American Society For Psychical Research - Splinter Group

Splinter Group

The Boston Society for Psychical Research was founded in April 1925 by former members of the American Society for Psychical Research, many of whom were alarmed by the ASPR support for the purported medium Margery (Mina Crandon), and Arthur Conan Doyle's public lecture tour of the USA promoting Spiritualism.

This marked a significant split in the history of American psychical research: the American Society for Psychical Research had become dominated by those sympathetic to Spiritualism; the Boston Society favored a naturalistic explanation (such as telepathy; yet telepathy within the laws of undiscovered physics) for purported mediumship and was critical of the purported mediumship of Mina Crandon in particular. Under President Walter Franklin Prince it organised the investigation of Mina during the Scientific American Prize dspute, and Harry Houdini worked with the group. BSPR investigators were involved in the uncovering of the alleged fraud of Mina Crandon -- including a number of revelations often credited to Harry Houdini, but actually discovered by other BSPR members. The BSPR fell in to obscurity following the death of Walter Franklin Prince in 1934, and the exposure of Mina Crandon, and was formally reincorporated in to the American Society for Psychical Research in 1941.

In 1934 the BSPR published Extrasensory Perception by their member Joseph Banks Rhine, who introduced the term ESP to English, and created both the term parapsychology and methodology of modern parapsychology, with its quantitative research and laboratory based approach, as distinct from the older psychical research.