Encyclopedia of Spirit Related Phenomenon
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American Society for Physical Research (ASPR): An
organization founded in late 1884 in Boston under the auspices of the Society
for Physical Research (SPR) of England, and dedicated to he advancement of
physical research (now called parapsychology). The society became formally
active in 1885; astronomer Simon Newcomb was elected the first president.
Other major figures in the formation of the society were English physicist
Sir William Barrett, and Harvard philosopher William James. The early ASPR operated independently
of the SPR, but organized itself along the same lines, with investigative
committees to research and collect data on thought transference, telepathy,
hypnosis, apparitions, mediumship included many scientists who considered
physical research of secondary interest. As a result, in 1889, less than five
years after founding, the society was forced for financial reasons to
dissolve and reorganize as the American Branch of the SPR. Richard Hodgson, a
member of the SPR moved to America and directed the branch’s activities until
his death in 1905. In 1906 the American Branch was
dissolved and the ASPR reestablished itself as an independent organization
with headquarters in New York City. James H. Hyslop served as secretary until
his death in 1920; most of the new leadership was comprised not of
scientists, but of other professionals who had an avocational interest in
physical research and Spiritualism. During this period the ASPR suffered from
a shortage of funds and did a modest amount
of collective research. Hyslop
was more interested in publishing and devoted a great deal of time to
fund-raising. Following Hyslop’s death the ASPR
went through a strained and divisive period in which many members were
extremely dissatisfied with the leaderships neglect of experimental
parapsychology in favor of mediumship and séance phenomena. The division was
exacerbated by a controversy over a fraudulent medium known as “Margery”
(Mina Stinson Crandon) of Boston, to whom the ASPR devoted much money and
attention. In 1925 a group of academically oriented opponents of Margery
split off and formed the Boston Society for Psychic Research, which did
little but publish. In the 1941 APSR elections, a “palace revolution”
occurred and the key Margery supporters were voted out of office. The ASPR
terminated official involvement with Margery, who died later the same year.
The Boston group returned to the fold. Under the presidency of Hyslop’s
son George Hyslop, and the leadership provided by eminent psychologist Gardner
Murphy, who became chairman of the Research Committee, the society reinstated
research as it’s primary function. Prior to the “palace revolution,” the ASPR
had been run to appeal to the lay public, not academics or scientists. The
first sign of change in this orientation occurred in 1938, when Murphy
conducted the first systematic ESP experiments under the auspices of the
ASPR, using American parapsychologist J.B. Rhine’s ESP cards. Under the new
administration, the organization returned fully to a scientific purpose. It
benefited from the experimental work of Rhine, who saw parapsychology as an
emerging scientific discipline, and from the academic approach of Murphy, who
sought to integrate the paranormal with psychology and philosophy. Murphy’s stature
as a psychologist – he served as president of the American Psychological
Association - did attract Rhine, Margaret Mead, Henry James (son of William
James), and other luminaries to the board of directors. However, he did not
achieve the great investigation he desired. From the 1940s until 1971, eight
years before his death, Murphy served as key leader of the ASPR; he served as
president from 1962 to 1971. in 1948 a “Medical Section” was established to
research the integration of psychiatry and depth psychology to the
paranormal; one outgrowth was the dream research of Montague Ullman and
others. The Medical Section ceased operation in the 1950’s when a key member
of the group, Jule Eisenbud, left New York for Denver. In the mid-1950s Murphy directed the
ASPR attention to spontaneous psi, which he thought would yield more
information on the nature of psi than did laboratory experiments. He
encouraged research on creativity, altered states and psi, meditation and
transpersonal factors of psi, deathbed observations, and survival after
death. Laboratory equipment to induce altered states was purchased in the
1960s. Membership and lecture
attendance began to increase in the 1940s and reached a peak in the 1960s and
1970s, fueled in part by the countercultures intrest in the paranormal.
