Kathleen Mary Hervey Goldney (1894–1992) best known as K. M. Goldney was a British parapsychologist and writer.
Career
In the 1940s, Goldney worked with the mathematician Samuel Soal on ESP experiments with Basil Shackleton. It later was claimed that Soal had altered and faked the data from the experiments.Markwick, Betty. (1985). The Establishment of Data Manipulation in the Soal-Shackleton Experiments. In Paul Kurtz. A Skeptic’s Handbook of Parapsychology. Prometheus Books. pp. 287-312. Reznek, Lawrie. (2010). Delusions and the Madness of the Masses. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 54-55. "Soal-Goldney Experiment". The Skeptic's Dictionary.
Goldney was once a member of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research and an associate of Harry Price.Wood, Robert. (1992). The Widow of Borley: A Psychical Investigation. Duckworth. p. 54 She was a long-standing member of the Society for Psychical Research and worked as secretary from 1949 to 1957.Shepard, Leslie. (1991). Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. Gale Research. p. 678
In the 1950s, she produced a highly critical report with Eric Dingwall and Trevor H. Hall that demolished the claims of any hauntings and suspected Price's involvement with Borley Rectory to be fraudulent.Hansel, C. E. M. (1980). ESP and Parapsychology: A Critical Re-evaluation. Prometheus Books. p. 302Hines, Terence. (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 95. "Dingwall, Goldney, and Hall (1956) demolish the claim that Borley Rectory was ever haunted. They find, by comparing reports in Price's books to the actual statements that witnesses made to Price — which are still preserved — that Price distorted and embellished reports to make them much more dramatic than they actually were."
In 1964, she came out against Trevor H. Hall, defending the chemist William Crookes from allegations of misconduct with the medium Florence Cook.Brock, William Hodson. (2008). William Crookes (1832-1919) and the Commercialization of Science. Ashgate Publishing. pp. 184-185.
Publications
Samuel Soal and K. M. Goldney. (1943). Experiments in Precognitive Telepathy. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 47: 21–150. Eric J. Dingwall, K. M. Goldney and Trevor H. Hall. (1956). The Haunting of Borley Rectory: A Critical Survey of the Evidence. Duckworth. R. G. Medhurst and K. M. Goldney. (1964). William Crookes and the Physical Phenomena of Mediumship. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 54: 25–156. R. G. Medhurst and K. M. Goldney. (1972). Crookes and the Spirit World. Souvenir Press.Dixon, Bernard. (1972). "Crookes and the Spirit World". New Scientist. 30 November. pp. 532-533 K. M. Goldney. (1974). The Soal-Goldney Experiments with Basil Shackleton (BS): A Personal Account. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 56: 73–82.
References
External links Soal-Goldney experiment - Skeptic's Dictionary