Whither the Society for Psychical Research?

Dr Leo Ruickbie’s editorial in Issue 92 of the Society for Psychical Research’s magazine Paranormal Review, which was published recently, seeks to stimulate a debate on the direction the Society should take.  Currently, as he puts it, the organisation ‘stands on one side of a bridge into the unknown.’  Prompted by Lew Sutton’s account in the magazine of the home circle he has been running for several years in Devon, Leo begins by looking at the role of the SPR in a changing paranormal landscape.  Lew’s project, which Leo characterises as ‘citizen science’, is the sort of thing the SPR used to do itself, along with such activities as thought transference experiments, surveys, and other forms of investigation that by and large it no longer conducts.  This observation leads Leo to muse on the role of the SPR and how it can maintain its relevance.

He notes that the SPR is being squeezed on two fronts: from below, by the proliferation of ghost-hunting groups tackling the kinds of cases that at one time would have been the sole province of the SPR; and from above, by academia engaging in (though still not as much as one might wish) the sort of controlled experimentation the SPR also used to do.  Both sets publish, organise meetings, network – in short undertake what the SPR has always done.  Consequently, on one side the SPR’s Spontaneous Cases Committee has a reduced role in active investigation; while on the other the SPR’s role in research is mainly focused on facilitating academics’ projects through its dedicated research funds (out of which only a limited number of grants are awarded annually), publishing papers and providing a venue for lectures.  So, how should the SPR respond to challenges posed by these two currents?

Looking at how members receive information, Leo refers to the SPR’s active programme of events, but notes these reach only a small number of attendees, and not many extra through recordings.  He does mention the SPR’s website and its social media presence, but despite expanding content on the website, in the grand scheme of things their reach is fairly limited and members are not guaranteed to look at them.  What they do see is its magazines, the Journal and Paranormal Review.  As Leo says, for many members, those publications are the SPR, but they are actually quite limited in what they can communicate considering the wide range of SPR activities.  There is an opportunity for the Society to do more with what it has, Leo argues, even if it is not leading research itself.  He ends by asking if the SPR needs to debate its purpose and develop a strategy for the future, requesting members to get in touch with ideas (and I am sure he would welcome the constructive thoughts of non-members as well).

SPR membership has been increasing in recent years, but Leo’s question asking about the future direction of the Society is highly pertinent.  Unfortunately I am not certain what the answers are.  The spontaneous cases side is probably the easiest to address, with the Spontaneous Cases Committee being more proactive than it is at present.  There are signs of this, but more could be done to carry out investigations in a manner that would set a benchmark for others, particularly those who follow what they see on television shows.  The experimental side is more problematic.  When reading old issues of the Society’s Journal and Proceedings, with experiments being conducted in the Society’s offices, I have thought how nice it would be to have work undertaken there now.  But for a variety of reasons such efforts by and large moved into university departments.

So could the Society be more active in promoting what it does do?  Leo is correct in saying the SPR’s publications only cover a narrow range of the Society’s activities.  But it would be simplistic to conclude the answer is to increase the volume of its own print publications.  The Journal and Paranormal Review are expensive to produce, and apart from a few individual and institutional subscriptions only reach members.  A hint (I think) in the editorial of a possible future initiative is the reference to commercial publishing, preferably self-financing.  We have had many books based on SPR material in the past.  These include SPR-published pamphlets, and one-off books and series from commercial publishers, for example the G Bell & Sons volumes in 1937-9 and the Heinemann books edited by Brian Inglis to commemorate the SPR’s centenary in 1982.  Resurrecting a publishing programme is an idea that has come up from time to time, but somehow never comes to fruition, mainly it seems because it is difficult to make much money from serious books on paranormal subjects.  That was the reason for the failure of the Athlone Press series edited by John Beloff in the late 1990s.  However, if a new venture were successful it would be an ideal way to promote the subject and generate some income.

