Society for Psychical Research

The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a non-profit organization which started in the United Kingdom and was later imitated in other countries. Its stated purpose is to understand "events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal by promoting and supporting important research in this area" and to "examine allegedly paranormal phenomena in a scientific and unbiased way." [ [http://www.spr.ac.uk/index.php3?page=library SPR website] ] It was founded in 1882 by a group of eminent thinkers including Edmund Gurney, Frederic William Henry Myers, William Fletcher Barrett, Henry Sidgwick, and Edmund Dawson Rogers.

The Society's headquarters are in Marloes Road, London.

It publishes the quarterly "Journal of the Society for Psychical Research" (JSPR), the irregular "Proceedings" and the magazine "Paranormal Review". It holds an annual conference, regular lectures and two study days per year. Its French equivalent, the French Society for Psychical Research, publishes the "Journale de la Société Française pour Recherche Psychique" (JSFRP), which means "Journal of the French Society for Psychical Research" in English. Its American counterpart, the American Society for Psychical Research, publishes the "Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research" (JASPR).

Purpose and organization

Its purpose was to encourage scientific research into psychic or paranormal phenomena in order to establish their truth. Research was initially aimed at six areas: telepathy, mesmerism and similar phenomena, mediums, apparitions, physical phenomena associated with séances and, finally, the history of all these phenomena. The Society is run by a President and a Council of twenty people. The organisation is divided between London and Cambridge (where the archives are located), the London headquarters were initially at 14 Dean's Yard. A French branch of the Society was formed in 1885 as the Société Française pour Recherche Psychique (SFRP), which means "French Society for Psychical Research" in English. Later, an American branch of the Society was formed as the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR), becoming an affiliate of the original SPR in 1890. American writers sometimes incorrectly call the SPR the British Society for Psychical Research (BSPR), to distinguish it from the American SPR, but the modifer should not be added.

List of Presidents

Today

The Society states its principal aim as "understanding events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal by promoting and supporting important research in this area." The Society has gathered and disseminated a great deal of data relating to the paranormal. The SPR publishes a scholarly journal, the "Journal of the Society for Psychical Research",. The Society has built up an extensive library and archive, part of which is held at the University of Cambridge. [ [http://www.spr.ac.uk/index.php3?page=library SPR website] ] [ [http://moebius.psy.ed.ac.uk/~info/SocAssoc.php3 Edinburgh University Website] ]

The Society has many well known figures among its members, including Dean Radin, Peter Underwood, Charles Tart, Tom Ruffles, Ciarán O'Keeffe, and Louie Savva. Investigators of spontaneous phenomena (hauntings, etc.) include the late Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair who investigated reports of the Enfield Poltergeist [Playfair, G.L. & Grosse, M. (1988). "Enfield revisited: The evaporation of positive evidence". "Journal of the Society for Psychical Research" 55 pp.208-219] .

References

* Vernon Harrison. (1997) H. P. Blavatsky and the SPR. ISBN 1-55700-119-7

External links

* [http://www.spr.ac.uk SPR home page]