Fact and Fable in Psychology

by Joseph Jastrow

II

The current usage of the term "Psychical Research" takes its meaning from the Society for Psychical Research, founded in England in 1882. The original programme of the society involved a systematic investigation of "that large group of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric, psychical, and Spiritualistic." "From the recorded testimony of many competent witnesses," it is urged, "there appears to be, amidst much delusion 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." The work of investigation of these "residual phenomena" was intrusted to six committees, who were to inquire severally into "the nature and extent of any influence which may be exerted by one mind upon another, apart from any generally recognized mode of perception;" into hypnotism, the so-called mesmeric trance, clairvoyance, and other allied phenomena; to undertake a revision of Reichenbach's researches with reference to discovering whether his "sensitives" possessed "any power of perception beyond a highly exalted sensibility of the recognized sensory organs;" to investigate the reports of apparitions at the moment of death, and of houses reputed to be haunted; to inquire into the causes and general laws of the phenomena of Spiritualism; and to collect material relative to the history of these subjects. It is the investigation of these topics from the point of view prevalent in the publications of this Society that constitutes the definition of Psychical Research. This phrase, which has come into prominence within less than a score of years, has no simple or familiar synonym; it must not be interpreted by the combined connotation of its component words, but must be accepted as the technical equivalent of the trend and content of a certain type of investigation of obscure phenomena or alleged phenomena, in most of which psychological factors are prominent.

If the term may at all be brought within the circle of the sciences, it certainly there assumes a somewhat unique position. It naturally becomes the analogue, or it may be the rival of Psychology; yet its precise status and its logical relations to other departments of scientific research are far from obvious. The modern conception of Psychology is generously comprehensive; it encompasses the endlessly variable and complex processes of human mentality; it pursues with enthusiasm the study of developmental processes of intelligence in childhood, in the animal world, in the unfoldment of the race; it studies, for their own value, the aberrant and pathological forms of mental action, and brings these into relation with, and thus illuminates the comprehension of the normal. It forms affiliations with physiology and biology and medicine, with philosophy and logic and ethics, with anthropology and sociology and folk-lore; it borrows freely from their materials, and attempts to interpret the materials thus borrowed from the psychological point of view and to infuse into them its distinctive spirit. Surely Psychical Research should be able to find a nook in so commodious a home; if the problems of Psychical Research are legitimate members of the psychological family, some provision should be possible for their reception within the old homestead. Nor does this group of problems represent a difference of school, in some such way as the homœopathists represent a secession from the regular school of medicine; nor can it be regarded as the special study of the unusual and the abnormal in the sphere of mind, and thus stand in the relation which teratology or pathology bears to physiology and anatomy: for in that event it would constitute a simple division of Abnormal Psychology, and although Psychical Research has close alliance with the latter, it cannot be, and is unwilling to be regarded as a subordinate portion of that domain.

From a survey of the literature of Psychical Research one might readily draw the inference that whereas Psychology studies the recognized and explicable phases of mental phenomena, Psychical Research is occupied with the disputed and mysterious. One might also conclude that whereas Psychology is concerned with the phenomena commonly associated with mental activities and their variation under normal as also under unusual and pathological circumstances, Psychical Research is interested in the demonstration of supernormal faculties, and in the establishment of forms of mentality that diverge from and transcend those with which every-day humanity is permitted to become familiar; and that, moreover, in some of its excursions Psychical Research does not limit itself to mental manifestations, but investigates undiscovered forms of physical energy, and seriously considers whether behind and beyond the world of phenomena there is another and a different world, in which the established order and the mental and material laws of this planet do not obtain. But the unwarranted character, not to say absurdity, of such a differentiation or classification is at once apparent, if we attempt to carry it over into other departments of science. Speculations in regard to the constitution of the earth's centre or as to the future of our planet, if legitimate in character, are as readily incorporable into geology as the consideration of more definite and better known phenomena; biologists recognize that there are mythical as well as anomalous portions of their domain, but do not consider that freaks of nature either destroy the validity of anatomical and physiological principles, or demand a totally distinct and transcendent organization or method for their study. The chemist may become interested in the examination of what was really done when it was supposed that other metals were converted into gold; the physicist may become interested in the applications of electricity and magnetism, of optical reflections and images in the production of stage illusions; but the conception of chemistry and of physics naturally embraces considerations of the growth, the errors, and the applications of these sciences. And while these comparisons do not furnish a complete parallel to the relation that seems to pertain between Psychology and Psychical Research, yet it is as true in the one case as in the others, that the differentiation of a group of problems on the basis of unusualness of occurrence, of mysteriousness of origin, of doubtful authenticity, or of apparent paradoxical or transcendent character, is as illogical as it is unnecessary. The legitimate problems of Psychical Research are equally and necessarily genuine problems of Psychology, that require no special designation. They need not be especially important, nor interesting, nor profitable, nor well comprehended problems of Psychology, but they belong there if they are scientific problems at all. The objection to Psychical Research is not a verbal one; it is an objection to the separation of a class of problems from their natural habitat, an objection to the violent transplanting of a growth from its own environment. It is a protest against the notion that while the psychologist may be listened to with respect and authority in one portion of his topic, the layman and the member of the Society for Psychical Research are equally or more competent to pronounce judgments in a closely allied field. It is a protest against the view that for the comprehension of such processes as sensation and perception a course in Psychology may be useful, but that telepathy may be established by any moderately intelligent but not specially informed percipient and agent; or that the study of hallucinations is indeed a complex and difficult subject, but haunted houses, and phantasms of the living, offer a proper occupation for a leisure hour. All this is wrong and absurd; and yet it is hardly an exaggeration to declare that a majority of those who profess a deep interest in, and express an opinion about the one group of topics, would be surprised to have demanded of them a familiarity with the data of Psychology as a prerequisite to an intelligent coöperation in Psychical Research. If the problems of Psychical Research, or that portion of the problems in which investigation seems profitable, are ever to be illuminated and exhibited in an intelligible form, it will only come about when they are investigated by the same methods and in the same spirit as are other psychological problems, when they are studied in connection with and as a part of other general problems of normal and abnormal Psychology. Whether this is done under the auspices of a society or in the psychological laboratories of universities is, of course, a detail of no importance. It is important, however, what the trend, and the spirit, and the method, and the purpose of the investigation may be; as it is equally important, what may be the training, and the capabilities, and the resources, and the originality, and the scholarship of the investigators.

Is the "psychical researcher" then merely a psychologist gone astray? Is he a mere dilettante, an amateur collector of curious specimens, or is he something very different from a psychologist? He is doubtless one or the other or all of these. He may be a psychologist in the truest and best sense of the word; and as all psychologists have their special interests, so his may be centred in the group of phenomena which have been unwisely separated from their milieu, and have been inaptly termed "Psychical Research." I am ready not only to admit but to emphasize that a considerable portion of the influential contributors to Psychical Research are animated by as truly scientific motives, and carry on their work with as much devotion and ability, with as careful a logical acumen, with as shrewd comprehension of the dangers and difficulties of their topic, as characterize the labors of any other field of psychological endeavor. But this statement can by no means be extended to all; nor does it at all militate against the opinion that many of those to whom it does apply, subscribe to illogical and pernicious conclusions, and indirectly encourage a most unfortunate attitude in others.