The Ghost Club
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| Industry | Paranormal investigation and research |
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| Founded | 1862, London, England |
| Headquarters | London, England, UK |
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Key people
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Alan Murdie Chair Sarah Darnell General Secretary Derek Green Investigations Officer Kevin Sebastianpillai Events Officer Karen Cliff Press Officer Mark Ottowell Journal Editor James Tacchi Science & Technical Officer Paul Foulsham Ghost Club Webmaster Gianna De Salvo Membership Secretary |
| Revenue | Non-profit |
| Website | GhostClub.org.uk |
The Ghost Club is a paranormal investigation and research organization, founded in London in 1862. It is widely believed to be the oldest such organization in the world. Since 1862 it has primarily investigated ghosts and hauntings.
The club has its roots in Cambridge in 1855, where fellows at Trinity College began to discuss ghosts and psychic phenomena. Launched officially in London in 1862, it counted Charles Dickens and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle among its members. One of the club's earliest investigations was of the Davenport Brothers and their "spirit cabinet" hoax, the club challenging the Davenports' claim of contacting the dead.
The group continued to undertake practical investigations of spiritualist phenomena, a topic then in vogue, meeting to discuss ghostly subjects. The Ghost Club dissolved in the 1870s following the death of Dickens.
The club was revived on All Saints Day 1882 by the medium Stainton Moses and Alaric Alfred Watts. initially claiming to be the original founders, without acknowledging its origins. In 1882, the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), with whom there was an initial overlap, was founded at a similar time.
While the SPR was a body devoted to scientific study, the Ghost Club remained a selective and secretive organization of convinced believers for whom psychic phenomena were an established fact. Stainton Moses resigned from the vice presidency of the SPR in 1886 and thereafter devoted himself to the Ghost Club. Membership was small (82 members over 54 years) and women were not allowed but during this period it attracted some of the most original and controversial minds in psychical research. These included Sir William Crookes Sir Oliver Lodge, Nandor Fodor and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
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