Abstract
IT has been suggested on several occasions that the time has come for the critical and objective study of certain psychical (‘para-normal’) phenomena by the accredited experimental methods of physics, physiology and psychology. How these methods may be applied to such a problem as, for example, telekinesis (the movements of objects without physical contact but in presence of an entranced ‘medium’) has been investigated in Paris by Dr. Eugene Osty, working with infra-red rays (see NATURE, November 25, p. 801). These curious effects have also been studied by Mr. Harry Price at his National Laboratory of Psychical Research in London. Fortunately, research into such para-normal happenings requires no belief in the truth or falsity of spiritualism; it is the outcome of the unprejudiced study of very special phenomena by the methods of the modern laboratory. Prof. Eraser-Harris, writing from The Athenaeum, Pall Mall, S.W.I, informs us that an effort is to be made to endow and equip an institute for the critical study of psychical phenomena by the objective methods of registration. The promoters of the scheme realise that such things as the nature of the trance-state of a teledynamist, the ‘direct voice’, and materialisations (‘ectoplasm’) are now amenable to be investigated by delicate instruments and by exquisite methods which were non-existent a generation ago. Photography by ultraviolet light and by infra-red rays, the reception and transmission of sounds and voices by the microphone and gramophone, are sufficient to indicate that science is equipped as never before to attack problems apparently the most mysterious. It is hoped that funds may be forthcoming to make it possible to endow and equip an institute of psychical research worthy of the importance of the subjects to be investigated. Our own view, however, is that such an institute should be attached to the psychological department of a university or college, or to a responsible scientific society, and not be under the control of a private governing body. If established under such auspices it might maintain the reputation of Great Britain as the traditional home of genuine, unfettered and fearless research.
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Physical Investigations of Psychical Phenomena. Nature 132, 849 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/132849a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/132849a0