ''Holborn Conduit'', a dam across a tributary of the River Fleet. Lamb's Conduit Lamb's Conduit was named after William Lambe, who in 1564 made a charitable contribution of £1,500, an enormous sum in those days, for the rebuilding of the Holborn Conduit. The Conduit (a cistern) was fed by a dam across a tributary of the River Fleet. The Conduit also supplied water to the nearby Snow Hill area by a system of pipes. Lambe also provided 120 pails to enable poor women to make a living selling the water. The tributary ran west to east along the north side of Long Yard, followed the curved course of Roger Street and joined the Fleet near Mount Pleasant. This formed the boundary with the Ancient Parishes of Holborn (to the south) and St Pancras (to the north). The importance of the conduit diminished when the New River opened in 1613 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spiritualism (movement)
Spiritualism is a social religious Social movement, movement primarily popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries according to which an individual's Afterlife, awareness persists after death and may be Séance, contacted by the living. The afterlife, or the "Spirit world (Spiritualism), spirit world", is seen by spiritualists not as a static place, but as one in which spirits continue to evolve. These two beliefs—that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits are more advanced than humans—lead spiritualists to the belief that spirits are capable of providing useful insight regarding morality, moral and ethical issues, as well as about the nature of God. Some spiritualists speak of a concept which they refer to as "spirit guides"—specific spirits, often contacted, who are relied upon for spiritual guidance... Emanuel Swedenborg has some claim to be the father of spiritualism. Spiritualism developed and reached its peak growth in membership from the 184 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Highbury
Highbury is a district in North London and part of the London Borough of Islington in Greater London that was owned by Ranulf brother of Ilger and included all the areas north and east of Canonbury and Holloway Roads. The manor house was situated by what is now the east side of Hornsey Road near the junction with Seven Sisters Road. After the manor decayed, a new manor house was built in 1271 (see below) to the south-east; to differentiate it from the original manor and because it was on a hill, it was called Highbury, from which the area takes its name. The site for Highbury Manor was possibly used by a Roman garrison as a summer camp. During the construction of a new Highbury House in 1781, tiles were found that could have been Roman or Norman; however, these have been lost. Highbury Manor Ownership of Highbury eventually passed to Alicia de Barrow, who in 1271 gave it to the Priory of St John of Jerusalem, also known as the Knights Hospitallers in England. The wealthy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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