Psychical Research: 1880 - 1899 Memo: "The Oldfarm Series" Date: 9 March 2014 Scribe: Ronald Epp Psychologist William James published many papers on psychical research prior to his death in 1910. Of the many spiritualists and mediums that he encountered, Mrs. Leonora Piper intrigued him more than the others. George B. Dorr was allied with James in these investigations for more than two decades, both intent upon demonstrating the accuracy or inaccuracies of efforts to communicate with the deceased. On June 5, 1906, nearly five years after the death of Dorr's mother, Mary Gray Ward Dorr, Dorr questioned a medium at Oldfarm who claimed to a "control" or intermediary to Australian physician Richard Hodgson, deceased but a few months. Hodgson had been one of the foremost psychic researchers and was very familiar with Oldfarm and the Dorr family. George Dorr then tests the unnamed medium and in the process previously unknown aspects of life at Oldfarm are laid bare that will not be touched upon in Dorr's memoirs. Dorr adds his own comments to the published exchanged, inserted in brackets, which can be taken as historically accurate in part because they would have been reviewed and discussed later with William James. All quotes are those entered by G.B. Dorr. We had "a big buckboard that carried six people and was the only wagon which we had big enough to take all the people up [to town] the people used to go off from the kitchen, which is at an end of the house and cannot be seen from the living rooms or piazzas " " the piaazza itself, which in not a conspicuous object in the house from without, and which was only familiar to my mother's more intimate friends, is not a thing which would occur naturally to anyone not familiar with our life " "The [living][ room is one in which, the fireplace, broad and arching, is the central figure and would be first thought of in thinking of the room." [Storm Beach Cottage] "was across the lawn and garden upon a hillside opposite the house. We always kept some rooms in it for our guests, overflowing into it when the house was full." "We use to take long walks over the mountains and go down for a plunge when we returned from them. There were often three or more men or more going in it together when the house was full My bath-house was not on the beach, but on a point running far out into the sea, very bold and rocky, and we use to spring off the rocks into deep water, climbing out by a perpendicular ladder fastened to the ledge." On July 6, 1906 the inquiry resumes: oldform series- "My mother use to have pansies spread loosely over the tablecloth when she had people to dine or sup with us at Bar Harbor, where we had a large bed of them planted near the house SO we could get them freely for this purpose. " "A dozen years ago I made a bicycle-road on my own backland, which ran through the woods beneath a mountain over which we often used to walk. It was a pleasant and familiar feature of our summer life there." "[Minna Timmins Chapman} used to smoke cigarettes occasionally and was the only person of the feminine sex whom I now recall as having done SO at our house." "I used to carry a little canvas bag slung over my shoulder and a cup in it, when we went on long tramps. " Source: William James on Psychical Research. Compiled and Edited by Gardner Murphy M.D. and Robert O. Ballou (New York: Viking Press, 1960. Re-issued by Augustus M. Kelley, Clifton NJ, 1973). Pp. 150-158. Spiritualism. In the eighteen forties and fifties a good deal of interest was taken in Boston and elsehwere in the phenomena of spiritualism, as they were alleged to be. Whatever their cause might be, the phenomena at least seemed real; and if real, to open up new fields for study, new conceptions of existence. My father was interested, my mother too, and making trial had some experiences which it did not seem possible to explain in terms of the known facts of material existence. I knew nothing of these at the time --I was too young but they were told me later, and what my father told me I could not question; he was an excellent and cool observer. Years later I, chance throwing the opportunity in my way, experimente dmyself along the same line and equally arrived at no conclusions. A number of years after I graduated from Harvard, returning from some years abroad with a new phenomena of electricity awaken- ing my interest, I went out to the Jefferson Laboratory at Harvard where the professor of Physics in charge --Professor Trowbridge -- was an old acquaintance, and entered myself as a postgraduate student in one of his courses upon electricity. With a more mature mind than the other student 8 in the class, I sought to understand the principles governing the phenomena and, lingering along after the others had left, I asked him certain questions which he frankly told me he could not answer, and would think them over. I said that I should have thought they were questions his students would be asking constantly and familiar to him. "No", he said, "they Spiritualism =2 work at the problems set them, read what the text book says, and leave it there. Those who want to understand the philosophy of the matter are few; two or three in the year, perhaps, at most." "But", he added, "you are working along the wrong line! You want to know the theory of what happens and hang your facts upon it, al there is no theory; all that we know as yet are facts." This is the case also with what are temred the phenomena of spirituali all that we can hope to learn at the present time are facts; and all we can do is to learn whether they are genuine or not. For the whole study of these phenomena is complicated by endless frand For one thing, I made up my mind that there is communication be- neath the level of our consciousness between mind and mind, not made through any sense we know nor limited apparently by establish sense conditions. Yet, and "there's the rub", it is not 80 simple as that; one might understand one mind's acting on another, trans- mitting a name or thought; there are plenty of instances of that. But there are cases that seem beyond question where active, creative intelligence comes between and the thought taken from one person is dramatized, and not simply echoed, in coming from the other. What is that intermediate intelligence and how does it work? When we ask ourselves this, we have to recognize that we know literally nothing of consciousness in itself, neither where it is seated nor how it operates. It is one of the ultimates of existen Spiritualism -3 which there seems as yet no chance of reaching. It is one of Professor Trowbridge's "facts" and which we cannot even formulate a theory for it to hang upon. They are trying experiments now at Duke University on this very subject of thought transmission and have published within a few months results that so far as they have gone seem to postulate communication not limited by the time conditions of known electrical phenomena --which make light the ultimate of speed. Communication between distant points seems to be instantaneous and if it be our physicial science kn own no medium or agency through which such communication can take place. They are continuing with the investi- gation and if, as they believe, they can establish the facts it seems to make necessary the recognition of energies and forces, hidden from ordinary observation, but constantly in operation none the less, which followed further, may work a revolution in our conceptions of the universe. Another complication of these old phenomena of my father's time is that they relate not only to thought communication but seem to have been associated with physical movements, and move- ments directed apparently by some extraneous intelligence that can receive ideas and act on the matter. I remember one summer when we were in the Engadine in Switzer- land spending the summer, that I sat at table d'hote next my father's and mother's friend Mr. Benjamin F. Rotch of Boston, a man of unusual intelligence. He told me, speaking of the phenomena of that time, whid hihe, too, had been interested in, that one time Spiritualism -4 when a famou 8 medium a man, was in Boston, he and a small group of his personal friends, genteèmen who all knew each other well, met at his house in Boston together with this medium, no one else being present nor any possibility of a confederate; that the medium brought with him certain of the paraphernalia of the medium's trade - a large hand-bell, like a school bell, with a stout handle to it, and that this went flying about the room, while a heavy mahogany dining table in the room was draw apart where the leaves were inserted to enlarge it on occasion, and this bell in its gyrations thrust itself up, the handle rising through the space the table was rannapart, just wide enough to admit it, and that he grapsed it firmly in his hand, resting his fist upon the table either side, and said to the medium, "Now if your spirits will take that away from me, I'll believe there is something in it. If The medium replied that he did not know whether he could get this done but he would ask the controls and see. Mr. Rotch tole me that in a moment or two he felt a tiny pull upon the bell which made him laugh and ask if that were all that they could do, but he said the pull increased and increased till finally it drew the handle of the bell out of his grasp, supported by the table as it was, not as if some one were jerking it away but as though some great machine was quietly but irrestiatably pulling it from his grasp. If Mr. Rotch had been a man of impressionable character, and if no others had been present, or a confederate had been there, one might look for some normal explanation of what took place, but Spiritualia -5 he was not in the least of an emotional character and his experi- ence does not stand alone. Others have had a like, nor is any explanation offered. I recall his commenting upon it to me and saying that he was then, in the prime of his younger life, unusually muscular and strong; no man could have drawn that bell away from him without a jerk, a sudden pull, but the force that withdrew it from his hand was like that of some great machine. I have known of other instances in which heavy mahogany dining tables were moved about in private homes when a small group of friends, no medium being present, joined their fingertipa above it. The hands of all present being visible and the table moving in response to suggestions given by the people present. It all seems utterly meaningless but if there be truth at all anywhere it means that there are fo rdes at work, and forces not wholly dis-assoc iated from intelligence, which if we can learn more about them and bring them under the range of observation may alter our wholeconception of the universe. One of the things that happened in that first period of my father's and mother's interest in the subject was when they went on to New York to stay and dined out the first evening they were there where these matters were spoken of at table and an address given of a medium, a man named Foster, if I remember right, whom they said was remarkable. My father took down the name and the address and thought no more of it, but the following day he and my mother and a friend of my mother's who had come on with them, Spiritualism -6 were walking through the street when it suddenly occured to my father that they were passing the address he had written down the night before, and he suggested that they gotin and see if he were there and would give them a sitting, which they did. The man was there and some remarkable things took place. He did not go into a trance but seemed to pass into a state not wholly normal in which he carried on communications, according to his talk, with personalities and presences in another world. He asked my father to write down on a blank sheet of paper questions my father would like to ask and give him the paper, not letting him see what was written. This my father did folding the paper as he wrote and taking it where by no possibility could the medium read as he wrote, and folding the paper down as he wrote each question, to oover it from view. When he had asked his questions he took the folded paper and twisted it and tossed it over to the medium who took it up and held it in his hand and began to talk, answer- ing the questions categorically as my father had written them. What the questions were I do not remember but this I recall; that one of my uncles on my father's side, a half-brother of an older group, had recently died at our home in the country, my father caring for him to the end. Of him, as though present, my father asked one of the qestions he had written down, and when he came to this question the medium began to talk not as though talking himself--he was an illiterate man of common speech - but as my uncle, who was a noted scholar of a time when long-syllabled words and Johnsonian phrases were the custom among scholars, and Spiritualian =7 which my father said he could by no possibility imagine the medium could have used even if he had known my uncle. But a more cirious thing than this happened. The friend who had come on with my mother and father from Boston had been living abroad for years and while she was there she had become engaged to a Englishman. The engagement was never announced and my mother who knew her intimately had no knowledge of it. The man had died; the incident was closed. But at this seance the medium insisted that there was some one there, a man, whowished to sent a message. It me ant nothing to my father and mother and my mother's friend, if she realized what was coming, must have endeavored to avoid it, if avoidance were possible, but the medium, controlled as it were by this presence on the other side insisted and the name and the facts came out, much to the embarrass- ment of my mother's friend. What was said beyond the name and the fact of presence I do not recall, or if it were told me, but in some way the past which had meant so much to my mother's friend surged up and presented itself dramatically before her and before my mother and my father who had no knowledge whatever of it and from who se minds it could not in any way have come. Nor could the medium have had any knowledge of my mother's friend, for she and my father and mother had only come to the City the evening before and their coming in to see the medium was the merest chance, yet somehow the fact came out and came out dramatized as though the man she had loved was present. =8 Another time, earlier than this, my mother when she was living at Janaica Plain, and I was but a young child, too young to be told of it at the time, went at see a medium she had heard of, hoping possibly to get some word, if there were truth in it, of a brother who had lately died abroad and her hole thought in going was centered upon this, but a seeming personality in- truded itself in the talk of the medium on going into a trance, much to my mother's vexation who did her best to force it, - the personality that intruded on the trance - aside. But this person- ality - one doesn't know what name to give it other - insisted with reiteration that he had done my father a wrong in a business transaction connected with a bank and wished to tell him of his deep regret. My mother telling my father of this on her return home said "I might have thought it was so and so (referring to a matter of which she knew in part) but that he said it related to a bank and that affair had no connection with a bank." My father replied, "It all turned upon a bank; it was a bank transaction", and he was much impressed. The result of all which is that "there are more things in heaven and earth's Pition than thou has dreamt of in thy philosophy." [G.B.DORR] Automatic writing. Apart from the early delveopments of spiritualism in England and America in the eighteen forties and on, much interest was taken when I was a boy in what was called 'automatic writing and very curious things sometimes came from it. After my brother's death 1876 in New York, of a sudden fever while we were in England, my mother sought, if he still lived in spirit, if she might not get into communication with him, if only fragmentary and disjointed, through such writing, my father putting his hand on hers while she held the pencil. In this way during the following summer and after much was written which she believed might come from my brother, neither she nor my father knowing while the pencil wrote what was coming. Baseless or not, it was a help to my mother in a time 01 great need, for her bond with my brother had been exceedingly close and intimate. Much of the thought that came in this way, whatever its source was exceedingly interesting, not only to ay mother but to othera years afterward to whom she resd it. This automatic writing lead to hershowing kindness to the American Secretary of the English Psychical Research Socity, es- tablished in Boston by the English Society for investigation of mediums and experimental work. The 3nglish Society stood very high in its personel and aims. Men like Sir Oliver Lodge, one Writing =2 of the leading physicists in the world at that time, Sir Arthur Balfour and his sister, the wife of Professor Henry Sidgwick of Cambridge University, and other University men all took part in it, funds were raised and experiments carried on under strict scientific observation, and annual and semi-annual reports were published, all of a high grade, and commanding respect. Another of the world's great physicists, Sir Arthur Crookes, was actively interested in it and carried on experiments himself, not hesitating to come forward with his conclusion that there was real matter in it for careful study and hope of results which, if proven true, might be of infinite importance to the world. Another leadergin the formation and work of this society was Frederick Myers, son of a clergyman in the north of England and a University man himself and author of high standing. He was brought to it by a great tragedy in his own life in which some one very dear to him had died and of whose survival after death, if nothing more, he hoped to get evidence. Passionately interested and following up everycluer he wrote a book 'The Survival of Man', published only after years of work, in two stout volumes, which is the only really sound and authoritative work on the subject as a whole which has ever been published and contains material, well authenticated which is alike hard to accept and difficult to dis-credit. The man sent out from England to take up the work in America Richard Hodgson, was an Autralian by birth, a recent graduate of Cambridge University in England who first came into relation with Automatic Witing -3 the subject through an extraordinary experience of his own while he was still at the University, in connection with the sudden un-looked for death of a girl in Australia whom he was engaged to when he came out to England. His story of it, told me in convincing detail when he was staying with us once at Oldfarm I do not now recall but put it in the category of facts neither to be explained nor easily to be credited. Coming into contact with him, as did I, through William James, himself deeply interested in the work and in close touch concerning it with the English Society, my mother invited Mr. Hodgson down to stay with us at Oldfarm where he made long visits afterward and became intimate with us both, my mother and I. And through him in 18 we came into intimate relation also with Frederick Myers on his coming out to America to look up some of the phenomena Richard Hodgson had made report of to the Society, Myers coming out to stay with us at Oldfarm for a week or more when we took, with other friends whom we had staying with us, long late walks together and had much intimate talk. This was in the 1880's later eighteen eighties. In 1891 my father, mother and I went abroad for a year to spend the Winter on the Nile and the spring in Palestine and Greece, an exceedingly interesting trip. When 1891- we returned, reaching Boston in the early July 1892, where we 1892 stayed a day or two on our way to Bar Harbor, Richard Hodgson met us full of certain extraordinary experiences which had developed that winter and spring in which people we knew, some of them intimately, came intimately in and which Dr. Hodgeon (to give him his full academic title) regarded as convincing -definite proof Automatic Writing .4 of survival and immediate contact. Among the people most intimately concerned were Mrs. Perry, wife of Professor Thomas Perry- - grandson of Commander Perry, famous in our Navy annals - and his wife, daughter of one of the leading surgeons of my father's time Dr. Cabot, and sister of one of the leading surgeons of my own time in Boston, Dr. Arthur Cabot. The evidence con- cerned someone who had been exceedingly intimate in the Perry household and had died of an accident some months before. There were three daughters in the Perry family, the youngest of whom a child at that time eight years old, to whom this friend intimate