Yet while a publishing programme will have some impact in assisting the SPR to raise its profile and is worth reconsidering, it is not the entire answer.  After all, a similar function is being fulfilled by the SPR’s Psi Encyclopedia, and while it is a valuable source of reliable information and is well-regarded, it cannot be said to have been a game-changer in psychical research education.  I agree that the SPR needs to leverage what it has now, such as seeing more from those researchers who receive money from it.  For an organisation with research in the title we ought to be spending more on it, but we live in a world of finite resources and lab research is expensive (especially when you have universities insisting on the inclusion of generous overheads in grant applications).  Recipients’ results could definitely be disseminated by them to a greater extent than they are to publicise what the SPR does to support research.

The alternative to formal institutional research is the citizen science approach exemplified by Lew Sutton.  I suspect there is a reservoir of interest among members waiting to be tapped, if only it could be directed by those with the necessary expertise and bearing in mind that, to achieve results the scientific community will consider, it needs to be done properly.  The SPR could act as a clearing house for results, publishing and archiving them as appropriate.  A product of the Buckmaster bequest, in addition to the Psi Encyclopedia, is the SPR’s Psi Open Data project, billing itself as ‘an open repository for the storage of parapsychological and psychical research data.’  It is adding value to the academic research process, and perhaps this approach could be extended to a wider range of well-conducted citizen science.

There are of course practical obstacles, not only financial but in terms of labour.  Those who would be qualified to oversee such efforts, and exercise quality control, are busy with their own work, and this would be a considerable commitment.  It is certainly worth discussing, however.  We may never see the heroic levels of activity achieved by the early SPR, but there is much potential over and above what it is doing currently, and an expansion of its remit would a major contribution to the subject.  If it stays on its present course I don’t think the future for the SPR is bad, but it will not be fulfilling its potential.  I shall follow the debate Leo has started with interest, and I hope it produces both good ideas and offers to implement them.

The American Society for Psychical Research: Recent Developments

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.

The Twelfth Annual Festival of Ukrainian Film

The first night of the 2019 Cambridge Ukrainian Film Festival was moved from its usual home in Trinity to the Old Divinity School, St John’s College.  The reason for the bigger venue was the extremely large audience for the Friday night film which we were seeing in advance of its UK national release: Mr. Jones (2019).  This was a break with the tradition of selecting low-budget Ukrainian output, in favour of a British/Polish/Ukrainian co-production directed by the Polish Agnieszka Holland and with a multi-national cast.  The event was held in conjunction with Cambridge Polish Studies, the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, and the Holodomor Research and Educational Consortium.

Before we saw the main feature we had an introduction from Dr Olenka Pevny, director of Cambridge Ukrainian Studies, and a prize-giving for the winning entry in the annual competition, now in its second year, run by the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain for the best essay by a school student on the Holodomor.  We also watched a fifteen-minute video, Holodomor: Stalin’s Secret Genocide (directed by Andrea Chalupa, 2016).  Mr. Jones was followed by a reception, and a display of publications on the Holodomor drawn from the Ukrainian collection at Cambridge University Library.

As for Mr. Jones itself, James Norton does a tremendous job bringing together the professional determination, the far-sighted understanding of European politics, but the personal vulnerability too, of Gareth Jones, the Welsh journalist who highlighted the genocide the Soviet government was inflicting on the Ukrainian people in 1932-3.  Fresh from interviewing the new German Chancellor, Hitler, and out of a job working as Lloyd George’s foreign affairs advisor because of budget cuts, Jones goes to Moscow hoping to interview Stalin.

He wonders how the country is managing to undertake a spending spree when it is apparently broke; as he notes when asking questions but finding himself stonewalled, ‘the numbers don’t add up.’  On arrival he learns that fellow journalist Paul Kleb has been murdered in a ‘robbery’ after uncovering evidence of famine in Ukraine.  Despite foreign correspondents being largely confined to Moscow and kept under tight surveillance, Jones manages to wangle a trip to Ukraine, where his mother had once taught in what is now Donetsk.

