Salter, Helen Woollgar de Gaudrion Verrall(1883-1959)

Daughter of medium Margaret Verrall. Salter developed the faculty of automatic writing and was a prominent member of the Society for Psychical Research, London. She was an assistant research officer (1910-16), research officer (1916-21), a member of the council (1921-57), vice president (1953-57), editor of the Journal of the SPR (1921-29), and for many years editor of the Proceedings (1921-46, 1948-54). She was born July 4, 1883, in Cambridge, England, and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge University (M.A., 1906). In 1915 she married William Henry Salter, president of the SPR.

Some of her automatic writing scripts form part of the important "cross-correspondence" project, which involved piecing together a number of scripts from different communicators that were meaningful only as a whole. Salter also participated in various telepathy experiments. She wrote a number of articles for the SPR's publications and interpreted the SPR for American colleagues. She died April 22, 1959.

Sources:

Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. The Encyclopedia of Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York: Paragon House, 1991.

Pleasants, Helene, ed. Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology. New York: Helix Press, 1964.

Salter, Helen. "Evidence for Telepathy." Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research (1951).

——. "The History of George Valiantine." Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (1931).

——. "Some Experiments with a New Automatist." Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (1918).

——. "Some Observations on Scripts of the SPR Group of Automatists." Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research (1951).