in the house, had shown great kindness and who received her experiences, with the simplicity of a child, as perfectly natural happendings, not becoming in any way extited over them or seeking to draw attention to herself by telling of them, which I heard of directly only through her mother, though her whole family, her father included, believed in implicitly. It was one of those durious cases which lend themselves to no explanation, can be credited with difficulty, yet seem impossible to reject. Such phenomena cannot be produced at will and much evidence must be forthcoming before the age-long experi- ence of man-kind in contradiction can be overturned. The phenomena ceased; too much publicity could not be given to the matter on the family's account and though it roused great interest in England when reported out by Dr. Hodgson to the Psychical Research Society, it passed into the general gathering of material which neither could be explained away nor accepted assevidential. It had, however, a Automatic Writing -5 profuono effect upon Dr. Hodgson in relation to his further work, for he was 80 convinced of the truth of it as establishing evi- dence of survival that he deased to doubt and took a less critical attitude toward later developments, some of which I was frankly convinced myself must have come from the mediums own mind, the medium through whom Dr. Hodgson was working at that time and con- tinued to work with till he died a few years afterward, being one famous in the general investigations of the subject. The child to whom these extraordinary phenomena came and who received them so naturally and unhesitatingly became the wife when she grew up of Joseph Grew distinguished in the United States Diplomatic Service, at one time Ambassador to Japan, at another to Turkey and Ambassador now to Italy. Her father, Thomas Perry, was Professor of English Literature at Harvard, a writer of note and professor later of Philosophy, on the invita- tion of the Japanese Government, at the University of Tokyo for two years. He, like his wife, believed without question in the genuinensss and veridical character of these phenomena, which were not the only ones that had taken place in the family. I remember Mrs. Perry telling me of this same child when, still younger, telling her, when they were out in their house in the country which had been the home before them of Mrs. Perry's father, of a kind old lady coming in to sit by her bedside till she went asleep, whom as she told it her mother recognized as describing, unmistarably to her, her own mother, the child's grandmother who Automatic Writing =6 had lived there before them. The child showed no excitement over it but took it up on the basis of an actual happending; the lady had come and sat by her and she was a kind lady whom she had liked to have there. Twower three times afterward the same figure appeared to the child in the same way, then C ame no more. Mrs. William James the wife of Professor William James of Harvard had also certain remarkable experiences which she told me of, in one of which her daughter, Margaret or Peggy, had re- ceived a message, through some medium that Richard Hodgson was investigating, from her aunt, William James' sister, who had died not long before and wished, as I recall it, to have given in remembrance of her certain family property. The details of it have passed from my mind but of the extraordinary character of the communication, whatever its source might be, remains vividly impressed upon my mind. Mrs. James was an extraordinarily good 'sitter', seldom going to visit Dr. Hodgson without getting some- thing of exceptional interest, while William James himself, more interested than she to get matter of scientific value, was himself a poor 'sitter', seldom getting phénomena of the type he sought. And knowing them both as well as I did, it seemed to me natural it should be so. [Mrs. James had a restful, naturally receptive character which could but fail, if there were anything genuins in the penomena, to bring it out, while William James with his restless, actively questioning mind would have just the opposite effecting getting resalts dependent upra the establishment in any form of a sympathetic reaction [g.B.DoRR] 5/20/2019 Society for Psychical Research - Wikipedia Coordinates: 51.49414°N 0.21036°W WIKIPEDIA Society for Psychical Research The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) Society for Psychical is a nonprofit organisation in the United Research Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the PSYCHICAL "first society to conduct organised scholarly FOR research into human experiences that challenge contemporary scientific models. "[1] It does not, however, since its inception in 1882, hold any corporate opinions: SPR IS members assert a variety of beliefs with regard to the nature of the phenomena studied. [2] Est. 1882 Abbreviation SPR Contents Formation 1882 Origins Legal status Non-profit Research organisation Psychical research Purpose Parapsychology Exposures of fraud Location 1 Vernon Mews, Criticism of the SPR Criticism from spiritualists West Kensington, Criticism from sceptics London W14 ORL Presidents Region Worldwide served Publications Proceedings of the Society for Membership Psi researchers Psychical Research President Prof Chris Roe Journal of the Society for Psychical Research Main organ SPR Council Paranormal Review Website SPR (https://www.s Other societies pr.ac.uk/) See also References External links 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 the 5 and 6 January 1882 at the headquarters of the British National Association of Spiritualists which the foundation of the Society was proposed. [3] The committee included Barrett, Rogers, Stainton Moses, Charles Massey, Edmund Gurney, Hensleigh Wedgwood and Frederic W. H. Myers. [4] The SPR was formally constituted on the 20 February 1882 with philosopher Henry Sidgwick as its first president. [5][6][7] Henry Sidgwick, first president of the SPR 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. "[8] Other early members included the author Jane Barlow, [9] the renowned chemist Sir William Crookes, physicist Sir Oliver Lodge, Nobel laureate Charles Richet and psychologist William James. [10] Members of the SPR initiated and organised the International Congresses of Physiological/Experimental psychology. [11][12] Areas of study included hypnotism, dissociation, thought-transference, mediumship, Reichenbach phenomena, apparitions and haunted houses and the physical phenomena associated with séances. [11][13][14] The SPR were to introduce a number of neologisms which have entered the English language, such as 'telepathy', which was coined by Frederic Myers. [15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Psychical_Research 2/17 Proceedings I (1882-1883), Constitution and Rules. 331 ciates, Honorary and Corresponding Members. RUSSEL, F.R.G.S., Nutwood Cottage, Frith Hill, 7, Weymouth-street, Portland-place, London, W. CONSTITUTION AND RULES, Sion-hill, Clifton, Bristol. A., Addenbrook Villa, Love-lane, Stourbridge. As revised at the General Meeting, January 19, 1883. , M.A., Newent Rectory, Gloucestershire. AY E., A.I.C.E, 20, Upper Phillimore-gardons, TITLE. ondon, W. 1. -The name of the Society is The Society for Psychical Research. OBJECTS. 2.-The objects for which this Society is established are :- (a) To unite students and inquirers in an organised body, with the view of promoting the investigation of certain obscure phenomena, including those commonly known as Psychical, Mesmeric, or Spiritualistic and of giving publicity to the results of such research. (b) To print, sell, or otherwise distribute publications on Psychical and kindred subjects to afford information to inquirers into these subjects by correspondence and otherwise to collect and arrange facts respecting them ; to open Libraries, Reading-rooms, and other suitable Premises and Offices ; and generally to do all such other things as may be conducive to the attainment of the above objects. NOTE.- - prevent misconception, it is here expressly stated that Membership of the 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. GOVERNMENT. 3.-The Society shall be governed by a Council consisting of twenty-four members. The Council shall elect from amongst the Members of the Society a President, who shall be President of the Society, and an ex-officio Member of the Council and of all Committees, and who shall retire from office yearly at the first Meeting of the Council after the Annual General Meeting of the Members of the Society. He shall, however, be eligible for re-election, and shall be deemed as retaining his offices until he shall have been re-elected or his successor appointed, provided that no President shall hold the office for more than three years consecutively. The Council shall also from time to time elect Vice-Presidents, who shall be ex-officio Honorary Members of the Society, and who shall have the privilege of being present at any of the Meetings of the Council. Anomalies Article: Society for Psychical Research Page 1 of 3 Click Here Your Last Name: Anomalies Society for Psychical Research Disclaimer A Brief History The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was founded in London in 1882 by Sir William Barrett and Edmund Dawson Rogers because of their interests in Spiritualism and their desire for an organization to conduct research of its related phenomena -- ghosts, trance states, telepathy, etc. The initial organization was composed mainly of enthusiastic Spiritualists, but at the core was an experienced team of paranormal investigators, the so-called "Sidgwick Group." The Sidgwick Group consisted of Henry Sidgwick, Frederic W.H. Myers, Edmund Gurney, Walter Leaf, Lord Raleigh, Arthur Balfour and his sisters Eleanor (who married Sidgwick in 1876) and Evelyn (Lady Raleigh), among others all members were wealthy with plenty of time to perform their investigations. This informal group had originally been formed in 1874 for the purpose of investigating mediums and Spiritualistic seances, and had exposed many frauds as well as witnessing many occurances they could never explain. It was natural for the newly formed SPR to ask this group to join, and Henry Sidgwick became the first president of the Society, an office he held for nine years. Six research committees were formed within the SPR, each to study a particular aspect of Spiritualistic and psychical phenomena: 1) Thought transference, later re-named telepathy by Myers. 2) Mesmerism, hypnotism, clairvoyance, and related phenomena. 3) "Sensitives" and "mediums", being people with the ability to communicate with the dead. 4) Apparitions of all types. 5) Levitations, materializations, and other physical phenomena associated with seances. 6) The collection and collation of data on the history of the above subjects. The SPR, partially because of the social standing of members of the original Sidgwick Group, attracted the attention of many an eminent personage such as physicist and chemist William Crookes (president of the SPR 1896-1899), author and physicist Sir Oliver Lodge (president of the SPR 1901- 1904), author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (member 1894-1930), philosopher William James (president of the SPR 1894-1895), and psychologists Sigmund Freud and Carl G. Jung. William James was SO impressed with the early SPR, in fact, that he helped found an american version of the SPR in 1884- 1885 (there is some disagreement in my sources as to the exact year) with the name of the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR). In 1886, there was dissension in the ranks of the SPR. The membership had broken into two interest groups, the intellectuals and the Spiritualists, each of which thought the other was not helping the overall cause. By 1887, a large number of the Spiritists had left the organization, leaving the intellectuals in command. Also in 1887, Richard Hodgson, a university pupil of Henry Sidgwick, traveled to America to run the affairs of the ASPR despite this (or perhaps because of it), in 1889, http://anomalyinfo.com/articles/ga00006.shtm 9/5/2003 Anomalies Article: Society for Psychical Research Page 2 of 3 due to financial difficulties, the ASPR became an affiliate of the original SPR. By 1900, the SPR had produced over 11,000 pages of reports and articles, as well as a book that was written and published by members: Phantasms of the Living, by Gurney, Myers, and Frank Podmore (another founding member of the SPR), which was published in 1886 and dealt with reports of hallucinations, apparitions, and telepathy. By 1905 the key members of the early Sidgwick Group had died: Gurney in 1888, Sidgwick in 1900, Myers in 1901, and Hodgson in 1905 but this didn't mean they were out of the picture. First off, a book written by Myers was published posthumously; Human Personality and the Survival of Bodily Death (1903). Secondly, to try and prove the point of Myer's book, almost all reportedly continued to communicate with members of the SPR through mediums. All, that is, but Sidgwick; who had been the most skeptical about the possibility of life after death. In 1906, the ASPR was once again reorganized as an independent group. Eleanor Sidgwick became president of the SPR in 1908-1909, was appointed honorary secretary from 1910-1931, and finally, in 1932, was appointed president d'honneur in 1932. The SPR still exists; the organization's current fields of study are: Inquiry into all forms of paranormal cognition (ESP, clairsentience, verdical hallucinations). Inquiry into all forms of paranormal motion and action (poltergeist, levitation, teleportation). Inquiry into altered states of conciousness (sleep & dreams, hypnotism, out-of-body experiences). Inquiry into mediumship and related phenomena (automatic writing, spirit communication). Investigation of evidence for survival after death and reincarnation. Investigation of all other phenomena that appear to be scientifically impossible. Investigation of the social psychological aspects of all such phenomena, within and across cultural boundaries. Development of new ways of thinking concerning the application of accepted scientific theories to the findings of the above research. In addition to the above stated areas of study, the SPR also studies psi phenomena as it relates to medicine, healing, psychiatry, philosophy, anthropology, biology, folklore, and history. The SPR has no research laboratory, and expresses no collective opinions; the findings of its researchers are published in the SPR's Journal and Proceedings, while informal articles appear in their Newsletter and Newsletter Supplement. Membership is international; find out more at their web site at http://moebius.psy.ed.ac.uk/spr.html. See Also: Anomalies Article: Spiritualism Sources: Biographical Dictionary of Prarpsychology, Garrett Publications, 1964 Helix Press. Harper's Encyclopedia of Mystical & Paranormal Experience, Rosemary Ellen Guiley, 1991 HarperCollins Publishers Inc. Please take your turn on the love meter! click for detais http://anomalyinfo.com/articles/ga00006.shtml 9/5/2003 5/20/2019 American Society for Psychical Research - Wikipedia WIKIPEDIA American Society for Psychical Research The American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) is an American Society for organisation dedicated to parapsychology based in New York City, Psychical Research where it maintains offices and a library. It is open to interested members of the public to join, and has a website. It also publishes the Abbreviation ASPR quarterly Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research. [1] Formation 1884 Legal status Non-profit organization Contents Purpose Parapsychology History Location 5 West 73rd Street, Splinter group New York City, 10023 Founders See also Region North America served References Membership Psychical Further reading researchers External links Main organ Journal of the American Society History for Psychical Research It was William Fletcher PROCEEDINGS Affiliations Society for Barrett's visit to America that American Society for Psychical Research Psychical Research ultimately led to the formation Vol. 1. of the American Society for Website JULY. 1883. No. 1 www.aspr.com (htt OFFICERS FOR THE YEAR $681.88 Psychical Research in http://www.aspr.com/) Perfect KIMOX NEWCOME n.c. Time December, 1884. [2] Barrett was Professor TAXEMS Bala, Jiles Problement Eine LINE Procession Har- Hajarian Califordiy said College Determinatory Professor Ground & 2ke Steven P. Bokberr. Barrasi Unitemity of Medical Ballock invited by several members of the American Association for the Dr. CHARLES & Miser, Hander Medical Behalf Transmet Preferent WATER Koltan Advancement of Science. He persuaded intellectuals such as Edward Leader x 2X c 10 199104 Street, Main Charles Pickering, Simon Newcomb, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Officers for the SPR (1884- Pickering Bowditch and William James that the claims of psychical 1885) phenomena should be investigated scientifically. [2] The first meetings of the society were held in the rooms of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. [3] The founding members who were also the first Vice-Presidents were G. Stanley Hall, George Stuart Fullerton, Edward Charles Pickering, Henry Pickering Bowditch and Charles Sedgwick Minot. [4] Other founding members were Alpheus Hyatt, N. D. C. Hodges, William James and Samuel Hubbard Scudder. [5] The mathematician Simon Newcomb was the first President.[6] Other early members included the psychologists James Mark Baldwin, Joseph Jastrow, and Christine Ladd- Franklin. [7][8] Initial research findings were discouraging. [9] By 1890, members such as Baldwin, Hall, Jastrow and Ladd-Franklin had resigned from the society. [8] Hall and Jastrow became outspoken critics of Psychological Association. [11] Richard Hodgson joined the ASPR in 1887 to serve as its secretary.l¹ In 1889, Fullerton, James and Josiah Royce were Vice-Presidents and Samuel Pierpont Langley served as President. [4] In 1889, a financial crisis forced the ASPR to become a branch of the Society for Psychical Research, and Simon Newcomb and others left. [13] Following the death of Hodgson in 1905 it achieved independence once more. [14] In 1906, James H. Hyslop took up the position as secretary of the recreated organization, with the work being done at his residence in New York City. He once wrote his son, "My work is missionary, not mercenary." The intended name for the new organization was, "The American Institute for Scientific Research" which Hyslop had organized into two sections for the investigation of two separate fields: "A" was to deal with psychopathology or abnormal psychology. Its Section "B" was to be concerned with what Hyslop called "supernormal psychology" or parapsychology. Section "A" never got off the ground. But Section "B" became the new and reorganized ASPR. One of the Institute's aims was to organize and endow investigations into telepathy, clairvoyance, mediumship, and kinetic phenomena. This work was to be carried out by "B. "[16] The society remained in New York, where it remains as of 2015. During this period the ASPR was heavily involved in the investigation of medium Leonora Piper about whom William James would famously declare in 1890: "To upset the conclusion that all crows are black, there is no need to seek demonstration that no crow is black; it is sufficient to produce one white crow; a single one is sufficient." Since his proclamation of Piper as his "one White Crow", the concept of the single "White Crow" has become a cliché in psychical re-search. [17] After evaluating sixty-nine reports of Piper's mediumship William James considered the hypothesis of telepathy as well as Piper obtaining information about her sitters by natural means such as her memory recalling information. According to James the "spirit-control" hypothesis of her mediumship was "somewhat incoherent, ambiguous, irrelevant, and, in some cases, demonstrably false-at best only circumstantial.' "[18] However, G. Stanley Hall believed Piper's mediumship had an entirely naturalistic explanation and no telepathy was involved. Hall and Amy Tanner, who observed some of the trances, explained the phenomena in terms of the subconscious mind harboring various personalities that pretended to be spirits or controls. In their view, Piper had subconsciously absorbed information that she later regurgitated as messages from "spirits" in her trances. [19] On June 20, 1906, the ASPR had 170 members and by the end of November 1907, it had 677. [16] Hereward Carrington became a member of the ASPR in 1907 and an assistant to James Hyslop until 1908, during which time he established his reputation as an ASPR investigator. However his connection with the ASPR ceased due to lack of funds.1 Carrington was the author the book The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism which exposed the tricks of fraudulent mediums. [20] According to Arthur Conan Doyle, Carrington