The Psychic College

Mrs Ethel Maud Miller founded the Edinburgh Psychic College and Library in 1932, in remembrance of her husband Robert.  Its first home was at 30 Heriot Row.

Spiritualism had burgeoned after the First World War, with families desparate to have news of their dead or missing members. Many well known speakers came north to speak at meetings organised by the College, which also held seances.

One meeting at Central Hall Tollcross in May 1934 attracted an audience of a thousand, who came to listen to a talk on Power. The speaker was in a trance throughout his address. At another public meeting, in 1944, speaker Helen Hughes is said to have delivered thirty to forty messages to individuals in the audience.

It was not only the speakers who were entranced.  In 1938 the College held an exhibition of 'symbolic and decorative' paintings by former miner Augustine Lesage, who was untrained and completed his canvases under guidance, unaware of what was happening and untiring.

One of these pictures remains in the College which is now housed in Melville Street and has been renamed the Edinburgh College of Parapsychology.

Eerie presences may not have all departed the street. Recent residents of three houses in the street have reported ghostly noises and unexplained draughts.