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THE PROBLEMS OF
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH

EXPERIMENTS AND THEORIES IN
THE REALM OF THE SUPERNORMAL

BY

HEREWARD CARRINGTON, Ph.D.

AUTHOR OF

"The Coming Science," "The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism," "Death:Its Causes and Phenomena," "Modern Psychical Phenomena," "Your PsychicPowers: and How to Develop Them," "Higher Psychical Development," "TrueGhost Stories," Etc.

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1921

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Copyright, 1921,
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.

VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY
BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK

The "Will Board"

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PREFACE

In the following pages I have dealt chiefly with the mental orpsychological phenomena of psychical research, and have not touched uponthe "physical" manifestations to any extent. The book is mostlytheoretical and constructive in tone; and, because of its speculativecharacter, it may, perhaps, prove of value to future psychicalinvestigators. It represents the author's conclusions after severalyears' experimentation; and, in a field so new as this, scientifichypotheses and speculations are assuredly helpful—indicating the roadwe must travel, and the possible interpretation of certain facts, whichhave been accumulated in the past, as the result of years of laboriousresearch. I believe that practically all the phenomena of spiritualismare true; that is, that they have occurred in a genuine manner from timeto time in the past; that they are supernormal in character, and aregenuine phenomenal occurrences. But as to the further question: "What isthe nature of the intelligence lying behind and controlling thesephenomena?"—that, I think, is as yet unsolved, and is likely toremain so for some time to come. I do not believe that the simplespiritistic explanation—especially as at present held—is the correctone, nor one that explains all the facts; for I believe that thephenomena are more complicated than this. Nor are the[Pg vi] ordinarypsychological explanations at present in vogue adequate to cover them.The explanation is yet to seek; and the solution will only be found whena sufficient number of facts have been accumulated and the variousexplanatory theories have been tested,—to see which of them is reallyadequate. My hope is that the present book may help to accomplish thisresult by supplying a little in both directions!

The present edition of this book is to some extent an abridgement of thefirst edition, which appeared some seven years ago. I have, forinstance, omitted a number of "cases" which were originally included,and also my "sittings" with Mrs. Piper—which material will be publishedat a later date in another volume. I have also omitted the originalFirst Chapter,—since much of this material was subsequently included inmy Modern Psychical Pheno