Produced by Suzanne Shell, Stacy Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: The "Will Board"] THE PROBLEMS OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH EXPERIMENTS AND THEORIES IN THE REALM OF THE SUPERNORMAL BY HEREWARD CARRINGTON, Ph.D. AUTHOR OF "The Coming Science," "The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism," "Death: Its Causes and Phenomena," "Modern Psychical Phenomena," "Your Psychic Powers: and How to Develop Them," "Higher Psychical Development," "True Ghost Stories," Etc. NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1921 Copyright, 1921, By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc. VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK PREFACE In the following pages I have dealt chiefly with the _mental_ or psychological phenomena of psychical research, and have not touched upon the "physical" manifestations to any extent. The book is mostly theoretical and constructive in tone; and, because of its speculative character, it may, perhaps, prove of value to future psychical investigators. It represents the author's conclusions after several years' experimentation; and, in a field so new as this, scientific hypotheses and speculations are assuredly helpful--indicating the road we must travel, and the possible interpretation of certain facts, which have been accumulated in the past, as the result of years of laborious research. I believe that practically _all_ the phenomena of spiritualism are true; that is, that they have occurred in a genuine manner from time to time in the past; that they are supernormal in character, and are genuine phenomenal occurrences. But as to the further question: "What is the nature of the intelligence lying behind and controlling these phenomena?"--_that_, I think, is as yet unsolved, and is likely to remain so for some time to come. I do not believe that the simple spiritistic explanation--especially as at present held--is the correct one, nor one that explains all the facts; for I believe that the phenomena are more complicated than this. Nor are the ordinary psychological explanations at present in vogue adequate to cover them. The explanation is yet to seek; and the solution will only be found when a sufficient number of facts have been accumulated and the various explanatory theories have been tested,--to see which of them is really adequate. My hope is that the present book may help to accomplish this result by supplying a little in both directions!