Today
The Society is run by a President and a Council of twenty members, and is open to interested members of the public to join. The organisation is based at 49 Marloes Road, Kensington, London, with a library and office open to members, and with large book and archival holdings in Cambridge University Library, Cambridgeshire, England. It publishes the peer reviewed quarterly Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (JSPR), the irregular Proceedings and the magazine Paranormal Review. It holds an annual conference, regular lectures and two study days per year and supports the LEXSCIEN on-line library project.
The SPR states its principal aim as "understanding events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal by promoting and supporting important research in this area." It does not however, since its inception in 1882, hold any corporate opinions: SPR members have a variety of beliefs or lack thereof about the reality and nature of the phenomena studied, and many prominent sceptics have been active members of the Society.
Read more about this topic: Society For Psychical Research
Famous quotes containing the word today:
“To the degree that respect for professors ... has risen in our society, respect for writers has fallen. Today the professorial intellect has achieved its highest public standing since the world began, while writers have come to be called men of letters, by which is meant people who are prevented by some obscure infirmity from becoming competent journalists.”
—Robert Musil (18801942)
“Everything here below beneath the sun is subject to continual change; and perhaps there is nothing which can be called more inconstant than opinion, which turns round in an everlasting circle like the wheel of fortune. He who reaps praise today is overwhelmed with biting censure tomorrow; today we trample under foot the man who tomorrow will be raised far above us.”
—E.T.A.W. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Wilhelm)
“At times it seems that the media have become the mainstream culture in childrens lives. Parents have become the alternative. Americans once expected parents to raise their children in accordance with the dominant cultural messages. Today they are expected to raise their children in opposition to it.”
—Ellen Goodman (20th century)