Society for Psychical Research

The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is the oldest psychical research organization in the world, founded in London in 1882. Its members included prominent figures such as the psychologist Frederic Myers, the philosopher Henry Sidgwick, the physiologist Charles Richet, the physicists Sir William Crookes and Sir Oliver Lodge, the poet William Butler Yeats, and the writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.¹

Despite its prestigious membership and rigorous investigations, the SPR and similar organizations were unable to firmly establish psi within the Western scientific worldview. As theories of nature hardened into laws that did not admit the human mind could span time and space unaided, psi research became increasingly marginalized. This led to a transformation of psychical research into "parapsychology," focusing on statistical evidence rather than real-world applications, as exemplified by the work of J. B. Rhine.¹