Since I wrote about asset-stripping at the American Society for Psychical Research
(ASPR) in July 2019, prompted by the headquarters building in New York being put
up for sale, there have been some developments.
I thought it would be worth pulling together the latest strands in the
saga though the picture is still unclear as, to my knowledge, the individuals
in charge have never responded publicly to the concerns raised by those who
wish to see the organisation regain its former position as a major focus for
psychical research.
An article about the ASPR
appeared in the London-based Society for Psychical Research’s online Psi Encyclopedia in September 2019.
While it devotes much space to the APSR’s earlier history, the final
section covers the more recent period under the heading ‘ASPR in Decline (1990-
)’. As that date suggests, the rot has
been going on for quite some time, and in November 2019 I referred to Robert
McConnell’s valiant but fruitless efforts to address the problem in his 1995
book Far Out in the New Age.
Startlingly, in September 2019 I
was told the ASPR, according to public records on the New York City Department
of Finance website, had apparently received loans over the years totalling $10
million using its headquarters building as collateral. A New York City real estate company, Bernstein
Real Estate, in New York, had created ‘5 W. 73rd Street LLC’ (5 West 73rd
Street is the ASPR address; LLC is a limited liability company) which now owns
the entire mortgage. The company has the
power to rent or lease out the building to generate income in order to pay the
debt should the ASPR default. Where the
money has gone, and how it is to be repaid, is unknown.
In November 2019, T C Goodsort
started a petition on the change.org website
addressed to the New York Charities Bureau seeking the removal of the ASPR’s
current officers. At the time of writing
it had reached just over half of the target number of 1,000 signatures. Goodsort had a letter published in the
January 2020 issue of the Journal of the
Society for Psychical Research (pp. 58-9) drawing attention to the
petition.
A major piece of news was the tip-off
on 6 December 2019 that the ASPR’s New York HQ sale listing on the Sotheby’s
website, publication of which had sparked the most recent concern, had been deleted. My informant could not find the building
elsewhere on the Sotheby’s website, or another estate agent’s. As was pointed out to me, this did not
necessarily mean the building was no longer for sale, as it could instead have become
an unlisted or ‘off-market’ property for a more discreet transaction. As no notice of a sale has surfaced, it
suggests the ASPR has completely withdrawn it, at least for the moment.
The latest development, of a
kind, was notification this week of a sale on both the US and UK versions of the
AbeBooks website of ASPR-related materials by a
bookseller in New Hampshire. Headed
‘Archive of early correspondence of the American Society for Psychical
Research’, a total of 85 items dating from the 1880s to 1921 are being offered
for US$ 6,250.00 + $6.50 shipping (£4,952.15 + £30.77 shipping to the UK). The lengthy description states that ‘the
majority of the collection consists of membership and dues communications,’ but
it lists a wide range of writers and topics covered in the correspondence, making
it more interesting than merely a batch of admin paperwork (which would hardly
be worth £5k).
Their origin is not stated but it
was natural to wonder if this heralded the break-up of the ASPR’s archive. However, in this instance at least it seems
the current ASPR management is not directly at fault, as an enquiry to the
vendor elicited the reply that the items had been acquired from the stock of a defunct
Maine bookshop. He did not know how the shop
owner had obtained them, and did not think there was anything else connected to
the ASPR in his possession.
How the Maine bookseller came by
them is probably now lost to history.
Perhaps they were stolen (in which case one might have expected more
coherence). Possibly they were deemed
surplus to requirements by the Society and disposed of, though it is hard to
believe any self-respecting archivist would discard letters of the sort
described, and it would be a scandal in its own right. Altogether it is a mystery: just one more
associated with the ASPR. Clarification
from that quarter is unlikely.
Acknowledgement: I’d like to
thank those informants who share my concern over the mismanagement of the ASPR.
I would be happy to hear from anyone
with further information on this sorry business.
