As it was a letter of mine a few weeks ago in Psychic News that sparked off
the recent correspondence and vigorous debate in several publications about
the SPR, perhaps it would be fitting for me to add a personal word as to why I
wrote it.
To begin with, it was not intended simply as a disgruntled exercise in ‘SPR-bashing’,
as was recently suggested. Like Sir Robert Peel, I am a great believer in
conserving where possible, and reforming where necessary; and I sincerely
thought – and think that the SPR might give serious consideration to this
proposition.
My first inkling that all was not as it should be regarding SPR policy came
a few years ago, when an old friend of mine, who owns a venerable hotel in the
Lake District, told me of some unusual spontaneous phenomena occurring there
that I thought would be of interest to the SPR. Accordingly, I
enthusiastically telephoned a senior SPR member on the Spontaneous Phenomena
Committee, to whom I briefly related the events as they has been told to me. I
was quite unprepared for his response. His entire manner and attitude made it
crystal clear that he was not in the least interested. Astonished by this
brusque dismissal, I then began to pay closer attention to the views of other
senior members of the Society and found myself growing increasingly puzzled
and disconcerted.
I am well aware that cultural and educational conditioning makes the truly
open mind a difficult thing to achieve in any society, but I discovered the
level of equivocation and negativity in the upper echelons of the SPR to be
quite remarkable, especially in view of the work done by its pioneers and the
volume of psychical evidence they accumulated. This eventually led me to start
pondering why some of high-profile members of the Society continue to be
members, when they make no secret of their unswerving scorn and scepticism for
so much of the subject the Society was founded to examine. I must make it
clear that I am no gullible fledgling in these matters, prepared to swallow
anything that claims paranormality, and am as eager as anyone to expose the
bogus that damages and contaminates the genuine and only serves to discredit
the whole issue. I respect the dyed-in-the-wool sceptic and the right to their
conviction, but what is he doing in the SPR? Would he not be happier playing
golf rather than playing the role of dog-in-a-manger at SPR meetings? To be
frank unless such a sceptic has his own hidden agenda and sees himself as a
fifth-columnist, committed to subverting the aims and objectives of the
Society, I am baffled by his presence at SPR meetings.
Intelligent discussion and debate is one thing, but ceaseless mocking and
knocking is a waste of everybody’s time, and certainly should have no place
on influential SPR committees.
In conclusion, and in case anyone thinks I am exaggerating the current
situation at the SPR, I can do no better than cite the words of Dr. John
Beloff in his book ‘Parapsychology – a Concise History’. Dr. Beloff
writes:
"Survival can no longer be considered part of the cutting edge of
parapsychology…"
Bearing in mind that Dr. Beloff was, for almost twenty years, the Editor of
the SPR’s quarterly journal, its most important publication, need one say
more? QED I think.
John Samson,
West Sussex: member of The Society for Psychical Research (SPR)
___________________________________________
Michael
Roll comments:
This letter from John Samson was partially published in
the Psychic
News on Saturday 7th July 2001. Also it was reported on the front page that a
British medium had been invited by Professor Gary Schwartz of the University of
Arizona to take part in his experiments. This begs the following rhetorical
questions:
-
Why is a British medium having to go to America to take part in scientific
experiments?
-
Why isn’t the British Society for Psychical Research carrying out
experiments with mediums – nature’s interpreters between people on Earth
with those who are now living in the invisible part of the universe?
-
Why hasn’t Professor Robert Morris, who
holds the Arthur Koestler Chair
at Edinburgh University since 1983, been carrying out experiments with
mediums?
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