was not popular with spiritualists. [21] James Hyslop died in 1920, and immediately strife broke out between the membership as the Society divided into two factions, one broadly pro-Spiritualism, indeed often Spiritualists, and the other "conservative" faction favoring telepathy and skeptical of 'discarnate spirits' as an explanation for the phenomena studied, or simply skeptical of the phenomena's existence. [22] In 1923 a prominent Spiritualist, Frederick Edwards, was appointed President, and the conservative faction led by Gardner Murphy and Walter Franklin Prince declared that the Society was becoming less academic. [23] In the same year the ASPR lost 108 members. New members joined the society and William McDougall a past President and Prince both became alarmed at the number of "credulous spiritualists" that joined the ASPR. [25] In 1925 Edwards was reappointed President, and his support of the mediumistic claims of 'Margery' (Mina Crandon) led to the 'conservative' faction leaving and forming the rival Boston Society for Psychical Research in May, 1925. From this point on the ASPR remained highly sympathetic to Spiritualism until 1941, when the Boston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Society_for_Psychical_Research 2/6 1885 American Society for Psychical Research Page 1 of 10 3 1885 Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research (Boston), July: 1-4; 52- 54. The American Society for Psychical Research: formation, officers, members, and associates. AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH OFFICERS FOR THE YEAR 1884-85. President. Professor Simon Newcomb, Washington, D.C. Vice-Presidents. Professor G. Stanley Hall, Johns Hopkins University Professor George S. Fullerton, University of Pennsylvania Professor Edward C. Pickering, Harvard College Observatory Dr. Henry P. Bowditch, Harvard Medical School Dr. Charles S. Minot, Harvard Medical School Treasurer. Professor William Watson, Boston Secretary. N. D. C. Hodges, 19 Brattle Street, Cambridge, Mass. FORMATION OF THE SOCIETY. At a meeting held in Boston, Sept. 23, 1884, to consider the advisability of the formation of a society for psychical research in America, the whole matter was placed in the hands of a committee of nine, consisting of Dr. G. Stanley Hall of Johns Hopkins University, Professor E. C. Pickering, director of the Harvard College Observatory; Dr. H. P. Bowditch and Dr. C. S. Minot, of the Harvard Medical School; Mr. S. H. Scudder, president, and Professor Alpheus Hyatt, curator, of the Boston Society of Natural History; Professor William James of Harvard College; Professor William Watson of Boston; and Mr. N. D. C. Hodges of Cambridge. This committee held a number of meetings during the months of October and November, and issued an invitation to a number of scientific men throughout the country to join in a society under a constitution upon which the committee had decided. To this invitation there were favorable replies http://www.spirithistory.com/85aspr.html 9/9/2003 1885 American Society for Psychical Research Page 2 of 10 from about eighty. NOTE-Branch societies have been formed in New York and Philadelphia. The first meeting of the society was held in Boston on the 18th of December, at which much of the necessary work of organization was accomplished; and at an adjourned meeting, held in Boston Jan. 8, 1885, the organization of the society was completed. The Committee on Work, or suggestions as to possible work, sent out circulars to the members of the society, calling for volunteers as members of the investigating committees, and received a number of answers, the most of which were from those specially interested in thought-transference; and the committee recommended the appointment of a sub-committee on that subject. They also suggested that a circular should be issued by the society, describing the methods of making experiments in thought-transference, and pointing out the precautions to be taken. Such a committee was appointed by the Council, and issued a circular (NO. 4). It is the first report of this committee on thought-transference, which makes up the larger part of this the first number of the proceedings. The report was presented at the third meeting of the society, held in Boston, June 4, 1885. With this report are also published the various circulars which have been issued by the society, as showing what methods have been employed to accomplish the objects of the society. CIRCULAR NO. 1. ISSUED BY THE COUNCIL. At a meeting held in Boston, Sept. 23, for the purpose of considering the advisability of forming a Society for Psychical Research in America, a committee with full powers was appointed; and under its auspices THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH has been organized, and is now in a position to invite the adhesion of members. The aims of the English society of similar name can be best understood from the following extracts from its printed proceedings: "The Society for Psychical Research was formed in the beginning of 1882, for the purpose of making an organized and systematic attempt to investigate that large group of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as 'mesmeric,' "psychical," and 'spiritualist.' 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, amidst much illusion and deception, an important body of remarkable phenomena, which are prima facie inexplicable on any generally recognized hypothesis, and which, is 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 organized on a sufficiently broad basis. "The aim of the Society is to approach these various problems without prejudice or http://www.spirithistory.com/85aspr.html 9/9/2003 1885 American Society for Psychical Research Page 3 of 10 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. The founders of this Society fully recognize the exceptional difficulties which surround this branch of research; but they nevertheless hope that, by patient and systematic effort, some results of permanent value may be attained." The following are among the subjects which have been intrusted to special committees: "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. "2. The study of hypnotism, and the forms of so-called mesmeric trance (with its alleged insensibility to pain), clairvoyance, and other allied phenomena. "3. A critical revision of Reichenbach's researches with certain organizations called 'sensitive,' and an inquiry whether such organizations possess any power of perception beyond a highly exalted sensibility of the recognized sensory organs." The following are the officers of the English society: President, Professor Henry Sidgwick; Vice-Presidents, Arthur J. Balfour, M.P., Professor W. F. Barrett, Rt. Rev. the Bishop of Carlisle, John R. Holland, M.P., Richard H. Hutton, the Rev. W. Stainton Moses, the Hon. Roden Noel, Professor Lord Rayleigh, Professor Balfour Stewart, and Hensleigh Wedgwood. Professor Barrett, who was present at the preliminary meeting in Boston, after reading the brief outline of the objects of the English society, as given above, made the following statement of the results already obtained: "Once the Society's work begun, a stream of testimony set in, and offers of evidence were many. Every possibility of error suggested by experience and ingenuity was eliminated. The experiments made in the last two years by members of the Society will carry conviction, I think, to every candid mind. Many tests were made in which the subject reproduced a diagram or drawing of which some other person thought. The other committees of the Society have studied the subjects assigned to them with great assiduity, and have obtained a vast amount of information and data. The work of sifting out of the mass of errors, misconceptions, and ignorance, which usually surround such stories, the data which may serve for scientific purposes, is an intensely interesting one. Of course persons who take up the matter must expect no little ridicule, and perhaps some abuse. But out of alchemy came chemistry; and out of astrology, astronomy. There may be much in these extraordinary accounts of second-sight, thought-reading, apparitions, and SO forth, fit only to ridicule; but if there are any facts at the bottom, we want to find them." The Council of the American society feel that the evidence published by the English society is of a nature not to be ignored by scientific men, especially where the alleged facts would, if real, permit verification, and the conditions allow control. In other branches of human experience, the publication of observations, made with as much apparent care, and under such distinguished auspices, immediately invites many http://www.spirithistory.com/85aspr.html 9/9/2003 1885 American Society for Psychical Research Page 4 of 10 careful students to the work of corroboration or disproof. The personal ability and character of the English investigators, and the accuracy of their methods, if they do not compel the doubter forthwith to believe their conclusions, seem at least to make it impossible for him dogmatically to deny them, without support from something more solid than general presumptions about the order of nature, and the fallibility of human testimony. The Council of the American society therefore feels that the duty can be no longer postponed of systematically repeating observations similar to those made in England, with a view to confirming them if true, to definitely pointing out the sources of error in them if false. If true, they are of value, and the tracing of their limits becomes a scientific duty. If false, no time should be lost in publishing their refutation; for, if allowed long to stand uncontradicted, their only effect will be to re-enforce powerfully the popular drift toward superstition. The Council therefore begs all persons to whom this circular is sent, who agree with these practical conclusions, and who believe that the exact study of this border-land of human experience is an urgent scientific need, to send in their names to the secretary of the society. COUNCIL OF THE SOCIETY. To hold office till October, 1885. Prof. G. F. Barker, Philadelphia Rev. C. C. Everett, Cambridge Mr. Samuel H. Scudder, Cambridge Mr. Coleman Sellers, Philadelphia Mr. Moorfield Storey, Boston Prof. John Trowbridge, Cambridge (Resigned) Prof. William Watson, Boston To hold office till October, 1886. Dr. Henry P. Bowditch, Boston Mr. C. C. Jackson, Boston Col. T. W. Higginson, Cambridge Mr. N. D. C. Hodges, Cambridge Dr. Charles S. Minot, Boston Prof. Simon Newcomb, Washington Mr. W. H. Pickering, Boston To hold office till October, 1887. Prof. G. S. Fullerton, Philadelphia Prof. William James, Cambridge Prof. G. Stanley Hall, Baltimore Prof. James M. Peirce, Cambridge Prof. E. C. Pickering, Cambridge Mr. R. Pearsall Smith, Philadelphia Major A. A. Woodhull, New York http://www.spirithistory.com/85aspr.html 9/9/2003 Ed additions. Jan 25,2020 RH Epp DICTATHONE. May 29th. CONTINUING DICTATION TO MRS. STOVER. of sitter Another at this time with the same medium citizens. William Romaine (1865-1926) whom we will call z, was Prof. Newbold of the University (Latin, not Greek) of ennsylvania. He was Prof. there of Greek but (1896) had recently been appointed when I knew him Dean of the ^ University and feared, if his name appeared in connection psychical with research phenomena that it might discredit him at the University, so his name was kept out of the as were Societtes report, published in England, ALLA those also of the Perry family, so they had no hésitation on talking of the matter and coming squarely out in affirmation 22 of their aptitude conviction of the ganuity of the phenomena on a survival basis. Prof. Newbold came on from Philadelphia to make trial of the medium, and stayed with Dr. . Hodgdon 3 in his rooms on Charles Street Boston. What he got I do not know. He did not tell me and I did not ask, but it was to him absolutely convincing. This was later by some ten years than travels what Dr. Hodgdon waited in Boston to tell of us on our 1891.92 return from a winter on the Nile. And but for my mother's interest which kept me still in touch with 90 Dr. Hodgkin's work of which he came in frequently to tell her, I had dropped out completely from pursuing at 2. TS the investigation. Then Dr. Hodgdon, active and athletic and a fellow member at the Tavern Club, (1905) fell dead suddenly while playing handball and Prof. James, then become president of the English psychical Research Society because of the importance they gave to the work being done in America and his own distinction, asked me as knowing something of the work and Dr. Hodgdon personally, to take charge of straightening things out till someone would be got over from England to do it. This I did, and it proved an exceedingly trying job/ Dr. Hodgdon, convinced by the evidence / he had got, had taken the communications that came to him from the controls on the basis of reality and had given that impression to a widely scattered group of sitters for sittings believing, like himself, in the r eality of the communication and they had talked 8 freely, as had Dr. Hodgdon also, of personal and private matters, trusting to Dr. Hodgdon's assurance that S all would be kept strictly private. Dr. Hodgdon had also taken over for the Society the entire time of Mrs. z, the medium, limiting her sittings strictly in number that she might come fresh to her work and, which advaning the charge for sittings to the point sufficed for her and her family's support. This 3. gave sitters, paying on this basis for their sittings, a better right to have what they got, taken down by Dr. Hodgdon, who, when no one else, was present at the sitting, a further claim to an invidiability. But, James H. looking at the matter from another angle, Dr. Hyslop (1854-1920) of New York, carrying on independent investigations into the subjects wished to be appointed in Dr. S Hodgdon's place for the purpose of giving all the 5 record whose privacy Dr. Hodgdon had assured, to the public as purely scientific material, which no one had a right to hold back. And because to Prof. James would not support him in his claim, he threatened a public attack in the newspaper which would certainly have arcused interest in the subject And, to further complicate the situation, Dr. Hodgdon's secretary, employed by the English Society, who had helped him to transcribe the sittings had come in contact with the sitters personally, felt that she and no one else whould be placed in charge of the records. which, as the work had now been going on for years, had reached a formidable bulk. DR. . Hodgdon's family in Australia was catered to S by William James and I, of whom they knew through 4. James his long stays with us at Oldfarm, happily reported to them, was asked to become his executor and take charge of what was private in the records. In the meantime, the English P Research Soc. made me, sched at / James's suggestion, the Vice-president of the Society and put me in charge of their interest in Dr. Hodgdon's records. This, in view of the private nature of the material and the complication over what the rights of the society were and what those of the sitters and Dr. Hodgdon personally, I undertook only on condition that William James's oldest son, now grown to manhood, were made co-executive and took over personally as such Dr. Hodgdon's papers. This was done. The sittings, on which Mrs. Z depended for her support in accordance with her arrangement with Dr. Hodgdon, continued under my general direction, bringing me into personal contact with the sitters. In this way I came to know personally those who had 5 been given sittings by Dr. Hodgdon and made some interesting friends, some of the sitters coming for their occasional sittings, which they valued highly from as far away as Philadelphia and Chicago, all 5. concerned for intimate and personal reasons, far more than important to them than the gathering of scientific evidence, in their meetings with the controls. One of these was / Prof. Newbold of whom I have spoken, who told me of his earlier coming on A1XX/111 to stay with Dr. Hodgdon and make experiment of the medium -- an experiment, as I have said, that resulted in his complete conviction of reality in the communication. Prof. Newbold, though he did not tell me what he had got in his sittings when he stayed with Dr. Hodgdon that led him to conviction of reality in the communication, told me of one curious thing that happened on that visit. Mrs. z, the medium, lived with her family in a house, not in Boston but a neighboring town, which Dr. Hodgdon had rented for her and where the sittings were held. One went out by train. In the course of their first sitting on this occasion some non-sensical things were said by an includering person- ality breaking on the sitting, which vexed them at the time but amused them when they came to read the record of the sitting over the next morning before returning, again by train, for a second sitting. Having read the record over they had only just time to catch their 6. train, driving to the station. Prof. Newbold was S staying with Dr. Hodgdon in his rooms on Charles St. and it was there the record was read over as they breakfasted. When they got to the medium's house, taking a train out, the same personality that had appeared before immediately turned wide again and S reproached D_. Bodgion for His and laughter over what be - this personality - had said during the medium's trance the day before. There WES no exclanation for it along normal lines of comonicstion. 11/144/1111 In some WET the the including control had become state of what had taken place in Dr. room immediately they left to catch their train, send there had been DO one in H. the room beside then. It seemed E clear case of swareness at a distance, of which indeed there are = well instances. The English secretary came and I turned Dr. @ Hodgdon's papers over to bi= to be carried over, sealed, to England and exe-ined et England if anyone had time to study them :- without which all is valueless, Evidently, unless to the sitter. And I was struck by the freedom given 7. by the sitters to a control so doubtful and so little known. Now and again what seemed a real figure from the beyond was thrown upon the screen of the medium sub-normal consciousness, trance- conscious, and played a seemingly genuine part. In general, the controls were psychilogies shams, phases evidently of the medium's sub-comscióus mind -- whatever mind can be that is sub-conscious. R It was with a feeling of great relief that I committed the papers and the medium, both, to the care of the English secretary, Mr. [John george] Hiddmitton, who disappeared from my horizon. (1901) Frederick Myers died at this time and they if thought in England that/anyone could return to communicate it would be he who had taken so great a part in their investigation, and it was for this especially that they desired to have the medium out to England for studies there. They made them during the following winter to no result. Then the medium was returned home and committed to my C are, a care I accepted for the possibility of discovery and I raised funds for further sittings under my direction, taking part in them myself and making opportunity for others. 