John Myers (medium)

John Myers (died 1972) was a British dentist and spiritualist medium.[1][2]

Alleged spirit photograph produced by Myers.

Career

Myers worked as a dentist in London and took up spirit photography in the 1930s. He claimed to communicate with an American Indian spirit guide called "Blackfoot".[1]

Myers was exposed as a fraud in 1932 by the Marquess of Donegall. During a seance with an art editor for the Sunday Dispatch, journalist Hannen Swaffer and magician Will Goldston, marked plates were secretly inserted into Myers' camera. Myers during the seance developed the photographs. Two of the plates contained extras that were not marked. Myers was accused of substituting plates.[3][4] The psychical researcher Simeon Edmunds wrote that Myers "was detected in fraud by Lord Donegall, whose report, published in the Sunday Dispatch, brought the career of the medium-photographer to an abrupt conclusion."[1]

According to Harry Price, in 1935 Myers was accused of fraud by J. B. McIndoe, president of the Spiritualists' National Union.[5]

The spiritualist Maurice Barbanell, editor of Psychic News, defended Myers in a book and considered his phenomena to be genuine.[6]

Criticism of Barbanell and Myers can be found in Simeon Edmunds (1966).[1]

gollark: Well, I mean, I kind of like silvers and I like rare stuff because rare.
gollark: ^
gollark: Can't see it, I guess it's gone. Sigh.
gollark: *oops*
gollark: I don't need it. I can get another CB one fine.

References
  1. Simeon Edmunds. (1966). Spiritualism: A Critical Survey. Aquarian Press. pp. 89-90. ISBN 978-0850300130
  2. Rodger Anderson. (2006). Psychics, Sensitives and Somnambules. McFarland & Company. p. 126. ISBN 0-7864-2770-1
  3. John Mulholland. (1938). Beware Familiar Spirits. C. Scribner's Sons. p. 156. ISBN 978-1111354879
  4. Leslie Shepard. (1991). Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology. Gale Research Company. p. 1143. ISBN 978-0810301962
  5. Harry Price. (1939). The Mechanics of Spiritualism. In Fifty Years of Psychical Research. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 978-0766142428
  6. Maurice Barbanell. (1964). He Walks in Two Worlds: The Story of John Myers, Psychic Photographer, Healer, and Philanthropist. H. Jenkins.

Further reading
  • Maurice Barbanell. (1964). He Walks in Two World's: The Story of John Myers, Psychic Photographer, Healer and Philanthropist. Flagship.
  • Simeon Edmunds. (1966). Spiritualism: A Critical Survey. Aquarian Press.
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