The second half of the nineteenth century saw the rise of degeneration theory, formulated by the French psychiatrist Bénédict Morel (1809-1873) and Jacques-Joseph Moreau de Tours (1804-1884). Morel sought to understand the increase in crime, sickness and mental illness in France. He maintained that psychopathological abnormalities initially appeared as slight abnormalities, which became aggravated in … Read more
William James at Harvard and Wilhelm Wundt at Leipzig University are widely remembered as the two principal founders of modern experimental psychology. While James vocally promoted open-minded but scientifically rigorous studies of contested phenomena such as telepathy and mediumship and published results of his own investigations, Wundt in Germany aggressively battled belief as well as … Read more
Forbidden Histories is now available in audio format! I’m excited to announce the latest addition to the FH multimedia universe: The Forbidden Histories podcast, where contents are discussed in an entertaining dialogue format. Each episode can be streamed and downloaded in an English and a separate German version. Here is the introduction (in English): https://forbiddenhistories.podbean.com/e/introduction-from-magic-to-science/ … Read more
As I live in Switzerland now, I thought it was high time to produce more output in my German mother language. If you read German, or know folks who do and may be interested, feel free to share zis: A German biosketch of yours truly:https://www.forbiddenhistories.com/andreas-sommer My German Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/DrAndreasSommer And of course my German … Read more
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