British College of Psychic Science
British College of Psychic Science
An institution founded in April 1920 in London by Mr. and Mrs. Hewat McKenzie to work on lines similar to the Institut Métapsychique in Paris. They spared neither time nor expense in their effort to collect evidence for genuine phenomena and to spread the knowledge by means of the college. After Mr. McKenzie's death in 1929, Mrs. McKenzie took charge, but in 1930 she relinquished her post, and Mrs. Champion de Crespigny was elected honorary principal.
From 1922 to 1939 the college published Quarterly Transactions, subsequently titled Psychic Science until 1945, after which it appeared briefly as Experimental Metaphysics. In December 1938 the college amalgamated with the International Institute for Psychical Research, becoming the Institute for Experimental Metaphysics. During World War II, the society languished and eventually closed in 1947, and its excellent library and records were dispersed or destroyed.
When McKenzie founded the college, the London Spiritualist Alliance was already in existence but McKenzie's college had broader aims in providing a center for information, advice, and guidance, where psychic mediums of good reputation could be consulted, and where scientific research into psychic phenomena could take place. After World War II the London Spiritualist Alliance broadened its own aims on similar lines to the college, and in 1955 reorganized under the new name of College of Psychic Studies.