 Austin also commented at the school's founding that he hoped that,

"opportunities for psychological research shall be afforded along the lines of the Psychical Research Society of England, namely experiments for the illustration of psychic phenomena and the collection of facts and experience in regard to the powers and possibilities of man's spiritual nature, with a view to finding a rational explanation thereof and of demonstrating, if possible the continuity of life after death and of communion with the spirit realm.Such research, however, must not be compulsory.