Abstract

Recently Wiseman has presented a methodological critique of one of the most impressive documents in the history of psychical research: the Feilding report. According to Wiseman, the controls against fraud were inadequate, as they did not effectively counter the presence of an accomplice. In this paper we present an epistemological and methodological commentary on Wiseman's critique. We argue that Wiseman's epistemological stance is anachronistic by modern standards, and that the "accomplice hypothesis" is fraught with so many improbabilities and is so inconsistent with the report as to be an inadequate and deficient explanation of what Feilding, Baggally and Carrington observed in Naples in 1908.