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Warcollier, René
Category: Scientist
René Warcollier (8 April 1881 – 23 May 1962) was a French chemical engineer and parapsychologist. He became interested in psychical research, especially in telepathy, in the 1920s and collaborated with such experimenters as Cesar de Vesme and Eugene Osty on investigations of clairvoyance and related phenomena. He oversaw the European end of an experiment in telepathy jointly conducted with Gardner Murphy. He was affiliated with the Institut Métapsychique, served as its treasurer (1929-38), and President (1950-1962) and edited the Revue Métapsychique for two years (1938-40) until the beginning of World War II. He died in Paris, France.
L'Institut Métapsychique International (IMI) est une fondation française qui étudie les phénomènes paranormaux. Il a été créé en 1919 par Jean Meyer, riche négociant en vins et spirite convaincu, le Docteur Gustave Geley et le professeur Rocco Santoliquido, également médecin. Elle est reconnue d'utilité publique cette même année.
L'Institut siège initialement au 85, avenue Niel à Paris puis à partir de 1955 dans un appartement au 1, place de Wagram3. Depuis 2002, il sied au 51 rue de l'Aqueduc, dans le 10e arrondissement.
Life and career
Wikipedia
Warcollier was born on 8 April 1881 at Omonville-la-Rouge in Paris. He obtained a degree in chemical engineering in 1903 from the École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie. He patented several processes related to the synthetic production of precious stones, and invented special screens for movie projection.
Warcollier's main parapsychology studies involved experiments using a telepathy design in which one or more "agents" observed a target image while one or more "percipients" attempted to "blindly" reproduce it. Much of his work following from 1922 involved "batteries" of senders and receivers stationed across France; and he also used sender-receiver teams stationed between France and New York, and France and Great Britain. He worked with Gardner Murphy.
Warcollier discarded the statistical method and attempted to obtain direct evidence for telepathy. He claimed from his experiments that men transmit thoughts better than women but that women are better receivers. He also stated that younger people are more sensitive to mental impressions than the elderly.
Warcollier reported his experiments in the Revue Métapsychique published between 1924 and 1962, where about 56 articles were published including:
- "La télépathie expérimentale" (1926) and
- "Étude de dessins télépathiques de M. Vigneron au cours de vingt ans d'expérimentation" (1951).
Results and reflections upon them were also published in his several books, including La Télepathie (1921) and La Métapsychique (1940; 1946).
Gardner Murphy arranged to have La Télepathie translated and published into English, with additional material from Warcollier's articles, and an address he gave to the Sorbonne in 1946, as Mind to mind (1938, 1963).
References
- Experiments in Telepathy (1938)
- Mind to Mind (1963)
Observations
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