8. The object of my investigation was to see if I could get something evidential from Frederick Myers who had stayed with us at Bar Harbor and I knew personally. But if they had failed in England, with all his old home association and personal frendships to draw upon, I thought it idee to go out in cuest of material along that line. And I took one of my own, original so far as I know. Myers had been a notable scholar in the classics and a poet. I sought something from him along that line and got some strangely interesting results, which I promptly dispatched to England, as I got them, to be studied over there. I got references to classical mythology dwelling, as Myers would have done, on its poetic side, which were etraordinarily interest- ing and utterly beyond anything the medium, not a of person&Y/ more than the most ordinary education, could have possibly known about or imagined. Most of them contained material I at one timeor another had been conversant with myself, but happily as it chanced I had never read 01/ Ovid's Metamophases 9. [Ar.Arther W.Verrall (1851-1912) and Dr. Verril of cambridge, a noted Greek scholar, 2 [margaret] [Aclen] wife and daughter, the latter equally a scholar See Witripodia found as they thought references to these in what I got and which could not therefore have come out of my mind. On this and the imagination displayed, studying my records carefully there laid much stress. On one / Occasion I got curious results. The theory of Mrs. Z's trances was that those on the other side removed the spirit from what they called the machine, the body, and used it themselves for making communications. Then, the trance over, they returned the spirit to its body, it being for a brief time conscious apparently of what was said or done by those upon the other side, then suddenly, losing that, came in consciousness again. During this period the medium would talk, telling in a disconnected, whispered sought of way, what she saw and heard. When in full trance all animation seemed to have left the body save the right arm only, the hand being lifted up inquiringly as to question or to hear, then brought down onto the paper which lay before her and seizing a pencil would write. On one occasion, when Mrs. Z was in full trance I 10. said that I had a line of poetry - Greek poetry - which had been much to Dr. Eyer's, when be was upon this side, 1 the criginal Greekd without translating it in an address he gave which had been afterward published and I repeated the line taken from the commencement of Fomer's Odyssey. The hand, as usual, went up inquiringly, then wrote asking me to repeat it, which I did a couple of times perhaps, always in the Greek and giving no indication of its source. The hand then wrote that they would take it to It. Yyer's and ask him to answer it. When we next net, which would be on the second after, Ers. N only giving three sittings & week, that sibe night be fresh, Nothing was said referring it during her trance on the second X. day. But when the trance was over and the medium's spirit as controls explained her return to ccnscicusness was back in her machine or bodybut conscious still of what # rent on upon the other side, she began to whisper, at first so low that I could not end 2 catch it, Cytender to bring over but I did catch it and what she whispered make was "I save my soul and win my homeward way." Then connection if as 111 corrected by some one on the ether side, she 11. whispered, 'Saving' Mr. Myer's said, 1 a very curious correction showing exact scholarship, the being first word it/the pastrand not the present indicative. So the line was read with that low whispered trans- lation and the correction made. Nothing more was said in reference to it as the medium's conscious- ness seemed passed over into normal, nor was anything said concerning it at the next sitting two day's later yet, except that as the hand began to write, as she entered the trance, 'conrades homeward way' thus, without explanation, completing a correct rendering of Homer's line. The only explanation possible along normal lines being that the medium had memorized the lines when I repeated it, asking for translation and had gone to some Greek scholar and asked that it be translated, but then its translation would have been correct in the first instance and I could hardly imagine that two successive corrections could have been made in way they were in order to deceive me. Yet the possibility was there and it could not be taken as conslusive evidence, though strangely suggestive. 12. All together it was a most interesting experience, and so they found it in England on my report. When spring came, after various correspondence with Sir Oliver Lodge, Mrs. Sedgwick and others, I returned Mrs. Z to England for a final study together with a substantial contribution I raised from a few friends who had been interested with me in the investi- gation to add to fund raised over there through to provide Bor her future and there my connection with the Society ended, William James passing over to the (1910) majority himself, soon after. Sir Oliver Lodge name out of it with full conviction of the Bible and genuine communication of which he got further evidence, he felt, when a son was killed in the World's War. But I left my investigation with suspended judgment; were it but possible to arrive at definite evidence of survival, no subject in the world can touch it in importancealtering our whole outlook upon life. 158 Anniversary Meeting. [Jan. 19, 1883.7 Anniversary Meeting. 159 for experiment which Dr. Stone is both able and willing to afford, will tend greatly to promote the objects of the Society. The President of the Society (Mr. Henry Sidgwick) has generously ANNIVERSARY MEETING. presented it with a collection of about 150 volumes of psychical literature, which will form a valuable nucleus for a library. It need The Annunl General Meeting of the Society was held on hardly be said that the Council will gratefully accept any further January 19, 1883, at the Rooms of the Society. contributions of this kind. The following Report of the Council was read :- A few alterations in the Rules and Constitution of the Society The history of our Society, so far, is a short but a prosperous have commended themselves to the Council since last February. They 1892 one. Originating at the Conferences which were held a year ago now ask the Meeting to confirm these alterations according to the it commenced an organised existence last February. In July, a general provisions of Rule 24. meeting, for the reading of papers and for discussion, was held, the A Statement of Receipts and Expenditure made up to the 31st proceedings of which, with some supplementary matter, were published of December, 1882, is herewith presented. as Part I. of the Society's Proceedings. In December last a second The thanks of the Society were voted to the Treasurer and Auditors, General Meeting was convened. The substance of the papers and reports then read, together with an account of some more recent experiments, will shortly be issued, as Part II. of the Proceedings. The Council, on behalf of the Society, acknowledge with thanks the The practical work of the Society has been carried on chiefly by following presents, most of which have been received since the date of means of the Committees. Four of these-the Thought-transference the Annual General Meeting :- Committee, the Haunted House Committee, the Mesmeric Committee, and the Literary Committee-have held many meetings, and have col- From Hensleigh Wedgwood, Esq.-A special donation of £50, "for the lected a large body of evidence. The Reichenbach Committee has purposes of publication." recently commenced active operations, with valuable results. From Henry Sidgwick, Esq.-A collection of about 150 volumes of The Council are anxious to enlist the assistance of as many Psychical Literature. Members as possible throughout the country in the active work of the Also a large number of Books and Periodicals, including some volumes Society; and with this object are issuing a circular, containing hints of considerable value, from the following ladies and gentlemen :- and directions as to the best means by which such assistance may bo Messrs. St. George Stock, J. Kegan Paul, F. W. H. Myers, rendered in the various branches of the research. d. C. Massey, Rev. W. Stainton Moses, Captain James, Dr. The Council have been greatly encouraged by the rapid growth S. T. Speer, Dr. Ingleby, Mrs. Burke, Mrs. Boole, and Mr. E. T. of the Society during the first year of its existence, looking not Bennett. merely at the number who have joined as Members and Associates, but at the distinction of some among them. The amount of correspondence also increases every month, and testifies to a very widespread interest in Psychical Research. The work already done by the Society, and the position it has attained, justify the Council in believing that an important place, long vacant in organised research, has been, and will continue to be, effectively filled by it. The numbers of the Society at the close of the year 1882 were:- Members, 107; Associates, 38; Honorary Members, 5; total, 150, The Council are greatly indebted to Dr. W. H. Stone for his liberality in the arrangements which they have made with him for the lease of the Society's Rooms, at 14, Dean's Yard, Westminster. They feel that this local establishment, together with the further facilities RICHARD HODGSON THE STORY OF 'A' PSYCHICAL RESEARCHER AND HIS TIMES BY A. T. BAIRD WITH A FOREWORD BY THE LATE SIR ERNEST N. BENNETT, M.A., FELLOW OF HERTFORD COLLEGE, OXFORD M.P. FOR CARDIFF (1929-1945) RICHARD HODGSON PSYCHIC PRESS LIMITED 144 High Holborn, London, W.1 Bavid 2 92 RICHARD HODGSON RICHARD HODGSON 93 5, Boylston Place, Boston, at small tables and smoked, and drank beer, etc. Mass. At another club, Tavern Club I get all my October 16th, 1887. meals. The premises are now-were not when I DEAR JIMMY, arrived-next door to my lodgings. It is a small I wondered when your next letter was coming and select club of about IOO members, those who mostly have at last received it-yesterday. It was dated use the rooms-about 30 or 40-being chiefly July 28th, and directed to London-which is medical men and artists, with a few lawyers and marvellous considering my announcements to you architects. As the Bostonians were beginning their by circulars and letters-which apparently you exodus for the summer soon after I reached here, haven't received, since you speak of hearing not so much fruit has yet come from my work. I 'incidentally " that I have come to America. I am hoping to reap a harvest this winter, and espect- left England on April 8th and arrived 15th, as I told ally to get some results in hypnotism. you ages ago; but I suppose I must tell the story You have probably got my letter about my again that I am here for a year as Secretary of the holiday of a fortnight at Bar Harbour in Mt. Desert American Society for Psychical Research, and the Island off the coast of Maine. I had a fortnight in above address holds till the end of next April, I Boston after returning thence and started on expect. September Ist for Adirondack Mts. in New York I arrived in New York about 6 p.m. and trained State, 8 a.m.-6 p.m. by train to Lake Champlain, an hour or two later to Philadelphia, where I stayed 8 miles by stage to Elizabethtown, spent night there, several days with R. Pearsall Smith, with whom I then by stage 22 miles to Keene Valley, where I came down from Oxford to London on the Thames stayed nearly a fortnight-a most delightful time last year, and who is on the Council of the amid hills going up to 5,000 feet-splendid walks A.S.P.R. I then came to Boston and stayed a week and splendid company. The " chanty " as it is or SO with Prof. Watson, also on Council, and who called, consists of 7 or 8 small boarded houses, some gave an afternoon reception in my honour, which of which are divided into sleeping rooms, another started other afternoon receptions to which I was for sitting room, etc. It lies at the foot of the asked, and thus I soon got to know too many people. Giant of the Valley about one half-mile from I was introduced to a couple of clubs and gave a the Country Hotel, right in the heart of the forest, smoke-talk at one, a sort of easy lecture of an hour and was started some years ago by Dr. Putnam, about P.R. and Theosophy, while the members sat Dr. Bowditch (Prof. of Physiology of Harvard Baird. -3 94 RICHARD HODGSON RICHARD HODGSON 95 Med. School) and Prof. James (brother of Henry look after the finances as well, and act as Sec. to all James, novelist). They bought a piece of land- the Cm'ee. I send you another copy of circulars, etc., flowed through by the mountain brook-and have and am in midst of getting out some more, besides gradually extended their accommodation, asked preparing the next number of the American Pro- their friends up to spend part of the summer. They ceedings-which will not involve any direct writing provide cooks and household cleaners, etc., and of my own except preparing, or helping in the their visitors pay their share at the end of the reports of the Cm'ee. And now don't waste your season, about 8 dollars a week is the estimate. There funds in riotous living and mining speculations. is room for about 30 at a time, and, of course, the Why don't you start a novel and get it published group is continually changing. Plenty of culture serially in one of your Adelaide papers and reserv- and no conventionality. Putnam family are good ing right to publish it afterward in book? friends of Emerson family. We climbed the hills Yours ever, in the days, generally starting early and taking RICHARD HODGSON. lunch and making our fires-for soup, cocoa, etc., (The reference to Spencer in the following and a and returned for dinner at 7 p.m., after which we later letter will be clearer if it is remembered that sat usually round big camp-fires in open air-lying Spencer was Dr. Hodgson's intellectual hero, on in rugs, etc. After fortnight in Boston I went to whose work he had written and spoken during his Lenox-about 5 hours train, for a few days-where University Extension lecturing days. Spencer had I mostly sat about or drove (I was guest) and gazed been a frequent subject of discussion in earlier letters on the glory of the autumn tints, there seen to between Hackett and Dr. Hodgson. Mad.B." is, perfection. I am here now for the winter, though of course, Mme. Blavatsky.) I may probably be away now and again on P.R. 5, Boylston Place, Boston, work for a day or SO at a time. I think you are a Mass. lunatic to go into mining ventures. November 14th, 1887. Much of the time goes to correspondence about DEAR JIMMY, the Society here, and to getting narratives of remark- Glad to hear from you by yours of Sept. 18th. able phenomena. There is the routine work of the 11 anathematise that I told you all about my Society, and any circulars, etc., are drawn up by oming to America, etc., but as you haven't got my me in the first place and then revised by the Com'ee. letters I must tell you again. The Society here I am also Assistant Treas. of the Society and wasn't getting along, the men couldn't give time, Baird -4 270 RICHARD HODGSON RICHARD HODGSON 271 -the said H.B. weighing nearly 200 lb. I At this friend's sitting of 30th January, 1906, find that no one but myself of those who were Hodgson p. suddenly said: 'Do you remember probably present remember this. The incident a story I told you and how you laughed, about the was very distinct in my memory, but it seems man and the woman praying?' The sitter replied, to survive in no one else's. I was hoping for " Oh, and the devil was in it. Of course I do another answer, about a certain pitfall, and Yes," answered Hodgson p., " the devil, they this one was a surprise.) told him it was the Lord who sent it if the devil THE PECUNIARY MESSAGES brought it About the food that was given to The American Branch had never fully paid its them- I want you to know who is speaking." expenses, and, although the Secretary's salary had That sitter felt quite certain that no one but himself always been very small, Dr. Hodgson had, after knew of the correspondence and regarded the the first years, been reluctant to have any part of it incident as a good test of Dr. Hodgson's continued charged to the Mother Country. The result had existence. occasionally been pecuniary embarrassment on his Of the other pecuniary message no written part. During his last visit to England, shortly records existed, but a sitter acquainted Prof. after Myers' death, this embarrassment had been William James with the following incident: - extreme, but an American friend, divining it in the To assure Dr. Hodgson a salary, Mr. G. B. Dorr nick of time, rescued him by an impulsive and had acquainted a certain wealthy friend (who wholly unexpected remittance. To this remittance believed in the cause and in the value of the he replied by a letter which contained some banter, Secretary's work) with the situation of the Branch, and, among other things, cited the story of a and Dr. Hodgson's reasons for not wishing to be starving couple who were overheard by an atheist indebted to the parent Society. This friend had who was passing the house to pray aloud to God agreed to pay into the Branch treasury the amount for food. The atheist climbed the roof and dropped of deficit in the yearly salary account, provided some bread down the chimney, and heard them that the operation should remain anonymous and thank God for the miracle. He then went to the Dr. Hodgson asked no questions. Dr. Hodgson door and revealed himself as its author. The old agreed to this. At the first sitting which this friend woman replied to him, "Well, the Lord sent it, had after the death of Dr. Hodgson the matter was even if the devil brought it immediately referred to by Hodgson p., who *Proc., S.P.R., Vol. XXIII, p. 26-27 thanked him warmly for the support given. The Bacid -5 272 RICHARD HODGSON RICHARD HODGSON 273 donor was of the opinion that Dr. Hodgson may Hodgson p. "-Do you remember one evening I have suspected the source of the aid while receiving came to the hotel where you were staying and it, and that his spirit naturally thanked the I sat and told you of my experiences till it got right person. Prof. William James was likewise of very late. I told you so very many jokes that this opinion, and deemed it incredible that Mrs. you and Miss Pope were convulsed with Piper's waking consciousness should have been laughter." (Correct, Hotel Bellvue, Boston, acquainted with any part of the transaction. The March, 1905.-M.B.) "Do you remember donor's name had been kept from Prof. James, my telling you about my German friends?" although he was Vice-President of the Society, and Miss Bergman No." had yearly to know the accounts. Prof. James Hodgson P.: Perhaps Miss P. remembers." knew that the deficit in Dr. Hodgson's pay was (When questioned, Miss P. well remembered made up by anonymous American believers in his the German friends.-M.B.) work, but had supposed that there were several of Hodgson p. went on to make appropriate them. Prof. James, unable to understand how Mrs. remarks regarding Miss Bergman's friends, then: Piper could have got knowledge of any part of the Hodgson p.: "Now I want to ask you if you financial situation, although her controls may have remember Australia, remember my riding learned it in trance from those who were in the horseback? Remember my telling you of riding secret, considered thought transference and trance through the park with the dew on the grass memory as possible explanations and would not and how beautiful it was ?" accept the incident as furnishing complete proof of Miss Bergman: " Yes, yes, I remember it well." Dr. Hodgson's personal Survival, but he was willing Hodgson p. "I remember telling you of my dis- to consider that his denials might be the result of mounting and sitting and drinking in the beauty his narrowness of material, while Dr. Hodgson's of the morn." spirit " may have been speaking all the time, Miss Bergman: " Tell me of any experience that only his ears were deaf. befell you when riding." *THE HOTEL INCIDENTS Hodgson p.: "Oh, I told you of my experience Miss Bergman (pseudonym) had two sittings on with the fiery horse: you remember he dis- 31st December, 1905, and Ist January, 1906, and mounted me. It was the first experience I had at both Hodgson p. appeared. of seeing stars. I lost consciousness. I experi- *Proc., S.P.R., Vol. XXIII, p. 99. enced passing into this life. I remember being T The Early History of the ASPR: Origins to 1907 ARTHUR S. BERGER ABSTRACT: This is the first of a series of articles providing a history of the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) in recognition of its centenary. This paper chronicles the developments, beginning in 1850, which subsequently led to the formation, in 1885, of the ASPR, largely due to the efforts of Sir William Barrett (also a prime organizer of the Society for Psychical Research in 1882), and William James and Henry Bowditch of Harvard. It carries the history through the events which led the ASPR to become a branch of the Society for Psychical Research in 1889 and those, in turn, which led to its dissolution in 1906. The account closes in 1907 when James H. Hyslop formed the American Institute for Scientific Research. This essay, one of several independent articles being written on the history of the American Society for Psychical Research, deals with its earliest period. The intention is to give as full and fair an account of it as space and access to source materials permit. To understand the early period we must remember facts which the passage of time may have obscured: America was a new re- ceptacle into which psychical research was poured, but the ingre- dients came from across the sea; the vessel that received them was not suited to them, and, in the end, had to be abandoned-yet abandoned in the hope of something better because of the efforts of one man. In this article, I intend to indicate why, when, and how this occurred and why the ASPR's contribution to psychical re- search, with one outstanding exception, was meager in comparison to its achievements in subsequent periods. ORIGINS OF THE ASPR (1850-1882) One night in 1848, in a farmhouse near Rochester, New York, young Kate Fox clapped her hands a number of times and told "Mr. Splitfoot" to do as she did. Whereupon an equal number of raps were heard. When the older child, Margaretta Fox, com- manded the source of the rappings to count to four, it did. So began the Spiritualist movement in America. In the last half of the nineteenth century, it attracted a large number of the Ameri- can public, including such distinguished figures as Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Horace