LOS LÍMITES DE LA CIENCIA: ESPIRITISMO, HIPNOTISMO Y EL ESTUDIO DE LOS FENÓMENOS PARANORMALES (1850-1930) (THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE: SPIRITISM, HYPNOTISM AND THE STUDY OF PARANORMAL PHENOMENA) (original) (raw)
Related papers
That the "death of God" produced a cataclysmic effect in nineteenth-century European consciousness is well known. Grand narratives tell us of the confrontation at that period between new representations of nature and the supernatural, life and death, the self and the beyond-all against the backdrop of an ascendant scientific materialism. Yet, the complex ways in which this was manifested in specific national contexts remains in many ways underexplored. It is those various attempts to make sense of new, seemingly marginal aspects of the modern secular experience that form the basis of Sofie Lachapelle's first book. Focusing on France between 1853 and 1931, Investigating the Supernatural depicts these efforts through the lenses of five different groups: the spiritists, the occultists, the mind doctors, the psychical researchers, and the metapsychists. This is a story of demarcation. From the beginning, Lachapelle sets the stage by reminding the reader of the role played by science and technology at that pivotal historical moment. In the nineteenth century, she observes, "human inventions seemed to be reaching into the realm of the fantastic." By introducing a sense of wonder into quotidian experiences, "science and technology created enchantment; they made the magical seem possible" (p. 2). How, then, to conceptualize the supernatural in such a context? To answer this question, the author situates her narrative within a broader theme: the attempt to "make science" at a time when science's very meaning was often undefined, when the barriers separating science from non-science remained porous.
2019
The late-Victorian period was characterised by rapid social, cultural, and intellectual changes, with all domains open to challenge from numerous and diverse directions. This thesis focusses on a short period in ‘the Age of Enlightenment’, from the mid-nineteenth century to 1914, during which many groups and individuals wanted to try to answer the ultimate questions about the nature of the universe and humanity’s place within it. For them, the well-established fields of science, religion, and philosophy each proved to be inadequate individual tools with which to attempt to answer these questions. Consequently, many members of the cultural and intellectual elite turned to the paranormal domain, within which they saw the potential to answer some of their fundamental questions. Psychical research was a nascent intellectual field that investigated strange phenomena which existed at the borders of orthodox thinking, sitting precariously between the acceptable and the unacceptable. This t...
Science as an Assimilation of the 19th Century Spiritualism into Society
Kültür araştırmaları dergisi, 2021
Spiritualists in the 19 th century have endeavored to prove their assessments by using science itself which tried to debunk their field's phenomena. The most principal claims of spiritualism have been the possibility of communicating with spirits through the agency of mediums and visioning a close person who has been in the moment of dying or far away. Scientific studies have not only been used to prove these assessments but to create new concepts and perceptions about psychic experiences. The aim of this article is to determine that spiritualists have assimilated themselves into society by using science apart from being denounced as superstitious. Hereby, what spiritualists have suggested in terms of science will be documented within a historical process and the terms which they have coined will be examined. It will be clarified that the people who have evaluated these phenomena consisted of scientists, scholars and literary figures. SPR (The Society for Psychical Research), which was completely formed by scientists and scholars, investigated the mediums and put them under multiple psychical experiments. These researches were published in their anthology named as Phantasms of The Living and their periodicals named as "The Proceedings". The terms which were coined in order to scientificate spiritualism have been "psychic force", "telepathy", "hallucination" and "ectoplasm". It will be concluded that these terms have enabled to categorize the assessments of spiritualism which were communicating and visioning spirits, and also accommodated the psychic researchers and mediums to express themselves subjectively by assimilation into society.
During the early twentieth century the Munich-based psychiatrist Albert von Schrenck-Notzing constructed a parapsychological laboratory in his Karolinenplatz home. Furnished with a range of apparatus derived from the physical and behavioural sciences, the Baron's intention was to mimic both the outward form and disciplinary trajectory of contemporary experimental psychology, thereby legitimating the nascent field of parapsychology. Experimentation with mediums, those labile subjects who produced ectoplasm, materialisation and telekinesis, however, necessitated not only the inclusion of a range of spiritualist props, but the lackadaisical application of those checks and controls intended to prevent simulation and fraud. Thus Schrenck-Notzing's parapsychological laboratory with its stereoscopic cameras, galvanometers and medium cabinets was a strange coalescence of both the séance room and the lab, a hybrid space that was symbolic of the irresolvable epistemological and methodological problems at the heart of this aspiring science.
Psychical research in the history and philosophy of science. An introduction and review
Psychical research in the history and philosophy of science. An introduction and review
As a prelude to articles published in this special issue, I briefly sketch changing historiographical conventions regarding the ‘occult’ in recent history of science and medicine scholarship. Next, a review of standard claims regarding psychical research and parapsychology in philosophical discussions of the demarcation problem reveals that these have tended to disregard basic primary sources and instead rely heavily on problematic popular accounts, simplistic notions of scientific practice, and outdated teleological historiographies of progress. I conclude by suggesting that rigorous and sensitively contextualized case studies of past elite heterodox scientists may be potentially useful to enrich historical and philosophical scholarship by highlighting epistemologies that have fallen through the crude meshes of triumphalist and postmodernist historiographical generalizations alike.
This paper presents brief information about the existence and orientation of selected journals that have published articles on psychic phenomena. Some journals emphasize particular theoretical ideas, or methodological approaches. Examples include the Journal du magn´etisme and Zoist, in which animal magnetism was discussed, and the Revue Spirite, and Luce e Ombra, which focused on discarnate agency. Nineteenth-century journals such as the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research and the Annales des Sciences Psychiques emphasized both methodology and the careful accumulation of data. Some publications, such as the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research and the Dutch Tijdschrift voor Parapsychologie, were influenced by the agenda of a single individual. Other journals represented particular approaches or points of view, such as those of spiritualism (Luce e Ombra and Psychic Science), experimental parapsychology (Journal of Parapsychology), or skepticism (Skeptical Inquirer). An awareness of the differing characteristics of these publications illustrates aspects of the development of parapsychology as a discipline.