Douglas Blackburn (6 August 1857,
Southwark – 28 March 1929,
Tonbridge
Tonbridge ( ) is a market town in Kent, England, on the River Medway, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells, south west of Maidstone and south east of London. In the administrative borough of Tonbridge and Malling, it had an estimated populat ...
) was an English journalist and novelist, who worked in the
Transvaal and
Natal
NATAL or Natal may refer to:
Places
* Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, a city in Brazil
* Natal, South Africa (disambiguation), a region in South Africa
** Natalia Republic, a former country (1839–1843)
** Colony of Natal, a former British colony ( ...
between 1892 and 1908. He has been called "the great chronicler of the last days of the
Boer republic."
Telepathy experiments
During 1882-1883, Blackburn with
George Albert Smith took part in a series of experiments that were claimed to be genuine evidence for
telepathy by members of the
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 co ...
. Blackburn later made a public confession of fraud, stating that the results had been obtained by use of a code.
Blackburn's ''Confessions of a Telepathist: Thirty-Year Hoax Exposed'' appeared in ''
The Daily News'' and the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 1911. It was re-printed in ''A Skeptics Handbook of Parapsychology'', 1985.
[Blackburn, Douglas. ''Confessions of a Telepathist: Thirty-Year Hoax Exposed''. In ]Paul Kurtz
Paul Kurtz (December 21, 1925 – October 20, 2012) was an American scientific skeptic and secular humanist. He has been called "the father of secular humanism". He was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at B ...
. ''A Skeptics Handbook of Parapsychology''. Prometheus Books. pp. 235-239.
Works
;Novels
*''Prinsloo of Prinsloosdorp: A Tale of Transvaal Officialdom'', 1899
*''A Burgher Quixote'', 1903
*''Richard Hartley, Prospector'', 1904
*''I Came and Saw'', 1908
*''Leaven'', 1908
*''Love Muti'', Everett's, 1915
;Non-fiction
* ''Thought-Reading, or, Modern Mysteries Explained: Being Chapters on Thought-Reading, Occultism, Mesmerism, &c., Forming a Key to the Psychological Puzzles of the Day'', 1884
* (with W. C. Caddell) ''The Detection of Forgery: A Practical Handbook For the Use of Bankers, Solicitors, Magistrates' Clerks, and All Handling Suspected Documents'', 1909
''Confessions of a Telepathist'' 1911
* (with W. C. Caddell) ''Secret Service in South Africa'', 1911
* ''The Martyr Nurse: The Death and Achievement of Edith Cavell'', 1915
References
Further reading
*
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Blackburn, Douglas
1857 births
1929 deaths
20th-century English novelists
English fraudsters
English male journalists
English male novelists
Parapsychologists
South African journalists
South African male novelists
Telepaths
20th-century English male writers