History
The American Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1884 and became formally active in 1885 in Boston, Massachusetts, with astronomer Simon Newcomb as first President. It was inspired by the 1882 founding in Britain of the Society for Psychical Research which supported the initiative, and sent dedicated psychic researcher and amateur conjuror Richard Hodgson to oversee the new Society, a task he performed till his death. In 1889 a financial crisis forced the ASPR to become a branch of the Society for Psychical Research, and Simon Newcomb and others left. It achieved independence once more in 1906.
Following the death of Richard Hodgson in 1905, James H. Hyslop took up the Presidential position of the recreated organisation. The society moved to New York, where it remains to this day. During this period the ASPR were heavily involved in the investigation of purported medium Leonora Piper.
James H. Hyslop died in 1920, and immediately strife broke out between the membership as the Society divided into two factions, one broadly pro-Spiritualism, indeed often Spiritualists, and the other 'conservative' faction favoring telepathy and sceptical of 'discarnate spirits' as an explanation for the phenomena studied, or simply skeptical of the phenomena's existence. In 1923 a prominent Spiritualist, Frederick Edwards, was appointed President, and the conservative faction led by Gardner Murphy and Walter Franklin Prince declared that the Society was becoming less academic.
In 1925 Edwards was reappointed President, and his support of the mediumistic claims of 'Margery' (Mina Crandon) led to the 'conservative' faction leaving and forming the rival Boston Society for Psychical Research in May, 1925. From this point on the ASPR remained highly sympathetic to Spiritualism until 1941, when the Boston Society for Psychical Research was reintegrated in to the ASPR.
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