Extrasensory Perception: Research Findings

Although claims of psychic phenomena have been with us since antiquity, the beginning of organized research into the nature of these phenomena is usually associated with the founding in 1882 of the Society for Psychical Research in London. The S.P.R. was the brainchild of a group of distinguished scholars who were concerned primarily with the question of survival after death, and who believed that scientific research might provide a more satisfactory resolution of this problem than had the current religious dogma (Gauld, 1968). The S.P.R., as well as its sister society established a few years later in America, devoted its energies to two principal lines of ESP research. The first was a thorough investigation of reports of “real-life” psychic experiences (e.g., telepathy, apparitional experiences, hauntings) with the purpose of demonstrating that they could not be adequately explained by “normal” causes (e.g., Gumey, Myers, and Podmore, 1886/1970; Myers, 1903/1975). The second approach involved the investigation of spiritualist mediums who claimed the ability to communicate with the dead. Although some of these mediums proved to be fraudulent, others consistently were able to provide investigators with remarkably detailed information about deceased persons, information that it is difficult to conceive of their having acquired by normal means. Perhaps the most outstanding of these mediums were Leonore Piper (Hodgson, 1897–1898) and Gladys Leonard (Smith, 1964). Whether the information received by these mediums originated from the “other side” or simply reflected their own ESP is still an unresolved issue in parapsychology, although most parapsychologists today recoil from the spiritualistic interpretation.