The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to conduct organised scholarly research into human experiences that challenge contemporary scientific models." It does not, however, since its inception in 1882, hold any corporate opinions: SPR members assert a variety of beliefs with regard to the nature of the phenomena studied.
Origins
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) originated from a discussion between journalist Edmund Rogers and the physicist William F. Barrett in autumn 1881. This led to a conference on 5 and 6 January 1882 at the headquarters of the British National Association of Spiritualists, at which the foundation of the Society was proposed.Oppenheim, Janet. (1988). The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850–1914. pp. 136–138. The committee included Barrett, Rogers, Stainton Moses, Charles Massey, Edmund Gurney, Hensleigh Wedgwood and Frederic W. H. Myers.Luckhurst, Roger. (2002). The Invention of Telepathy, 1870–1901. Oxford University Press. p. 51. The SPR was formally constituted on 20 February 1882 with philosopher Henry Sidgwick as its first president.Schultz, Bart. (2004). Henry Sidgwick: Eye of the Universe: An Intellectual Biography. Cambridge University Press. p. 276. McCorristine, Shane. (2010). Spectres of the Self: Thinking about Ghosts and Ghost-Seeing in England, 1750–1920. Cambridge University Press. p. 110. Alan Gauld, The Founders of Psychical Research (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968), p. 138.
The SPR was the first organisation of its kind in the world, its stated purpose being "to approach these varied problems without prejudice or prepossession of any kind, and in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned enquiry which has enabled science to solve so many problems, once not less obscure nor less hotly debated."Grattan-Guinness, Ivor. (1982). Psychical Research: A Guide to Its History, Principles and Practices: In Celebration of 100 Years of the Society for Psychical Research. Aquarian Press. p. 19. .
In 1882 Mary Everest Boole became the first female member of the SPR; however, she resigned after six months. Some other early members included the author Jane Barlow, the renowned chemist Sir William Crookes, physicist Sir Oliver Lodge, Nobel laureate Charles Richet, artist Lewis Charles Powles and psychologist William James.Christie, Drew. Societies for Psychical Research. In Michael Shermer. (2002). The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. ABC-CLIO. pp. 217–219.
Members of the SPR initiated and organised the International Congresses of Physiological/Experimental psychology.
Areas of study included hypnotism, dissociation, thought-transference, mediumship, Reichenbach phenomena, apparitions and haunted houses and the physical phenomena associated with séances.Thurschwell, Pamela. (2004). Literature, Technology and Magical Thinking, 1880–1920. Cambridge University Press. p. 16. McCorristine, Shane. (2010). Spectres of the Self: Thinking about Ghosts and Ghost-Seeing in England, 1750-1920. Cambridge University Press. p. 114. The SPR were to introduce a number of neologisms which have entered the English language, such as 'telepathy', which was coined by Frederic Myers.
The Society is run by a President and a Council of twenty members, and is open to interested members of the public to join. The organisation is based at 1 Vernon Mews, London, with a library and office open to members, and with large book and archival holdings in Cambridge University Library, Cambridgeshire, England. It publishes the peer-reviewed quarterly Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (JSPR), the irregular Proceedings and the magazine Paranormal Review. It holds an annual conference, regular lectures and two study days per year and supports the LEXSCIEN on-line library project.
Research The Society investigated "debatable phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric, psychical, and Spritualistic." It sought to approach such questions "without prejudice or prepossession of any kind, and in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry which has enabled Science to solve so many problems, once not less obscure nor less hotly debated."
Psychical research
Among the first important works was the two-volume publication in 1886, Phantasms of the Living, concerning telepathy and apparitions, co-authored by Gurney, Myers and Frank Podmore.Oppenheim, Janet. (1988). The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850–1914. pp. 141–142. This text, and subsequent research in this area, was received negatively by the scientific mainstream, though Gurney and Podmore provided a defence of the society's early work in this area in mainstream publications.Gurney, Edmund. (1887). Thought-transference. Science, 233–235.Gurney, Edmund. (1887). Thought-transference. National Review, 9, 437–439Gurney, Edmund. (1888). Hallucination of memory and ‘telepathy’. Mind, 13, 415–417.Podmore, Frank. (1892). "In Defense of Phantasms". The National Review. Vol. 19, No. 110. pp. 234–251Podmore, Frank. (1895). "What Psychical Research Has Accomplished". The North American Review. Vol. 160, No. 460. pp. 331–344
The SPR "devised methodological innovations such as randomized study designs" and conducted "the first experiments investigating the psychology of eyewitness testimony (Hodgson and Davey, 1887), [and] empirical and conceptual studies illuminating mechanisms of dissociation and hypnotism"
In 1894, the Census of Hallucinations was published which sampled 17,000 people. Out of these, 1,684 persons reported having experienced a hallucination of an apparition.Williams, William F. (2000). Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience: From Alien Abductions to Zone Therapy. Routledge. p. 49. Such efforts were claimed to have undermined "the notion of dissociation and hallucinations as intrinsically pathological phenomena".
