[2] He was educated at Blackheath and at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1866, where he took fourth place in the classical tripos and obtained a fellowship in 1872.

[7] In relation to psychical research, he asked whether there is an unexplored region of human faculty transcending the normal limitations of sensible knowledge.

[8] Three of his sisters died when their barge overturned in the Nile River during a tour of Egypt in 1875, profoundly affecting him, and his research was partially fueled by a desire to find some meaning to their deaths.

[citation needed] Gurney began at what he later saw was the wrong end by studying, with Myers, the séances of professed spiritualistic mediums (1874–1878).

[11] Experiments by Joseph Gibert, Paul Janet, Charles Richet, Méricourt and others were cited as tending in the same direction.

However, it has since then been argued to be deeply flawed: Gurney trusted in the assistance of one George Albert Smith, a theatrical performer and producer.

Smith was the one handling the actual experiments into telepathy, hypnotism, and the rest, and Gurney fully accepted his results.

[16] It was widely thought at the time that Gurney might have committed suicide,[16] and Alice James recorded this in her diary.

[17] Trevor Hall has argued the case that Gurney's death was suicide, resulting from disillusionment after discovering the frauds of Blackburn and Smith.

[19] In addition to his work on music and his psychological writings, he was the author of Tertium Quid (1887), a collection of essays,[20] the title a protest against one-sided ideas and methods of discussion.