PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 372 PSYCHOANALYSIS ance, rei>orts of apparitions and haunted houses, and the phenomena of spiritual- ism. The British society was established in 1882, and an American society on similar lines two years later. Since that time continued inquiry has been made for the purpose of testing all the re- ported channels of thought that might exist outside the known channels of per- ception. The methods employed include arrangements by which an agreed-upon individual is led to concentrate his mind on some simple idea or object and to seek by methods distinct from those employed by the senses to transfer the idea to a second individual, who is usually chosen as being endowed with a supposed acute sensibility to impressions so received. The evidence gathered is designed to show that impressions of various kinds have been communicated from one mind to another in this way. On occasions the person acting the part of recipient has been put into a hypnotic condition, and experiments have been considered as showing that acute sensibility so induced has made thought transference more easy. The evidence that has been ac- cumulated up to the present as a result of experiment has, however, not been such as to establish any process of telepathy. Apart from the evidence that has been derived from repeated experimental at- tempts at thought transference, the so- cieties of psychical research have syste- matically gathered all available data relating to human experience in the tele- pathic field. This group of experiences has been in the main of a spontaneous character, arising without any prepara- tion of milieu or conditions on the part of the percipient. The larger division relates to the transference of presenti- ments in connection with crises in the lives of persons involved in the presenti- ment. Only a small proportion of the cases so recorded, however, were bereft of elements that tended to doubt as to the actual connection between the event and the presentiment. The investigation, however, showed how subject the human mind is to ideas of this kind, even in a state normal and healthy. The sum to- tal of inquiry up to the present t'me has not established the telepathic hypothesis on a scientific basis, but it has at least explored mental conditions that before the introduction of psychical research had remained unexplored, and if it has not shown with certainty telepathic po- tentialities in the human mind, it has at least aided in defining more clearly hu- man limits in the perception and com- munication of ideas. The American Society for Psychical Research was for som.e years connected with the British society, but in 1906 it was reorganized into an independent as- sociation. The society issues a monthly journal, and has for some years pub- lished its proceedings. It participated in the census of hallucinations, initiated by the British society and carried on for three years ending in 1892. The society does not aim at the classification of a recognized body of knowledge, but at an investigation and interpretation of groups of psychical phenomena. PSYCHICAL RESEARCH, SOCIETY FOR, an English society, founded in 1882, "for the purpose of making an or- ganized attempt to investigate that large group of debatable phenomena desig- nated by such terms as mesmeric, psychi- cal, and spiritualistic." The results of its investigations are published in "Re- ports" and "Proceedings." There is a branch of the society in the United States. PSYCHOANALYSIS, a form of thera- peutic treatment originated by Profes- sor Freud of Vienna. In its essence it is a system of psychological inquiry into the subconscious psychic forces at the base of psychic disturbances, preliminary to the formulation of a method of treat- ment in cases of neurasthenia, hysteria and the like. The principle lying at the foundation of his theory is that these psychical manifestations spring from emotional experiences that have been forgotten or repressed into the field of unconsciousness, while still holding their place in the mind. Professor Freud's method of treatment seeks to establish the connection between the neurotic manifestations of the pa- tient and the causes that lie hidden in his memory. Its purpose is to pierce the obscurity in which these latent ideas are embedded and by revealing the connec- tion between them and their symptoms to bring about their disappearance. In this connection he developed his theory on the nature of dreams, which in his view were merely distortions of unre- alized desires. In the treatment the pa- tient is led to repeat what he remembers of his dreams and to reveal the flowing course of his aspirations and thoughts. On the basis of the knowledge so ac- quired the physician shows the connec- tion between cause and effect to the patient and dissipates the neurotic condi- tion by rationalizing it. There is unquestionably much that is sound in Psychoanalysis, but both the in- quiry and the treatment call for great sagacity, skill, and patience, and these qualities are not always present in those who endeavor to apply its principles. In the United States the theory has re- ceived further development and is being