Greeley, editor of The New York Tribune. Its physical and mental phenomena and its The Journal of American Society for Psychical Research Vol. 79, January 1985. Pp. 39-57. R Borrower: HRM Call #: BF 1001 .A4 Lending String: *EYR, TUC, IAZ, VYF, UAA Location: Journals - 4th Floor (non- circulating) Patron: Journal Title: The Journal of the American Society for Max Cost: 0.00 Psychical Research. Charge: No Charge Volume: 79 Issue: Copyright: US_CCL Month/Year: 1985 Jan. Pages: 39-57 Shipping Address: Article Author: Arthur S. Berger Mortensen Library-ILS Article Title: The early history of the ASPR University of Hartford 200 Bloomfield Ave. ISSN: 0003-1070 West Hartford, Connecticut 06117 Odyssey: 206.107.44.99 ILL Number: 194853547 ODYSSEY 1 9 4 8 5 3 5 4 7 In Process Date: 20190402 Warning concerning copyright restrictions: The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of Copyright Law. Please request a re-send within five working days. OCLC: EYR Fax: 248-370-2458 Email: illoaku@oakland.edu Frederic William Henry MyersBiography 1843-1901 - includes Bibliography, free ebooks Page 1 of 5 Frederic William Henry Myers Frederic William Henry Myers Frederic W.H. Myers Birth: February 6, 1843 in Keswick, England Death: January 17, 1901 in Rome, Italy BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY A leading theoretician during the first generation of psychical research. He was born February 6, 1843, at Keswick, Cumberland, England, and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. For 30 years Myers filled the post of an inspector of schools at Cambridge. Here his resolve to pursue psychical investigation was born in 1869 after a starlight walk and talk with Henry Sidgwick. His theory was that if a spiritual world ever manifested to humans, a serious investigation must be made to discover unmistakable signs of it. For "if all attempts to verify scientifically the intervention of another world should be definitely proved futile, this would be a terrible blow, a mortal blow, to all our hopes of another life, as well as of traditional religion" for "it would thenceforth be very difficult for men to be persuaded, in our age of clear thinking, that what is now found to be illusion and trickery was in the past thought to be truth and revelation." Myers had in mind an empiric method of deliberate, dispassionate, and exact inquiry. It was in this spirit that, in 1882, the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), London, of which he http://www.spiritwritings.com/fredericwilliamhenrymyers.html 8/29/2007 Frederic William Henry MyersBiography 1843-1901 - includes Bibliography, free ebooks Page 2 of 5 was a cofounder, came to be established. He devoted all his energies to its work and concentrated with a deep grasp of science on the psychological side. Of the 16 volumes of the society's Proceedings published while he lived, there are few without an important contribution from his pen. In Phantasms of the Living, a collaboration with Edmund Gurney and Frank Podmore (and one of the society's first major studies of the paranormal), the system of classification of paranormal phenomena was entirely his idea. The words "telepathy," "supernormal," "veridical," and many others less in use today were coined by Myers. In the SPR he filled the post of honorary secretary. In 1900, Myers was elected to the presidential chair, a post that only distinguished scientists had previously filled. To periodicals such as the Fortnightly Review he contributed many articles. They were collected and published in 1893 under the titles Science and a Future Life and Other Essays. His chief work, Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death, was posthumously published in 1903. It is an exposition of the potential powers of the subliminal self, which Myers pictured as the real ego, a vast psychic organism of which the ordinary consciousness is but an accidental fraction, the life of the soul, not bound up with the life of the body, of which the so-called supernormal faculties are the ordinary channels of perception. Myers challenged the Spiritualist position that all, or most of, supernormal phenomena were due to the spirits of the dead, contending to the contrary that by far the largest proportion was due to the action of the still embodied spirit of the agent or of the percipient himself. The theory brought order into a chaotic mass of psychical phenomena. On the other hand, it greatly enhanced the probability of survival after death. As the powers of the subliminal self did not degenerate during the course of evolution and served no purpose in this life they were obviously destined for a future existence. Why, for instance, should the subconscious SO carefully preserve all thoughts and memories if there would be no use for them? William James suggested that the problems of the subliminal mind should be called "the problem of Myers." And he added, "Whatever the judgment of the future may be on Mr. Myers' speculation, the credit will always remain to them of being the first attempt in any language to consider the phenomena of hallucination, automatism, double personality, and mediumship as connected parts of one whole subject." Theodore Flournoy, a profound psychologist himself, considered Myers "one of the most remarkable personalities of our time in the realm of mental science." Further, he observed, "If future discoveries confirm his thesis of the intervention of the discarnate, in the web and the woof of our mental and physical world then his name will be inscribed in the golden book of the initiated, and, joined to those of Copernicus and Darwin, he will complete the triad of geniuses who have the most profoundly revolutionised scientific thought, in the order, Cosmological, Biological and Psychological." Walter Leaf compared Myer to Ruskin and considered him in some respects his peer. According to Charles Richet "if Myers were not a mystic, he had all the faith of a mystic and the ardour of an apostle, in conjunction with the sagacity and precision of a savant." http://www.spiritwritings.com/fredericwilliamhenrymyers.html 8/29/2007 Frederic William Henry MyersBiography 1843-1901 - includes Bibliography, free ebooks Page 3 of 5 "I never knew a man SO hopeful concerning his ultimate destiny," wrote Sir Oliver Lodge in memoriam. "He once asked me whether I would barter--if it were possible--my unknown destiny, whatever it might be, for as many aeons of unmitigated and wise terrestrial happiness as might last till the secular fading of the sun, and then an end. He would not." Myers was working not only in the first generation of parapsychology, but at a time when psychology was struggling to separate itself from the dominance of physiology. The kind words of Myers's contemporaries about his psychological theories reflect his general high standing in the intellectual community and the larger consideration that was being given to Myers's theories concerning the human personality. His psychological theories, which could possibly have made a significant place for the paranormal in the consideration of the psychological community, were, however, displaced by the competing thought of his contemporary, Sigmund Freud, and the emergence of psychotherapy. In the success of Freudian thought, Myers's ideas were pushed to the fringe. Myers on Spiritualist Phenomena In Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death, physical phenomena received but little consideration. Myers believed in telekinesis, but in spite of his own experiments and those of Sir William Crookes, its genuine occurrence did not appear to him sufficiently believable to justify discussion in his book. Nevertheless, in dealing with possession he suggested an ingenious explanation, i.e., that the possessing spirit may use the organism more skillfully than its owner and may emit some energy that can visibly move ponderable objects not actually in contact with the flesh. Of his own investigations between 1872 and 1876 he said that they were "tiresome and distasteful enough." On May 9, 1874, in the company of Edmund Gurney, he made the acquaintance of medium William Stainton Moses. The two became such close friends that when Moses died on September 5, 1982, his notebooks were handed to Myers for study. Myers's articles in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (vols. 9 and 11) contain the best accounts of this remarkable mediumship, althyough his conclusions were not solely based on personal experiences with Moses. He also participated in some startling sessions involving C. E. Wood and Annie Fairlamb Mellon. In 1894, on the Ile Roubaud, Myers was the guest of Charles Richet and participated with Sir Oliver Lodge and Julien Ochorowicz in the experiments conducted with Eusapia Palladino. The Cambridge exposure of Palladino's fraud shook his belief and he then wrote: "I had no doubt that systematic trickery had been used from the first to last, and that there was no adequate ground for attributing any of the phenomena occurring at these sittings to a supernormal cause." Later, however, he participated in another series of sittings with Palladino in Paris and at the solemn adjuration of Richet he declared himself convinced that both telekinesis and ectoplasm were genuine phenomena. He also sat with Mrs. Thomas Everitt, Elizabeth d'Esperance, and David Duguid. Further, Myers experienced crystal gazing and he investigated the haunted Ballechin House in Perthshire, Scotland. As a result, he published two papers in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research: "On Alleged Movements of Objects without Contact, occurring not in the Presence of a Paid Medium" (vol. 7, pts. 19 and 20, 1891-92). http://www.spiritwritings.com/fredericwilliamhenrymyers.html 8/29/2007 Frederic William Henry MyersBiography 1843-1901 - includes Bibliography, free ebooks Page 4 of 5 Myers Speaks from the Grave? Myers died January 17, 1901, in Rome, Italy. After his death, a flood of claimed communications from his spirit came from many mediums. The most important ones were those received through Leonora Piper, Margaret Verrall, and Alice K. Fleming (known publicly as Mrs. Holland). As regards the latter, Frank Podmore and Alice Johnson agreed that the "Myers" control was a subconscious creation of the medium. The views there expressed were alien to the mentality of the living Myers. Verrall apparently obtained the contents of a sealed letter that Myers had written in 1891 and left in the care of Sir Oliver Lodge for such a test. However, when the letter was opened in 1904 the contents were found to be entirely different. In 1907, Eleanor Sidgwick obtained good identity proofs through Leonora Piper. On her behalf, Verrall asked some questions to which she did not know that answer and received correct replies as regards the contents of the last conversation that had taken place between Mrs. Sidgwick and Myers. Many other impressive indications of his surviving self were found in cross- correspondences, especially during Piper's second visit to England in 1906-07. The whole system of cross-correspondences appears to have been elaborated by him, and the wealth of classical knowledge displayed in the connected fragments given by several mediums raises a strong presumption that they emanated from Myers' mind. The most striking evidence of this nature was obtained after Piper's return to the United States by G. B. Dorr in 1908. Frank Podmore considered it "perhaps the strongest evidence yet obtained for the identity of any communicator." In The Road to Immortality (1932), a book supposedly written by Myers through Geraldine Cummins, a stupendous vista was opened up, apparently by Myers, of the soul's progression through the after-death states. As regards the authorship of the book, Sir Oliver Lodge received independent testimony through Gladys Osborne Leonard from "Myers" of his communications through Cummins. Lodge saw no reason to dissent from the view that the remarkable accounts of the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh states "are the kind of ideas which F. W. H. Myers may by this time [1932] have been able to form." Sources: Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. The Encyclopedia of Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York: Paragon House, 1991. Gauld, Alan. The Founders of Psychical Research. New York: Schocken Books, 1968. Haynes, Renée. The Society for Psychical Research, 1882-1982: A History. London: Mcdonald, 1982. Myers, F. W. H. Human Personality and the Survival of Bodily Death. London: Longmans, Green, 1903. Science and a Future Life: With Other Essays. London: Macmillan, 1901. Myers, F. W. H., Edmund Gurney, and Frank Podmore. Phantasms of the Living. London: Trubner, 1886. Pleasants, Helene, ed. Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology. New York: Helix Press, 1964. http://www.spiritwritings.com/fredericwilliamhenrymyers.html 8/29/2007 Frederic William Henry MyersBiography 1843-1901 - includes Bibliography, free ebooks Page 5 of 5 Salter, W. H. "F. W. H. Myers' Posthumous Message." Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 52 (1958). The above writeup was reproduced by permission from "Frederic William Henry Myers." Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, 5th ed. Edited by J. Gordon Melton, 2001. Bibliography Parapsychology Human Personality and the Survival of Bodily Death - Frederic Myers (Volume II only), 1903. Road to immortality - Geraldine Cummins/Frederic Myers, 1933 (posthumous channeled) Beyond human personality - Geraldine Cummins/Frederic Myers, 1935 (posthumous channeled) Cross Correspondences - from PrairieGhosts.com Death, the gate of life? (Mors Janua vitae?) A discussion of certain communications purporting to come from Frederic W.H. Myers, Helen Dallas, 1919 (posthumous channeled) Vanishing night; a series of letters given through telepathic correspondence to Juliet S. Goodenow, Juliet S Goodenow, Frederic Myers, Los Angeles, 1923 (posthumous channeled) Presidential address [to the Society for Psychical Research] - Frederic Myers, 1900? Evidence of personal survival from cross correspondences - H.F. Saltmarsh, 1938 Poetry and Criticism Collected poems with autobiographical and critical fragments - Frederic Myers & Eveleen Tennant Myers, 1921 Fragments of prose & poetry, Frederic Myers & Eveleen Tennant Myers, 1904 Rossetti and the religion of beauty - Frederic Myers & Thomas Bird Mosher, 1902 Tennyson as prophet - Frederic Myers, 1889 Essays--Modern - Frederic Myers, 1883 Essays--classical (Greek oracles.--Virgil.--Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.) - Frederic Myers, 1883 Wordsworth - Frederic Myers, 1882 Poems (Saint Paul plus four poems which have already appeared in Macmillan's magazine) - Frederic Myers, 1870 Saint Paul - Frederic Myers, 1863 The Prince of Wales at the tomb of Washington. A poem which obtained the Chancellor's medal at the Cambridge commencement - Frederic Myers, 1861 More Biographies http://www.spiritwritings.com/fredericwilliamhenrymyers.html 8/29/2007 Prac. of the American Society for Psychical Research 1 (1889): 548-564. 548 Notes on Automatic Writing. considered the probable error, which alone is the correct guide the the Society and, probability of a particular result is always enormously small in such a little wider trial experiments as have been made, but that probability is almost worth- less as a measure of the value of the evidence until the probable One phenomeno error is known. In this respect the English Society have not yet nesses is both ne given the demonstration of the value of their tests, which alone automatic writer 0 would justify the decided opinions they have published. The same soon as I read N requirement must be put upon the estimate of probabilities which you personality of his have made. In addition, you must remember that when two persons tom in ordinary pla are experimenting with the thought-transference of diagrams, they skin of the hysteri both supply diagrams and exclude from repetition more diagrams contact, but that than one person; your calculation needs to be rectified accordingly. waked from the h I am afraid this is not a very cordial letter in appearance; let me signed all its com add that I appreciate your remarks and the manner in which you an intelligence peu have made them. In replying, I hope to appear equally courteous in the usual intellige spite of being SO very explicit. Will you excuse me if I do not rant. Might not, enter into more detail? I think the readers of our Proceedings will hysteric automatic have the material for decision so far as it is possible at present. of the writing ha The final judgment as to the reality of thought-transference will come Persons who ha when the future evidence is in. With cordial esteem, I remain. tingling or prickli: Yours faithfully, matic writers for CHARLES SEDGWICK MINOT. the acts of writing BOSTON, Feb. 28, 1889. was superficial. to pricking and Wm James. The second of th detail. William L. Si NOTES ON AUTOMATIC WRITING. setts Institute of MANY communications concerning experiences in automatic writing tionally intelliger have been sent in to the Secretary during the past two years, and amused himself C both he and the undersigned have witnessed the phenomenon in a planchette writing number of instances. It is unquestionably a field from which a rich Jan. 24, 1889, h harvest of instruction may be hoped; but as professional occupa- hand extended 01 tions have prevented that steady experimental study of the matter the hollow of hi which it deserves, I will content myself with jotting down a few taken not to sugg points which may serve to stimulate the interest of the Society, The planchette postponing a more systematic paper to some later date. I must refer pricked the back the reader to the important papers by Mr. Myers in Nos. VII., VIII., indication of fee and XI. of the London Society's Proceedings, for a general intro- withdrawal, and duction to the subject. I regret that the appeal to experiment with which I replied, the planchette, which was made at the public meeting in the spring first legible word of 1887, was followed by insignificant results. Planchettes can be 1 Review Philosophique obtained at the toy-shops, or (at cost) by writing to the Secretary of the third of his articles 298 Essays in Popular Philosophy. Psychical Research. 299 intoxication, if sufficiently prolonged. A pessimistic fatalism, Wm.James depth within depth of impotence and indifference, reason and silliness united, not in a higher synthesis, but in the fact that whichever you choose it is all one, - this is the upshot of a reve- lation that began so rosy bright. Even when the process stops short of this ultimatum, the reader will have noticed from the phrases quoted how often it WHAT PSYCHICAL RESEARCH HAS ends by losing the clue. Something 'fades, escapes; and ACCOMPLISHED. the feeling of insight is changed into an intense one of be- wilderment, puzzle, confusion, astonishment. I know no more singular sensation than this intense bewilderment, with nothing particular left to be bewildered at save the bewilderment itself. "THE great field for new discoveries," said a It seems, indeed, a causa sui, or spirit become its own object.' scientific friend to me the other day, "is My conclusion is that the togetherness of things in a com- always the unclassifie `residuum." Round about the mon world, the law of sharing, of which I have said so much, accredited and order facts of every science there may, when perceived, engender a very powerful emotion; that ever floats a sor Moroust-cloud of exceptional obser- Hegel was so unusually susceptible to this emotion throughout vations, of occurrenc minute and irregular and sel- his life that its gratification became his supreme end, and made him tolerably unscrupulous as to the means he employed; that dom met with, which it always proves more easy to indifferentism is the true outcome of every view of the world ignore than to attend to. The ideal of every science which makes infinity and continuity to be its essence, and that is that of a closed and completed system of truth. pessimistic or optimistic attitudes pertain to the mere accidental The charm of most sciences to their more passive subjectivity of the moment; finally, that the identification of disciples consists in their appearing, in fact, to wear contradictories, so far from being the self-developing process which Hegel supposes, is really a self-consuming process, pass- just this ideal form. Each one of our various ologies ing from the less to the more abstract, and terminating either in seems to offer a definite head of classification for a laugh at the ultimate nothingness, or in a mood of vertiginous every possible phenomenon of the sort which it pro- amazement at a meaningless infinity. fesses to cover; and sc" ar from free is most men's fancy, that, when a consistent and organized scheme of this sort has once been comprehended and assimi- lated, a different scheme is unimaginable. No alter- native, whether to whole or parts, can any longer be conceived as possible. Phenomena unclassifiable within the system are therefore paradoxical absurdi- 1 This Essay is formed of portions of an article in Scribner's Magazine for March, 1890, of an article in the Forum for July, 1892, and of the President's Address before the Society for Psychical Research, published in the Proceedings for June, 1896, and in Science. A GROUP OF GHOSTS. Boston Daily Globe; Mar 5, 1890; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Boston Globe (1872 1901) pg. 4 A GROUP OF GHOSTS. have died. I am very sorry for it, and I will look after your children. He stretched out his arms as if to em- brace me: when I said threateningly. 