In the Religio Philosophical Journal a long letter is printed, signed “F. T. S.” in which the Psychical Research Society of America is given a warning. The writer specifies his charges in the name of theosophists, to be as follows:
“Preferring the general charge that you are not what you pretend to be, we specify:
1. That you know nothing of psychic science.
2. That you do not know how to conduct psychic research.
3. That you do not know what it is that you are in search of.
4. That you would not know a psychic result to be such if you reached it.
5. That you do not know how to judge the evidence upon which psychic phenomena rests.
6. That you do not know of anything really worth investigating in psychic science.
7. That you do not know how to learn and do not really want to be taught.
And yet you are pleased to style yourselves ‘The American Society for Psychical Research.’ We say to you, gentlemen, that being what you are, your very name is an insult to psychic science, and would be, were it known, a just cause of offense to hundreds of thousands who have reached that goal toward which you have resolutely turned your backs. In discussing the charges which we bring against you, we shall take occasion to show you that you are not in the line of psychic evolution, but surely tending in the opposite direction. If you do not heed our warning, if you do not desist and turn to the rightabout before it is too late, every hope that you entertain will be frustrated, your every endeavor will yield you shame and confusion, your goal will prove to be the pillory of public opinion, and your first real lesson in psychic science will have been learned when psychic research into your own souls shows you what it is to be made a laughing-stock.”