Scientific inquiry into the facts surrounding and causes underlying reports of paranormal and mediumistic phenomena. Psychical research's first concern has been to establish the occurrence of the claimed events. If such events are not due to obvious mundane causes, including fraud, observational error, or the laws of chance, the next stage of the inquiry is to establish a reason for their occurrence—whether known natural laws are sufficient to explain them or whether there is reason to assume action by an unknown force.
Determining the nature of such an unknown force and the mode of its manifestation forms a third level of investigation. If it is not a blind force but operated by intelligence, it must be determined whether this intelligence is earthly. Not until every other explanation and test fails can the claim of a paranormal source be accepted.
The Historical Background
The term psychical research covers all scientific investigation into the obscure phenomena traditionally connected with the so-called supernatural, undertaken with a view to their elucidation. Certain of these phenomena are known all over the world and have remained practically unaltered almost since prehistoric times. Such are the phenomena of levitation, fire ordeal, crystal gazing, thought reading, and apparitions. Even though the formal discipline of psychical research rests on the scientific method of the nineteenth century, these phenomena have been investigated throughout the ages.
John Gaule, in his Select Cases of Conscience Touching Witches and Witchcraft (1646), observes: "But the more prodigious or stupendous [of the feats mentioned in the witches' confessions] are effected meerly by the devil; the witch all the while either in a rapt ecstasie, a charmed sleepe, or a melancholy dreame; and the witches' imagination, phantasie, common sense, only deluded with what is now done, or pretended."
A few other writers of the same period arrived at similar conclusions. The result of many of these medieval records was to confirm the genuineness of some of the phenomena witnessed, but here and there, even in those days, there were skeptics who refused to give them any supernatural significance.
Poltergeist disturbances received a large share of attention and investigation. The case of the Drummer of Tedworth was examined by Joseph Glanvill and the results set forth in his Saducisimus Triumphatus, published in 1668. The Epworth phenomena, which occurred in the house of John Wesley's father, elicited many comments, as did the Cock Lane ghost, the Stockwell poltergeist, and many others.
Those who investigated animal magnetism and mesmerism may be considered psychical researchers, since these forerunners of hypnotism were the fruits of prolonged investigation into the phenomena connected with the trance state.
The writings of Paracelsus and Franz A. Mesmer show that they had glimpses of perspectives that were ahead of their time, foreshadowing the work of psychical researchers. Paracelsus, for example, stated in his writings, "By the magic power of the will, a person on this side of the ocean may make a person on the other side hear what is said on this side…. The ethereal body of a man may know what another man thinks at a distance of 100 miles and more."
This reads like an anticipation of telepathy, which has since attained remarkable prominence, although it is by no means attributed to "the ethereal body of a man." Such writings would seem to entitle many of the mesmerists and the older mystics to the designation of protopsychical researchers. As knowledge increased and systematized methods came into use, such inquiries became more focused and fruitful.
The introduction of modern Spiritualism in 1848 undoubtedly set the stage for psychical research. The movement was so widespread and the reports of its effects so numerous and impressive that it was inevitable that scientists (especially those facing the spiritual questions to which the movement spoke) would be attracted to the movement and then drawn into an examination of the alleged phenomena.
Thus we find engaged in the investigation of Spiritualism such individuals as William Carpenter, Michael Faraday and Augustus De Morgan, and on the Continent, Count de Gasparin, Marc Thury and Johann C. F. Zöllner. One of the most important investigators was undoubtedly Sir William Crookes, who worked independently for some time before the founding of the Society for Psychical Research.
However, although much good work was done by independent students of psychic science, as it came to be called, more systematic investigation was inevitable. The London Dialectical Society was established in 1867, and a resolution was carried out two years later to "investigate the phenomena alleged to be Spiritual Manifestations, and to report thereon." The committee included many distinguished individuals. An initial report was published in 1871.
In 1875 Edward William Cox, also connected with the London Dialectical Society, founded the Psychological Society of Great Britain for similar investigation. Cox included C. C. Massey, Walter H. Coffin, and Spiritualist medium W. Stainton Moses among the members. A single volume of Proceedings of the society's work was published in 1878. The society came to an end the next year, following Cox's death.
From 1878 on, the British National Association of Spiritualists, London (founded in 1873), appointed a research council that carried on significant research work with well-known mediums of the day under test conditions. Their work bore fruit early in 1882 when William F. Barrett presided over several conferences held by the association that resulted in the formation of the Society for Psychical Research.
