These results led Crookes to conclude that the subject dominated some type of “psychic force” that did not fit within the known natural laws, for which her received numerous criticisms and attacks. Hume was able to pass both tests before the astonished eyes of Crookes and the three witnesses that accompanied him. The second was to alter the weight of a wooden board arranged on a scale by lightly resting the fingertips on the edge of the board. The first of the experiments required the medium to sound an accordion enclosed in a drawer placed under a table, only resting his hands on the ends of it. Thus he examined several alleged mediums and unmasked frauds, but he also gave credibility to a few, such as the famous spiritualist Daniel Douglas Hume, who successfully overcame the two initial experiments designed by Crookes to test paranormal phenomena specifically, the ability to manipulate objects at a distance and to modify the weight of an object. Picture used by Crookes as an existence proof of the Katie King ghost. And he also proposed to face this study without preconceived ideas, prejudices or perspectives. His plan was to maintain a position of permanent scepticism and rigorously follow the scientific method he knew so well by conducting a series of experiments under controlled conditions (for which he specifically designed and built a room), which would allow objective measurements to be made beyond what the senses could be made to believe, and always to do so in the presence of witnesses of maximum reliability and from the field of science. The Crookes couple attended a series of sessions that must have had a profound impact on William, because from that moment on he decided to devote himself to the investigation of the paranormal. In Victorian England spiritualism or spiritism was in full swing, to the point of having become a sort of alternative religion with a multitude of followers in all social classes, so Varley’s suggestion would not have sounded ridiculous. Among them was Cromwell Varley, a former classmate, who convinced William and his wife to attend a session with a medium to try to communicate with the absent brother. The death of Phillip, the youngest and dearest of his fifteen siblings, plunged Crookes into a tremendous sadness and depression from which his friends tried to rescue him. Image: Wikimediaīut then, in 1867, something happened. Crookes discovered Thallium through the process of spectroscopy. Everything suggested that a dazzling career awaited him. Just three years later, Crookes discovered thallium and successfully determined its chemical properties, an achievement that immediately established him as one of the up-and-coming chemists of the time, as evidenced by the fact that in 1863, at the age of just 31, he was elected to the distinguished Royal Society. ![]() ![]() The son of a wealthy tailor, he inherited a considerable fortune from his father and at the age of 24 he decided to set up a private laboratory and establish himself as an independent advisor, consultant and scientific researcher. William Crookes (J– April 4, 1919) always opted for going it alone. From discovering an element to investigate mediums Much less well known, however, is his ambiguous relationship with the world of spiritualism and the paranormal, a dark period in his life to which he devoted four years, and which almost ended his scientific career and ruined his reputation. He also founded and edited scientific journals and became president of the Royal Society, the oldest scientific society in the world. But he was also the inventor of modern sunglasses (with a 100% ultraviolet filter) and ingenious devices to see the disintegration of radioactive atoms or to detect the intensity of electromagnetic radiation. He left his mark above all with his invention of the cathode ray tube and the discovery of a chemical element, thallium. William Crookes is recognised today as one of the great scientists of the Victorian era.
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