The Problems of Psychical Research: Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the SupernormalCarrington, Hereward
Science
The Problems of Psychical Research: Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal
Carrington, Hereward
Parapsychology
The reader now has the facts before him. I have no theory to offer as to
the nature of these photographs, save that they appear to me to be
genuine and supernormal from all the evidence and testimony that I have
been enabled to obtain. In my _Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism_ I
have explained a number of ways in which fraudulent "spirit" photographs
can be obtained; and in _Modern Psychical Phenomena_ I reproduced a
number of photographs which seemed to me to be supported by excellent
testimony, and which were, so far as I could see, genuine psychic
photographs. In that volume I also discussed the various _theories_
which have been advanced in the past to explain these extraordinary
photographs. The present collection is intended merely to supplement the
former, and to present a number of photographs the solution for which
is, it seems to me, yet to be found.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] Regarding the earlier photographs, however (those obtained by Mrs.
Dupont Lee), further evidence has caused me to modify my belief in their
supernormal value, and I should now attach no "evidential value" to them
at all, strictly speaking. In an excellent criticism of the Lee
photographs, published in the _Proceedings_, Amer. S.P.R., vol. xiii.
pp. 529-87, Dr. Walter F. Prince has shown the undoubtedly fraudulent
character of the Lee photographs--certainly those with which Keeler had
anything to do. The others are still _sub judice_.
[23] T. C. and E. C. Jack, Edinburgh.
[24] Not reproduced here.
CHAPTER VII
HALLUCINATION AND THE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF SPIRITUALISM[25]
The discussion begun by Count Solovovo, and continued by Miss
Johnson,[26] is assuredly of supreme importance to psychical research.
Whether or no many of the alleged "physical phenomena" are genuine, or
whether they are merely hallucinatory in character, is a question which
involves--not only the phenomena themselves, but psychology and human
life in general, and even influences strongly science and scientific
experiments in other fields.... The senses are to be relied upon in
every science other than psychic research; that seems to be the _dictum_
of the world, and strange and even absurd as it may seem, it is, as we
know, more or less founded upon fact. In no other science is fraud
practised as it is in this; in practically no other line of research are
the mental and physical powers so strained out of their usual or normal
relations and perceptions as they are in this. It is only right, then,
that Caution should be the password, and should be most rigidly employed
in all such investigations as these.
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