The SPR investigated many spiritualist mediums such as Eva Carrière and Eusapia Palladino.Anderson, Rodger. (2006). Psychics, Sensitives and Somnambules: A Biographical Dictionary with Bibliographies. McFarland & Company. pp. 14–132.
During the early twentieth century, the SPR studied a series of automatic scripts and trance utterances from a group of automatic writers, known as the cross-correspondences.Edmunds, Simeon. (1966). Spiritualism: A Critical Survey. Aquarian Press. pp. 178–180.
Famous cases investigated by the Society include Borley Rectory and the Enfield Poltergeist.
In 1912 the Society extended a request for a contribution to a special medical edition of its Proceedings to Sigmund Freud. Though according to Ronald W. Clark (1980) "Freud surmised, no doubt correctly, that the existence of any link between the founding fathers of psychoanalysis and investigation of the paranormal would hamper acceptance of psychoanalysis" as would any perceived involvement with the occult. Nonetheless, Freud did respond, contributing an essay titled "A Note on the Unconscious in Psycho-Analysis"1912 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 26 (Part 66), 312–318. to the Medical Supplement to the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research.Keeley, James P. "Subliminal Promptings: Psychoanalytic Theory and the Society for Psychical Research." American Imago, vol. 58 no. 4, 2001, pp. 767–791. Project MUSE,
Exposures of fraud
Much of the society's early work involved investigating, exposing and in some cases duplicating fake phenomena. In the late 19th century, SPR investigations into séance phenomena led to the exposure of many fraudulent mediums.Moreman, Christopher M. (2010). Beyond the Threshold: Afterlife Beliefs and Experiences in World Religions. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. p. 163. "SPR investigators quickly found that many mediums were indeed, as skeptics had alleged, operating under cover of darkness in order to perpetrate scams. They used a number of tricks facilitated by darkness: sleight of hand was used to manipulate objects and touch people eager to make contact with deceased loved ones; flour or white lines would give the illusion of spectral white hands or faces; accomplices were even stashed under tables or in secret rooms to lent support in the plot... As the investigations of the SPR, and other skeptics, were made public, many fraudulent mediums saw their careers ruined and many unsuspecting clients were enraged at the deception perpetrated."
Richard Hodgson distinguished himself in that area. In 1884, Hodgson was sent by the SPR to India to investigate Helena Blavatsky and concluded that her claims of psychic power were fraudulent.Oppenheim, Janet. (1988). The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850–1914. pp. 175–176. However, in 1985 the original finding of fraud was questioned and reinvestigated by the SPR researcher Vernon Harrison, president of the Royal Photographic Society and an expert at detecting forgery. Harrison determined that "As an investigator, Hodgson is weighed in the balances and found wanting. His case against Madame H. P. Blavatsky is not proven."
In 1886 and 1887 a series of publications by S. J. Davey, Hodgson and Sidgwick in the SPR journal exposed the slate writing tricks of the medium William Eglinton.Oppenheim, Janet. (1988). The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850–1914. Cambridge University Press. pp. 139–140. Hodgson with his friend, S. J. Davey, had staged fake séances for educating the public (including SPR members). Davey gave sittings under an assumed name, duplicating the phenomena produced by Eglinton, and then proceeded to point out to the sitters the manner in which they had been deceived. Because of this, some spiritualist members such as Stainton Moses resigned from the SPR.
In 1891, Alfred Russel Wallace requested for the Society to properly investigate spirit photography."The Belief in Spirit Photography". Martyn Jolly. Eleanor Sidgwick responded with a critical paper in the SPR which cast doubt on the subject and discussed the fraudulent methods that spirit photographers such as Édouard Isidore Buguet, Frederic Hudson and William H. Mumler had utilised.Edmunds, Simeon. (1966). Spiritualism: A Critical Survey. Aquarian Press. p. 115. "The early history of spirit photography was reviewed by Mrs Henry Sidgwick in the Proceedings of the SPR in 1891. She showed clearly not only that Mumler, Hudson, Buguet and their ilk were fraudulent, but the way in which those who believed in them were deceived."
Due to the exposure of William Hope and other fraudulent mediums, Arthur Conan Doyle led a mass resignation of eighty-four members of the Society for Psychical Research, as they believed the Society was opposed to spiritualism.Nelson, G. K. (2013). Spiritualism and Society. Routledge. p. 159. Science historian William Hodson Brock has noted that "By the 1900s most avowed spiritualists had left the SPR and gone back to the BNAS (the London Spiritualist Alliance since 1884), having become upset by the sceptical tone of most of the SPR's investigations."Brock, William Hodson. (2008). William Crookes (1832–1919) and the Commercialization of Science. Ashgate Publishing. p. 206.
Criticism of the SPR The Society has been criticized by both spiritualists and skeptics.
Criticism from spiritualists