Psychical Research
Already others, skeptical, attributed to the phenomena the brazen frauds or, in the maximum, the unknown capacities of the human being that, not knowing the causes, atribua the presumptions espritos its effect. Scientific period (of 1872 to the current days): The espiritista wave called the attention some famous scientists. Many of them were curious with the espritas manifestations and if they had approached to the study of the paranormais phenomena with the purpose of – definitively – clarifying if it was a great fraud, if was a manifestation spiritual or if it was a new area of natural phenomena, however unknown of the first Cincia.A great inquiry was directed by Willian Crookes, English physical celebrity. This inquiry arrived the conclusion that diverse of the phenomena called ‘ ‘ espritas’ ‘ they really existed and they deserved to be investigated more deeply. Crookes continued with its research, also with one mdium – Florence Cook – that was the epicenter of ectoplsmicas sessions.
As well as Crookes, other scientists had dedicated the paranormais research to it. Russel Wallace, Willian Barret, Henri Sidgwick, Myers, Oliver Lodge, MacDugall and others. In 1882 the traditional SPR-Society was established will be Psychical Research, in London. Soon later, in 1885, it was established American SPR. Innumerable works had appeared as fruits of the undertaken research. Some defended the Espiritismo, others condemned. One of the great exponents of this time was the French fisiologista Charles Richet, author of the celebrity ‘ ‘ Treated to Metapsquica ‘ ‘. great problem of the research of the time was in the method.
All the research were qualitative. They did not take in account the repetition of the experiments, therefore the phenomena are of fugidio character, impossible to be reproduced to the will. The scientific community started to understand that the success of the Parapsicologia as science would depend – necessarily – on new methods that approached it other sciences more than. Some attempts had been carried through systemize the experiments, but, in its majority, they had failed. From 1930, the Laboratory of Parapsicologia of the University of Duke, in U.S.A., under the coordination of Joseph Banks Rhine, started to carry through a series of experiments based on statistical principles. The most famous experiences had been carried through with baralho Zener. This baralho is composed of 25 letters, with five different symbols (that is, five letters of each type). The symbols are: waves, star, square, cross and circle. after to mix randomly the letters, the tests look for to evaluate the capacity of extra-sensorial perception of the evaluated ones. The experiences in Duke had obtained to approach the Parapsicologia of too much sciences. In the Congress of Utrecht, in 1953, the Parapsicologia was crowned as Science.