Sudre, René (1880-?)

Scientific writer and parapsychologist. Sudre was born April 19, 1880, at Angoulême, France. He received degrees from Poitiers Academy and the University of Paris.

As a writer and teacher he held a variety of positions between the world wars. He was a scientific commentator for Radiodiffusion Française (1926-40), a writer on psychic research for Mercure de France (1925-28), a professor at École des Hautes Etudes Sociales, Paris (1931-40), and a scientific writer for the Journal des Débats (1935-40). After the war he worked for the French Ministry of Information, the Foreign Ministry (1945-56), and for the Revue des Deux Mondes beginning in 1949. He won a number of awards for his writing.

Sudre experimented in many fields of parapsychology and spent many years attempting to show that psi phenomena were a matter for science. He argued for a coherent theoretical approach to psi and believed that the universe was permeated with a creative power that accounted for all psychic phenomena. He believed that the assumptions of Spiritualism were erroneous and that all living creatures possessed some extrasensory faculty. He was a corresponding member of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, London University; secretary of French committees for international conferences on psychical research in Copenhagen (1922) and Warsaw (1923); and a member of the Society for Psychical Research, London. Besides his own books, he translated into French various books on parapsychology by William James, Sir William Barrett, J. B. Rhine, and T. K. Oesterreich and contributed numerous articles to such journals as Psychic Research (1926-31) and Revue Métapsychique (1922-26).

Sources:

Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. The Encyclopedia of Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York: Paragon House, 1991.

Pleasants, Helene, ed. Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology. New York: Helix Press, 1964.

Sudre, René. Le Huitième art—Mission de la radio (The Eighth Art—Mission of Radio). N.p., 1946.

——. Introduction à la métapsychique humaine (Introduction to Human Metapsychics). N.p., 1929.

——. "Is the Soul Material?" Psychic Research 24 (1930).

——. La Lutte pour la métapsychique (The Fight for Parapsychology). N.p., 1928.

——. Les Nouvelles énigmes de l'univers (New Enigmas of the Universe). N.p., 1943.

——. Personnages d'au-delà (People from the Beyond). N.p., 1945.

——. Traité de parapsychologie. 1956. Translated as Treatise on Parapsychology: Essay on the Scientific Interpretation of the Human Phenomenon Known as the Supernatural. New York: Citadel Press, 1960.