Price, Harry (1881–1948) During the 1930s and 1940s Harry Price was among the most prominent psychical researchers in Great Britain. Although he believed in the possibility of paranormal phenomena, he took a skeptical approach to his work and was therefore just as likely to declare a claim related to the paranormal false as to declare it genuine. In fact, his first major success as a psychical researcher, in 1922, was to show that spirit photographs taken by William Hope were fake.

Price investigated a number of mediums as well as the apparent demonic possession of a Romanian peasant girl, Eleonore Zugun (1926); a magic ritual said to turn a goat into a beautiful woman (1931); Indian rope tricks whereby a person seemed to be suspended in the air (1934); a supposed talking mongoose (1935); fire walking (1936); and many other cases related to paranormal phenomena. Price was noted, however, for his investigation of ghosts and poltergeists. Among these cases, his best known was a ten-year investigation of the Borley Rectory in Essex, England, beginning in 1929.

Price believed that this place was indeed haunted, but skeptics later accused him of faking the poltergeist activity at the rectory himself—or at least of beginning his investigation with a biased opinion since he started out believing that the rectory was most likely haunted by ghosts. Skeptics made similar accusations in regard to some of Price’s other investigations. He did not let these attacks deter him, however, and in 1938 he revitalized the Ghost Club of London, England, which had been founded as a ghost-hunting organization in 1862 but which had nearly dissolved, and he served as its chairman. He also wrote extensively about his experiences as a ghost hunter in such works as The Confessions of a GhostHunter (1936).

SEE ALSO:

• Borley Rectory
• Ghost hunters and Ghost Investigators
• Spirit Photography

SOURCE:

The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Paranormal Phenomena – written by Patricia D. Netzley © 2006 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning