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35-639: It was William Fletcher Barrett 's visit to America that ultimately led to the formation of the American Society for Psychical Research in December, 1884. Barrett was invited by several members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science . He persuaded intellectuals such as Edward Charles Pickering , Simon Newcomb , Alexander Graham Bell , Henry Pickering Bowditch and William James that

70-487: A believer in telepathy , Barrett denounced the muscle reading of Stuart Cumberland and other magicians as "pseudo" thought readers. Barrett helped to publish Frederick Bligh Bond 's book Gate of Remembrance (1918) which was based on alleged psychical excavations at Glastonbury Abbey . Barrett endorsed the claims of the book and testified to Bond's sincerity. However, professional archaeologists and skeptics have found Bond's claims dubious. In 1919, Barrett wrote

105-563: A cliché in psychical re-search. After evaluating sixty-nine reports of Piper's mediumship William James considered the hypothesis of telepathy as well as Piper obtaining information about her sitters by natural means such as her memory recalling information. According to James the "spirit-control" hypothesis of her mediumship was "somewhat incoherent, ambiguous, irrelevant, and, in some cases, demonstrably false—at best only circumstantial." However, G. Stanley Hall believed Piper's mediumship had an entirely naturalistic explanation and no telepathy

140-693: A doctoral degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1898, finishing magna cum laude . Following her graduation from the University of Chicago, and unable to find employment elsewhere, she worked as an associate at the university's philosophy department. Four years later, she became a professor of philosophy at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania . Although she had earned her Ph.D. in philosophy, her interests and her work led her to psychology and social psychology. Her unpublished dissertation

175-626: A fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Dublin Society . He was knighted in 1912. He married Florence Willey in 1916. He died at home, 31 Devonshire Place in London . Barrett's last book, Christian Science: An Examination of the Religion of Health was completed and published after his death in 1926 by his sister Rosa M. Barrett. Barrett became interested in the paranormal in

210-535: A member of the ASPR in 1907 and an assistant to James Hyslop until 1908, during which time he established his reputation as an ASPR investigator. However his connection with the ASPR ceased due to lack of funds. Carrington was the author the book The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism which exposed the tricks of fraudulent mediums. According to Arthur Conan Doyle , Carrington was not popular with spiritualists. James Hyslop died in 1920, and immediately strife broke out between

245-528: A naturalistic explanation (such as telepathy ; yet telepathy within the laws of undiscovered physics) for purported mediumship and was critical of the purported mediumship of Mina Crandon in particular. Under President Walter Franklin Prince it organised the investigation of Mina during the Scientific American Prize dispute, and Harry Houdini worked with the group. BSPR investigators were involved in

280-514: The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology . In response, defenders of Crandon attacked Rhine. Arthur Conan Doyle published an article in a Boston Newspaper claiming "J. B. Rhine is an Ass." There was a significant split in the history of American psychical research: the American Society for Psychical Research had become dominated by those sympathetic to Spiritualism ; the Boston Society favored

315-605: The American Psychological Association . Richard Hodgson joined the ASPR in 1887 to serve as its secretary. In 1889, Fullerton, James and Josiah Royce were Vice-Presidents and Samuel Pierpont Langley served as President. In 1889, a financial crisis forced the ASPR to become a branch of the Society for Psychical Research , and Simon Newcomb and others left. Following the death of Hodgson in 1905 it achieved independence once more. In 1906, James H. Hyslop took up

350-576: The American Society for Psychical Research . He became president of the society in 1904 and continued to submit articles to their journal. From 1908–14 Barrett was active in the Dublin Section of the Society for Psychical Research, a group which attracted many important members including Sir John Pentland Mahaffy, T.W. Rolleston, Sir Archibald Geikie, and Lady Augusta Gregory. In the late 19th century

385-501: The Creery Sisters (Mary, Alice, Maud, Kathleen, and Emily) were tested by Barrett and other members of the SPR who believed them to have genuine psychic ability, however, the sisters later confessed to fraud by describing their method of signal codes that they had utilized. Barrett and the other members of the SPR such as Edmund Gurney and Frederic W. H. Myers had been easily duped. As

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420-440: The 1860s after having an experience with mesmerism . Barrett believed that he had been witness to thought transference and by the 1870s he was investigating poltergeists . In September 1876 Barrett published a paper outlining the result of these investigations and by 1881 he had published preliminary accounts of his additional experiments with thought transference in the journal Nature . The publication caused controversy and in

455-420: The ASPR support for the purported medium Margery ( Mina Crandon ) and suppressing any reports unfavourable to her. Joseph Banks Rhine claimed to have observed Crandon in fraud in a séance in 1926. According to Rhine during the séance she was free from control and kicked a megaphone to give the impression it was levitating. Rhine's report that documented the fraud was refused by the ASPR, so he published in it in

490-430: The ASPR was heavily involved in the investigation of medium Leonora Piper about whom William James would famously declare in 1890: "To upset the conclusion that all crows are black, there is no need to seek demonstration that no crow is black; it is sufficient to produce one white crow; a single one is sufficient." Since his proclamation of Piper as his "one White Crow", the concept of the single "White Crow" has become

525-564: The American Society for Psychical Research in 1941. In 1934 the BSPR published Extrasensory Perception by their member Joseph Banks Rhine , who introduced the term ESP to English, and the methodology of modern parapsychology, with its quantitative research and laboratory based approach, as distinct from the older psychical research. William F. Barrett Sir William Fletcher Barrett (10 February 1844 in Kingston , Jamaica – 26 May 1925)

560-692: The Royal School of Naval Architecture. In 1873 he became Professor of Experimental Physics at the Royal College of Science for Ireland . From the early 1880s he lived with his mother, sister, and two live-in servants in a residence at Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire ). Barrett discovered Stalloy (see Permalloy ), a silicon-iron alloy used in electrical engineering and also did a lot of work on sensitive flames and their uses in acoustic demonstrations. During his studies of metals and their properties, Barrett worked with W. Brown and R. A. Hadfield. He also discovered

595-422: The Society was becoming less academic. In the same year the ASPR lost 108 members. New members joined the society and William McDougall a past President and Prince both became alarmed at the number of "credulous spiritualists" that joined the ASPR. In 1925 Edwards was reappointed President, and his support of the mediumistic claims of 'Margery' ( Mina Crandon ) led to the 'conservative' faction leaving and forming

630-494: The book was criticized for ignoring critical work on the subject and being "a negative assault on scientific method generally". Amy Tanner Amy Eliza Tanner (March 21, 1870 – February 1, 1956) was an American psychologist who became well known for discrediting the then-famous medium Leonora Piper after Tanner was allowed to attend six séances with a fellow researcher. Tanner was born in Owatonna, Minnesota . She earned

665-572: The claims of psychical phenomena should be investigated scientifically. The first meetings of the society were held in the rooms of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . The founding members who were also the first Vice-Presidents were G. Stanley Hall , George Stuart Fullerton , Edward Charles Pickering, Henry Pickering Bowditch and Charles Sedgwick Minot . Other founding members were Alpheus Hyatt , N. D. C. Hodges , William James and Samuel Hubbard Scudder . The mathematician Simon Newcomb

700-475: The fraud of the medium Kathleen Goligher . Psychical researcher Helen de G. Verrall gave Barrett's book Psychical Research a positive review describing it as a "clear, careful account of some of main achievements of psychical research by one who has himself taken part in these achievements and speaks to a large extent from personal knowledge and observation." However, in the British Medical Journal

735-512: The introduction to medium Hester Dowden 's book Voices from the Void . Barrett held a special interest in divining rods and in 1897 and 1900 he published two articles on the subject in Proceedings of the SPR . He co-authored the book The Divining-Rod (1926), with Theodore Besterman . Barrett rejected any physical theory for dowsing such as radiation. He concluded that the ideomotor response

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770-481: The membership as the Society divided into two factions, one broadly pro- Spiritualism , indeed often Spiritualists, and the other 'conservative' faction favoring telepathy and skeptical of 'discarnate spirits' as an explanation for the phenomena studied, or simply skeptical of the phenomena's existence. In 1923 a prominent Spiritualist, Frederick Edwards, was appointed President, and the conservative faction led by Gardner Murphy and Walter Franklin Prince declared that

805-505: The position as secretary of the recreated organization, with the work being done at his residence in New York City . He once wrote his son, "My work is missionary, not mercenary." The intended name for the new organization was, "The American Institute for Scientific Research" which Hyslop had organized into two sections for the investigation of two separate fields: "A" was to deal with psychopathology or abnormal psychology. Its Section "B"

