Walter Meyer Zu Erpen

Walter Meyer zu Erpen, MAS, is the founder and a director of the Survival Research Institute of Canada ( https://survivalresearch.ca ). He is a professional archivist. Preserving the Historical Collections of Parapsychology website is https://phcp.nl. The Psychic News Digital Archives can be found at https://libguides.lib.umanitoba.ca/psychicnews.

This interview was recorded in Las Vegas, NV, where Walter was one of the award recipients of the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies essay competition. Here he discusses his work as an archivist endeavoring to professionally preserve rare records of psychical research and spiritualism. Of particular interest is the research in Winnipeg, Canada, in the early 1920s of Thomas Glendenning Hamilton – who was able to photograph many instances of both ectoplasm and table levitation.

(Recorded on December 5, 2021)

Photo Credits:

Thank you to the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections for permission to include these photographs:

• MSS 14, Hamilton Family fonds, PC 12 (A79-041), Box 11, Folder 14, Item 4, Thomas Glendenning Hamilton, ca. 1930

• MSS 14, PC 12, Box 9, Folder 1, Item 8, E.G.D. Freeman observing non-contact table levitation, photographed by T.G. Hamilton, Winnipeg, 11 February 1926

• MSS 14, PC 12, Box 9, Folder 1, Item 5, T.G. Hamilton séance room cameras, Winnipeg, late 1920s

• MSS 14, PC 12, Box 10, Folder 8, Item 55, “Umbrella” teleplasm with medium Mary Marshall (first exposure), by T. Glen Hamilton, Winnipeg, 25 February 1934

• MSS 14, PC 12, Box 9, Folder 6, Item 18, Fourth Charles Haddon Spurgeon miniature face (first exposure), by T.G. Hamilton, Winnipeg, 1 May 1929

• MSS 439 (A12-100), H.A.V. Green photograph album, page 8, Fourth Charles Haddon Spurgeon miniature face (second exposure), by T.G. Hamilton, Winnipeg, 1 May 1929

Published on April 25, 2022