Prince, Walter Franklin (1863-1934)

Prominent American psychical researcher, research officer of the American Society for Psychical Research (1920-25) and cofounder and research officer of the Boston Society for Psychical Research (1925-32). He was born in Detroit, Maine, April 22, 1863. After graduating from the Maine Wesleyan Seminary in 1881, he attended Yale University (B.A., 1896; Ph.D, 1899), and Drew Theological Seminary (B.D., 1896). He became the pastor of Methodist Episcopal congregations in Maine and Connecticut and then joined the Protestant Episcopal Church and served parishes in Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, and San Bernardino, California.

From church social work, he was led to study abnormal psychology and became the director of psychotherapeutics at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in New York City (1916-17). While there, he met and became the assistant to James Hervey Hyslop, who had reestablished the American Society for Psychical Research. In 1925 he became the Society's research officer, a post he held until the controversy over Mina Crandon ("Margery") flared in the mid-1920s. The controversy split the society. Prince believed Margery a fraud and resigned from his position with the Society over his differences with the board on how to handle the data that it had assembled.

Along with Elwood Worcester and Gardner Murphy, Prince led in the founding of the rival Boston Society for Psychical Research in 1925 and became its research officer. While operating out of Boston, he was responsible for a remarkable cure in the multiple personality case of Doris Fischer and conducted important investigations of the cases of "Patience Worth" and the Antigonish poltergeist. His excellent work led to his twice being elected president of the Society for Psychical Research, London, in 1930 and 1931. He died on August 7, 1934.

In eighteen years of research with the American Society for Psychical Research and the Society for Psychical Research, London, Prince investigated many different kinds of paranormal phenomena in hundreds of cases, but in spite of his doubts about certain phenomena, he eventually concluded that a case for the reality of telepathy and clairvoyance has been "absolutely and scientifically proved." In addition, he was inclined to belief in survival of personality after death and considered the evidence "very promising."

Sources:

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

Pleasants, Helene, ed. Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology. New York: Helix Press, 1964.

Prince, Walter Franklin. The Enchanted Boundary: A Survey to Negative Reactions to Claims of Psychical Phenomena. Boston: Boston Society for Psychic Research, 1930.

——. Leonard and Soule Experiments. Boston: Boston Society for Psychical Research, 1929.

——. Noted Witnesses for Psychic Occurrences. Boston: Boston Society for Psychical Research, 1928. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1963.

——. The Psychic in the House. Boston: Boston Society for Psychical Research, 1926.

Prince, Walter Franklin, and Lydia W. Allison. The Case of Patience Worth. Boston: Boston Society for Psychical Research, 1927. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1964.

Smith, Anson J. "Walter Franklin Prince." Tomorrow (Summer 1955).

Walter Franklin Prince: A Tribute to His Memory. Boston: Boston Society for Psychical Research, 1935."