'don't come so near. it is disagreeable to me. and lifted my arm to ward him off, but the Spectre of a Dead Officer apparation vanished. My wife was still asleep. I arose and looked at my watch. Rides Spirit Horse. finding it to be 12o'clock. My wile awoke and asked me to whom I had ust spoken RO loui. Have you understood anything?" Iasked. She replied "no," and went to aleed again German Brewer Comes to Announce "subsequently I learned that the brewer had died that afternoon at 5 o'clock. and be That He Has Just Died. was buned on the following Tuesday at 2 o'clock." The widow of the brewer testified that the time of burial was settled upon in the death room immediately after her hus- Psychical Searchers Find Queer Evi- band's death. The society will hold a meeting in April, dence of Spooks. when further papers upon similar subjects will be read. The first meeting of the American Society for Psychical Research since it became a branch of the English society of the same name took place at the Natural History rooms last evening. Prof. William James presiding The audience, which numbered about 100, most of them ladies. listened with great in. terest to a reading. by the secretary. of an abridgment of papers by Frank Podner and F. W. Myers of cland,embodying some of the results of the English society's investigations into "Phantasms of the Dead." Communications from several persons who claimed to have seen "ghosts" were read, among them those of which the fol- lowing are abstracts; From Gen. Barter. C.B., of Careystown. Whitegate. county Cork: 'In 1854 I was subaltern on duty in the Punjab. I lived in a house on a hill far above the sea level. which had been built by Lieut. B., killed the year before at Pesh- awur. The house was on a spur jutting from the side of the mountain about 200 yards below the "mall. as the only road around the hill was called. A bridle path, scooped out of the hillside, and ending at a precipice near by led to my house. (Shortly after moving into my house an officer named D., with his wife. spent the evening until il o'clock with me l'he moon was full. and 1 walked with them down the path which led from my house to the bridle path. 1 remained at the junction with the bridle path and watched my friends' ascent to the mall above, from which they called out to me, 'good night. 1 had two dogs with me, and remained in the moonlight smoking a c.gar. while the dogs were hunting in the blushwood near by had just turned to go back to the house when I heard the ring of a horse's hoof on the stones of the bridle path a short way around the bend. Then I saw a tall hat an- pear, worn by the rider. In a few seconds around the bend came A Man Mounted on a Penv. attended by two grooms. one on each side the pony's head. Each groom had one hand on the horses bridle and with his other hand seemed to steady the rider in the saddle. In the full moonlight they appeared before me, elevated about 8 or 10 feet on the bridle road. the earth thrown down from which sloped to within a pace or two of my feet The rider was in full dinner dress, white waistcoast and chimney-pot hat, and sat on the pony in a listless way, the roins falling loosely from his hands. cried. Who is it?' but got no response. 1 then cried: 'Hello! What the devil do you want here?' 'The group halted, the driver pulled his reins taut and looked down upon me. the groun forming a tableaux in the moonlight. then recognized the rider as Lieut. B, whom I had formerly known. The face, however, was changed, the oncesmooth face having now a fringe of beard. and it was the face of a dead man, while the body was stouter than when 1 had known him. dashed up the bank toward the bridle path to lay hold of the apparition. but the earth gave way under my feet. I fell on any face, and upon gaining the road the spectre had disappeared. No one could have gone 20 yards beyond the spot. for there was a precipice blooking the road, while there was not time for the group to have turned and gone back in the direction from which they came. I ran back 100 yards down the road. but could get no trace of them, and after vainly searching for my dogs who invariably re. mained by me, went home. The next morning 1 induced my friend D. to talk of B., whom he had known well said, "how very stout B. had grown in his latter days." and asked why he bad glown that horrid fringe of beard. D. replied that B. had become very bloated before his death Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9/8/2018 Charles Richet - Wikipedia Wne James acquaintance. WIKIPEDIA August 1897, W.J. atoldform of excourges Richet's c Charles Richet Dorrs' approval. Prof Charles Robert Richet (25 August Charles Richet 1850 4 December 1935) was a French physiologist at the Collège de France known for his pioneering work in immunology. In 1913, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "in recognition of his work on anaphylaxis". Richet devoted many years to the study of paranormal and spiritualist phenomena, coining the term "ectoplasm". He also believed in the inferiority of blacks, was a proponent of eugenics and presided over the French Eugenics Society towards the end of his life. Contents Born 25 August 1850 Paris Career Died 4 December 1935 Parapsychology (aged 85) Eva Carrière Paris Eusapia Palladino Fraud Alma mater University of Paris Eugenics and racial beliefs Awards Nobel Prize in Works Physiology or See also Medicine (1913) References Further reading External links Career son of Alfred Richet. He was educated at the Lycee Bonaparte in Paris then studied Medicine at university in Paris. [1] Richet spent a period of time as an intern at the Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, where he observed Jean-Martin Charcot's work with then SO called "hysterical" patients. In 1887, Richet became professor of physiology at the Collège de France investigating a variety of subjects such as neurochemistry, digestion, thermoregulation in homeothermic animals, Richet in 1922 and breathing. [2] In 1898, he became a member of the Académie de Médecine. In 1913, his work with Paul Portier on anaphylaxis the term he coined for a sensitized individual's sometimes lethal reaction to a second, small-dose injection of an antigen won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. [2][3] The research helped elucidate hay fever, asthma and other allergic reactions to foreign substances and explained some previously not understood cases of intoxication and sudden death. In 1914, he became a member of the Académie des Sciences. [2] Richet discovered the analgesic drug chloralose with [4] Richet had many interests, and he wrote books about history, sociology, philosophy, psychology, as well as theatre plays and poetry. He was a pioneer in aviation. [2] He was involved in the French pacifist movement. Starting in 1902, pacifist societies began to meet at a National Peace Congress, often with several hundred attendees. Unable to unify the pacifist forces they set up a small permanent delegation of French Pacifist Societies in 1902, which Richet led, together with Lucien Le Foyer as Secretary-General. [5] Parapsychology Richet held a deep interest in extrasensory perception and hypnosis. In 1884, Alexandr Aksakov interested him in the medium of Eusapia Palladino. In 1891, Richet founded the Annales des sciences psychiques. He kept in touch with renowned occultists and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Riche 2/11 Psychical research and the origins of American psychology 9/10/18 Published by HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES SAGE More issues Search Alerts Submit a manuscript Hist Human Sci. 2012 Apr; 25(2): 23-44. PMCID: PMC3552602 dol: 0.7177/0952695112439376 PMID: 23355763 Psychical research and the origins of American psychology Hugo Münsterberg, William James and Eusapia Palladino Andreas Sommer Monitoring Editor: Elizabeth R. Valentine Andreas Sommer, University College London, UK; Mr Andreas Sommer, UCL Centre for the History of Psychological Disciplines, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK Email: a.sommer@ucl.ac.uk Andreas Sommer, MA, is a doctoral student at the Department of Science and Technology, UCL Centre for the History of Psychological Disciplines, University College London. His research uses the work of German philosopher and psychical researcher Carl du Prel (1839-99) to understand historical developments at the intersection between late-19th- and early-20th-century psychology and psychical research. Copyright © The Author(s) 2012 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Abstract Go to: Largely unacknowledged by historians of the human sciences, late-19th-century psychical researchers were actively involved in the making of fledgling academic psychology Moreover, with few exceptions historians have failed to discuss the wider implications of the fact that the founder of academic psychology in America, William James, considered himself a psychical researcher and sought to integrate the scientific study of mediumship, telepathy and other controversial topics into the nascent discipline. Analysing the celebrated exposure of the medium Eusapia Palladino by German- born Harvard psychologist Hugo Münsterberg as a representative example; this article discusses strategies employed by psychologists in the United States to expel psychical research from the agenda of scientific psychology. It is argued that the traditional historiography of psychical research, dominated by accounts deeply averse to its very subject matter, has been part of an ongoing form of 'boundary-work' to bolster the scientific status of psychology Keywords: boundary-work, discipline formation, fraud, historiography, popularization of science Eeny, meeny, miny mo, Catch Eusapia by the toe If she hollers, then we know, James's doctrines are not so! Introduction: psychical research and the 'new psychology Go to: At the end of the 19th century, psychical researchers such as Frederic and Arthur Myers, Edmund Gurney, Julian Ochorowicz, Charles Richet, Max Dessoir, Albert von Schrenck-Notzing, Richard Hodgson and Henry and Eleanor Sidgwick were actively involved in the making of the fledgling science of psychology. Psychical researchers initiated and organized the International Congresses of Physiological/Experimental Psychology (Alvarado, forthcoming; Nicolas and Söderlund, 2005; Plas, 2000), and they devised methodological innovations such as randomized study designs (Hacking, 1988). They contributed important empirical findings by conducting the first experiments investigating 1992; Shamdasani, 1993) and experiments and large-scale surveys undermining the notion dissociation and hallucinations as intrinsically pathological phenomena (Sommer, 2011; William 1985). While rooted in attempts to test controversial claims of telepathy, clairvoyance and survival C. death, these contributions enriched early psychological knowledge quite independently of the still hotly debated evidence for 'supernormal' phenomena. Nothing epitomizes the ambivalent relationship of academic psychology to psychical research clearer than two figures generally considered as the very founders of modern psychology, William James and Wilhelm Wundt. Whereas Wundt had publicly and programmatically rejected psychical research as intrinsically unscientific in the same year he established German experimental psychology in Leipzig (Wundt, 1879), James sought to integrate it into nascent American psychology James made original contributions to psychical research and regularly collaborated and corresponded with British and French psychical researchers (Skrupskelis and Berkeley, 1992-2004; James, 1986). In 1884, he became a founding member of the American Society for Psychical-Research (ASPR) and, in 1894 and 1895, a president of the British Society for Psychical Research (SPR), and he reviewed and defended the work of the SPR in psychology and science periodicals like Mind, the Psychological Review, Nature and 2 Science. In the United States, several of Wundt's students, such as Hugo Münsterberg, Stanley G. Hall, Edward Titchener and James McKeen Cattell (along with other leading US psychologists not trained by Wundt), ruthlessly combated the father of American psychology in his attempts to integrate psychical research into nascent psychology (Bjork, 1983; Bordogna, 2008; Coon, 1992; Taylor, 1996). Divided by epistemological, methodological and political disagreements as well as by personal animosities (see, for example, Sokal, 1992; Taylor, 1994), leading US psychologists found themselves in rare unison agreeing that psychical research was not to be associated with the 'new psychology' Hence, the aggressive rejection of psychical research as the 'unscientific Other' of academic psychology, which James' opponents perceived as a threat to rationality and the scientific and social order, was a vital unifying principle aiding early psychologists to achieve something like a scientific identity (Leary, 1987). Joseph Jastrow, one of the most active popularizers of the 'new psychology' in America, identified vital boundary issues of psychology when reminiscing about the problem of psychical research, 'which in the closing decades of the nineteenth century was SO prominent that in many circles a psychologist meant a "spook hunter" (Jastrow, Autobiography, in Carl Murchison [ed.] A History of Psychology in Autobiography, vol. 1 [Worcester, MA: Clark University Press, 1930], pp. 135-62, cited in Moore, 1977: 166-7). One can thus easily imagine how James must have embarrassed many colleagues by stating, for example, in his Science review of an early SPR study of telepathic hallucinations that the scholarship displayed therein comprised a combination of outstanding intellectual virtues 'not found in every bit of so-called scientific research that is published in our day' (James, 1887: 18). 'Enlightened' psychologists were also hardly amused by the founder of American psychology exclaiming in the Psychological Review that 'the concrete evidence for most of the "psychic" phenomena under discussion is good enough to hang a man twenty times over' (James, 1896: 650). Among those who felt driven to protest against James' lack of epistemological squeamishness was James McKeen Cattell. As the editor of Science, Cattell concluded a series of heated discussions with James about a recent SPR report on the medium Leonora Piper in the pages of his journal by stating that he had attacked James only because I believe that the Society for Psychical Research is doing much to injure psychology. The authority of Professor James is such that he involves other students of psychology in his opinions unless they protest. We all acknowledge his leadership, but we cannot follow him 3 into the quagmires. (Cattell, 1898: 642) It is on the backdrop of these boundary disputes that certain historical episodes which have been celebrated as victories of American scientific psychology over psychical research deserve a reassessment. Among the most widely promulgated success stories of psychology expelling its unloved https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3552602/ 2/18 August 1807 28 1 To Elizabeth Glendower Evans 11 more diffic ull for the university to raise funds. The faculty supported And and made 11 an issue of academic freedom. He withdrew his resignation in Sept her Chocoma, N.II. July Min Accession was not identified. Dearest Elizabeth, Your two delightful letters, one to me full of forgiveness, and the other to Alice full of commumicativeness, have duly come to hand, Le From Edwin Lawrence Godkin me thank you for all the pleasant things you say of my book only don't don't like it too damned serious.'-I will doubtless please you to hear EWHURST PLACE. N R GUILDFORD. July 30 [18g that I had news from Longmans Green & Co yesterday that they are My dem James, going to press with a 3rd. thousand. have been reading your essays, with great pleasure-your vocabula Let me thank you for the forgiveness also! Your account of IN Oils in delightful but the first one puzzles me. What do you mean by Place is seductive enough.1 I think I might find there, coolness, sechi ligion"? This term covers the fetichism of the African Savage, as W sion, and even a sense of continuity. The constitutional disease from as Emerson's pantheism, the Cotton Mather Methodism of the Tenn which I suffer is what the Germans call Zervissenheit or torntopieceshop ⑉ himer as well as your philosophy. There is in fact nothing in The days are broken into pure zigzag and interruption. We have our world called religion, in which theories of the Universe are not mix Cambridge neighbour Mrs. Van Daell, and her daughter, an guests to III. with scientific theories, & historical facts. I cannot swallow Chr entertain, Billy in bed with pleurisy & intercostal rheumatism caught Hanity, or 'will to believe it,' without also willing to believe an immer it drenching day on the Mountain, Tweedy entering into it similar spell make of tradition, gossip and "evidence," of all sorts about a certain m Alice with sick headache, visits from doctor, neighbors, haymakers, worl alleged to have lived 1897 years ago. Can it be that I have 'a livi: to do on place, and a lecture to write, etc. etc. Give me IM hours work option. to believe all this, or not? What I believe about the Univers on our occupation, for happiness.--Yes! the country seems hell-beni Im instance, is not called "religion," at all by religious people. Belie The Andrews business is sovereignly disgusting. and Bryanism and me you must define "religion," to make your essay really effective. B neme anti bryanism are equally bad to hear about. I am glad of your you are nevertheless a most interesting and successful thinker, and I a quotation from Brandeis, Alice, who is well again to day-And Bille yours very faithfully E. L. Godk practically out of the woods-sends you her love.-AN for "faith," don't AL Am 1092 (296a) meat it as a technical word. It simply means the kind of belief a person 'Lotton Mather (1663-1728), American clergyman. may have in a doubtful case, and may carry a sense of "heart in your throat," ready to back outness; or a sort of passionate refusal to Miveup 01 anything between. and it is the same state, when applied to some In Alice Howe Gibbens James practical affair of your own, or to it theologic creed. OLDFARM. 