London Gothic - The Spirit Engineer

THE SPIRIT ENGINEER - Raps, Levitations & other Psychic Phenomena A talk at Guy's Hospital Chapel with historian A. J. West On Saturday the 19th March 2022 at 4:00 pm ARRIVAL INSTRUCTIONS - If you are coming from London Bridge station, please take the Guy's Hospital exit. You will see the new hospital straight ahead of you. Please turn right and a little further down St Thomas St you will find a courtyard marked with Kings College London. The Chapel is in this Couryard to the RIGHT of the vaccination centre. The Victorian age is known for its rationalism and scientific innovation, but one of its great legacies to the early decades of the Twentieth Century was a belief in spiritualism. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Queen Victoria herself were adherents, with the Queen communicating with her dead daughter via a medium. In 1914 scientist and sceptic William Jackson Crawford set out to Belfast with the intention of debunking 16-year-old Irish medium Kathleen Goligher, whose famed seances involved table-turning, levitation and ectoplasm aplenty. His investigations lasted six years and surprisingly he ended up becoming a convert, going on to write scientific books detailing supposed psychic phenomena such as the "cantilever theory of levitation". What happened? Was the professor hoodwinked b y the Golligher family, did he fall in love with Kathleen, bliding his scientific objectivity.. or could her powers have been genuine? In this talk, writer A J West will discuss his own research into these real-life events, which form the basis of his novel "The Spirit Engineer” - a haunted, twisted tale of power, paranoia, and one ultimate, inescapable truth. Tickets £12 including a Gothic Punch and 20% donation to the DEC Red Cross Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal. Please click here to purchase. A.J. West A.J.West is an award-winning former BBC journalist, radio broadcaster and voice artist from Buckinghamshire. He has written for national newspapers and magazines and has appeared on national television programmes, including BBC Breakfast, Good Morning Britain and This Morning. Last year, his first novel, The Spirit Engineer, was published by Duckworth books who describe his writing as “Gothic, artful and thoroughly-researched”. Image credit - Kathleen and her spirits courtesy of A.J. West and Kathleen Goligher with ectoplasm and speaking trumpet, W.J. Crawford, 1920. Public domain courtesy of Cambridge University Library.

THE SPIRIT ENGINEER - Raps, Levitations & other Psychic Phenomena
A talk at Guy's Hospital Chapel with historian A. J. West
On Saturday the 19th March 2022 at 4:00 pm

ARRIVAL INSTRUCTIONS - If you are coming from London Bridge station, please take the Guy's Hospital exit. You will see the new hospital straight ahead of you. Please turn right and a little further down St Thomas St you will find a courtyard marked with Kings College London. The Chapel is in this Couryard to the RIGHT of the vaccination centre.

The Victorian age is known for its rationalism and scientific innovation, but one of its great legacies to the early decades of the Twentieth Century was a belief in spiritualism. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Queen Victoria herself were adherents, with the Queen communicating with her dead daughter via a medium.

In 1914 scientist and sceptic William Jackson Crawford set out to Belfast with the intention of debunking 16-year-old Irish medium Kathleen Goligher, whose famed seances involved table-turning, levitation and ectoplasm aplenty. His investigations lasted six years and surprisingly he ended up becoming a convert, going on to write scientific books detailing supposed psychic phenomena such as the "cantilever theory of levitation". What happened? Was the professor hoodwinked b y the Golligher family, did he fall in love with Kathleen, bliding his scientific objectivity.. or could her powers have been genuine?

In this talk, writer A J West will discuss his own research into these real-life events, which form the basis of his novel "The Spirit Engineer” - a haunted, twisted tale of power, paranoia, and one ultimate, inescapable truth.

Tickets £12 including a Gothic Punch and 20% donation to the DEC Red Cross Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal. Please click here to purchase.

A.J. West
A.J.West is an award-winning former BBC journalist, radio broadcaster and voice artist from Buckinghamshire. He has written for national newspapers and magazines and has appeared on national television programmes, including BBC Breakfast, Good Morning Britain and This Morning. Last year, his first novel, The Spirit Engineer, was published by Duckworth books who describe his writing as “Gothic, artful and thoroughly-researched”.

Image credit - Kathleen and her spirits courtesy of A.J. West and Kathleen Goligher with ectoplasm and speaking trumpet, W.J. Crawford, 1920. Public domain courtesy of Cambridge University Library.