Society for Psychical Research

The Society for Psychical Research is a British organization founded in 1882 to investigate claims of telepathy, apparitions, mediumship, and other alleged psychic phenomena through systematic inquiry.

Census of Hallucinations: A large survey of reported sensory experiences conducted by the Society for Psychical Research in the 1890s. It applied questionnaires and statistical analysis to claims of seeing apparitions.
Henry Sidgwick: An English philosopher and ethicist who was the Society for Psychical Research’s first president. He helped establish the society’s scholarly identity and led its early work.
Eleanor Sidgwick: An English educator and psychical researcher who investigated mediums and served as president of the Society for Psychical Research. Her careful investigations helped define the society’s critical approach to mediumship.
Spiritualism: A religious movement based on the belief that the living can communicate with the spirits of the dead. The society investigated claims central to spiritualism without adopting it as a creed.
Phantasms of the Living: An 1886 collection of reported apparitions and related experiences compiled by Edmund Gurney, Frederic Myers, and Frank Podmore. The book presented cases gathered through the society’s early investigations into apparitions.
C. E. M. Joad Committee: A committee formed by the Society for Psychical Research to investigate reports of telepathy. Its controlled tests exemplify the society’s attempts to examine telepathy experimentally.
Frederic William Henry Myers: An English classical scholar and psychical researcher who helped found the Society for Psychical Research. His interest in subliminal consciousness shaped the society’s investigations and theories.
Richard Hodgson: An Australian-born investigator known for examining mediums and exposing fraudulent performances. His investigations made fraud detection a prominent part of the society’s work.
Scientific skepticism: The practice of evaluating claims through critical scrutiny and evidence-based reasoning. Skeptical critics challenged the society’s interpretations and the reliability of its reported evidence.
Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death: Frederic Myers’s posthumously published work proposing that consciousness extends beyond ordinary waking awareness and may survive death. It developed a major theory from evidence and concepts explored within the society.

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