Henry Clay McComas (December 21, 1875 – December 1958) was an American

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

and

skeptic Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the pe ...

. McComas was born December 21, 1875, in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

. He achieved his bachelor's degree at Johns Hopkins in 1897, his Masters at Columbia in 1898 and his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1910. He worked as an assistant professor of psychology at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, he was also an editor for the Psychological Index. McComas was a member 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 took interest in exposing the fraud and trickery of

mediums Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spir ...

. He investigated William Cartheuser and

Mina Crandon Mina "Margery" Crandon (1888–November 1, 1941) was a psychical medium who claimed that she channeled her dead brother, Walter Stinson. Investigators who studied Crandon concluded that she had no such paranormal ability, and others detected her ...

and concluded they were both fraudulent. In his book ''Ghosts I Have Talked With'' (1937), McComas described his experiences in investigating

spiritualism Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (when not lowercase) ...

. His results were entirely negative. He found that chance, fraud or malobservation could explain all the phenomena. He died in Florida in December 1958.Florida Death Index, 1877-1998
" database,

FamilySearch FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization and website offering genealogical records, education, and software. It is operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), and is closely connected with the church's Family Histo ...

(accessed 18 May 2016), Henry Clay Mccomas, Dec 1958; citing vol. 2018, certificate number 44065, Florida Department of Health, Office of Vital Records, Jacksonville.

Publications

*''Some Types of Attention'' (1911)
''The Psychology of Religious Sects: Comparison of Types''
(1912) *''Apparatus for Recording Continuous Discrimination Reactions'' (1917) *''The Aviator'' (1922)
''Ghosts I Have Talked With''
(1937) *''The McComas Saga: A Family History Down to the Year 1950'' (1950)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McComas, Henry C. 1875 births 1958 deaths 20th-century American psychologists American skeptics Columbia University alumni Critics of Spiritualism Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni Princeton University faculty