He slips his handler and, trudging through the snowy landscape, sees for himself the desperate conditions the people are having to endure.  Grain – Stalin’s gold – is being shipped to Moscow while people are literally dying in the streets.  This is no natural disaster but an engineered holocaust of enormous proportions.  In a terrible scene, himself starving and reduced to eating bark, he finds himself with a group of siblings who give him soup with pieces of meat.  When he asks how they have meat, the eldest answers ‘Kolya’.  Jones naively asks if Kolya is a hunter, and they stare at him.  He finds what is left of Kolya in the snow outside.  Walking along a road he sees a dead woman and her crying infant.  Corpse collectors callously throw both onto the sleigh carrying a pile of bodies.

Captured at a railhead, he is returned to Moscow and offered a choice.  A group of British engineers had been arrested on spying and sabotage charges (the Metropolitan-Vickers affair) and he is told their safety depends on his silence (though why the NKVD do not just assassinate him as they apparently had Kleb is unclear).  Back in Britain he agonises over whether to risk their deaths to possibly save millions.  Once the engineers have been freed, however, he is able to tell his story (adding to testimony by Malcolm Muggeridge, who is shown meeting Jones in Moscow), only to find a tide of misinformation drowns out his account.

The worst comes from the odious Walter Duranty of the New York Times (curiously, Jones and Duranty were both Cambridge graduates, Duranty of Emmanuel, Jones of Trinity).  Contrasting with Jones’s principled approach to journalism, Duranty is a cynical shill parroting the line of the Soviet authorities, denying the magnitude of what is happening in Ukraine.  To demonstrate his ghastliness, Duranty invites Jones to a party shortly after Jones’s arrival in Moscow, and the scene lingers on a decadent debauch in his comfortable apartment, more Weimar Berlin than revolutionary Russia.  Jones realises Duranty is not going to rock a very comfy boat.  The British are less bothered about Ukraine than their own parlous economic position and maintaining good relations with the Soviets, so sit on their hands.  But an encounter with William Randolph Hearst on a visit to Wales allows his account to be published internationally, finally bringing the situation in Ukraine to a wider public.

George Orwell, himself an icon of integrity, and someone else who mistrusted Duranty, makes intermittent appearances.  The film opens with shots of corn fields and feeding pigs, but this is not Ukraine, as we see Orwell composing Animal Farm, clearly linking Jones with the novel’s farmer (which one might not think much of a tribute).  Later in the film, Orwell and Jones are introduced to each other by literary agent Leonard Moore, and Orwell attends a public lecture Jones gives on Ukraine.  In a telling exchange, Orwell tries to defend Soviet methods, but Jones firmly disabuses him of the idea they are building a better life. Orwell was later to have his own negative encounter with Stalinism, in Spain.  Yet while he is quite forthright about the Soviet regime in his 1947 introduction to the Ukrainian edition of Animal Farm, it is significant that he does not refer to the 1932-3 genocide.

The film is certainly not an accurate biopic: Jones had visited Ukraine twice before, and the chronology of the period after he leaves Russia has been manipulated.  However, it highlights how the Ukrainians were treated then, and by implication the colonialist aspirations of Russia towards its neighbour today.  In so doing it will perform a useful function in promoting the memory of the Holodomor to a wide audience.  But it has a bland title, and the one given to it in Ukraine is more informative – 'Цiна правди' (Price of Truth).  Characters wrestle with the idea of what would become known as ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’, firmly deciding there is only one truth and it needs to be told, whatever the cost.

(I have a brief anecdote about the Metro-Vickers affair.  At some point in the mid-1980s, when I was employed by British Telecom, I picked up a hefty volume of translated transcripts from the trial, Wrecking Activities at Power Stations in the Soviet Union.  Later, we had some consultants working with us on a project, one of whom was named Allan Monkhouse.  I casually mentioned one day I had a book about a Moscow show trial featuring someone with the same name, to which he replied that that was his grandfather.  He did not have a copy of the book so I was happy to donate mine to him.)

