XVI 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH, SCIENCE AND 

 RELIGION^ 



By J. Malcolm Bird 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH is a term coined 

 for application to the study of a group of 

 phenomena that open the door to many con- 

 troversies. These phenomena are of anthropological 

 rather than cosmical content, in that their occurrence 

 as well as their observation requires human Instrumen- 

 tality; and they are anthropocosmic In that they are 

 not manifestations of the human brain and organism 

 alone, but represent rather a reaction or relation be- 

 tween the human ego and the universe In which this 

 resides. 



Beyond these fearfully vague generalizations, It is 

 not entirely clear how the field of psychical research 

 should be defined, or where its frontiers should be 

 drawn. The widest divergence appears on the ques- 

 tion of bare occurrence; and when we answer this ab- 

 stractly In the affirmative, as all competent and un- 

 biased authority now does, it continues to arise over 

 whole categories of the phenomena and over the entire 

 phenomena of individual subjects. The phenomena by 

 their nature In some degree require the substitution of 

 spontaneous observation for free experiment; and the 



1 This title is used with apologies to Mr. Stanley De Brath, who 

 employed it for a fuller discussion which he published several years 

 ago in book form. 



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