(1843-1901). Eminent psychic researcher and founding member of the British Society for Psychical Research. Myers joined the Theosophical Society (TS) on June 3, 1883, in London. He was born at Keswick in Cumberland, England, and graduated from Cambridge and became classical lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge. At first sympathetic toward The Theosophical Society and its founders, Myers chaired a committee that investigated Helena P. BLAVATSKY. The initial report of that committee was, on the whole, favorable, but when Richard Hodgson delivered his findings following investigations carried out in India the committee published a negative report.

Myers was one of the pioneers of psychical research and spent the last 20 years of his life investigating various mediums, including Eusapia Palladino who produced some remarkable phenomena for him and others under carefully controlled conditions. Blavatsky also reluctantly produced some phenomena for him at his insistence — which he subsequently came to question. A lengthy letter was written to him by the Master MORYA which Blavatsky felt was a waste of the Master’s red ink, since Myers was so skeptical that she felt no amount of evidence or reasoning would convince him. Nevertheless, of all the founders of the S.P.R., he was the most open-minded and only came to doubt his own observations after critical comments by Henry and Eleanor Sidgwick. After his death, communications purporting to come from him were received by mediums in England, the US, and India; they form part of a large collection of such communications called “cross-correspondences” which offer some of the best evidence in psychical research for survival after death.

R.W.B.

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