The film on the second night was a contrast to Mr. Jones, and more typical of the sorts of film we tend to see at the Cambridge Ukrainian Film Festival.  Ukraïner: The Movie (2019) is a documentary charting half a dozen interwoven stories of ordinary people doing ordinary things across the country (apart from the war zone), together forming a tapestry of life as it is lived by typical Ukrainians outside the big cities.  The audience may have been smaller than the previous night, but the film had its pleasures.

Supported financially by the Ukrainian Cultural Fund, it is part of a much larger project that began in 2016, drawing large numbers of volunteers internationally to document Ukrainian life and provide translations in order to show the country both to Ukrainians and to the rest of the world.  The emphasis is firmly on traditional provincial life, and the overall atmosphere one of contentment, lingering on small gestures and conversations (do all Ukrainian children have classes in ‘Christian ethics’?), the rhythms of which pull the viewer in.

There are segments about a farmer who practises traditional tree beekeeping, once considered a lost art but making a comeback, with the bees living in slots in trees rather than artificial hives; a lighthouse keeper who has to wade salt flats to get to work; an elderly bus driver who is an enthusiast of the declining sport of motorcycle football, which he has played for half a century; a couple who keep goats and weave the most wonderful traditional blankets from their wool; an old hippy couple who are turning their village into a museum with their sculptures; and an ex-resident of Pripyat who has returned to the Chernobyl exclusion zone to document the crumbling structures and burgeoning wildlife.

Following the screening the film’s producer Bogdan Logvynenko took questions from an appreciative audience.  He was asked about the approach to choosing subjects, as the film dealt with small-scale activities rather than industry or city life, hinting at a retreat from modernity.  Bogdan answered that the focus was on what was distinctive about Ukraine, not what could be seen anywhere, showing aspects of life there which are under pressure from the modern world.

I saw the questioner’s point.  While it is understandable the filmmakers wish to show positive aspects of Ukraine, and they are fascinating, there is a sense it is an idealised image, with no attempt to provide the broader context within which the subjects live their lives; one would not know from the film that the country is engaged in a protracted hybrid war with Russia, or that there are concerns with political corruption.  The Chernobyl section is the closest one gets to controversy, and even there the stress is on regeneration.

Perhaps the producers’ answer is that for most people, going about their everyday lives, such wider considerations are irrelevant.  The pressing need is to project a positive image, and preserve traditions that are a key part of the national identity but which are under threat from modern life.  That is fair enough, but if one wishes to obtain an accurate image of what it means to be Ukrainian as a whole, those wider considerations surely need to be included.  Further documentaries exploring the urban experience might help to give some balance if the project truly wishes to live up to its name.

The Myers Memorial Medal

The Myers Memorial Medal was introduced in 1995 by the Society for Psychical Research, both to honour the memory of SPR founder Frederic Myers (1843-1901) and to recognise significant contributions to the field by current psychical researchers.  The initiative was suggested by then-president Prof Archie Roy (himself a later recipient), and the gold-coloured medal was designed by Maurice Grosse.  The obverse shows an image of Frederic Myers, with ‘Society for Psychical Research’ along the top and ‘Myers Memorial Medal’ along the bottom in a ring which echoes the SPR’s logo.  Prospective names of individuals considered of sufficient merit are discussed by the President and Vice-Presidents, and agreed by the Society’s Council.

 There was a feeling at the time of its introduction that those who had made noteworthy advances in the subject were not being sufficiently acknowledged, and that a medal would provide some token of appreciation for ‘outstanding work’, as the announcement in the SPR’s magazine The Psi Researcher put it (curiously it was not announced until the May 1995 issue, after the first award, to Prof. Ian Stevenson, had already been made).  Initially the medal was awarded annually though after several years it became intermittent.  Involvement in the SPR is not a prerequisite, but the majority of recipients have been closely associated, in one way or another, with the Society.

Original artwork, as reproduced in The Psi Researcher, May 1995

It has been referred to by alternative names – ‘Myers Medal’, ‘Frederic Myers Medal’ and ‘Myers Memorial Gold Medal’ – but these are incorrect.