6.45 P.M. I Tuesday [August 10, 1897 Affectionately yours Wm James Dailing Alice I got here after a pleasant journey, with many naps, Alice will write to you when she has seen Mrs. Kenerson about the 7 10. and an hour after came your letter. I was warmly welcomed, th boy." all iously cool and redolent of the sea. I had a fairly good nigh and mm just in from a walk up "Pickett's Hill" with Hodgson[,] Morto 'WJ refused to give it letter of introductio 10 III; see letter of WI July 1807 the Will In Believe Prince & William Endicott & his wife (Tom Ward's neice) who are The Boston address of Elizabeth Evans in the house. Am dressed for dinner. Mrs. Whitman has probab Elisha Benjamin Andrews (1811 1017). American educator then president of arrived in our absence. The James Bryces, & Fred. Stimson3 are con Brown University in Providence On 17 July 180% Andrews tendered his resignation INK on Thursday. I have been with Miller & Strong, met Jas. Thaye after Brown's trustees expressed concern that histavoring the hee coinage of silver would Mrs. Charles Lowell & Carlotta, lunched with Mrs. Montr Sears, a 290 August 1807 August 1897 291 2. alone and had her take 7 shots at me through a big camera (she takes the vital facts of human character from which I am sure he has been superb photografs, and says she would give anything to take you, but has never dared to ask)." The place is simply magnificent Geo's" horticul- weaned for 15 years at least. And I am sure it will rejuvenate him mul & auboricultural operations superb- tremendous life and stir again It is more celtic than english, and when joined with those fac- everywhere, which makes Intervale shrivel up like a scroll. Looking at ulties of soul, conscience, or whatever they be that make England rule the thing objectively of course this is the thing for Richet to see-he in a the waves, as they are joined in you, Bay, they leave no room for any musicty about the creature's destiny. But Rosina, who is all senses and great man of the world and it is just what he would appreciate-and it would warm his heart towards America. Looked at subjectively should Intelligence, alarms me by her recital of midnight walks on the B. des be free of a great burden of labor with him if he came here. So this with bohemian artists who are more than "combinations," "af- limities" namely, and by her Gabriele d'Annunzio enthusiasms.2 You A.M. I decided 10 perform an energetic act and go back on our last de cision, and have telegrafi him to come here. The moment the Dorri on't live by gas light & excitement, nor can naked intelligence run a heard of his existence they both asked me to do so, He hasn't yet rei Journe fille's life. Affections, pieties, & prejudices must play their part, & plied, but it he does come you will be saved some trouble, unless indeed only let the intelligence get an occasional peep at things from the midst of then smothering embrace. That again is what makes the british na- you can come here. / wish you would-it would make me infinitely hap: pier.) The girls can stay alone cheerfully. Peg & F. go to Mary & Billy Hou great. Intelligence does n't flaunt itself there quite naked as in to the Hotel. You would deeply enjoy it I though Mrs. D. name As for McMonnies baccante, I only saw here3 faintly looming more imperious than even.) I telegrafi you this AM. but no telegraphic through the moonlight one night when she was sub judice, SO can frame reply is required. I know for Richet that am doing the right thing Impinion. The place certainly calls for a lightsome capricious figure, (111) easily explain to the Merrimans. Im the solemn Boston mind declared that anything but a solemn figure AI MH Am 1092.9 (2003) would be it desecration. As to her immodesty, opinions got very hot. WI W.IN Bin Harbon, at the summer home of Mary Don. Harren Wendell said she was the most indecent thing he had ever seen 'William Growninshield Endicott was married to Marie Louise Thoron Endicuti in his life: and, since he systematically upholds cynical freedom, she (b) 1861). daughter of Anna Barker Ward Thoron, who wasa sister of Thomas Wren Want must have been very bad. My knowledge of McMonnies is confined to Jesup Stimson (1855-1943). American author and lawyer me statue, that of Sir Henry Vane, also in our Public Library, an impres- Josephine Shaw Lowell (18.13.1905) widow of Civil Wau General Charles Russil almost sketch in bronze (I think), sculp[t]ure treated like painting- Lowell, 11 (il 186p. and their daughter, Carlotta Russell Lowell (b. 1804), # school and I must say I don't admire the result at all. 5 But you know; and I wish inspector in New York City, "Sanah Chonic Sears (1858-1935). American artist, wife of Boston lawyer Joshua could we other things of his also. How wish I could talk with Rosina, Montgomery Seaus (d. 1908). iii Enther hear her talk, about Paris, talk in her French which I doubt not "George Bud knam Don. is In this time admirable. The only book she has vouchsafed news of "Alexander Robertson James. Consoin of W.I.) having read, to me, is the Annunzio one, which I have ordered in most artist choice Italian, but of Le maître,6 France, etc., she writes never a word. To Ellen Gertrude Emmet Rand at UCONN No of V Hugo. She ought to read la Legende des Siècles.7 For the Bletureaque pure and simple go there! laid on with a trowel SO generous that you really get your glut. But the things in French literature that I OLD FARM, BAR HARBOR, MAINE August Dear Old Bay (and dear Rosina) have Mained most from of-the next most to Tolstoi, in the last few For I have letters from both of you and my heart inclines to both are the whole Cycle of Geo. Sand's life. Her Histoire, her let- that I can't write to either without the other-1 hope you are enjoying lers. and now lately these revelations of the de Musset episode.8 The the english Coast. A rumon reached me not long since that my brother Whole thing is beautiful and uplifting-an absolute "liver" harmoni- Henry had given up his trip to the Continent in order to be near to you fitsly leading her own life and neither obedient nor defiant to what oth- and I hope for the sakes of all concerned that it is true. BIN expected of thought. We are passing the summer very quietly at He will finil in you both that eager and vivid artistic sense, and that direct awoopai Chocorna with our bare feet on the ground. Children growing up builly, # pride to the parental heart. Billy two inches taller than I and August 1807 293 3. delightful fellow, Tweedy an angel. Peggy tremendously improved, and Hugo, In Legende sireles (1857). Harry probably on the way to all the good things of the College. He is "George Sand, Histone 11111 pie Ha letters were published in numerous collections, including Letties ii Alped de Mussel 11 ii Sainte Beuve (1897). Alfred de Musset (1810- an editor of the advocate, and probably of the Crimson, already." Alice French author. was one of the more important of Sand's numerous lovers. and I have just spent it rich week at North Conway at it beautiful "place," "Itemy was on the editorial board d the Harvard Advocate; for his Harvard Crimson the Merrimans. I am now here: ill a really grand place. the or's-tell Correspondence. 3:22n. Rosina that I went 10 a domino party last night, but was SO afraid that "Home of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) in Cambridge. some one of the weird & sinister sisters would speak to me that I came User letter to Emmet of 19January 1897. note 4. home ill 12 o'clock when it had hardly begun. I am SO sensitive Tell Whith Leslie Emmet. her that a lady from Michigan was recently shown the sights of Cam- bridge by one of my Radeliffe girls. She took her to the Longfellow In Alice Howe GibbensJames house," and as the visitor went in 10 the gate, said "I will just wait here" To her surprise the visitor went up to the house, looked in to STONEHURST, INTERVALE, N.H. Sunday night [August 15, 1897] window after the other, then rang the bell and the door closed upon Dentest Alice, her. She soon emerged, and said that the servant had shown her the I sect last night light and made up for everything. This morning up house. "I'm so sensitive that at first I thought I would only peep in at ill bago and by eleven Mrs. M. & I had finished a very thorough and the windows. But then I said to myself Whats the use of being NO Nets antistan tory discussion of her paper, which probably did her good as it sitive?' So I rang the bell." Pray be happy this summer. I see noth certainly did me some. After dinner Roger rowed us across the river ing more of Rosina's in the papers. How is that sort of thing going (1): Meyer & me I mean) and WE walked to the Humphreys ledge place on? Does she in any other way than her poor car feel any effects from going over it from the opening at this end and coming out where we her upset? I am glad to learn that Leslie too is to go to Paris. ¹" I wish went in the other day. It had much less glamour than it had then, and I knew her. As for your Mother, give her my old fashioned love. For need not think of it more. I miss you very much, dearest; would like some unexplained reason, I find it very hard to write to her-probably auto hear your voice make comments on the events that pass, and to see it is the same reason that makes it hard for her to write to me-NO we your dear smile when I turn your way. You have left a blessed memory can sympathize over SO strange a mystery. Anyhow give her my best email here, and 12 now in your best element of all, officiating as a perfect love, and with plenty for yourself, old Bay, & for Rosina, believe me mother, surrounded by your varied brood, and all the more theirs be- YOURS ever CHINE I am not by. Roger relates that he has seen 9 of the men and Wm James three of the girls who were at K.V. with Harry and they all celebrated AIN: DNIN Alll 1092.9 (903) him as the leader of the party in comic acting, woodcraft, walking and Address Miss Ellen Emmet Care of George Hunter Esq Dunwich via Saxmundham general camaraderie, a very good thing for parents to hear. I wish H. Sullolk England would say more for himself.- - Good night: Blessed ones all. Postmarks BAR HARROR AUG 12 1897 NEW YORK, N.Y. AUG 13 '97 SANM(UNDIAM) W.J. NII limis Am 1092.9 (2002) 'Por III's account of his cousins in England see Correspondence, 3:44 'llelen Merriman. Gabriele D'Ammunzio (1863-1938). Italian writer. His Episcopo & Company up 'are'. peated in an English translation in 1896 and is most likely the book Rosina Emmet was reading Aslip for 'her' 10 Kelwin Lawrence Godkin 'Frederick William MacMonnies (1863-1937). American sculptor and painter, For the controversy concerning the "Bacchante," see the New York Times 13 October and Chocorna N.H. Aug 1897 11 November 18g6 On 21 October 1897 the Times reported that the sculptine was excepted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York City, Dear Godkin, Thanks for your kind note in rê Will to Believe. I The sculpture is in the Boston Public Library suppose you expect "Jules (François Elie Jules) Lemaitre 1853-1914). French critic and dramatist. its little it reply to il as I expected one from you to the book, but since Pisto The Text of Varieties I. The History Gifford he was to do as between the two series of lectures but also to curing the set at Aberdeen, for which James had been instrumental Royce's in that sort of thing immediately and privately felt, as against high and noble had appointment. From the Château de Carqueiranne, where NO. general views of our destiny and the world's meaning; and second, to make leave settled, of he thanked President Eliot on January 23 for his he the hearer or reader believe, what I myself invincibly do believe, that, although absence from Harvard: "College work, limited even extending to all the special manifestations of religion may have been absurd (I mean its tures course, written will surely be impossible next year, but getting ten Gifford a half lee creeds and theories), yet the life of it as a whole is mankind's most important that I shall and delivered seems a much lighter matter, and towards function. A task well-nigh impossible, I fear, and in which I shall fail; but to Brown, Thought and Character of William James [Boston: Perry, The begin to write, say at the rate of a page a day" (Ralph Barton or two to devote what energy I can accumulate. I hope in a week attempt it is my religious act (Letters, II, 126-127). He continued with an account of a Scottish couple who called, having heard that he was to be the Gifford lecturer, the wife proving "to be a Thomas 1935], I, 431-432). But on February 16 he had to confess Little to [mass] [HJ brackets] of holy egotism and conceit No talk but evan- The first Davidson that he had not yet begun the writing gelical talk. It seemed assumed that a Gifford lecturer must be one of break-through seems to be marked by a letter of (#881). Wh Moody's partners, and it gave me rather a foretaste of what the Edin- to Gifford Henry: "I am better, beyond doubt I have written February burgh atmosphere may be like. Well, I shall enjoy sticking a knife into reported, "I what they were" (#2822). Again to Henry on March entirely he different lectures, from so a beginning is fairly made and my spirits are 22 pp, of its gizzard-if atmospheres have gizzards? Blessed be Boston-probably the freest place on earth, that is n't merely heathen and sensual." of second this morning in bed finished the first half, (good 19 On a postcard to Henry of April 20 he announced a departure for amount my Gifford lecture, and the second half, there being a measure) certain Switzerland the next week and the start of the fourth lecture: "[I] wrote rolling down already ['in' del.] prepared in the shape of notes, will be like the 6th p. of lecture *IV. [ab. del. 'four'] just now!" (#2827), and on but I March 27 he reported to Seth, "Lecture No. 2 is 15 and then redated hill" (#2823). In a postcard first dated March April 23: "I mailed you yesterday the MS. of my first 3 lectures; having had a type copy made for safety. Don't try to read in them! I also sent like work" must lie off a while, as I find my heart angegriffen by completed off a box of books three weeks ago, on which please pay charges and and added (bMS Am 1092.1). On March 20 he had writen to Lutoslawsk anything remember amount. Will soon send word from Switzerland" (#2828). me for my Gifford lectureship. They declined to accept it, appointing resign a postscript: "I tho't I had already written you that I had After Switzerland, and a visit to Flournoy, he stopped in Nauheim for more medical attention, and on May 10 from there addressed a postcard of it" 1900-1-2. It looks now as if I cd. do the job, at least the writing to Henry, which ended, "I shall stop all dribbling over Gifford lectures part (Sterling Memorial Library). for 6 weeks now" (#2830). During this period he wrote to Pillon from ing "Certainly Gifford lectures are a good institution for stimular Palmer: There was then a pause, for on April 2 he addressed George Herbert Geneva on June 19, "At present I lead an almost vegetative existence, and read, but can do no writing" (#3506). By the end of the month he of production. They have stimulated me so far to produce two lectures was sufficiently improved to write from Lucerne to George Holmes of absolute wishy-washy generalities. What is that for a 'showing' in six months Howison, in a letter dictated to Alice on June 28: "I have not written a told again" (Letters, II, 121). But a week later from off a good while leisure? The second lecture used me up so that I must be line for 3 months, but mean in a week to recommence. The Gifford & Harvard authorities have vied with each other in indulgence, so I shall lecture-but Royce, "I am able to dawdle through the days, & am Hyères and he pull through, somehow" (#1055). And on July 6 he announced on a I fear it is poor stuff, written with SO little grip on on my postcard to Pillon from Lucerne that "tomorrow I am going to begin (#3627). that On the same day, April 9, he wrote to Perry in the same anything again to do a little writing on my Gifford lectures" (#3507), followed by except there is news of progress into the third lecture: "I can write vein, another report on July 13, "I am beginning again to do a little work on are, I fear, a very little, and the 2 2/3 lectures already accomplished I'l' del my poor pitiful Edinburgh lectures" (#3508). continued rather inferior stuff" (#3434). In a letter started April IN and By July 22, 1900, James had got into his fourth lecture, as stated in a on the 13th to Miss Frances R. Morse, he elaborated: letter from Lucerne to George B. Dorr: Gifford I scribble a little in bed every morning, and have reached page 18 of third I have just written a Gifford lecture on the religion of optimism or "healthy- tions don't lecture-though Lecture II, alast must be rewritten entirely. The my mindedness," in which I have given a somewhat emphatic account of the different. is pretty slack and not what it would be if vital that what I write conduce to an energetic grip of the subject, and I am afraid condi *american [intrl.] Mind-Cure movement, broadly SO called.11 all the The problem I have set myself is it hard one: first, my to defend tone were 11 About this fourth lecture James wrote on October 1. 1900, to James R. Angell: the real prejudices backbone of my "class") "experience" against "philosophy" (against "A couple of months ago, I succeeded in writing a Gifford lecture, *only (intrl.) the of the world's religious life I mean prayer, guidance, as and 1th, of a course of 10 for which I have contracted, *entitled (not the course, but this lecture) lab. del. 'on'| the l'philos' del.| religion of healthy mindednews, in which Y. The Text of Varieties I. The History I sadly need a few personal documents, as traits vifs, to redeem so much ab. straction. speak of a Mighty Being, so that a Theist might interpret it as a sense of God's presence. I have some good cases of that. Do you think yours might go with Would it be possible for you to set down in two pages your own experience of them? (The postcards from James to Richard Hodgson are quoted by courtesy regeneration? Or do you think you might induce Mrs. Sears, Mrs. Warren or of the Society for Psychical Research, London, England.) Mrs. Shaw *or any other friend [intrl.] to put themselves down on paper in a similar way? If too long to quote in full, I can extract. I have only one such Also from Nauheim on August 30: "Were you at the Congress? and if so, document as yet, to quote, [in mrgn. 'Sun me by Miss Susie Clark'] and I pray send me your impressions, along with that 'impression of presence' ought to have five or six. Of course absolute anonymity is assured! which you are so eager to put on paper for me!" A few days later, on What I especially should like is some account of the transition from the tense September 5 James wrote again: "Thank you ever SO much for your moralistic state of mind to that of passivity & expectant faith. Also of course the sort of regeneration, spiritual or *physical, [ab. del. 'mor'] experienced. warm-hearted letter, and presence document. Your sense of presence I am writing to H. W. Dresser to see if he can get me a couple of such is very valuable to me for my lecture on mysticism. into which I will documents. His last two books seem to me simply splendid. sert it-no names! But what I now want is something less abstract and My experience is that it is very hard to get documents. People promise, but general-a short narrative, namely, of the details of the ['conc' del.] 1st postpone, and then death comes, but not the document. I really think it is experience (or the 2nd. or 3rd.) you had of it in its concreteness. Pray worth while to make an effort for the sake of these lectures, for in them Mind send it, stracks!" Shortly, on September 15 (altered from 11): "Thanks Cure is for the first time presented to Court Circles (bMS Am 1092.1). for everything. I have abridged and pieced together your various writ- Since the first three lectures had been typed, as noted in a postcard ings, so that it makes a first rate illustration and fits in well. I am adding to Henry of April 23 (above), the fourth lecture may be the one referred other cases in a note, and if it is not too much trouble, I should thank to when James wrote from Nauheim to Alice in England on August agi you greatly for the Hearne case of which you write." Finally, on Decem- "Please tell Mc.Alpine in copying my lecture, to *sandwich [ab. del ber 14 from Rome: "I am hoping to see Myers here in a few days. Had 'l'ate' del.1 put'] in all the notes with the text" (#2136). On a postcard I better show him the material on presence, or send it to you straight. of September 8 he wrote to Royce: "I will say nothing except that it I can get it type-written." has been a sadly disappointing year, and 'the end is not yet.' Do my As James tried to regain his health through the fall of 1900, his writ- darnedest, and I have only succeeded in executing 4 lectures for the next ing lagged. To Miss Frances Morse he wrote on September 16 that he winter. It seems incredible but so. The worst of it is that both courses would shortly be ordered to Rome, but "how the Gifford lectures will are fully ripe inside of me, and Ionly lack strength to write them down" fare, remains to be seen" (Letters, II, 134-135). 12 He wrote Henry on (#3628). September 23 announcing Alice's return to Nauheim. He hopes that In spite of his poor health, which occupied so much of his attention Baldwin's injections will help him, but he cannot start them until No- during this period, James was in constant touch with friends and con vember. "But even now I am fumbling over the lecture MS. and as soon timeed to gather material for the lectures still to be written. The question as I can do even two pp. a day of work on that, I shall, with Alice restored of 'presence' occupied him during preparatory work on Mysticism (Lee and helping along in every way, be absolutely happy." At the end, he remarks: "I feel very sorry that poor McAlpine should have lost sleep tures XVI and XVII) as seen in a series of postcards to Richard Hodgson From Bad Nauheim on August 5 he wrote: over my MS. Tell him he must make light of such things-I could easily have restored a few pages. I suppose the copy [ab. del. 'MS'] will shortly You are taking a lot of trouble (for which I will reward *you) [paren ou, comma come-you storing the original MS. with that of the lectures I sent you nit you must take a little bit more. The fact I wish to illustrate is that then in the winter" (#2848). A few days later, on September 26, he addressed a sense of reality, und zwar it may be of definitely located and individualized Royce: "When I write, 'tis with one eye on the page, and one on you. patial presence, in the absence of the action of any of the ordinary 5 senses When I compose my Gifford lectures mentally, 'tis with the design ex- ray give me therefore the detail of the concrete experience which might best exemplify can judge which it is. I should think it might perhaps clusively of overthrowing your system, and ruining your peace. I ne of the l'unreg' del.