The Establishment of Psychical Research
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was founded largely by a group of scientists and philosophers connected with Trinity College, Cambridge. The society was formed to "examine without prejudice or prepossession and in a scientific spirit those faculties of man, real or supposed, which appear to be inexplicable in terms of any generally recognized hypothesis."
The society's prospectus indicates its proposed aim and methods: "It has been widely felt that the present is an opportune time for making an organised and systematic attempt to investigate that large group of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric, psychical, and spiritualistic.
"From the recorded testimony of many competent witnesses, past and present, including observations recently made by scientific men of eminence in various countries, there appears to be, amid much delusion and deception, an important body of remarkable phenomena, which are prima facie inexplicable on any generally recognised hypothesis, and which, if incontestably established, would be of the highest possible value.
"The task of examining such residual phenomena has often been undertaken by individual effort, but never hitherto by a scientific society organised on a sufficiently broad basis."
The first president of the society was Henry Sidgwick, and among later presidents were Balfour Stewart, Sir William Crookes, Arthur James Balfour, and Sir Oliver Lodge. William James and Charles Richet were the first American and French researchers to serve as presidents, respectively. Prominent among the original members were Frank Podmore, F. W. H. Myers, Edmund Gurney, William F. Barrett, W. Stainton Moses, and Eleanor Sidgwick (later the first female to become president), Lord Rayleigh, and Andrew Lang. Many of these would eventually be honored with a term in the president's chair.
James initiated work in America that was later carried on by Richard Hodgson and James H. Hyslop.
On the Continent the Italian Cesare Lombroso, and French researchers Joseph Maxwell, Camille Flammarion, and Richet—all men of the highest standing in their respective branches of science—conducted exhaustive research into the phenomena of mediumship, chiefly with the Italian medium Eusapia Palladino as a subject.
At first the members of the Society for Psychical Research found it convenient to work in concert, but as they became more conversant with the broad outlines of the subject, it was necessary to specialize in various branches. The original plan, roughly sketched in 1882, grouped the phenomena to be researched under five different heads, each of which was placed under the direction of a separate committee. The five goals and their committee chairs were as follows: "1. An examination of the nature and extent of any influence which may be exerted by one mind upon another, apart from any generally recognized mode of perception. (Hon. Secretary of Committee, Professor W. F. Barrett.) "2. The study of hypnotism, and the forms of so-called mesmeric trance, with its alleged insensibility to pain; clairvoyance, and other allied phenomena. (Hon. Secretary of Committee, Dr. G. Wyld.) "3. A critical revision of Reichenbach's researches with certain organisations called 'sensitive,' and an inquiry whether such organisations possess any power of perception beyond a highly-exalted sensibility of the recognised sensory organs. (Hon. Secretary of Committee, Walter H. Coffin.) "4. A careful investigation of any reports, resting on strong testimony, regarding apparitions at the moment of death, or otherwise, or regarding disturbances in houses reputed to be haunted. (Hon. Secretary of Committee, Hensleigh Wedg-wood.) "5. An inquiry into the various physical phenomena commonly called Spiritualistic; with an attempt to discover their causes and general laws. (Hon. Secretary, Dr. C. Lockhart Robertson.)"
A committee was also appointed to consider the literature of the subject; honorary secretaries were Edmund Gurney and Frederic W. H. Myers, who, with Frank Podmore, collected a number of historic examples.
Of the various goals of the SPR, however, the first is now generally considered the most important, and is certainly the one that has yielded the best results to investigators. In the case of hypnotism, the work of psychical researchers contributed to its admission to the sphere of legitimate physiology. It was formerly classed among doubtful phenomena, even at the time the society was founded.
The examination of Baron von Reichenbach's claims of having discovered a new psychic fluid or force, the " od " (or odyle), which issued like flame from the points of a magnet or the human fingertips, was at length abandoned since nothing was found to verify his conclusions.
The investigations in connection with apparitions, haunted houses, and Spiritualist phenomena continued for many years, although on the whole no definite conclusions were arrived at.
The members of the society attempted to carry out their investigations in an entirely unbiased spirit. Some members who had joined the society originally as avowed Spiritualists soon dropped out. After prolonged and exhaustive research the opinions of the various investigators often changed. Far from being pledged to accept the spirit hypothesis—or any other specific hypothesis—the SPR expressly stated that "member-ship of this Society does not imply the acceptance of any particular explanation of the phenomena investigated, nor any belief as to the operation, in the physical world, of forces other than those recognised by Physical Science."
