Henry Addington Bayley Bruce (June 27, 1874 – February 23, 1959), best known as H. Addington Bruce was an American journalist and author of psychology books.

Career

Bruce was born in

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, Canada, and educated at

Upper Canada College Upper Canada College (UCC) is an elite, all-boys, private school in Toronto, Ontario, operating under the International Baccalaureate program. The college is widely described as the country's most prestigious preparatory school, and has produce ...

and

Trinity College, Toronto Trinity College (occasionally referred to as The University of Trinity College) is a college federated with the University of Toronto, founded in 1851 by Bishop John Strachan. Strachan originally intended Trinity as a university of strong Angli ...

. He was for a time on the Toronto ''Week'', then came to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, was employed by the

American Press Association The American Press Association is a self-regulated non-governmental news press organization that is considered the oldest news press agency in the United States. History In 1882, the American Press Association was founded in Chicago by Maj. Orlan ...

between 1897 and 1903, and afterward contributed to many periodicals, notably ''The Outlook''. In 1916 he resigned as staff contributor to ''The Outlook''. In 1915 he became psychological adviser to the ''Associated Newspapers''. Addington Bruce also wrote books. His most successful work was in American history and in popularizing modern psychology and

psychical research Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near- ...

. Bruce has been described as a publicist for psychology. His books were known to discuss the

subconscious In psychology, the subconscious is the part of the mind that is not currently of focal awareness. Scholarly use of the term The word ''subconscious'' represents an anglicized version of the French ''subconscient'' as coined in 1889 by the psycho ...

and power of

suggestion Suggestion is the psychological process by which a person guides their own or another person's desired thoughts, feelings, and behaviors by presenting stimuli that may elicit them as reflexes instead of relying on conscious effort. Nineteenth-ce ...

. They were positively reviewed in the ''

American Journal of Psychology The ''American Journal of Psychology'' is a journal devoted primarily to experimental psychology. It is the first such journal to be published in the English language (though ''Mind'', founded in 1876, published some experimental psychology earl ...

'' and ''

Journal of Abnormal Psychology The ''Journal of Abnormal Psychology'' (formerly ''Journal of Abnormal Psychology and Social Psychology'' and ''Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology'') is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the American Psychological Association (AP ...

''. His ''Nerve Control and How to Gain It'' (1918) was described as a "reliable book which can be put into the hands of the nervously ill but intelligent patient." Bruce who took interest in psychical research, was a believer in

telepathy Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic W ...

and

Frederic W. H. Myers Frederic William Henry Myers (6 February 1843 – 17 January 1901) was a British poet, classicist, philologist, and a founder of the Society for Psychical Research. Myers' work on psychical research and his ideas about a "subliminal self" w ...

' concept of a subliminal self. He dedicated his book ''The Riddle Of Personality'' (1908) to

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...

. Philosopher

William Pepperell Montague William Pepperell Montague (11 November 1873 – 1 August 1953) was a philosopher of the New Realist school. Montague stressed the difference between his philosophical peers as adherents of either "objective" and " critical realism". Montague w ...

took issue with his statements about telepathy, noting that he did not address the known objections. His book ''Historic Ghosts and Ghost-Hunters'' (1909) is generally skeptical of

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 descr ...

cases, concluding they are best explained by fraud and psychological factors such as

hallucination A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the qualities of a real perception. Hallucinations are vivid, substantial, and are perceived to be located in external objective space. Hallucination is a combinatio ...

. He was a trustee of the

American Society for Psychical Research The American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) is the oldest psychical research organization in the United States dedicated to parapsychology. It maintains offices and a library, in New York City, which are open to both members and the gener ...

and contributed articles to the '' Tomorrow'' magazine."Bruce, H(enry) Addington (Bayley)(1874-1959)"
Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology.

Publications

''The Riddle of Personality''
(1908)
''Historic Ghosts and Ghost-Hunters''
(1909)
''The Romance of American Expansion''
(1909)
''Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Land''
(1910) * A translation of Leroy-Beaulieu's ''The United States in the Twentieth Century'' (1906; new edition, 1911)
''Scientific Mental Healing''
(1911)
''Woman in the Making of America''
(1912)
''Above the Clouds and Old New York''
(1913)
''Adventurings in the Psychical''
(1914)
''Sleep and Sleeplessness''
(1915)
''Psychology and Parenthood''
(1915)
''The Riddle of Personality''
(new and revised edition, 1916)
''Handicaps of Childhood''
(1917)
''Nerve Control and How to Gain It''
(1919) * ''Self-Development'' (1921)

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bruce, Addington 1874 births 1959 deaths American psychology writers American science journalists American science writers Canadian expatriate journalists in the United States Canadian expatriate writers in the United States Journalists from Ontario Parapsychologists People from Old Toronto Trinity College (Canada) alumni Upper Canada College alumni University of Toronto alumni