Tweedale was educated at Durham University. He was the Anglican Vicar of Weston, North Yorkshire. He was a convinced spiritualist and in the early 1920s founded the Society of Communion for spiritualist members of the Church of England.[1] The society "insisted on the acceptance of the doctrine of the divinity of Christ and existed mainly to encourage psychic study among Anglicans."[2] He defended his friend the spirit photographer William Hope from charges of fraud.
It was alleged that Tweedale's family home, the Weston Vicarage, was haunted by their deceased aunt and her phantom dog. The "hauntings" were principally recorded between 1905-1923. The psychical researcher W. W. Baggally from the Society for Psychical Research interviewed witnesses and declared the phenomena genuine. However, skeptics were unconvinced noting that "as with most investigations of hauntings, you either believe the witnesses or you don't, for there is no other evidence."[3] The psychical researcher Frank Podmore suggested that some of the visions may have been hallucinations.[4]
^Nelson, G. K. (2013). Spiritualism and Society. Routledge. p. 160. ISBN978-0415714624
^Kollar, Rene. (2000). Searching for Raymond: Anglicanism, Spiritualism, and Bereavement Between the Two World Wars. Lexington Books. p. 22. ISBN978-0739101612
^Podmore, Frank. (2011 edition, originally published 1908). The Naturalisation of the Supernatural. Cambridge University Press. pp. 147-148. ISBN978-1-108-07245-8
