Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research. Michael Sage
be exerted by one mind upon another, otherwise than through the recognised sensory channels.
2. The study of hypnotism and mesmerism; and an inquiry into the alleged phenomena of clairvoyance.
3. A careful investigation of any reports, resting on testimony sufficiently strong and not too remote, of apparitions coinciding with some external event (as for instance a death) or giving information previously unknown to the percipient, or being seen by two or more persons independently of each other.
4. An inquiry into various alleged phenomena apparently inexplicable by known laws of nature, and commonly referred by Spiritualists to the agency of extra-human intelligences.
5. The collection and collation of existing materials bearing on the history of these subjects.
The aim of the Society is to approach these various problems without prejudice or prepossession of any kind, and in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry which has enabled Science to solve so many problems, once not less obscure nor less hotly debated. The founders of the Society have always fully recognised the exceptional difficulties which surround this branch of research; but they nevertheless believe that by patient and systematic effort some results of permanent value may be attained.
Investigating Committees (with the exception of the Committee for Experiments) are not appointed by the Council; but any group of Members and Associates may become an investigating Committee; and every such Committee will, it is hoped, appoint an Honorary Secretary, and through him report its proceedings to the Council from time to time.
The Council, if it accepts a report so made for presentation to the Society, will be prepared to consider favourably any application on the part of the Committee for funds to assist in defraying the expenses of special experimental investigation.
The Council will also be glad to receive reports of investigation from individual Members or Associates, or from persons unconnected with the Society.[2]
Any such report, or any other communication relating to the work of the Society, should be addressed to Miss Alice Johnson (as Editor of the Proceedings and Journal), 20 Hanover Square, London, W., or to J. G. Piddington, Esq., 87 Sloane Street, London, S.W.; or in America to Dr. Richard Hodgson, 5 Boylston Place, Boston, Mass.
Meetings of the Society, for the reading and discussion of papers, are held periodically; and the papers then produced, with other matter, are, as a general rule, afterwards published in the Proceedings.
The Proceedings of the Society may be obtained directly from the Secretary, 20 Hanover Square, London, W., or from the Secretary of the American Branch, or from any bookseller, through Mr. R. Brimley Johnson, 4 Adam Street, Adelphi, London, W.C.
A Monthly Journal (from October to July inclusive) is also issued to Members and Associates. The Journal contains evidence freshly received in different branches of the inquiry, which is thus rendered available for consideration, and for discussion by correspondence, before selections from it are put forward in a more public manner.
The Council, in inviting the adhesion of Members, think it desirable to quote a preliminary Note, which appeared on the first page of the Constitution of the original Society, and which still holds good.
"Note.—To prevent misconception, it is here expressly stated that Membership of the Society does not imply the acceptance of any particular explanation of the phenomena investigated, nor any belief as to the operation, in the physical world, of forces other than those recognised by Physical Science."
Conditions of Membership.
The conditions of Membership are thus defined in Articles 11–18:—
The Society shall consist of: (a) Members, who shall subscribe two guineas annually, or make a single payment of twenty guineas, (b) Associates, who shall subscribe one guinea annually, or make a single payment of ten guineas.
All Members and Associates of the Society shall be elected by the Council. Every candidate for admission shall be required to give such references as shall be approved by the Council, and shall be proposed in writing by two or more Members or Associates.
All subscriptions shall become payable immediately upon election, and subsequently on the first day of January in each year. In the case of any Member or Associate elected on or after the 1st October, his subscription shall be accepted as for the next following year.
Article 22 provides that if any Member or Associate desire to resign, he shall give written notice thereof to the Secretary. He shall, however, be liable for all subscriptions which shall then remain unpaid.
Ladies are eligible either as Members or Associates.
Privileges of Membership.
Articles 19 and 20 provide that Members and Associates are eligible to any of the offices of the Society, and are entitled to the free receipt both of the Proceedings and of the Journal, to the use of Library books in the Society's rooms, and to attend all the General Meetings of the Society, to which they are also allowed to invite friends. They are further entitled to purchase the Proceedings of the Society issued previous to their joining it—and also additional copies of any Part or Volume—at half their published price.
Members have the additional privileges of borrowing books from the Library, and of voting in the election of the Council, and at all meetings of the Society.
A contents sheet of the whole series of Proceedings may be had on application to the Secretary, 20 Hanover Square, London, W.
[2] Any reports or papers which may be printed in the Proceedings will become the Society's property; but author or authors will be entitled to receive 50 copies of any such report or paper gratis, and additional copies, if required, at a small charge.
Mrs. Piper
AND THE
Society for Psychical Research
CHAPTER I
Mrs. Piper's mediumship—Is mediumship a neurosis?
Mrs. Piper is what the spiritualists call a medium, and what the English psychologists call an automatist, which is to say, a person who appears at times to lend her organism to beings imperceptible to our senses, in order to enable them to manifest themselves to us. I say that it appears to be thus, not that it is so. It is difficult for many reasons to admit the existence of these problematical beings. We shall deny it or remain sceptical till the day comes when the evidence proves too strong for us.
Mrs. Piper's mediumship is one of the most perfect which has ever been discovered. In any case, it is the one which has been the most perseveringly, lengthily and carefully studied by highly competent men. Members of the Society for Psychical Research have studied the phenomena presented by Mrs. Piper during fifteen consecutive years. They have taken all the precautions necessitated by the strangeness of the case, the circumstances, and the surrounding scepticism; they have faced and minutely weighed all hypotheses. In future the most orthodox psychologists will be unable to ignore these phenomena when constructing their systems; they will be compelled to examine them and find an explanation for them, which their preconceived ideas will sometimes render it difficult to do.
Praise and warm gratitude are due