Christian Jarrett, an editor at Aeon magazine, approached me after reading my response to a Japanese newspaper query on ghost beliefs in the West last year to commission a short article on a similar topic. I was happy to comply, and my Aeon piece on the hidden history of hallucinations and visions went online in … Read more
In 2014 I was invited to give a talk at the University of Basel as part of a public lecture series on ‘transcendent experiences’, which was organized by the biologist and philosopher Heiner Schwenke. German readers might be interested in a text of mine which is based on this lecture, and which just appeared in … Read more
Introductory remarks According to a traditional standard narrative, the ‘decline of magic’ in western intellectual elites since the Enlightenment was the direct and inevitable consequence of advances in science and medicine, which rendered belief in ‘occult’ principles obsolete. Probably the best currently available survey of historical studies casting considerable doubt on this popular view is … Read more
Kees-Jan Schilt has a background in physics, astrophysics and history and philosophy of science (University of Utrecht), and is currently a doctoral researcher in early modern history of science at the University of Sussex. A member of the Newton Project, he specializes in early modern history, history of science and religion, and in the life … Read more