Ada Goodrich Freer

Ada Goodrich Freer’s (1857-1931) life is shrouded in
mystery and controversy, but she is remembered as a medium, clairvoyant, psychical
researcher and author. Born in Uppingham, England, little is known about her
youth, except that she suffered the loss of both parents at an early age, and was
said to have had supernormal experiences all through her childhood from the age
of three.[1]

Through acquaintance with Frederic Myers she became
involved in the Society for Psychical Research, writing papers on her own
psychical experiences under the pseudonym ‘Miss X’. From 1893 to 1897 she
served as assistant editor and also a primary contributor for *Borderland* (W.T. Stead’s spiritualist
and psychical quarterly) again under the same pseudonym.[2]

 In 1894, Myers placed her in charge of the SPR’s inquiry
into second sight in the highlands and islands (primarily the Hebrides). While
working on Hebridean folklore she borrowed heavily from the work of Father
Allan McDonald (with little recognition of his assistance) whose notebooks
contained stories of ghostly happenings of many kinds, poltergeists,
forewarnings, teleportation, phantom ships, prophecies, the *Sluagh* and tales of the *Fuath* (or evil spirit), portents, corpse
candles, the evil eye, strange creatures, revenants, transformation, uncanny
boats, second sight (including one instance reported from a Uist colony living
at Manitoba), apparitions of the living, prophetic day dreams and a water
horse.[3]

In 1895 Miss Freer became involved in the contentious case
of the Clandon House haunting, and also in the ghost hunt at Ballechin House
(Perthshire) in 1897. At Clandon House, Freer had informed the owners that the
house wasn’t haunted, whilst at the same time informing the SPR that she had
seen a hooded female figure in the grounds. She was also criticised for relying
too much on anecdotes from the domestic staff there, instead of carrying out
her own investigations. At Ballechin, she claimed to hear thumps, bangs and
ghostly footsteps in the house. She said she had had her bedclothes torn off
her by a poltergeist, seen disembodied dogs paws on a table, and – after
following instructions given during an Ouija board session – she went to a
nearby glen, where she said she had seen a ghostly weeping nun. In 1899, *The Alleged Haunting of B---- House* by
John Crichton-Stuart and Ada Freer was published, and serialised in *The Times*, containing a journal of the
phenomena kept by Freer. She was criticised strongly by J. Callendar Ross in *The Times* (8 June, 1897), who argued
that the ‘haunting’ was no more than practical jokes and “diseased imaginations”,
and also noted that the whole affair was imbued with “the suspicion and disgust
that close contact with the SPR tends to excite.” Following this Freer was
disowned by the society and abandoned psychical research in favour of folklore
studies, primarily in Jerusalem.

She also tried her hand at mediumship, until being
exposed as a fraud during one of her table-rapping séances in London.[4]
However, interestingly Pierre Janet commented on the exactitude and the
importance of her observations on crystal-gazing, seeming highly impressed.[5]

[1]E.
Slater’s Introduction to T.H. Hall, *The*
Strange Story of Ada Goodrich Freer *(Duckworth, 1980).*

[2]J.
L. Campbell, ‘Freer, Ada Goodrich (1857–1931)’, *Oxford Dictionary*
of National Biography*, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/46548,*
accessed 13 March 2017].

[3]Theo
Brown’s review of *Strange Things* (1968)
by John L. Campbell and Trevor H. Hall (in *Folklore*,
Vol. 80, No. 3, 1969), 225.

[4]J. Grant,
*Spooky Science: Debunking the*
Pseudoscience of the Afterlife *(Sterling Publishing, 2015), 46-49.*

[5]E.
Slater’s Introduction to T.H. Hall, *The*
Strange Story of Ada Goodrich Freer *(Duckworth, 1980).*