678 PSYCHICAL RESEAKCH OF THE CENTURY. 



had not attracted attention in Enj^land, P.sAchieal research, investigat- 

 ing automatics actions, has enlarged our knowk^dge of this ol)scure 

 topic. 



After the '^spiritualistic" ^\■ave had ex})ended itself, at least among 

 the educated, a society was formed in P^ngland, "The Society for 

 Psychical Kesearch," to investigate the whole mass of reported super- 

 normal phenomena. The founders, about 1880, were a group of 

 Cambridge scholars, the late Mr. Edmund Gurney, Mr. Frederick, 

 and Mr. Arthur Myers, the late Professor Sidgwick, Mr. Podmore, 

 and others. Many men of science, such as Sir William Crookes, Prof. 

 Balfour Stewart, Prof. Oliver Lodge, the late distinguished electrician, 

 Professor Hertz, with Lord Tennyson, IVIr. A. J. Balfour, M. P., 

 Mr. Gladstone, and a number of British and continental savants, lent 

 their names and a portion of their energ}' to the societ3^ In the 

 American branch Prof. William James, with others, represents official 

 psychology. The object of the society was to collect and cross- 

 examine tirst-hand evidence for the ancient alleged phenomena called 

 "ghosts," "wraiths," "haunted houses," clairvoyance, premonitions, 

 "spiritualistic distur))ances," and .so forth. The society thought that 

 ideas of such old standing and wide difl'usion, and reported modern 

 experiences in the same kind, ought to be scientiticall}' examined. 

 Experiments were also to be mad(\ The leaders were men familiar 

 with the science of psychology and of the ])rain. Mr. Myers and Mr. 

 Gurney especially conducted a long and careful series of experiments 

 in hypnotism. Mr. Gurnev pu))lished a very learned essav on " Hal- 

 lucinations of the Senses." Meanwhile Mr. (iurney, especially, with 

 Mr. Myers, Mr. Podmore, and Mr. and Mrs. Sidgwick, collected all 

 availalde first-hand evidence for '"ghosts" of the dead and "wraiths" 

 of the living or dying. The personal examination of witncss.ses and 

 of corroboratives evidence was j)ursued with minute and conscientious 

 car(». 



Moreover, many cxperinuMits were made in ""thought transfei'cnce." 

 One i)ers()n. say, thinks of a diagram, a i)icture, a card, or what not, 

 which another person, carefully excluded from sensible contact with 

 the tirst, ench'avors to reproduce. The results often seemed highly 

 successful, and experience enabled the experimenters to discover and 

 eliminate such causes as "unconscious whispering," as well as to detect 

 some methods of fraud. Having convinced themselves that the trans- 

 ference of thought, not by any recognized channels of the senses, was 

 a possibility, even when the experimenters were not in the same room, 

 the investigators applied their discovery to their great collection of 

 " ghosts" and "" wraiths." The results were published in two large vol- 

 umes, called "Phantasms of the Living." The argument, put briefly, 

 was that the mind or brain of a person in a crisis, notabl}' in the crisis 

 of death, could afl'ect by visual, audible, or other hallucinations of 