Nevertheless, two prominent researchers, F. W. H. Myers and Sir Oliver Lodge, found evidence sufficient to convince them of the operation in the physical world of disembodied intelligences who manifest themselves through the organisms of special people generally referred to as mediums or sensitives.
Frank Podmore, on the other hand, was the exponent of a telepathic theory. Any phase of the manifestations that could not be explained by means of such known physiological facts as suggestion and hyperesthesia (the so-called subconscious whispering), exaltation of memory and automatism, or the unfamiliar but presumably natural telepathy, according to him, fell under the grave suspicion of fraud. His theory of poltergeists, for example, which he regarded as the work of naughty children, did not admit the intervention of a mischievous dis-embodied spirit. He considered telepathy a suitable explanation for "coincident hallucination" (hallucinatory apparitions that coincide with the death of the person represented or with some other crisis in that person's life), as well as for all cases of "personation" by the medium. His view—one shared by Andrew Lang, several of his contemporaries, and many present-day parapsychologists—was that if telepathy were established the spirit hypothesis would not only be unnecessary, but impossible to prove.
The most important of telepathic experiments were those conducted by Henry and Eleanor Sidgwick (1889-91). The percipients were hypnotized by G. A. Smith, who also acted as agent, and the matter to be transmitted consisted at first of numbers and later of mental pictures. The agent and percipient were generally separated by a screen, or were sometimes in different rooms, although the results in the latter case were perceptibly less satisfactory. On the whole, however, the percentage of correct guesses was far above what could be attributed to chance, and the experiments did much to encourage a belief that some hitherto unknown mode of communication existed.
At a later date, the trance communication of Leonora Piper seemed to point to some such theory, although Myers, Hodgson, and Hyslop, who conducted a thorough investigation into those communications, were inclined to believe that the spirits of the dead were the agencies in this case.
Telepathy was never established in the early experiments of psychical research, yet something similar to telepathy (various names have been suggested) must be working to explain the results attained by the ESP experiments carried out over the last half century by parapsychologists. During the first generations of psychical research, many worked with the idea that the machinery of telepathy existed in the form of ethereal vibrations, or brain waves, acting in accordance with natural laws (al-though Gerald Balfour and others argued that the action did not conform to the law of inverse squares). The remnants of such material notions of telepathy were quickly disposed of by parapsychology.
The subject of hallucinations has also been investigated over the years, and has been found to be closely connected with the question of telepathy. Apparitions were in former times regarded as the double or ethereal body of the persons they represented, but they are now mainly considered to be subjective phenomena.
Nevertheless, the study of coincidental hallucinations, now termed near-death experiences, raises the question as to whether the agent can produce such a hallucination in the mind of the percipient by the exercise of telepathic influence, which may be judged to be more powerful during an emotional crisis.
Hallucinations have been shown to be fairly common among otherwise sane and normal people, about one person in ten having experienced one or more, but the odds that a hallucination will coincide with the death of the person it represents are about one in 19,000.
The SPR undertook a Census of Hallucinations in 1889. Henry Sidgwick and a committee of members of the society conducted the investigations, with Eleanor Sidgwick collating the results and writing the final report. Printed forms were distributed among 410 accredited agents of the society, including many medical men and others belonging to the professional classes, all of whom gave their services without fees in the interest of science.
In all, some 17,000 persons were questioned, and negative as well as affirmative answers were sent in just as they were received, the agents being instructed to make no discrimination between the various replies. Out of 8,372 men, 655 claimed to have had a hallucination, as did 1,029 out of 8,628 women—9.9 percent of the total. When ample allowance had been made for defects of memory with regard to early hallucinations by multiplying the 322 recognized and definite cases by 4, it was found that 62 coincided with a death; again making allowances, this number was reduced to 30.
Thus the survey results showed one coincidental hallucination in 43 instead of the expected one in 19,000. Clearly, then, if these figures are accepted, there must be some causal connection between the death and the apparition, whether it be a Spiritualist, telepathic, or other cause.
Apart from telepathy, perhaps the most interesting field of psychical research is automatism. Trance writings and utterances have been known since the earliest times, when they were attributed to demonic possession, or, sometimes, to angelic possession. By means of the planchette, the Ouija board, and other contrivances people were able to write automatically and divulge information they were unaware of possessing.
