THE NATURALISATION OF THE SUPERNATURAL
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTORY
It has been widely felt that the present is an opportune time for making an organized and systematic attempt to investigate that large group of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric, psychical, and spiritualistic.
From the recorded testimony of many competent witnesses, past and present, including observations recently made by scientific men of eminence in various countries, there appears to be, amid much delusion and deception, an important body of remarkable phenomena, which are prima facie inexplicable on any generally recognised hypothesis, and which, if incontestably established, would be of the highest possible value.
The task of examining such residual phenomena has often been undertaken by individual effort, but never hitherto by a scientific society organised on a sufficiently broad basis.
The above extract from the original prospectus of the Society for Psychical Research, issued in 1882, shows the spirit in which it entered on its investigations, the aim which it set before itself, and the methods by which it was proposed to pursue this aim.
1
