PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH [1885]
Book Details + Condition: Society For Psychical Research (London). First Edition, 1885. Very scarce. Hardcover beautifully bound with three-quarters leather binding and raised bands with gilt to spine. 500 pages, followed with the 130-page Report. Illustrated. The volume documents the complete research reports on psychical, occult and paranormal topics investigated for the year 1885. In this volume, the Psychical Research Society, led by Richard Hodgson, investigated claims by the Theosophical Society (specifically by Madame Blavatsky), that through astral projection she could appear and intelligently communicate at a place where her body was in another location. Claims were also made where physical objects could be made to teleport from a faraway location. The evidence provided by Blavatsky were letters which are printed in this issue. As part of the committee's scientific investigation, a diagram was made of Blavatsky’s home and reproduced in a fold-out lithograph in this issue, as well as the copies of the letters written by Madame Blavatsky which were teleported from another location.
The committee's conclusion stated that Blavatsky was a fraud, and that no evidence of astral projection was produced - including the letter purported to be teleported to another location, which they claimed was simply handed through a secret compartment in a wall. Other topics in this volume include:
- Automatic Writing (F.W.H. Myers)
- Notes on the Evidence, Collected by the Society, For Phantoms of the Dead (Mrs. H. Sidgwick)
- Hallucinations (Edmund Gurney)
- The Calculus of Probabilities (F.Y. Edgeworth)
- Mr. Hodgson's Report or Phenomena Connected with the Theosophical Society - Madame Helena Blavatsky
- Some Higher Aspects of Mesmerism (Edmund Gurney and Frederic W.H. Myers)
- Further Report on Experiments in Thought Transference at Liverpool. (Malcom Gutherie)
- Local Anesthesia Induced in the Normal State By Mesmeric Passes (F.W.H. Myers)
- Report on Alleged Physical Phenomena (William Crookes)
The Society for Psychical Research was created in 1882, with Henry Sidgwick serving as its first president. Its stated purpose was to apply scientific methods to the investigation of psychic phenomena and the paranormal. Areas of study included hypnotism, dissociation, thought-transference, mediumship, spirit possession, apparitions and haunted houses and the physical phenomena associated with séances. The SPR were the first to introduce a number of neologisms which have entered the English language, such as 'telepathy', which was coined by Frederic Myers. Much of the early work involved investigating, exposing and in some cases duplicating fake phenomena. Among its most renowned members were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Price, and William T. Stead.
A very scarce original copy of this famous edition. Rubbed corners and edges (and spine ends); light shelf wear to boards, with some rubbing present; interior is clean and free of markings. Interior hinge cracked at where the large fold-outs are bound, but binding remains firm. All books are carefully packed, and shipped in boxes.
