One lesson we can learn from a fresh look at our historical sources is that leaders of modern sciences have been hopelessly polarized in their views on the empirical evidence for ‘occult’ phenomena. In my last post, I addressed this by noting deep disagreements among founding figures of modern psychology and psychiatry regarding the marvels … Read more
Does it matter that some eminent scientists and intellectuals have firmly believed in ‘psychic’ phenomena? Or should we just accept vocally dismissive statements on these matters by scientifically distinguished disbelievers? This is one of several questions I touched upon in my latest article, which I was invited to contribute to a thematic issue of the … Read more
Callum Cooper, a psychologist at the University of Northampton, recently interviewed me for The Psychologist, a magazine published by the British Psychological Society for its members. Here’s an excerpt: Why do you think [historical awareness] is important to present-day psychologists? Evidence matters not only in science, and history can’t be just a free-for-all. Scientists should have … Read more
If you follow our Twitter feed and Facebook page, you’re already aware of the devastating loss of Carlos Alvarado, who passed away on Friday, July 16th. Below is a short tribute to my beloved fellow historian of psychical research, which I wrote for the Journal of Anomalous Experience and Cognition (JAEX), a new open access … Read more
Richard Noakes, the author of the seminal Physics and Psychics (Cambridge, 2019) has generously donated these beauties from his library as prizes for the next Patreon draw, which ends on 19 July, 7pm (for your chance to win one of these books, see below): Psychical and Supernormal Phenomena (London, 1916) is an overview of predominantly … Read more
Hot off the press: A selection of the correspondence of J. B. Rhine, the biologist who famously established a laboratory for experimental studies of telepathy and other occult phenomena at Duke University in the 1930s. Among Rhine’s correspondents whose letters are included in the volume are renowned psychologists such as Carl G. Jung and B. … Read more
When Francis Bacon – a key figure of the Scientific Revolution in Britain – travelled France as an adolescent, he was puzzled by a number of strange experiences. As mentioned in my video on Bacon’s views on “natural magic”, one such experience involved his dream which seemed to predict the unexpected death of his father … Read more
Richard Noakes, author of the seminal Physics and Psychics (Cambridge University Press, 2019), is thinning out his personal library and just put two volumes of the Victorian spiritualist journal Borderland on eBay. Edited by the famous journalist William T. Stead (who died on the sinking Titanic in 1912), Borderland was one of the most prominent … Read more
Thanks to the generosity of Dr. Clare Mingins, I’m pleased to offer not one but three (!) copies of a fascinating book as a prize for the latest draw, into which all current and new supporters on Patreon (at the “Galileo” level and above) will be entered. Franz Anton Mesmer, the Discoverer of Animal Magnetism … Read more
Kristof Smeyers is a historian of nineteenth- and twentieth-century religion and folklore, currently focusing on so-called supernatural phenomena within European Christianity. He is writing a PhD on stigmata in Britain and Ireland as member of the Religious Bodies research team at the University of Antwerp. He previously worked as a research assistant in the Archaeology of … Read more