Amos Norton Craft
Amos Norton Craft (July 7, 1844 - August 30, 1912)[1] was an American Methodist and early skeptic writer.
Craft was born in Mecca, Ohio, on July 7, 1844.[1][2] He married Alice Alvira Judson on March 10, 1863.[2] They had four children. Craft graduated from Mount Union College in 1865. He was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church.[2] In 1878 he settled in Oil City, Pennsylvania.[2]
Craft obtained a PhD in philosophy from Mount Union College.[3] He is most well known for his Epidemic Delusions (1881). According to skeptic Daniel Loxton the book is a "critical gaze over spirit mediums, end of the world panics, bogus religious relics, witch-hunting manias, haunted houses, clairvoyance, and mesmerism. Again and again he hammered home the point that paranormal claims rest upon arguments from ignorance."[4]
Craft died on August 30, 1912, in Meadville, Pennsylvania.[5]
Publications[edit]
- Epidemic Delusions: Exposé of the Superstitions and Frauds Which Underlie Some Ancient and Modern Delusions (1881)
- Exodus From Poverty: Or The Other Economics (1914)
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ a b Brill, H. E. (1938). Story of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Oklahoma. The University Press. p. 130
- ^ a b c d Crafts, James Monroe. (1893). The Crafts Family: A Genealogical and Biographical History of the Descendants of Griffin and Alice Craft, of Roxbury, Mass. 1630-1890. Gazette Printing Company. p. 775
- ^ The Rev. Amos N. Craft. The Christian Advocate (December 12, 1912).
- ^ Loxton, Daniel. (2013). Why Is There a Skeptical Movement?. The Skeptics Society. Retrieved 2015-11-06.
- ^ Alumni Catalog 1915. Mount Union college.