# Psychical research opened a question rather than proving miracles

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH08.P006](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH08.P006/#char=1247,1362): "the most perplexing, and even horrible, prodigies of mind and spirit are always being unveiled in modern psychology"

William James supplies a concrete contemporary comparison. His 'What Psychical Research Has Accomplished,' collected in *The Will to Believe* (1897; inspected in the 1912 impression), describes scientific investigation of hypnotism, automatic writing, apparitions and mediums. He credits researchers with bringing previously dismissed experiences into systematic inquiry, and personally accepts anomalous knowledge in the medium Leonora Piper. [James, pp. 299–319](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26659/26659-h/26659-h.htm).

James also reports exposed fraud and disagreements among investigators; he postpones judgment about whether Piper's information comes from spirits. His account thus supports the historical plausibility of Chesterton's appeal to changing scientific boundaries, while preserving the crucial distance between investigating extraordinary claims and establishing a supernatural cause. This is contextual evidence, not proof that Chesterton drew on James. Nor does it verify the paragraph's sweeping claims about the prevalence of scientific belief or its comparison with eighty years earlier.

## Sources

- [William James, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897), 1912 impression](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26659/26659-h/26659-h.htm), 'What Psychical Research Has Accomplished,' pp. 299–305, 310–319; essay's opening bibliographical footnote

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