Blavatsky H.P. - The New Society for Psychical Research: Difference between revisions

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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, amidst much illusion and deception, an important body of remarkable phenomena, which are prima facie inexplicable on any generally recognized hypothesis, and which, if incontestably established, would be of the highest possible value.

Letters of inquiry or application for membership may be addressed to the Hon. Secretary, Edward T. Bennett, The Mansion, Richmond Hill, near London.

It was intended, in founding the British Theosophical Society, our London Branch, to cover this exact ground, adding to it the hope of being able to work up to a direct personal intercourse with those “Great Masters of the Snowy Range of the Himavat,” whose existence has been amply proven to some of our Fellows, and, according to the Rev. Mr. Beale—“is known throughout all Tibet and China.” While something has, certainly, been done in that direction, yet for lack of the help of scientific men, like those who have joined to found this new Society, the progress has been relatively slow. In all our Branches there is more of a tendency to devote time to reading books and papers and propounding theories, than to experimental research in the departments of Mesmerism, Psychometry, Odyle (Reichenbach’s new Force), and Mediumism. This should be changed, for the subjects above-named are the keys to all the world’s Psychological Science from the remotest antiquity down to our time. The new Psychical Research Society, then, has our best wishes, and may count upon the assistance of our thirty-seven Asiatic Branches in carrying out their investigations, if our help is not disdained. We will be only too happy to enlist in this movement, which is for the world’s good, the friendly services of a body of Hindu, Parsi and Sinhalese gentlemen of education, who have access to the vernacular, Sanskrit, and Pali literature of their respective countries, and who were never {{Page aside|132}} yet brought, either by governmental or any private agency, into collaboration with European students of Psychology. Let the London savants but tell us what they want done, and we will take care of the rest. In the same connection we would suggest that the Psychical Research Society and our London and Paris Branches should open relations with the Committee of the Academy of France, just formed, or forming, to make a serious study of these very subjects, as the result of the recent experiments of Drs. Charcot, Chevillard, Burq, and other French biologists. Let us, by all means, have an international, rather than a local, investigation of the most important of all subjects of human study—PSYCHOLOGY.