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)