Paul Tabori

Paul Tabori
Born Pál Tábori
(1908-08-05)August 5, 1908
Budapest, Hungary
Died November 9, 1974(1974-11-09) (aged 66)
London, United Kingdom
Other names Peter Stafford

Paul Tabori (born Pál Tábori; August 5, 1908 – November 9, 1974) was a Hungarian-Jewish[1] author, novelist, journalist and psychical researcher. He also wrote under the name Peter Stafford.[2][3] He was the brother of writer and theatre director George Tabori.

Tabori was born on 5 August 1908, in Budapest, Hungary. His father Cornelius died in Auschwitz in 1944, but with his mother managed to escape the Nazis, fleeing to Budapest.[4] Tabori moved to London in 1938 and made his home at Stafford Terrace in Kensington.[5]

He obtained a Ph.D. from Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm University and graduated as a Doctor of Economic and Political Science at Pazmany Peter University.[6] He worked as a journalist in Hungary and London. Tabori was the literary executor for the Harry Price estate, he also wrote a biography of Price.[7]

Tabori was the vice-president of The Ghost Club for a number of years until his death.[8]

He died on 9 November 1974 at the age of 66.[7]

Psychical research

In The Art of Folly (1961), Tabori included a chapter that documented the fraud of various spiritualist mediums. Stephen Potter in a review wrote the book "gives us one of the best brief accounts I have ever read of the scientific examination of the claims of spiritualists, and the delusions of such great men as Oliver Lodge and Conan Doyle".[9]

Tabori and Peter Underwood in their book Ghosts of Borley (1973) wrote they believed "some of the phenomena were genuine" at the Borley Rectory.[10] The researcher Trevor H. Hall criticized Tabori and Underwood for selective reporting. According to Hall the alleged paranormal phenomena from the rectory were the result of natural causes such as various creaks heard from the movement of rats or the flying of bats in the house. Pranks such a local village boys throwing stones at the house, or tramps trying to keep warm by lighting small fires in the rectory.[10]

Piet Hein Hoebens with Marcello Truzzi evaluated some psychic detective cases in prewar Germany that were featured in Tabori's Crime and the Occult (1974), concluding the cases had been misreported.[11]

Publications

Non-fiction

  • Harry Price: The Biography of a Ghost Hunter (1950)
  • Alexander Korda (1959)
  • The Art of Folly (1961)
  • The Book of the Hand (1962)
  • Companions of the Unseen (1968)
  • Dress and Undress (1969)
  • Anatomy of Exile: A Semantic and Historic Study (1971)
  • Erotic Edwardian Fairy Tales (1970)
  • Beyond the Senses: A Report on Psychical Research in the Sixties (1971)
  • Erotic Victorian Fairy Tales (1971)
  • Secret and Forbidden (1971)
  • Social History of Rape (1971)
  • Pioneers of the Unseen (1972)
  • With Peter Underwood. Ghosts of Borley: Annals of the Haunted Rectory (1973)
  • Crime and the Occult: A Forensic Study (1974)
  • The Natural History of Stupidity (1993) (Originally published as The Natural Science of Stupidity, 1959)

Fiction

  • They Came to London (1943)
  • The Lion and the Vulture (1944)
  • Private Gallery (1944)
  • Solo (1948)
  • Heritage of Mercy (1949)
  • The Talking Tree (1950)
  • The Frontier (1950)
  • The Green Rain (1961)
  • The Survivors (1964)
  • The Doomsday Brain (1967)
  • The Invisible Eye (1967)
  • The Torture Machine (1969)
  • The Cleft (1969)
  • The Demons of Sandorra (1970)
  • Lily Dale (1972)
  • The Wild White Witch (1973)

References

  1. ↑ William D. Rubinstein, Michael Jolles, Hilary L. Rubinstein, The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History, Palgrave Macmillan (2011), p. 976
  2. ↑ Joseph F. Clarke (1977). Pseudonyms. BCA. p. 153.
  3. ↑ http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/tabori_paul
  4. ↑ Feinberg, Anat (1999). Embodied Memory: The Theatre of George Tabori. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. p. 4. ISBN 9780877456865.
  5. ↑ McLellan, Alec (2004). The Secret of the Spear: The Mystery of the Spear of Longinus. London: Souvenir Press. p. 103. ISBN 0285636960.
  6. ↑ "Paul Tabori - Senate House Library, University of London". Retrieved 27 October 2014.
  7. 1 2 "Paul Tabori (1908-1974)". (2001). Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. Retrieved 27 October 2014.
  8. ↑ Underwood, Peter. (1983). No Common Task: The Autobiography of a Ghost-Hunter. Harrap. p. 154
  9. ↑ Potter, Stephen. (1961). Frailties of Humankind. Review of The Art of Folly, by Paul Tabori. The Saturday Review, 22 July. p. 27
  10. 1 2 Hall, Trevor H. (1985). A Note on Borley Rectory: The Most Haunted House in England. In Paul Kurtz. A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology. Prometheus Books. pp. 327-338. ISBN 0-87975-300-5
  11. ↑ Hoebens, Piet Hein; Truzzi, Marcello. (1985). Reflections on Psychic Sleuths. In Paul Kurtz. A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology. Prometheus Books. pp. 631-643. ISBN 0-87975-300-5

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