Walter Whately Carington (1892 – March 2, 1947) was a British
parapsychologist. His name, originally Walter Whately Smith, was changed in 1933.
["Walter Whately Carington"](_blank)
Gale Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology.
Biography
Carington born in London was educated at the
University of Cambridge
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
where he studied science. He was admitted to
Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn an ...
on 8 November 1912, but withdrew in 1916 without being
Called to the Bar
The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...
. He joined the
Royal Flying Corps
"Through Adversity to the Stars"
, colors =
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, march =
, mascot =
, anniversaries =
, decorations ...
during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and became an experienced pilot, but was badly injured after a forced landing. On behalf of the
Air Ministry
The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State ...
and
War Office
The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...
he returned to Cambridge to undertake research into acoustics, with special reference to psychological problems. At this time he devised some innovative methods for the mathematical assessment of feelings, which proved useful in his later work.
He investigated the mediums
Kathleen Goligher
Kathleen Goligher (born 1898) was an Irish spiritualist medium. Goligher was endorsed by engineer William Jackson Crawford who wrote three books about her mediumship, but was exposed as a fraud by physicist Edmund Edward Fournier d'Albe in 1921 ...
and
Gladys Osborne Leonard
Gladys Osborne Leonard (28 May 1882 – 19 March 1968) was a British trance medium, renowned for her work with the Society for Psychical Research. Although psychical researchers such as Oliver Lodge were convinced she had communicated with spiri ...
and he set about studying psychical research in more detail.
Between 1934 and 1936 Carington tested the trance mediumship of
Eileen Garrett
Eileen Jeanette Vancho Lyttle Garrett (17 March 1893 – 15 September 1970) was an Irish medium and parapsychologist. Garrett's alleged psychic abilities were tested in the 1930s by Joseph Rhine and others. Rhine claimed that she had genuine ...
, Gladys Osborne Leonard and
Rudi Schneider
Rudi Schneider (July 27, 1908 – April 28, 1957), son of Josef Schneider and brother of Willi Schneider, was an Austrian Spiritualist and physical medium. Underwood, Peter. (1978). ''Dictionary of the Supernatural''. Harrap. Roach, Mary. (2005) ...
with
psychogalvanic reflex
Electrodermal activity (EDA) is the property of the human body that causes continuous variation in the electrical characteristics of the skin. Historically, EDA has also been known as skin conductance, galvanic skin response (GSR), electrodermal ...
and
word association tests. Carington concluded from the results their trance controls were secondary personalities, not spirits.
Criticism of Carington's tests on mediums came from
C. D. Broad
Charlie Dunbar Broad (30 December 1887 – 11 March 1971), usually cited as C. D. Broad, was an English people, English epistemology, epistemologist, history of philosophy, historian of philosophy, philosophy of science, philosopher of sc ...
and
R. H. Thouless who wrote he had made statistical errors and misinterpreted numerical data. The psychologist
Donald West had praised the tests that Carington performed with Leonard.
Carington gave up all other work for his interest in psychical research. He lived on a small private income for a time in a remote village in the Netherlands. In 1938 he travelled to Germany, to rescue a woman from harassment by the Gestapo. They later married and set up home in Cornwall, where his wife collaborated in his experiments and nursed him as his health gradually failed. His early death at the age of fifty-four was due in part to his injury during World War I, and to overwork.
The psychical researcher Renée Haynes described Carington as a "shy, dedicated retiring man, whose services to psychical research have never been fully recognized."
Hypotheses
Carington theorised that individual minds are less isolated from one another than is assumed. Carington's hypothesis of
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 ...
was to draw upon the
association of ideas
Association of ideas, or mental association, is a process by which representations arise in consciousness, and also for a principle put forward by an important historical school of thinkers to account generally for the succession of mental phenomen ...
: in a mind, one idea yields to another through associative links. Carington hypothesized that telepathy depends upon an analogous type of linkage at a subconscious level. He suggested that such links could perhaps be reinforced by what he called 'K’ ideas or objects. Carington speculated on the concept of a "
group mind" and "psychons". He believed that minds which hold a great deal of their images in common may be favourable for telepathic communication.
[''Telepathy and the Group Mind''. (1945). The British Medical Journal. Vol. 2, No. 4433. p. 886]
Carington wrote about his hypothesis in his book ''Telepathy'' (1945). The book received a positive review in the ''
British Medical Journal
''The BMJ'' is a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal, published by the trade union the British Medical Association (BMA). ''The BMJ'' has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Origi ...
