Harry Price's Borley research—dodgy historian or genuine investigator?

I've just finished reading through Price's original Borley Rectory reports, and I'm genuinely torn on whether he's a serious paranormal researcher or a Victorian charlatan with a good PR team. The man clearly had an agenda: he wanted hauntings to be real, and he found hauntings.

That said, his methodology wasn't terrible for the 1930s. He documented stuff, interviewed witnesses, took photographs. But he also: cherry-picked evidence, didn't investigate debunking thoroughly, and basically wrote the narrative he wanted to write.

So: is Price worth reading, or is he just pseudoscientific fluff? Opinions appreciated.

Price is worth reading as a historical document, not as actual evidence. He's fascinating because he shows you how belief and bias work in investigation. His *methods* were sound. His *interpretation* was dodgy. Read him critically and you learn more than if you read pure skeptic debunkings.

The man was a genuine occultist who desperately wanted to prove ghosts were real. That's not inherently disqualifying - many good scientists have strong priors - but it colours everything he wrote. His books are entertaining, though. Better paranormal non-fiction exists (SPR papers are drier but more rigorous).

he also: cherry-picked evidence, didn't investigate debunking thoroughly

This. Price is guilty of confirmation bias on an industrial scale. The problem is, you can't actually prove he was wrong about *everything*, which is what makes the Borley case so frustrating. Some stuff happened. Some stuff was probably imagined. We can't tell which is which.

Read him for entertainment, cite the SPR proper investigations if you want to sound credible. Price is the paranormal equivalent of Erich von Däniken - compelling, wrong about the details, right that *something* is weird.

Honestly, Price's bigger contribution was establishing paranormal investigation as a *methodical thing* rather than just Victorian ghost story collection. Even if his conclusions were dodgy, he elevated the discipline. Give the man some credit for that.