THE HANDS-ON APPROACH TO PSYCHICAL RESEARCH The Investigators’ Group

By Archibald A. Lawrie

Armchair psychical researchers suffer from the same problems as armchair detectives: they may read a lot and say a lot but at the end of the day who cares, for they have no personal experience of anything at all!

It has always been of prime importance to the Society that as high a percentage of its members as possible gain active experience about all things psychical. Some might wish to further their insight into dowsing by going out with others into the field (literally!) and practising and expanding their skills. Other members might wish to further their knowledge of psychic events which crop up almost at random and which the Society calls “spontaneous cases”. There never seems to be enough of these cases notified to us to satisfy the thirst for knowledge that our members have but when they are brought to our notice there are always teams ready to go out and meet with members of the public in their own homes to discuss whatever activity is claimed to have taken place.

Such teams are drawn upon in rotation from a sub-group of the Society called the “Investigators’ Group”. Quite apart from attending the excellent public lectures throughout the year, those members also meet separately both to talk amongst themselves on topics of common interest and to hear lectures and feed-back reports from others more knowledgeable than themselves. Cross-pollination of ideas is the lifeblood of the Society and when a team-leader takes his team out to some spontaneous case it is hoped that the ideas and training that the Society has given those persons stands them in good stead for the strange things that they may hear or encounter on their visit.

Nobody can fully prepare a fellow being for a dramatic brush with the paranormal but the Society does what it can both to expose willing members to meeting the paranormal and to understanding it as best any of us can when we are “on site”. To that end the Investigators’ Group also lays on, at intervals throughout the year, overnight vigils in places where recent acts of paranormality have been reported. Sometimes we catch things on camera or tape recorder and sometimes all we catch is a cold but no matter what, there is always a sense of comradeship and camaraderie and a sense of being with people who have like minds and a single goal to achieve …to further understand the psychic world by taking an active part in real research.