'' which described it as an "extremely interesting and, though often highly speculative, a thought-provoking book."
However Frank Finger gave the book a negative review in ''
The Quarterly Review of Biology
''The Quarterly Review of Biology'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of biology. It was established in 1926 by Raymond Pearl. In the 1960s it was purchased by the Stony Brook Foundation when the editor H. Bentley Glass b ...
'' claiming Carington failed to present any scientific data that could be intelligently evaluated and concluded "it seems doubtful that this book will alter the scientific status of telepathic communication appreciably, and certainly it will cause no great upheaval in the field of biological science."
Carington's ideas about telepathy inspired the novelist
Iris Murdoch
Dame Jean Iris Murdoch ( ; 15 July 1919 – 8 February 1999) was an Irish and British novelist and philosopher. Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. Her fi ...
who wrote "His theory, though wrong I've no doubt, is interesting."
The philosopher
Antony Flew
Antony Garrard Newton Flew (; 11 February 1923 – 8 April 2010) was a British philosopher. Belonging to the analytic and evidentialist schools of thought, Flew worked on the philosophy of religion. During the course of his career he taught at ...
wrote the verdict seemed to go against Carington's hypothesis because it "commits
him to saying that the various sub-laws of association (those of Recency, Repetition, etc.) will apply to telepathic association also."
Carington in his book ''Matter, Mind, and Meaning'' (1949) advocated a form of
neutral monism
Neutral monism is an umbrella term for a class of metaphysical theories in the philosophy of mind. These theories reject the dichotomy of mind and matter, believing the fundamental nature of reality to be neither mental nor physical; in other words ...
. He held that mind and matter both consist of the same kind of components known as "cognita" or
sense data
The theory of sense data is a view in the philosophy of perception, popularly held in the early 20th century by philosophers such as Bertrand Russell, C. D. Broad, H. H. Price, A. J. Ayer, and G. E. Moore. Sense data are taken to be mind-depend ...
.
[Oakeshott, Michael; O'Sullivan, Luke. (2007). ''The Concept of a Philosophical Jurisprudence: Essays and Reviews 1926–51''. Imprint Academic. p. 286. "The doctrine that Mr Carington comes to favour is a form of Neutral Monism: the common constituents of mind and matter are sense-data or cognita. In themselves these cognita are neither mental nor material."]
Publications
Books
''The Foundations of Spiritualism''(1920)
''A Theory of the Mechanism of Survival''(1920)
''The Measurement of Emotion''(1922)
*''The Death of Materialism'' (1932)
*''Three Essays on Consciousness'' (1934)
''Telepathy: An Outline of its Fact, Theory and Implications''(1945)
''Matter, Mind and Meaning''(1949). Completed by
H. H. Price
Henry Habberley Price (17 May 1899 – 26 November 1984), usually cited as H. H. Price, was a Welsh philosopher, known for his work on the philosophy of perception. He also wrote on parapsychology.
Biography
Born in Neath, Glamorganshire, W ...
.
Papers
* – (1934). ''The Quantitative Study of Trance Personalities''. Part 1. Preliminary Studies. Mrs. Garrett, Rudi Schneider, Mrs. Leonard. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 42: 173–240.
* – (1935). ''The Quantitative Study of Trance Personalities''. Part 2. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 43: 319–361.
* – (1936). ''The Quantitative Study of Trance Personalities''. Part 3. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 44: 189–222.
See also
*
Gardner Murphy
Gardner Murphy (July 8, 1895 – March 18, 1979) was an American psychologist who specialized in social and personality psychology and parapsychology.Martin Seymour-Smith, Andrew C. Kimmens. (1996). ''World Authors, 1900-1950, Volume 3''. H.W. Wi ...
References
Further reading
*Heywood, Rosalind. (1978). ''The Sixth Sense: An Inquiry Into Extra-Sensory Perception.'' Penguin Books.
*Thouless, R, H. (1937). ''Review of Mr. Whately Carington's Work on Trance Personalities''. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 44: 223–275.
*Thouless, R, H. (1963). ''Experimental Psychical Research''. Penguin Books.
*Smith, Susy. (1964). ''The Mediumship of Mrs. Leonard.'' New Hyde Park NY: University Books. See Chapter 8 for Carington's word association experiments with Mrs. Leonard.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carington, Whately
1892 births
1947 deaths
Parapsychologists
Writers from London