Charles Richet Por Alvarado

Charles Richet’s Psychic Autobiography
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July 29, 2018
Carlos S. Alvarado, PhD, Research Fellow, Parapsychology Foundation
Over the years I have written several articles about Charles Richet’s psychical research,
among them a general overview of his work on the subject, and an analysis of his Traité
de Métapsychique (1922). My last published discussion of Richet is an article in which I
translated and reprinted a chapter from one of his books in which he presented an
autobiographical essay of his involvement with the subject. Here is the reference and the
abstract:
Charles Richet
“Fragments of a Life in Psychical Research: The Case of Charles Richet” (Journal of

Scientific Exploration, 2018, 32, 55–78; PDF available on request:
carlos@theazire.org).
Abstract
“In this paper I present a translation of an autobiographical essay French physiologist

Charles Richet wrote about his involvement in psychical research in his Souvenirs d’un
Physiologiste (1933). In the essay Richet presented an outline of aspects of his psychic
career, including: Early interest in hypnosis and hypnotic lucidity, encounters with
gifted individuals such as Eusapia Palladino and Stephan Ossowiecki, contact with the
Society for Psychical Research, his Traité de Métapsychique (1922) and his lack of
belief in survival of death. Richet’s account will be of particular interest for those who
are not acquainted with his career. However, the essay is succinct and lacks important
events that need to be supplemented with other sources of information. An examination
of this autobiographical essay illustrates the limitations of autobiographies to
reconstruct the past, but also provides an opportunity to discuss aspects of Richet’s
psychical research.”
I wrote: “One of the purposes of the present article is to present information about
Richet’s interest in psychic phenomena via his own, admittedly brief, account. It is my
impression that most contemporary workers in parapsychology, although aware of
Richet’s existence, know little about his actual work. Being short, and personal, the
excerpt presented below may be of more relevance to workers in parapsychology than
the more academic writings cited above. The reprint of the excerpt is also an
opportunity to give Richet a voice never heard before in English, since the excerpt in
question originally was published in French.”
Richet (on the left) in séance with Italian Materialization Medium Linda Gazzera
I wrote:
“Richet was part of this movement, particularly strong in France, that explored the
existence and range of non-conscious human functioning and that included both
conventional and unconventional phenomena . . . This is seen in his writings about
personality changes in hypnosis, unconscious movements, and the induction of trance at
a distance . . .”
“An important early contribution, and a classic of Nineteenth-Century ESP literature,

was Richet’s [1884] article about mental suggestion, or the “influence that an
individual’s thought exerts over a specific sense, without an appreciable exterior
phenomenon on our senses, over the thought of a nearby individual”. . . This included
transmission of thoughts and images, as well as other effects such as the induction of
trance at a distance. In the paper, Richet described his use of statistical analyses in
several guessing tasks with various targets, as well as discussions of conceptual ideas
such as the unconscious nature of the process . . . In later papers Richet continued
testing various gifted individuals . . . and included observations of Polish psychic
Stephan Ossowiecki (1877-1944) . . .”
Stefan Ossowiecki
“There were also many experiences with various mediums and psychics. Examples were
séances with Eusapia Palladino (1854–1918 . . .) and Leonora E. Piper (1857–1950 . . .).
Richet’s . . . materialization séances with medium Marthe Béraud are well-known, an
episode that generated many controversies . . . Here both full and partial
materializations were observed . . .”
Marthe Béraud
The best known of his works was the highly influential Traité de Métapsychique
[1922] . . . where instead of psychical research he used the term “métapsychique”
(metapsychics), a word he had suggested before . . . In the Traité, and elsewhere, Richet
frequently expressed hope that future developments in science would allow us to
understand psychic phenomena. His popularization and discussion of psychical research
not only continued in other books . . . but also in articles in non-psychic journals . . . and
in newspapers . . . In addition to the above mentioned examples, Richet’s articles in
psychic journals included topics such as statistical analyses of ESP tests . . . , recurrent
doubts in the study of psychic phenomena . . . , the decimal indexing of psychic
literature . . . , xenoglossy . . . , an ancient case of near-death experience . . . ,
premonitions . . . , and survival of death . . .”
“Richet did much to support psychical research in various forums of conventional
science. He opened the door to, and defended the importance of, psychical research in
the international congresses of psychology . . . He was also one of the founders of a very
important French journal, the Annales des Sciences Psychiques, first published in 1891,
where not only French but also authors from other countries discussed psychic
phenomena . . . Furthermore, Richet was a supporter of the Institut Métapsychique
International since its beginnings.”
The article also illustrates the limitations of autobiographies as historical documents. An
analysis of the essay considering Richet’s publications about psychic topics shows
occasional omissions of important information and incorrect recollection of facts.
“Autobiographies, like history in general, are reconstructions of the past, but
reconstructions based on one person’s perspective and motivations, on their priorities at
the moment of ordering the recollections of a lifetime. The latter is particularly an
issue.” Nonetheless, “when used together with other sources of information . . .
[autobiographies] are not only informative, but illuminating of a time period.”
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Charles Richet’s Psychic Autobiography

Filed under: Recent Publications — Leave a comment

Carlos S. Alvarado, PhD, Research Fellow, Parapsychology Foundation

“Fragments of a Life in Psychical Research: The Case of Charles Richet” (Journal of

“In this paper I present a translation of an autobiographical essay French physiologist

“An important early contribution, and a classic of Nineteenth-Century ESP literature,

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