Henry C. McComas

Henry Clay McComas (December 21, 1875 – December 1958) was an American psychologist and skeptic.

McComas was born December 21, 1875, in Baltimore. He achieved his bachelor's degree at Johns Hopkins in 1897, his Masters at Columbia in 1898 and his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1910.^[1] He worked as an assistant professor of psychology at Princeton University, he was also an editor for the Psychological Index.^[2][3]

McComas was a member of the American Society for Psychical Research, and took interest in exposing the fraud and trickery of mediums.^[4][5] He investigated William Cartheuser and Mina Crandon and concluded they were both fraudulent.^[6][7]

In his book Ghosts I Have Talked With (1937), McComas described his experiences in investigating spiritualism. His results were entirely negative. He found that chance, fraud or malobservation could explain all the phenomena.^[8][9]

He died in Florida in December 1958.^[10]

Publications

• Some Types of Attention (1911)
• The Psychology of Religious Sects: Comparison of Types (1912)
• Apparatus for Recording Continuous Discrimination Reactions (1917)
• The Aviator (1922)
• Ghosts I Have Talked With (1937)
• The McComas Saga: A Family History Down to the Year 1950 (1950)

References

1. Cattell, James M. K.; Brimhall, Dean R. (1921). American Men of Science: A Biographical Directory, Third Edition. Garrison, N.Y: Science Press. p. 434. Retrieved May 18, 2016.
2. A Memorial for National Prohibition: With the Names of One Thousand Signers. Pilgrim Press, 1917. p. 23
3. The New Department of Psychology. Princeton Alumni Weekly, Volume 20, 1919. p. 414
4. Polidoro, Massimo. (2001). Final Séance: The Strange Friendship Between Houdini and Conan Doyle. Prometheus Books. p. 198. ISBN 1-57392-896-8
5. Moreman, Christopher M. (2013). The Spiritualist Movement: Speaking with the Dead in America and Around the World. Volume 1: American Origins and Global Proliferation. Praeger. pp. 240-241. ISBN 978-0-313-39947-3
6. Christopher, Milbourne. (1975). Mediums, Mystics & the Occult. Thomas Y. Crowell. pp. 216-217. ISBN 0-690-00476-1
7. Anderson, Rodger. (2006). Psychics, Sensitives and Somnambules: A Biographical Dictionary with Bibliographies. McFarland & Company. p. 221. ISBN 978-0786427703
8. D, K. M. (1936). Reviewed Work: Ghosts I Have Talked with by Henry C. McComas. American Journal of Psychology. Vol. 48, No. 1, p. 192.
9. Krout, Maurice H. (1936). Reviewed Work: Ghosts I Have Talked With by Henry C. McComas. Social Science. Vol. 11, No. 2. p. 167.
10. "Florida Death Index, 1877-1998," database, FamilySearch (accessed 18 May 2016), Henry Clay Mccomas, Dec 1958; citing vol. 2018, certificate number 44065, Florida Department of Health, Office of Vital Records, Jacksonville.