He felt the inadequacy of formal orthodox science in dealing with the deeper problems of human life and destiny. Convinced by the principles of evolution, he believed that these principles may be capable of being applied in psychical research and he proposed to use it to explain obscure phenomena such as hypnotism, clairvoyance and telepathy. He claimed to have witnessed levitation of objects and developed a theory to explain the phenomenon, publishing an article about his telekinetic theory of levitation in the first issue of "The Metaphysical Magazine" (1895).