J. Arthur Hill

Not to be confused with John Hill (actor).

John Arthur Hill (4 December 1872 – 22 March 1951), best known as J. Arthur Hill, was a British psychical researcher and writer. He is credited with having coined the term out-of-the-body experience in 1918.[1]

Biography

Hill was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and was educated at Thornton Grammar School. He worked as a business manager until he suffered ill health. He was a member of the Society for Psychical Research (1927–1935) and was known for his writings on parapsychology and spiritualism.[2][3]

In 1914, Hill wrote an article Is the Earth Alive? which was later expanded into a chapter in his Psychical Miscellanea (1920). Influenced by Gustav Fechner he speculated that the earth is a living spirit being.[4][5] Reviewers ridiculed this belief.[6]

Hill greatly admired the philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson. In 1919, he wrote a book on the subject.[7]

Reception

Hill's most known work was his Spiritualism: Its History, Phenomena and Doctrine (1919).[8][9] Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a supportive introduction to the book but later commented in 1926 that it was "written from a strictly psychic research point of view, and is far behind the real provable facts."[10] Psychical researcher Hereward Carrington described the book as a "fair and impartial summary."[11]

His books were criticized by skeptics. Psychologist Millais Culpin wrote that Hill was gullible in trusting the word of mediums and did not know anything about dissociation.[12]

See also

• Edward Trusted Bennett

Publications

• Religion and Modern Psychology (London: William Rider & Son, 1911)
• New Evidences in Psychical Research (London: William Rider & Son, 1911) [With an introduction by Oliver Lodge]
• The Hope of Immortality - Is it Reasonable?. In What Happens After Death? A Symposium by Leading Writers and Thinkers. (New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1916)
• Psychical Investigations (New York: Doran, 1917)
• Emerson and His Philosophy (William Rider & Son, 1919)
• Spiritualism and Psychical Research (London: T. C. & E. C. Jack, 1919)
• Man is Spirit (New York: Doran, 1918)
• Spiritualism: Its History, Phenomena and Doctrine (New York: Doran, 1919) [With an introduction by Arthur Conan Doyle]
• Psychical Miscellanea (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Howe, 1920)
• From Agnosticism to Belief (London: Methuen & Co, 1924)
• Psychical Science and Religious Belief (London: Rider & Company, 1929)
• Letters from Sir Oliver Lodge (London: Cassell, 1932)
• Experiences With Mediums (London: Rider & Company, 1934)

References

1. Schlieter, Jens (2018). What Is it Like to Be Dead?: Near-Death Experiences, Christianity, and the Occult. Oxford University Press. p. 146. ISBN 978-0190888855.
2. "John Arthur Hill (1872-1951)". Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology.
3. "J. Arthur Hill". The Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology.
4. Hill, J. Arthur. (1914). Is the Earth Alive?. The National Review 63: 1053.
5. Anonymous. (1918). Books on Psychical Research. The American Review of Reviews 57: 442.
6. Anonymous. (1920). Books in Brief: Psychical Miscellanea by J. Arthur Hill. The Nation 111: 49.
7. Anonymous. (1919). Emerson and His Philosophy. The Bookman 57: 10.
8. B. C. A. W. (1919). Review: Spiritualism by J. Arthur Hill. Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 8 (30): 344–346.
9. Fenn, W. W. (1920). Review Spiritualism and Its History, Phenomena and Doctrine by J. Arthur Hill. Harvard Theological Review 13 (2): 200–202.
10. Doyle, Arthur Conan. (1926). Preface. In The History of Spiritualism. Volume 1. London: Cassell and Company.
11. Carrington, Hereward. (1919). What is the Best "Psychical" Literature?. The Bookman 49: 686–689.
12. Culpin, Millais. (1920). Spiritualism and the New Psychology: An Explanation of Spiritualist Phenomena and Beliefs in Terms of Modern Knowledge. London: Edward Arnold. pp. 136–137.

External links

Media related to J. Arthur Hill at Wikimedia Commons

• Works by J. Arthur Hill at Project Gutenberg