Keep an eye out for white crows — they can lead us to a better world and ‘adventures in consciousness’

‘How different might our lives be if we based our notions of spirituality, morality, happiness and life after death on reasons and evidence and not on feelings, emotions and beliefs?’

In his presidential address to the American Society for Psychical Research in 1896, the philosopher and psychologist William James — ‘the father of American Psychology’ — asserted that the evidence from the medium Leonora Piper was so convincing and consistent that she was a ‘white crow’ that destroyed the proposition that all crows are black.

Piper (1857–1950) was a famous American trance medium who was investigated by British and American psychic research groups, most notably by James (1842–1910), younger brother of the novelist Henry James.

Hence the title of Stalking White Crows: How evidence and altered consciousness bring us better living and better dying, by political theorist Jack Crittenden (Iff Books, UK £14.99 / US $23.95, December 2019) who says that Piper was ‘the exception that destroyed the rule’, not the exception that proved the rule, as the saying goes.