Eric John ('Dirty Ding') Dingwall

Eric John ('Dirty Ding') Dingwall MA
Born	1890
Died	1986
Residence	73 Corringham Road, NW 11 14 Selwyn Gardens, Cambridge [1931]
Occupation	anthropologist psychical researcher museum work
Society Membership membership ordinary fellow left 1933 last listed elected_AI 1926.07.13 clubs Magic Circle societies Society for Psychical Research

Notes

House Notes

1926.06.22 proposed by C.H. Wedgwood, seconded by E.N. Fallaize
1928 helped in the library

Notes From Elsewhere

Eric John Dingwall (1890–1986) was a British anthropologist and psychical researcher.
Born in British Ceylon he moved to England where he was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge (M.A., 1912), and the University of London (D.Sc., PhD).[1] He wrote popular books on sexology.[2] He became interested in paranormal phenomena in 1921 and served from 1922 to 1927 as a research officer for the Society for Psychical Research (SPR).[3]

Dingwall was described as an eccentric by those who had known him.[4] From 1947 he worked as an assistant keeper in the British Museum, cataloguing private case material of erotica.[5] He co-edited the four-volume set Abnormal Hypnotic Phenomena (1967–68). The set was described in a review as of considerable historical interest and well written.[6] His book Racial Pride and Prejudice received positive reviews.[7][8] His books on artificial cranial deformation and infibulation also received positive reviews.[9][10][11][12]

Dingwall was nicknamed "Dirty Ding" due to his interests in erotica and sexual customs.[13][14]

He was the Honorary vice-president for The Magic Circle and a founding member of its Occult Committee.[15]

He was married twice; firstly to Doris Dunn, an anthropologist and archaeologist (she later married the anthropologist John Layard); and secondly, to the psychologist Dr Norah Margaret Davis.[16]

In the 1920s and 1930s Dingwall travelled widely in Europe and the United States to investigate mediums. He has been described as a "sceptical enquirer"[17] and a psychical investigator who "spent many years exposing fraud and unscientific practices among psychical researchers."[18]

He co-wrote the skeptical book Four Modern Ghosts (1958) with Trevor H. Hall which gave rationalistic explanations for alleged supernatural phenomena such as the Yorkshire Museum Ghost and Harry Price's Rosalie materialization séance.[19] In his book Critics Dilemma (1966), Dingwall supported Hall's criticism of the spiritualist William Crookes and the medium Florence Cook.[20][21]

He investigated the mediumship of Eusapia Palladino and came to the conclusion she was "vital, vulgar, amorous and a cheat."[22] In 1920, Dingwall with V. J. Woolley tested the medium Eva Carrière in London. The results were negative and it was discovered that her ectoplasm was made from chewed paper.[23]

Dingwall also investigated the medium Mina Crandon.[24] He suspected that she hid her ectoplasm in her vagina but did not come to any definite conclusion.[25][26] His suspicion was confirmed by the gynecologist Florence Willey.[27]

In his later years Dingwall became a critic of psychical research. In an essay in 1971 he summed up his extensive experience in parapsychological research and came to the conclusion:

“ Since I gave up nearly all active work in psychical research, I have often been asked why, after more than sixty years' work in the field, I have finally lost most of my interest in it. There are two answers to the question. First, I have come to the conclusion that the present immense interest in occultism and in the grosser forms of superstition is due, to a certain extent at least, to the persistent and far-reaching propaganda put out by the parapsychologists. In this they have, I think, a very grave responsibility. With the gradual decline in the West of belief in Christianity has come not, as one might have hoped, a leaning toward the rational way of looking at the world but a decided tendency to adopt the magical way. Thus Christianity, unbelievable as it may be to the rational mind, has been supported by the occult superstitions of darker ages. One reason, therefore, for my ceasing work is that I do not wish to be associated with persons who actively support such superstitions as are today everywhere apparent. I cannot accept such responsibility...
After sixty years' experience and personal acquaintance with most of the leading parapsychologists of that period I do not think I could name half a dozen whom I could call objective students who honestly wished to discover the truth.

”
His essay The Need for Responsibility in Parapsychology: My Sixty Years in Psychical Research (1971) was reprinted in A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology (1985) by the CSICOP founder Paul Kurtz.[28] The skeptic Gordon Stein dedicated the book The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal to Dingwall.[29]

According to authors William Kalush and Larry Sloman when investigating the medium Mina Crandon; Dingwall told her to take off her clothes and sit in the nude. Crandon would also sometimes sprinkle luminous powder on her breasts and because of such activities William McDougall and other psychical researchers criticised Dingwall for having improper relations with Crandon.[30]

In December 1954 Dingwall married a psychologist, Dr Norah Margaret Davis. They both took time
off work to attend the registry office, and afterwards, celebrated with a lunch of kippers.

Publications

External Publications

The American Women: An Historical Study (1956)
Abnormal Hypnotic Phenomena four-volumes (1967–68)
The Critics' Dilemma: Further Comments on Some Nineteenth Century Investigations (1966)
Very Peculiar People (1962)
Four Modern Ghosts (1958) [with Trevor H. Hall]
The Unknown, is it Nearer? (1956)
The Haunting of Borley Rectory: A Critical Survey of the Evidence (1956) with [K. M. Goldney and Trevor H. Hall]
Very Peculiar People: Portrait Studies in the Queer, the Abnormal and the Uncanny (1950)
Racial Pride and Prejudice (1946)
Woman: An Historical, Gynecological and Anthropological Compendium (1935)
The Girdle of Chastity (1931)
Artificial Cranial Deformation (1931)
Ghosts and Spirits in the Ancient World (1930)
How to Go to a Medium: A Manual of Instruction (1927)
Studies in the Sexual Life of Ancient and Medieval Peoples (1925)
Male Infibulation (1925)

Related Material Details

Other Material

Senate House Library Archives, University of London: papers