840-571: The rival Boston Society for Psychical Research in May, 1925. From this point on the ASPR remained highly sympathetic to Spiritualism until 1941, when the Boston Society for Psychical Research was reintegrated into the ASPR. The Boston Society for Psychical Research (BSPR) was founded in April 1925 by former research officer Walter Franklin Prince of the ASPR. Other founding members were William McDougall, Lydia W. Allison and Elwood Worcester. They were alarmed by

875-446: The shortening of nickel through magnetisation in 1882. When Barrett developed cataracts in his later years, he also began to study biology with a series of experiments designed to locate and successfully analyze causative agents within the eyes. The result of these experiments was a machine called the entoptiscope . He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 1899 and was also

910-535: The social reformer Rosa Mary Barrett was born. In 1855 they moved to Manchester and Barrett was then educated at Old Trafford Grammar School. Barrett then took chemistry and physics at the Royal College of Chemistry and then became the science master at the London International College (1867–9) before becoming assistant to John Tyndall at the Royal Institution (1863–1866). He then taught at

945-538: The tests she and Hall had carried out in the séance sittings held with the medium Leonora Piper . Hall and Tanner had proven by tests that the "personalities" of Piper were fictitious creations and not discarnate spirits. She left Clark (and academic work) in 1919, and remained in Worcester, Massachusetts . She was the director of the Worcester Girls Club for many years and represented the local Woman's Club on

980-470: The uncovering of the alleged fraud of Mina Crandon —including a number of revelations often credited to Harry Houdini , but actually discovered by other BSPR members. In 1923, Prince described the Crandon case as "the most ingenious, persistent, and fantastic complex of fraud in the history of psychic research." The BSPR fell into obscurity following exposure of Mina Crandon , and was formally reincorporated into

1015-451: The wake of this Barrett decided to found a society of like-minded individuals to help further his research. Barrett held conference between 5–6 January 1882 in London. In February the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was formed. Barrett was a Christian and spiritualist member of the SPR. Although he had founded the society, Barrett was only truly active for a year, and in 1884 founded

1050-629: Was an English physicist and parapsychologist . He was born in Jamaica where his father, William Garland Barrett , who was an amateur naturalist, Congregationalist minister and a member of the London Missionary Society , ran a station for saving African slaves. There he lived with his mother, Martha Barrett, née Fletcher, and a brother and sister. The family returned to their native England in Royston, Hertfordshire in 1848 where another sister,

1085-455: Was involved. Hall and Amy Tanner , who observed some of the trances, explained the phenomena in terms of the subconscious mind harboring various personalities that pretended to be spirits or controls. In their view, Piper had subconsciously absorbed information that she later regurgitated as messages from "spirits" in her trances. On June 20, 1906, the ASPR had 170 members and by the end of November 1907, it had 677. Hereward Carrington became

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1120-803: Was responsible for the movement of the rod but in some cases the dowser's unconscious could pick up information by clairvoyance . Barrett has drawn criticism from researchers and skeptics as being overly credulous for endorsing spiritualist mediums and not detecting trickery that occurred in the séance room. For example, author Ronald Pearsall wrote that Barrett was duped into believing spiritualism by mediumship trickery. Skeptic Edward Clodd criticized Barrett as being an incompetent researcher to detect fraud and claimed his spiritualist beliefs were based on magical thinking and primitive superstition. Another skeptic Joseph McCabe wrote that Barrett "talks nonsense of which he ought to be ashamed" as he had poor understanding of conjuring tricks and failed to detect

1155-420: Was the first President. Other early members included the psychologists James Mark Baldwin , Joseph Jastrow , and Christine Ladd-Franklin . Initial research findings were discouraging. By 1890, members such as Baldwin, Hall, Jastrow and Ladd-Franklin had resigned from the society. Hall and Jastrow became outspoken critics of parapsychology. Morton Prince and James Jackson Putnam left the ASPR in 1892 to form

1190-486: Was titled Association of Ideas: A Preliminary Study, and she published her subsequent research in psychology journals. In 1907, Tanner became an "Honorary University Fellow" at Clark University , a position she held until 1916. While at Clark University, she investigated mediumship with the psychologist G. Stanley Hall . She published her findings as sole author in the book Studies in Spiritism (1910) which documented

1225-549: Was to be concerned with what Hyslop called "supernormal psychology" or parapsychology . Section "A" never got off the ground. But Section "B" became the new and reorganized ASPR. One of the Institute's aims was to organize and endow investigations into telepathy , clairvoyance , mediumship , and kinetic phenomena . This work was to be carried out by "B." The society remained in New York, where it remains as of 2015. During this period

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