| unrecognized ones, provided it were as intense a feel haven't got at work yet-only 4 lectures of the first course written (strange ng as the others, though I beg you to judge.-In your general description you to say) but I am decidedly better today than I have been for the past 10 months, and the matter is all ready in my mind, so that when, a month neat the entire mind cure movement with great respect. I think it deserves ii bit of religious experience, though of course the Eddy school are intellectually all 12 The same phrase appears in a postcard of the same date to Ralph Barton Perry nd. 1911 have to stay il second year away from home, and mean to attack Roma his informing him of the proposed stay in Rome: "I don't exactly know how the Gifford in winter I can make no efforts whatever, and my working power in reduced in # lectures will fare. I am no worse, but also no better. Yet there are other therapeutic mickle" (James R. Angell Papers, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale), cards to play, & I may fall on my feet yet" (#3437). The Text of Varieties I. The History in front sat the lecturer's novelist brother, Henry James; and the room from drag in Velasquez?')" (Letters of James and Flournoy, p. 129).19 On corner to corner was crammed to the point of discomfort. To-day the crowd cheered lustily as he mounted the dais; and he left the room amidst the hearty August 6 he wrote to Schiller: singing of 'He's a jolly fellow,' started and carried through by the students I am right glad that you also do my book for the Nation. Of course the "Cases" who were present. The conclusions and beliefs of the lecturer on certain vital after Chapter IV & V, (p. 123) are not my own,2 20 though I *have ['av' OU. poss. religious questions were carefully withheld till the last. Through twenty lectures 'op'] been pained to find readers supposing so in consequence of the manner of he has kept his audience on tenterhooks, and the simple, manly way in which their printing. Blunder on my part! They are from friends-anonymous friends, this much honored and deeply learned man expressed his views, after delving and the first one is very good. [They are possibly the cases requested in his through an incredible mass of scientific investigations, won for him the plaudita letter of July 22, 1900, to G. B. Dorr.] of all his hearers." The press on the whole is treating my book very sympathetically, ['though' This account follows a description of the conferring of an honorary de del.] and I get some rapturous letters of thanks from strangers. Many of my gree on James by the University of Edinburgh, on April 12, with its dia intimate friends, however, seem to find it rather odious-as why should irre- ligious persons not? I hope it will sell well & help to pay my bills. Thank tion. you for those errata-which had all escaped my eye (Stanford). Back in the United States, in Chocorua, on June 25 James wrote Flournoy (the thought of translation still being in their minds) "that To Mrs. Elizabeth Glendower Evans, addressed as Bessie, James wrote am ordering my London bankers to send you a set of proofs from the on August 25: "You are 'sweet' to take my book SO seriously-I thought, stereotype plates of my book, which arrived after my departure and are when writing it, that it could have no originality, but the reception it no use to me. If you do translate my book, it might be mechanically com gets makes me feel that it is original in temper at least. No previous venient to have it in this loose form. The proofs I sent you previously book of mine has got anything like the prompt & thankful recognition were not revised" (Letters of James and Flournoy, p. 128). that has come to me in letters *about this [intrl.] many of them from The after-effects of the lectures were of mixed satisfaction. In a letter strangers. But I can't myself say on reflection that I do anything than to Henry from Chocorua on July 3, after a paean of praise for the COUR leave the subject just where I find it, and everybody knows that the real tryside, James vowed, "I look back to the Edinburgh fever as to a kind life of religion springs from what may be called the mystical stratum of of nightmare, and shall never be caught in a similar trap again, no matter human nature. Exploration of the subliminal may not show that in what the 'inducements' (#2898), and on July 21 he announced to other respects it pans out as rich as Myers thought it would, and in that brother that he had closed up the "religious" part of his career with case (but [paren OU. comma] it will be a hundred years hence) my sug- supplementary lectures in Cambridge (#2899). As usual, James ful gestion (if remembered by anyone) [intrl.] will appear to have had lowed the reviews closely. He wrote to Flournoy on July 23 to thank him small value. Still the volume is selling well and will no doubt help to for his notice "so ultra-promptly" and added: "The book seems to sell my other books. I want now if possible to write something serious, ganz objectivgefusst, for I get the most diverse reactions on it, and God's l'logical and' del.] systematic, and syllogistic, I've had enough of the friends and his enemies both find in it fuel for their respective flames squashy popular-lecture style" (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe). He re- An enthusiastic clergyman wrote me yesterday that I am of the company marked to Giulio Cesare Ferrari (his Italian translator) on September 1 of Isaiah and Saint Paul. I have just replied: 'Why drag in Saint Paul that "the 'Varieties' book is already a success, and seems to have 'filled and Isaiah?' (You know the painter Whistler, when some admirer told it gap' and responded to a need,' as the reviewers say. I get many letters him that there were only two painters, himself and Velasquez, said 'Why from appreciative readers. I think my treatment has on the whole been 19 James wrote to his son William, Jr., on November 22, 1902, to say that Flournoy 18 James wrote to Rankin on July 8, 1902: "[I] am exceedingly pleased to find that had written a splendid review (#3163), and on February 27, 1903, he reminded Wil- my book makes on the whole so favorable an impression. I am you see a methodist llam to thank Flournoy for the review (#3166). whilst hardly being a Christian, but that my account of religious life is objective 20 Schiller had written on July 16, 1902, to inquire "Is the Case on p. 123-6 [ed., would seem to be proved by the opposite reactions which the book elicits from dif PP. 105-107] intended to be your own? I ask because *if so [intrl.] I want to quote ferent people. To some it offers a displeasing, to others a sympathetic picture, just from it. As you have printed it it seems open to misconstruction" (bMS Am 1092 religion itself does as the world exhibits it. Very frequent is the complaint that (86.1). See "The Documents" for the plate changes that James made in reference to I exhibit it, it is too 'unwholesome,' and that normal religion should be more these cases, as well as the slip inserted in late bound copies of the first printing. In demic, and intellectual and less personal and experimental." He then adds, "I James's annotated copy at Harvard is laid in a brief note (transcribed) to Abauzit, now writing a couple of lectures for the Harvard summer school of theology to dated June 1, 1904, in which James, among answers to questions, states: "The docu- fend lab. del. 'develope') this point they come off Monday & Tuesday of next week ment on p. 160 [ed., p. 134 is my own case-acute neurasthenic attack with phobia. (#87). I naturally disguised the provenancel So you may translate freely." DEATH OF DR. HODGSON. Special to The New York Times. New York Times (1857-Current file); Dec 21, 1905; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 2001) pg. 9 DEATH OF DR. HODGSON. Psychical Researcher Who Attacked Mme. Blavatsky's " Manifestations." Special to The New York Times. BOSTON, Dec. 20. -Dr. - Richard Hodg- son, Secretary of the American Branch of the Society for Psychical Research, fell dead to-night from heart disease while playing handball in the court of the Union Boat Club. Dr. Hodgson was a native of Australia, having been born in Melbourne in 1833. Before he came to America he gained a considerable reputation as a student of spiritualistic and kindred phenomena, and from 1882 to 1887 he devoted almost his entire time to investigations on behalf of the Society for Psychical Research. Hls greatest achievement was his in- quiry In India into the alleged miracles performed by Mme. Blavatsky. This in- vestigation was made in 1885. Dr. Hodg- son went to India and began a scientific inquiry into the alleged marvels. The results of his investigation were pub- lished in the "Proceedings of the Soci- ety for Psychical Research. His report was the greatest blow the Theosophical Society ever suffered. In recent years Dr. Hodgson had been a careful inquirer into spiritualistic phe- nomena and was one of the committee ap- pointed to investigate the manifestations of Mrs. Piper. He is on record as de- claring his belief that the departed may under certain conditions reveal themselves to those remaining upon the earth. but that this occurs much less frequently than Spiritualists believe. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A Memoir of RICHARD HODGSON 1855-1905 BY M.A. DEW. Howe Read at the Annual Meeting of the Tavern Club 6 May 1906 RICHARD HODGSON ON the twentieth of December, 1905, there died in the over-active exercise of his body one whose life was preemi- nently an exercise of the spirit. Indeed, it was as an explorer of the spiritual Gratis realm, an adventurer beyond the bourne from which he believed the return of travelers could be proved and guided, that he was chiefly known to the world at large. Before recalling the distinctive qualities of his private life as we knew it, let us look for a moment at the main facts of what may be called his public career. Richard Hodgson was born in Mel- bourne, Australia, in 1855. In due time he graduated and took a law course at I Melbourne University. This was followed by Conjuring of Phenomena sometimes by study and graduation at the English attributed to Spirit Agency." In 1887 he Cambridge, where he devoted himself came to Boston as secretary of the Ameri- especially to the mental and moral can branch of the Society for Psychical sciences. After six months more of study Research. at the University of Jena, he found him- The results of his whole-hearted de- self, 1882-83, delivering University Ex- votion to this task may be seen in the tension lectures in the north of England. Reports of the Society, and in what he In 1884-85 he served as lecturer at Cam- did towards completing the monumental bridge on the philosophy of Herbert work on "Human Personality and its Spencer. From 1882 to 1887 he was Survival of Bodily Death" by his friend active in the investigations of the Eng- F. W. H. Myers. Through the last years lish Society for Psychical Research. One of his life he was peculiarly identified of his most important and conspicuous with the trance sittings of Mrs. Piper and pieces of work in this period was the the communications from the spirit- exposure of Madame Blavatsky, for the groups of which he recognized "Phi- accomplishment of which he spent some nuit" and "Imperator" as the central months in India. Another was the pene- figures. Though finally surrendering his trating study of S.J. .Davey's Imitations own life to the direction of Imperator," 2 3 he sought to retain in his work of inter- and neither the doubters nor his fellow- pretation for others the attitude of the believers could wholly grudge him the investigator insisting upon the best of opportunity to carry forward-as he evidence. It was his unflagging desire to would have said-"on the other side" accumulate a mass of evidence sufficient the work to which he gave his life on to form a reasonable hypothesis regard- earth. With a swift passage from the ing the "spirit world." known to the unknown sphere, the visi- There is no lack of pathos, from one ble life among us came to an end. point of view, in his having dropped this To those who knew him in private his work unfinished. From another there utter confidence in the work was one of is the satisfaction of his having passed its highest justifications. To hear him quickly, as he wished to pass, from the talk of that "other side" as if it were lit- present to the future life. More than one erally a room separated from the house of his friends recall the eagerness with of life only by walls and doors of glass, which he said only last summer, "I can to see him year in and year out devoting hardly wait to die." A keen intellectual to an idea intellectual and moral powers curiosity regarding what awaited him which might well have won him many was his own chief concern about death. of the rewards which men prize most, Then came that which he had desired; -this was to realize in a measure the 4 5 spirit which has animated the idealists ity, etc., and I think that if for the rest of every age, the spirit through which a of my life from now I should never see man saves his life by losing it. another trance or have another word The general and the personal signifi- from Imperator or his group, it would cance of his work were SO inextricably make no difference to my knowledge that twined together that it is hard to discuss all is well, that Imperator, etc., are all it at all without seeming to invade the they claim to be and are indeed messen- inmost sanctities. Yet in this company gers that we may call divine. Be of good it is no sacrilege to quote from a private courage whatever happens, and pray letter of 1901 a passage which reveals at continually, and let peace come into your once the intense conviction of Richard soul. Why should you be distraught and Hodgson's belief and the pure spiritual worried? Everything, absolutely every- faith of which it was the embodiment: thing,-from a spot of ink to all the "I went through toils and turmoils and stars,-every faintest thought we think perplexities in '97 and '98 about the sig- of to the contemplation of the highest nificance of this whole Imperator ré- intelligence in the cosmos, are all in and gime, but I have seemed to get on a rock part of the infinite Goodness. Rest in that after that,- - seem to understand clearly Divine Love. All your trials are known the reasons for incoherence and obscur- better than you know them yourself. Do 6 7 you think it is an idle word that the hairs major phenomenon is SO rare could of our heads are numbered? Have no dis- come with such conviction that his dis- may. Fear nothing and trust in God." covery had been anticipated. Indeed it His friends and brothers here-for was no unusual thing to have Dick quote surely friendship and brotherhood were you off-hand the new singer's best almost indistinguishable in his relations verses, with all the fervor and under- with us -care especially to remember standing which made him the favorite one thing-that this idealist did not de- interpreter of certain of our own poets. tach himself from the most earth-bound One cannot forget how he entered into of us all. Though SO much of his com- the reading of other men's verses. No merce was with the unseen, his feet kept matter if there were twenty valentines or step with ours on solid earth. In the field prize songs to be read in a single even- of mental activities, there was no one ing, every one of them rang out in his better qualified to discuss the freshest loyal voice as heartily as if Dick himself topics of physical science, the events and were the author, bent upon bringing tendencies in the world of affairs, and forth every particle of meaning or wit their deeper significances. There was no the lines might contain. His intimate one here to whom the pleased discov- association with the more serious muse erer of a new minor poet-since the will be a recurring remembrance to 8 9 most of us, when Christmas and New est memories of our summer lunch- Year come round without the card table, not only for those who used to which brought us his poetic greeting, join the almost daily expeditions to Nan- in which an old or a new poet seemed tasket, and huddled into their clothes merely the mouthpiece of the sender's while Dick's head was still a mere speck own thought. amongst the ocean steamers and harbor Nor was this community of interest islands, but for all whose paths led in- restricted by any means to the things of land or to other shores. In the pool- the mind. The healthy Anglo-Saxon de- room, its dominating figure was for the votion to every exhibition of physical tyro the most patient and encouraging prowess was conspicuously character- of teachers, for the expert the most for- istic of this child of the spirit. The pro- midable of rivals, for the box the most fessional ball game, the college boat race active inciter of tickets. Is it-by the and foot-ball battle excited his keenest way - a mere coincidence that the par- interest; and it was like him to double rot, since losing his most devoted friend his enjoyment in these sports by the and champion, has stood in less need of companionship of one or more of us. a defender than ever before? In the The cheery call for volunteers for the squash-court Dick was the best and gen- 2.20 boat must remain one of the bright- tlest of antagonists in victory or defeat. IO II From the gallery above it his initial speak are a memorable illustration of his inquiry, "Score?" his rallying shouts- unique and beautiful place among us. "two-yard-line," 'anybody's game"- Eight or ten men were gathered in the put spirit into the flagging player, and lower room-one defending an unpop- made him happily conscious of a gallery ular cause, which the others were hotly to which it was no shame to play. Down- denouncing. The debate was growing ac- stairs by the fire-place and at the table rimonious. Down from luncheon came above, it was generally Dick who first Dick. "Go for the scoundrel," he thun- taught the new member to know him- dered from the stairs. "Don't give him self here by his Christian name, and to a chance to speak; down with him! feel that gray hairs and youth might after Don't let him be heard!" The genial all be contemporaries. shout, with its animating love of fair Just because he was the contempo- play as well as of peace, drew a laugh rary of all, the man between whom and and a response. "How can anybody be the rest of us the barriers were the few- heard when you're in the room, Dick?" est and the lowest, he typified, perhaps There was another laugh-and the un- more than any individual member of pleasantness was past. A few moments the club, the spirit of the Tavern. The later Dick left the club. That evening his last words that certain of us heard him lifeless body was carried upstairs. I2 13 A purity of nature which leaves his transition from the seen to the unseen friends unable, even should they try, to could have seemed SO short a journey recall a single taint of coarseness in his as for him? One whose spirit, like our word or thought; a sincerity like that of friend's, was clothed with the whole a true-hearted boy; an unselfishness and armor of faith and courage has told what absence of egotism which made our con- it is for such a man to die: "In the hot- cerns far more often than his the topics fit of life, a-tiptoe on the highest point of our personal intercourse a self-re- of being, he passes at a bound on to the spect which included in its operations a other side. The noise of the mallet and body as wholesome as the air and sea he chisel is scarcely quenched, the trum- loved;-these must surely be remem- pets are hardly done blowing, when, bered in any enumeration of the quali- trailing with him clouds of glory, this ties which made his personality SO rare happy-starred, full-blooded spirit shoots a blending of the spirit and the flesh. into the spiritual land."* Who better than our well-loved friend It is much to have left behind one can remain for us the interpretation and what Richard Hodgson has left to us,- type of this blending? What man of us a memory the sweetest, the purest, the has lived in the flesh a life SO illuminated best-beloved. When his spirit had gone and controlled by the spirit that the R. L. Stevenson, conclusion of Aes Triplex. 14 15 on its final quest that memory in all its freshness remained to hallow the room in which he shared SO many of our de- lights. There it brought together an un- exampled assemblage of the friends of him who had come to us a stranger. For his sake the place which was SO truly his home must be, to us who like to call ourselves his family, more than ever unlike all other places. For his sake we shall sing without sorrow, Meum est propositum in Taberna mori,- for we shall sing it, remembering what it is both to live and to die here, and rejoicing always in the sense of his con- tinuing fellowship. 16