There have been nine recipients:

 1995 – Ian Stevenson
1996 – Donald West*
1997 – John Beloff*
1998 – Alan Gauld
2001 – Robert L Morris
2003 – Archie Roy
2010 – Erlendur Haraldsson
2014 – Stephen Braude
2020 – Edward Kelly

*These were presented at the same time, in 1997.


(Updated 2 November 2020)

So is the Ghost Club really the world’s oldest psychical research organisation?

Ghost Club album on display at the College of Psychic Studies

The Ghost Club claims to be – as its website banner puts it – ‘The world’s oldest organisation associated with psychical research.  Established circa 1862.’  The 1862 date is frequently repeated in articles (not to mention in the Club’s Twitter handle); however, the ‘circa’ gives pause for thought as it suggests a lack of precise information.  The brief history on the Ghost Club website provided by its chairman, Alan Murdie, is similarly vague about the early days when it says ‘The Ghost Club seems to have dissolved in the 1870s following the death of Dickens but it was relaunched in 1882.’

The reason for the vagueness is that the 1862 incarnation of the Ghost Club left few traces, but what is clear is that there was a break of some years after its dissolution in the following decade (number unspecified).  A new Ghost Club was formed in the same year the Society for Psychical Research was founded (the SPR in February, the Ghost Club in November, 1882).  This time the Club did leave records, and when it folded again in 1936, they were deposited at the British Museum.

Some months later Harry Price launched it once more, this time as a dining club rather than an investigatory body, and thus it remained until his death in 1948, when it ceased to function.  Later, some of the members of the previous committee decided to have yet another go.  These included Peter Underwood, the dominant figure in the post-Price period until the schism caused by his autocratic manner in 1993, when he left to start the Ghost Club Society.  The Ghost Club continued in parallel and outlasted its rival.

So we can see that, rather than a single entity, there have been a number of separate organisations using the name of Ghost Club: from ‘circa 1862’ to some point after the death of Charles Dickens in 1870; from late 1882 to 1936; from 1938 to 1948; and from 1954 to the present day.  It is hard to argue the Ghost Club has existed since 1862 when all that binds the various organisations is the name.  As I have said elsewhere, ‘It is like me resurrecting the London Dialectical Society’s name and claiming my organisation was founded in 1867.’

Even if one is generous and argues there was some continuity of personnel linking the various incarnations (which still does not mean the organisation is continuous), one cannot reasonably push this back further than 1938, as is indicated by the new organisation not taking over the records of the one that ceased to exist in 1936.  And if one does want to argue there is still some continuity there, the gap between the ending of the first Club in the 1870s and the formation of the new one in late 1882 is just too long for it to be considered a single organisation.

Support for a 1954 date for the origin of the present Club is provided by one of those behind the post-Price revival, Philip Paul.  He devotes a chapter to his book Some Unseen Power: Diary of a Ghost-Hunter (1985) to his brief involvement before he fell out with the committee.  Tellingly, he refers to the Ghost Club as ‘a body of socially minded inquirers founded in 1862, recreated by Harry Price and made defunct by his death in 1948.’  The key words are ‘recreated’ and ‘defunct’.

One institution which does not appear to consider the Ghost Club the oldest organisation etc. is the College of Psychic Studies (founded in 1884 as the London Spiritualist Alliance, but despite the name change definitely the same entity).  On a recent visit to see the Art and Spirit: Visions of Wonder exhibition they had put on, I came across an album displayed in a bookcase captioned ‘Ghost Club Album circa 1880’.  Unfortunately there was no information about its contents or provenance, but the description begins unequivocally, ‘The Ghost Club was founded in 1882…’  I would still take issue with that, but at least it does not endorse the 1862 date.

To conclude, it is incorrect to say that the Ghost Club, venerable as it is, can claim to be ‘The world’s oldest organisation associated with psychical research.’  That distinction must belong to the SPR, which can boast an unbroken existence, with the records to prove it, back to the beginning of 1882.  The Ghost Club is a fine organisation I’m sure, but it should not arrogate to itself honours that are rightly due elsewhere.