The current usage of the term "Psychical Research" takes its meaning
from the Society for Psychical Research, founded in England in
1882. The original programme of the society involved a systematic
investigation of "that large group of debatable phenomena designated
by such terms as mesmeric, psychical, and Spiritualistic." "From the
recorded testimony of many competent witnesses," it is urged, "there
appears to be, amidst much delusion and deception, an important
body of remarkable phenomena, which are _prima facie_ inexplicable
on any generally recognized hypothesis, and which, if incontestably
established, would be of the highest possible value." The work
of investigation of these "residual phenomena" was intrusted to
six committees, who were to inquire severally into "the nature
and extent of any influence which may be exerted by one mind upon
another, apart from any generally recognized mode of perception;"
into hypnotism, the so-called mesmeric trance, clairvoyance, and
other allied phenomena; to undertake a revision of Reichenbach's
researches with reference to discovering whether his "sensitives"
possessed "any power of perception beyond a highly exalted
sensibility of the recognized sensory organs;" to investigate the
reports of apparitions at the moment of death, and of houses reputed
to be haunted; to inquire into the causes and general laws of the
phenomena of Spiritualism; and to collect material relative to the
history of these subjects. It is the investigation of these topics
from the point of view prevalent in the publications of this Society
that constitutes the definition of Psychical Research. This phrase,
which has come into prominence within less than a score of years,
has no simple or familiar synonym; it must not be interpreted by the
combined connotation of its component words, but must be accepted as
the technical equivalent of the trend and content of a certain type
of investigation of obscure phenomena or alleged phenomena, in most
of which psychological factors are prominent.
If the term may at all be brought within the circle of the sciences,
it certainly there assumes a somewhat unique position. It naturally
becomes the analogue, or it may be the rival of Psychology; yet its
precise status and its logical relations to other departments of
scientific research are far from obvious. The modern conception of
Psychology is generously comprehensive; it encompasses the endlessly
variable and complex processes of human mentality; it pursues with
enthusiasm the study of developmental processes of intelligence in
childhood, in the animal world, in the unfoldment of the race; it
studies, for their own value, the aberrant and pathological forms
of mental action, and brings these into relation with, and thus
illuminates the comprehension of the normal. It forms affiliations
with physiology and biology and medicine, with philosophy and logic
and ethics, with anthropology and sociology and folk-lore; it borrows
freely from their materials, and attempts to interpret the materials
thus borrowed from the psychological point of view and to infuse into
them its distinctive spirit. Surely Psychical Research should be able
to find a nook in so commodious a home; if the problems of Psychical
Research are legitimate members of the psychological family, some
provision should be possible for their reception within the old
homestead. Nor does this group of problems represent a difference of
school, in some such way as the homœopathists represent a secession
from the regular school of medicine; nor can it be regarded as the
special study of the unusual and the abnormal in the sphere of mind,
and thus stand in the relation which teratology or pathology bears
to physiology and anatomy: for in that event it would constitute
a simple division of Abnormal Psychology, and although Psychical
Research has close alliance with the latter, it cannot be, and is
unwilling to be regarded as a subordinate portion of that domain.
From a survey of the literature of Psychical Research one might
readily draw the inference that whereas Psychology studies the
recognized and explicable phases of mental phenomena, Psychical
Research is occupied with the disputed and mysterious. One might also
conclude that whereas Psychology is concerned with the phenomena
commonly associated with mental activities and their variation
under normal as also under unusual and pathological circumstances,
Psychical Research is interested in the demonstration of supernormal
faculties, and in the establishment of forms of mentality that
diverge from and transcend those with which every-day humanity
is permitted to become familiar; and that, moreover, in some of
its excursions Psychical Research does not limit itself to mental
manifestations, but investigates undiscovered forms of physical
energy, and seriously considers whether behind and beyond the world
of phenomena there is another and a different world, in which the
established order and the mental and material laws of this planet
do not obtain. But the unwarranted character, not to say absurdity,
of such a differentiation or classification is at once apparent,
if we attempt to carry it over into other departments of science.
