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| THE BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF PARAPSYCHOLOGY EUGENE OSTY Physician; parapsychologis. B. May 16, 1874; d. August 20, 1938, Paris. M.D., 1901. Physician, Joet sur l'Aubois, 1901-1924; director, Institut Métapsychique International, Paris, 1924-38. Dr. Osty, one of the great contributor both to theoretical and experimental parapsychology, first became interested in the subject in 1909, when a palmist impressed him with her apparently accurate character analyses of subjects known to him but not to her. After devoting some time to an intensive study of palmistry, Dr. Osty became convinced tha "intuition" or clairvoyance was responsible for the acquiring of such information without the help of known sensory channels, and that study of the palm merely served to focus an intuitive ability. He began to divide his time between his medical practice and the study, sseveral days a month, of professional sensitives. The results of his investigations were detailed in the book Luciditél et Intuition (Lucidity and Intuition; 1913). In continuing his work, he collaborated extensively with Charles Richet, Henri Bergson, and Emile Boirac (qq.v.). After service with the French Army Medical Corps through World War I, Dr. Osty published Le Sens de la Vie humanie (The Meaning of Human Life; 1919), in which he linked the mental evolution of man with his psychic potentialities. In 1921 he settled permanently in Paris, lectured widely on his work with clairvoyants, and became a member of the governing committee of the Institut Métapsychique International and a corresponding member of the Society for Psychical Research, London. Dr. Osty summed up his findings in clairvoyance in the book La Conaissance Supranormale (Supernormal Knowledge; 1925). On the death in 1924 of Dr. Gustave Geley (q. V.), Dr. Osty succeeded him as director of the Institut Métapsychique. From 1925 to his death in 1938, Dr. Osty contributed some one hundred articles to Revue Métapsychique and Psychica, and, besides his work on clairvoyance, began the careful and controlled study of physical mediumship. He unconvered several fraudulent mediums, but his work with the Polish physical sensitive Jan Guzik and later with the Austrian medium Rudi Schneider (q. v.) convinced him that physical objects may be displaced and otherwise affected by other than known physical means. He reported on a year of experiments and research with Schneider in the book (written with his son, Marcel Osty, q.v.), Les Pouvoirs inconnus de l'Esprit sur la Matiére (The Unknown Powers of Mind over Matter; 1932). See Eugéne Osty: Pioneer Researcher (Tomorrow Magazine, Vol. 7, No. 1, Winter, 1959). Taken from Helene Pleasants (1964) Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology with Directory and Glossary 1946-1996 NY: Garrett Publications |
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