Lecture for the Society For Psychical Research - Thursday 4th February 2010

Posted by Adrian-Anthony Peake on 3 February 2010 | 0 Comments

Tags: J.W. Dunne, Precognition, Deja Vu, J.B. Priestley, The Society For Psychical Research

Some of you may have read the review of my book "The Daemon - A Guide To Your Extraordinary Secret Self" in the latest edition of Network Review. If this has interested you in my "angle" on things you may be interested to know that the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) are also intrigued by the implications of my "Cheating The Ferryman" hypothesis and have invited to give a talk for them in the lecture room at Kensington Central Library. This will take place tomorrow (Thursday 4th February 2010) starting at 1835. I will be talking for about an hour and then there will be the opportunity for questions and a short mingling session over tea and biscuits. This will finish at 21:00. This is a fully "open" event so if you have nothing better to do why not pop along?

Indeed at present I am up at Cambridge University Library going through the letters sent to J.B. Priestley after his Monitor TV programme request in March 1963. Priestley had discussed the time theories of J.W.Dunne during the programme and had explained how he had applied these theories to his own work. At the end of the programme Priestley asked the public to send him any experiences they may have had regarding precognitive dreaming or time perception oddites.

A few months ago I met up with Priestley's son, Tom. Tom was interested in my ideas and suggested that I should take a look at the letters that his Father subsequently received from his 1963 request. I contacted the SPR and, as a member of that organisation, I have been given access to all of the responses, presently located in the manuscript archive at the university library. Priestley used about twenty of these letters in his book "Man & Time" but the rest, I was informed, have languished, unread up in Cambridge.

I have now spent three days working through the responses (by my calculation there are about 1,200 individual letters). I am finding them to be an absolute treasure-trove of anecdotal evidence for the paranormal. All of the letters I have read thus far are written by ordinary people describing extraordinary experiences. It is also a fascinating exercise in social history.

It is my intention to write a book based upon these experiences. If I have time I will talk a little about them tomorrow evening.