Liberals, however, were squeezed out by conservatives, and membership and
interest began to decline. Without Murphy factions again developed in the
ASPR, between “reductionists,” those who sought to define all phenomena as either
ESP, PK, or chonce, and more liberal researchers interested in out-of-body
experiences, behavioral medicine, dreams, and reincarnation. The ASPR has
sought a balance of interests. Scientific articles are published in a quarterly Journal
, while informal articles appear in a quarterly ASPR Newsletter. The ASPR
maintains on of the most comprehensive parapsychology libraries in the world,
and offers symposia and lectures. Membership is international. The supernormal manifestation of people, animals, objects, and
spirits. Most apparitions are of living people or animals who are too distant
to be perceived by normal senses. Apparitions of the dead are also called
ghosts. Despite extensive study since the late nineteenth century, science
still knows little about the nature of apparitions. Most apparition experiences feature
noises, unusual smells extreme cold, and the displacement of objects. Other
phenomena include visual images, tactile sensations, voices, the apparent
psychokinetic movement of objects, and so on. Visual images are seen in only
a small percentage of reported cases. A study of apparitions published
by American physical researcher Hornell Hart and collaborators showed no
significant differences between characteristics of apparitions of the living
and of the dead. Some apparitions seem corporeal, while others are luminous,
transparent, or ill-defined. Apparitions move through solid matter and disappear
abruptly. The can cast shadows and be reflected in mirrors. Some have jerky
and limited movements, while others are lifelike in movement and speech. Apparitions invariably are
clothed. Ghosts appear in period costume, and apparitions of the living appear
in clothing worn at the moment. More than 80 percent of the
apparitions cases that have been studied manifest for a reason, such as to
communicate a crisis death, provide warning, comfort for the grieving, or
convey needed information. Some haunting apparitions seem to appear in places
where emotional events have occurred, such as murders or battles, while other
haunting seem to be aimless. Apparitions can be divided into at least
seven types:
born. Such
dreams occur frequently among the Tlingit and other Native Northwest American
tribes, and in Turkey, Burma, and Thailand. Systematic studies of apparitions
were inaugurated in the late nineteenth century by the Society for Physical
Research (SPR), London. Founding member Edmund Gurney, Fredrick W. H. Myers,
and Frank Podmore questioned 5,700 people about apparitions of the living and
published their findings in Phantasms of the Living (1886). In 1889 a
Census of Hallucinations was undertaken by Henry and Eleanor Sidgwick, Alice
Johnson Myers, A.T. Myers, and Podmore. They polled 17,000 people, of whom
1,684 (9.9 percent) reported having apparitional experiences of either the
living or the dead. Some experiences were witnessed collectively. The methodology for the census
would not meet modern research standards. The number of 17,000 questionnaires
was arbitrary, and there was no method to the distribution of the forms. Most
likely, many went to friends and acquaintances of the surveyors. The survey
asked only one question: whether respondents had ever had an impression of a
being or person, or heard a voice, not of a natural cause. Of the 1,684 affirmative replies, approximately six
hundred seemed to have natural explanations and were ruled out. There were
about eighty cases of crisis apparitions seen within twelve hours before or
after someone’s death; only thirty two of these were cases in which the
percipient had no prior knowledge that the agent was ill or dying. However,
even this small number was statistically significant when compared to the
mortality tables of England. A similar census was done in France, Germany, and the
United States. It polled 27,329 people, of whom 11.96 percent reported
apparitional experiences. By the 1980s polls in the U.S. conducted by the
University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Council (NORC) showed a
dramatic increase in reported apparitions of the dead: 42 percent of the
adult population, and 67 percent of the widows, reported experiences, perhaps
due in part to changing public attitudes toward acknowledging paranormal
experiences. Of these 78 percent involved visual images, 50 percent noises
and voices, 21 percent tactile sensations, 32 percent sensation of a presence,
and 18 percent communication with the apparition. 46 percent experienced a
combination of the phenomena. Numerous theories have been put forth, but none satisfactorily
explains all types of apparitions. Both Gurney and Myers believed that
apparitions were mental hallucinations. Gurney proposed they were produced by
telepathy by the living. In collective cases he said that a single percipient
received the telepathy and in turn telepathically transmitted the
hallucination to other witnesses. That theory, however, cannot explain why
witnesses in a collective case notice different details. Myers, who believed
in survival after death, began to doubt the telepathic theory as early as
1885. In Human Personality and the Survival of Bodily Death (1903), he proposed that apparitions had a
“phantasmogenic center,” a locus of energies that could be perceived by the
most psychically sensitive people. He conceived of a :subliminal consciousness” as the basis
from which consciousness springs, and which survives the body after death. He
theorized that the subliminal consciousness was receptive to extrasensory
input. An elaborate theory of “idea patterns” was proposed by
English researcher G.N.M. Tyrrell in Apparitions (1943; 1953). Like
Gurney, Tyrrell believed that apparitions were hallucinations on the part of
a percipient based on information received from the agent through ESP. the
hallucination was created in a two-part drama. First a part of the
unconscious called the “Producer” received the information via ESP. then a
“Stage Carpenter” produced the drama – with the required props, such as
clothing and objects – in visions, dreams, or hallucinations. Other theories are: ·
Astral or etheric bodies of
the agents. ·
An amalgam of personality
patterns, which in the case of hauntings are trapped in a psychic ether or
psi field. ·
Recordings or imprints of
vibrations impressed upon some sort of psychic ether, which play back to sensitive
individuals. ·
Personae or vehicles
through which the “I-thinking consciousness” takes on a personality, perhaps
not fully conscious, as well as temporarily visible form. ·
Projections of the human
unconscious, a manifestation of an unacknowledged need, unresolved guilt, or
embodiment of a wish. ·
Projections of will and
concentration. ·
True spirits of the dead. ·
Localized phenomena with
their own physicality, directed by an intelligence or personality. No
conclusive evidence has been found to indicate whether apparitions are
animated by personalities, however. The ability to have hallucinatory experiences may be a
function of personality. In his examination of hallucinatory cases,
researcher Andrew MacKenzie found that about 1/3 of the cases occurred just
before or after sleep, or when the percipient was awakened at night. Other
experiences took place when the witness was in a state of relaxation, doing
routine work in the home, or concentrating on some activity such as reading a
book. With the external world shut out, the subconscious was able to release
impressions, which sometimes took the form of an apparition. |