The phenomena are purely subjective, however, and are the result of cerebral dissociation such as may be induced in hypnosis. In this state, exaltation of the memory may occur, accounting for such phenomena as xenoglossis (speaking in foreign tongues with which the medium is not acquainted). Cerebral dissociation may also produce a sensitiveness to telepathic influences, as would seem apparent in the case of the medium Leonora Piper, whose automatic productions in writing and speaking supplied investigators with plentiful material and did more in the early twentieth century, perhaps, than anything else to stimulate an interest in so-called Spiritualist phenomena.
In connection with the "physical" phenomema—probably no less the result of automatism than the "subjective"—the Italian medium Eusapia Palladino was carefully studied by many eminent investigators, both in Great Britain and on the Continent. Camille Flammarion, Charles Richet, and Sir Oliver Lodge (to mention only a few) satisfied themselves with regard to the genuineness of some of her phenomena (although other equally eminent researchers dissented).
On the whole, even if psychical research has not succeeded in scientifically validating such matters as survival of death or the possibility of communication between the living and the dead, it can be credited with having widened the field of psychology and therapeutics and gaining support from the medical profession for the concept of suggestion.
In the United States, the American Society for Psychical Research, founded in 1885, and the Boston Society for Psychic Research, founded in 1925, were similar to the SPR of London. The American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) was founded on the initial suggestion of William F. Barrett with the active cooperation of Richard Hodgson. A number of distinguished scientists were involved, many at the request of William James, and the general attitude was at first somewhat skeptical toward psychical phenomena.
The first period of the old ASPR lasted for four years (1885-89), after which it was absorbed by the Society for Psychical Research, London. It was briefly dissolved following Hodgson's death in 1905, but was reconstituted in 1906 as Section B of the American Institute for Scientific Research, an organization that James H. Hyslop founded at Columbia University, where he taught. Section A was devoted to abnormal psychology. The name American Society for Psychical Research was not readopted until 1922.
After Hyslop's death in 1920, the work of the society was carried on by his assistant Walter Franklin Prince, who became director of research and edited the society's publications. In 1921 William McDougall, a noted psychologist, became president. He was succeeded the following year by Frederick Edwards, a clergyman.
During the 1920s there were strong policy dissensions within the society, sparked by the American tour of Spiritualist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle but substantively related to the controversial investigations of the mediumship of Mina S. Crandon, popularly known as "Margery." In 1925, complaining of shoddy work and a lack of professionalism, Prince, McDougall, El-wood Worcester, and Gardner Murphy led a group that split off from the ASPR and formed the Boston Society for Psychical Research, which existed through the 1930s. During this period the most substantive psychical research was carried on by the Boston Society; the ASPR continued to be preoccupied with the problem of the "Margery" mediumship.
From Psychical Research to Parapsychology
Meanwhile, beginning in the 1930s, a new phase in American psychical research was beginning, spearheaded by J. B.Rhine, whose experimental work at Duke University was encouraged by McDougall. This work involved using college students as subjects instead of mediums, with emphasis on statistical and scientific methods in evaluating experiments. Rhine's initial report, Extra-sensory Perception, published by the Boston Society in 1934, described 85,724 card-guessing trials. Rhine's work aroused a storm of controversy, and was attacked from every angle, most severely on methodological grounds. The sting of the controversy was removed in 1938 when the American Psychological Association (APA) upheld Rhine's testing procedures and his statistical method (if not his results). The APA report was confirmed by the American Institute of Mathematical Statistics, which issued this statement: "If the Rhine investigation is to be fairly attacked, it must be on other than mathematical grounds."
It was through the work of Rhine that the terms parapsychology, extrasensory perception, and psychokinesis became widespread. The Journal of Parapsychology was first published in 1937, and the Parapsychological Association was founded in 1957.
The work of Rhine and his associates established parapsychology—laboratory-based research on the paranormal—as a reputable field for scientific study. As another generation of researchers appeared, the boundary between parapsychology and the older concerns of psychical research became blurred. In the decades since World War II a new movement, in addition to the purely statistical studies, has embraced all the phenomena formerly associated with Spiritualist mediums, and the spontaneous phenomena of poltergeists and out-of-the-body travel has been reconsidered. In the 1970s and 1980s, a new wave of interest in psychokinesis was stimulated by widely heralded claims of psychic Uri Geller.
(Note: Developments in psychical research and parapsychology and their precursors in Continental Europe are dealt with under the headings of the various countries— France, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy.)
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