VER LODGE._

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Under the name "Second Sight," for instance.

OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY

The Society for Psychical Research was founded at the beginning of 1882,
for the purpose of making an organised and systematic attempt to
investigate various sorts of debatable phenomena which are _prima facie_
inexplicable on any generally recognised hypothesis. From the recorded
testimony of many competent witnesses, past and present, including
observations recently made by scientific men of eminence in various
countries, there appeared to be, amidst much illusion and deception, an
important body of facts to which this description would apply, and which
therefore, if incontestably established, would be of the very highest
interest. The task of examining such residual phenomena had often been
undertaken by individual effort, but never hitherto by a scientific
society organised on a sufficiently broad basis. The following are the
principal departments of work which the Society at present undertakes:--

1. An examination of the nature and extent of any influence which may
be exerted by one mind upon another, otherwise than through the
recognised sensory channels.

2. The study of hypnotism and mesmerism; and an inquiry into the
alleged phenomena of clairvoyance.

3. A careful investigation of any reports, resting on testimony
sufficiently strong and not too remote, of apparitions coinciding with
some external event (as for instance a death) or giving information
previously unknown to the percipient, or being seen by two or more
persons independently of each other.

4. An inquiry into various alleged phenomena apparently inexplicable by
known laws of nature, and commonly referred by Spiritualists to the
agency of extra-human intelligences.

5. The collection and collation of existing materials bearing on the
history of these subjects.

The aim of the Society is to approach these various problems without
prejudice or prepossession of any kind, and in the same spirit of exact
and unimpassioned inquiry which has enabled Science to solve so many
problems, once not less obscure nor less hotly debated. The founders of
the Society have always fully recognised the exceptional difficulties
which surround this branch of research; but they nevertheless believe
that by patient and systematic effort some results of permanent value
may be attained.

Investig