RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Psychical Research Psychotherapy
coincidental nature were published, and it was mathematically proved that the coincidence between the death and the apparition seen was far more than any chance would account for. Further, conducting this inquiry through several years in many countries, it was more conclusively proved in 1894, when the " Census of Hallucinations " was published, in which conclusions drawn from more than 30,000 replies showed that this coincidence was again far more frequent than was mathematically probable. The connection — whatever its nature — was thus conclusively proved. Many cases were produced by both the English and American societies, of clairvoyance, premonitions, and other supernormal phenomena. Generally speaking, it may be said that physical manifestations have yielded but slight and inconclusive results— being proved to be fraudulently produced, almost invariably, while the mental manifestations have proved to be far more productive of results. The most famous case is that of Mrs. Piper, a trance medium of Boston, who has succeeded in affording the strongest evidence ever yet obtained of a future life. Mrs. Piper passes into trance, while sitting at a table, conversing with her sitter (the trance is genuine, and has been tested by various eminent medical men). She then falls forward on the table, and her body is supported by cushions. Her right hand and arm is then apparently " controlled " by an alien intelligence, i.e., a " spirit," and automatic writing is the result. It will be observed that the manner of the production of this writing is not unusual; to all external appearances the medium might be doing it herself. The point to be considered is this: does the writing contain any facts unknown to anyone but the intelligence supposedly giving them? If certain specific incidents are referred to, known only to an individual who has died and who is supposedly communicating; and if, furthermore, it can be shown that the medium had had no means of acquiring this information by any known means; if, finally, it can be shown that telepathy, clairvoyance, and other modes of supernormal operation are excluded, then very fair evidence is adduced that the intelligence who once knew those facts was really " there," referring to them, and reminding his sitters of them, through the entranced organism of the medium. It was as though her soul had been temporarily removed from the body, and her nervous mechanism operated — more or less imperfectly —by a foreign or invading intelligence.
This is the character of the evidence that has been obtained mostly by scientists studying the phenomena; and it will be seen that this is the best and most direct means that could be devised for communing with a soul, granting such to exist. Psychical research is the science of the investigation of the borderland of spirit and matter, and of their inter-communication. Its position is that there are certain definite facts which recur, and which must be included in materialistic philosophy, if the latter is to be a scheme of the universe. If philosophy is incapable of including and explaining them, it is obviously erroneous and non-inclusive. These facts of psychic research indicate that there is a realm of spirit, active and capable of influencing
this world more or less directly. Materialism would thus be overthrown, and its theories proved to be erroneous. And it is because of this possibility — because a spiritual order of things might thus be proved, that its present workers regard it as the most important work in the world to-day.
Herewabd Caehington. Bibliography: The chief sources of information are the Proceedings of the English society, London, 1883 sqq., and of the American society, New York, 1907 sqq., together with the works named in the text. Consult further: I. K. Funk, The Widow's Mite, New York, 1904; idem, The Psychic Riddle, ib. 1907; J. H. Hyslop, Science and a Future Life, Boston, 1905; idem, Enigmas of Psychical Research, ib. 1906; idem, Psychical Research and the Resurrection, ib. 1908; L. Elbe, Future Life in the Light of Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science, Chicago, 1906; E. E. Fournier d'Albe, New Light on Immortality, New York, 1908; Sir Oliver Lodge, Science and Immortality, ib. 1908; F. Podmore, Naturalization of the Supernatural, ib. 1908: E. T. Bennett, Psychic Phenomena, ib., 1909; E. Katherine Bates, Psychical Science and Christianity, ib., 1909; C. Lombroso, After Death What ? Spiritistic Phenomena and their Interpretation, Boston, 1909; H. Carrington, Eusapia Palladino and her Phenomena, London, 1910; and the periodicals, The Annals of Psychical Science, and The Occult Review. A large bibliography of pertinent literature will be found under Spiritualism, Spiritualists.