Лондондық Психикалық Зерттеулер Колледжінің тарихы

NGO in South Kensington, England

The College of Psychic Studies (founded in 1884 as the London Spiritualist Alliance) is a non profit organisation based in South Kensington, London. It is dedicated to the study of psychic and spiritualist phenomena.

In August 1873, the British National Association of Spiritualists (BNAS) was formed by Thomas Everitt, Edmund Rogers and others at a meeting in Liverpool. Early members included well known spiritualists such as Charles Maurice Davies, Charles Isham, William Stainton Moses, Stanhope Templeman Speer, Morell Theobald and George Wyld. The BNAS carried out experimental séances and investigations into mediumship. It held no dogmatic religious views but was known for "sympathising with the religion of Jesus Christ". By 1875 the BNAS had over 400 members. William Henry Harrison and his colleagues from the "Scientific Research Committee" of the BNAS were involved in experiments that weighed mediums during materialization séances. Specially built self recording instruments were used. This was considered controversial and not all members agreed in conducting such experiments. In 1872, Harrison also caused controversy in the spiritualist community by exposing the fraud of spirit photographer Frederick Hudson. However, internal conflict between members and financial problems caused the group to dissolve. In March 1884, Moses and others formed the London Spiritualist Alliance (LSA). The first meeting was held on 5 May at the banqueting room in St James's Hall. In 1925, Arthur Conan Doyle became president and the LSA bought a new headquarters at Queensberry Place, South Kensington. Between October 1930 and June 1931 the materialization medium Helen Duncan was investigated by the LSA. Despite early favourable reports, an examination of Duncan's ectoplasm revealed it was made of cheesecloth, paper mixed with the white of egg and lavatory paper stuck together. One of Duncan's tricks was to swallow and regurgitate some of her ectoplasm and she was persuaded to swallow a tablet of methylene blue before one of her séances to rule out any chance of this trick being performed and because of this no ectoplasm appeared. The journal Light endorsed the court decision that Duncan was fraudulent and supported Harry Price's investigation that revealed her ectoplasm was cheesecloth.

In 1955 the LSA changed its name to the College of Psychic Science. In 1970 it became the College of Psychic Studies. According to psychical researcher Simeon Edmunds, by the 1955 name change there was "no doubt that from that time onwards the society was no longer a spiritualist one" as it was accepting non spiritualist members and held no corporate opinion on the question of survival. In the 1960s, after a revival in spiritualism, the college associated itself with the Society for Psychical Research, collecting thousands of case files. Paul Beard was the president of the college for 16 years.