American Society for Psychical Research
US Non-profit organization
The American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) is the oldest psychical research organization in the United States dedicated to parapsychology. Until the headquarters were sold in 2024, it maintained offices and a library in New York City that were open to members and the general public. The group has historically offered open membership, and anyone interested in psychical research was welcome to join. However, since the closing of the New York office, access to its researchers and research materials have become increasingly difficult. Nonetheless, it maintains a website and publishes the quarterly Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.
History
It was William Fletcher Barrett's visit to America that ultimately led to the formation of the American Society for Psychical Research in December, 1884. Barrett was invited by several members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He persuaded intellectuals such as Edward Charles Pickering, Simon Newcomb, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Pickering Bowditch and William James that the claims of psychical phenomena should be investigated scientifically.
The first meetings of the society were held in the rooms of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The founding members who were also the first Vice-Presidents were G. Stanley Hall, George Stuart Fullerton, Edward Charles Pickering, Henry Pickering Bowditch and Charles Sedgwick Minot.
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This entry incorporates text from “American Society for Psychical Research” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.