Speculations in regard to the constitution of the earth's centre
or as to the future of our planet, if legitimate in character, are
as readily incorporable into geology as the consideration of more
definite and better known phenomena; biologists recognize that there
are mythical as well as anomalous portions of their domain, but do
not consider that freaks of nature either destroy the validity of
anatomical and physiological principles, or demand a totally distinct
and transcendent organization or method for their study. The chemist
may become interested in the examination of what was really done
when it was supposed that other metals were converted into gold; the
physicist may become interested in the applications of electricity
and magnetism, of optical reflections and images in the production
of stage illusions; but the conception of chemistry and of physics
naturally embraces considerations of the growth, the errors, and
the applications of these sciences. And while these comparisons
do not furnish a complete parallel to the relation that seems to
pertain between Psychology and Psychical Research, yet it is as
true in the one case as in the others, that the differentiation of
a group of problems on the basis of unusualness of occurrence, of
mysteriousness of origin, of doubtful authenticity, or of apparent
paradoxical or transcendent character, is as illogical as it is
unnecessary. The legitimate problems of Psychical Research are
equally and necessarily genuine problems of Psychology, that require
no special designation. They need not be especially important, nor
interesting, nor profitable, nor well comprehended problems of
Psychology, but they belong there if they are scientific problems
at all. The objection to Psychical Research is not a verbal one;
it is an objection to the separation of a class of problems from
their natural habitat, an objection to the violent transplanting
of a growth from its own environment. It is a protest against the
notion that while the psychologist may be listened to with respect
and authority in one portion of his topic, the layman and the member
of the Society for Psychical Research are equally or more competent
to pronounce judgments in a closely allied field. It is a protest
against the view that for the comprehension of such processes as
sensation and perception a course in Psychology may be useful, but
that telepathy may be established by any moderately intelligent but
not specially informed percipient and agent; or that the study of
hallucinations is indeed a complex and difficult subject, but haunted
houses, and phantasms of the living, offer a proper occupation for a
leisure hour. All this is wrong and absurd; and yet it is hardly an
exaggeration to declare that a majority of those who profess a deep
interest in, and express an opinion about the one group of topics,
would be surprised to have demanded of them a familiarity with the
data of Psychology as a prerequisite to an intelligent coöperation in
Psychical Research. If the problems of Psychical Research, or that
portion of the problems in which investigation seems profitable, are
ever to be illuminated and exhibited in an intelligible form, it
will only come about when they are investigated by the same methods
and in the same spirit as are other psychological problems, when
they are studied in connection with and as a part of other general
problems of normal and abnormal Psychology. Whether this is done
under the auspices of a society or in the psychological laboratories
of universities is, of course, a detail of no importance. It is
important, however, what the trend, and the spirit, and the method,
and the purpose of the investigation may be; as it is equally
important, what may be the training, and the capabilities, and
the resources, and the originality, and the scholarship of the
investigators.
Is the "psychical researcher" then merely a psychologist gone astray?
Is he a mere dilettante, an amateur collector of curious specimens,
or is he something very different from a psychologist? He is
doubtless one or the other or all of these. He may be a psychologist
in the truest and best sense of the word; and as all psychologists
have their special interests, so his may be centred in the group of
phenomena which have been unwisely separated from their _milieu_, and
have been inaptly termed "Psychical Research." I am ready not only to
admit but to emphasize that a considerable portion of the influential
contributors to Psychical Research are animated by as truly
scientific motives, and carry on their work with as much devotion
and ability, with as careful a logical acumen, with as shrewd
comprehension of the dangers and difficulties of their topic, as
characterize the labors of any other field of psychological endeavor.
But this statement can by no means be extended to all; nor does it
at all militate against the opinion that many of those to whom it
does apply, subscribe to illogical and pernicious conclusions, and
indirectly encourage a most unfortunate attitude in others.