PSYCHICAL RESEARCH. THE SOCIETY FOR. The Society for Psychical Research was founded at the beginning of 18S2, and incorporated in August, 1895, " for the purpose of making an organised and systematic attempt to investigate various sorts of debatable phenomena which are prima facie inexplicable on any generally recognised hypothesis. From the recorded testimony of many competent witnesses, past and present. including observations recently made by scientific men of eminence in various countries, there appeared to be, amidst much illusion and deception, an important body of facts to which this description would apply, and which, therefore, if incontestably established, would be of the very highest interest. The task of examining such residual phenomena had often been undertaken by indi vidual effort, but never hitherto by a scientific society organised on a sufficiently broad basis." The principal departments of work at present undertaken by the Society are five in number. 1. An examination of the nature and extent of any influence which may 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 pheno mena 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 realised the exceptional difficulties which surround this branch of re search; but they nevertheless believed that by patient and systematic effort some results of permanent value might be attained." The Society publishes " Pro ceedings," and a Monthly Journal is issued to members and associates. The Society for Psychical Research, it may be said, is having a considerable influence upon the thought of the age.