Ermacora, Giovanni Battista (1869-1898)

An Italian scientist who abandoned his research in electricity (which had already caused him to be looked upon as a successor to Faraday and Maxwell) for psychical research and who became a fervent exponent and defender of paranormal phenomena when the subject was looked upon with contempt by official science. In his first work, I fatti spiritici e le ipotesi affrettate (1892), he severely criticized the neuropathological interpretation of mediumistic phenomena, which Cesare Lombroso had adopted after his first series of sittings with the medium Eusapia Palladino in Naples. Ermacora took part in the memorable Milan investigation with the same medium.

After the failure of his first attempt to establish an Italian Society for Psychical Research, he founded with Giorgio Finzi in January 1895 the Rivista di Studi Psichici, a periodical analogous to the British Society for Psychical Research Proceedings, in which most of his studies were published.

Ermacora devoted himself to all branches of psychical science, but especially to telepathy, to the experimental demonstration of which he made important contributions. His work on the subject was cut short by his murder. The 150-page work titled La Telepatice, posthumously published in 1898, is considered one of the best and most systematic treatises of the period on the subject.

Sources:

Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. The Encyclopedia of Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York: Paragon House, 1991.

Ermacora, Giovanni B. I fatti spiritici e le ipotesi affrettate (Spiritistic facts and hasty hypotheses). Padua, Italy, 1892.