Spiritualism

E. R. Dodds: From the Greek Oracles to Modern Trance Mediumship? Introducing the Forbidden Histories Reading Group.

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I’m very excited to introduce a brand-new feature to you: The Forbidden Histories Reading Group (https://www.reddit.com/r/ScienceMagicReadings). The first reading will be E.R. Dodds’s The Greeks and the Irrational. For a schedule and further information watch this video. Reading groups are not your thing? You may still enjoy the video, which addresses a possible link between … Read more

New on Youtube: Poltergeist Phenomena & the History of Science, Part 2

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At long last, I just uploaded the second part of “Poltergeist Phenomena and the History of Science” to our Youtube channel. After part one was concerned with early modern responses to “things that go bump in the night” by Robert Boyle and colleagues at the Royal Society, and looked at the decline of empirical approaches … Read more

Women at the Margins: Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick (1845-1936)

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“You don’t want to mess with Mrs. Sidgwick!”. No Victorian has ever written a statement like this, though it is certainly along the lines of what many contemporaries of Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick were thinking. Born on 11 March 1845 into one of the most politically and intellectually influential families in Britain, Nora (as she was … Read more

Congratulations and Thanks to Dr. Kyle Falcon!

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I’m very happy to announce our colleague Kyle Falcon in Canada as the winner of the latest Patreon prize draw. As it happens, Kyle, who has won a copy of Alison Winter’s classical study Mesmerized, is a fellow historian working on themes closely related to those covered on Forbidden Histories: His Ph.D. research at Wilfrid … Read more

Positivists in Wonderland: Extended Abstract of my Talk at the Conference, Science and Spiritualism, 1750-1930

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As I’m preparing my presentation for the upcoming conference on the history of science and spiritualism in Leeds, I thought I’d share an extended version of my abstract with those of you who won’t be able to attend:  Scientific Naturalism and the Study of Spiritualist Phenomena by Positivist and Materialist Representatives of Science and Medicine … Read more

Coming in October: Richard Noakes’ Physics and Psychics. The Occult and the Sciences in Modern Britain (Cambridge University Press)

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I’m excited to announce that the long-awaited book by Richard Noakes is now available for pre-order. Scheduled to appear in October 2019 as part of the Science in History series by Cambridge University Press, Physics and Psychics: The Occult and the Sciences in Modern Britain will provide surprising insights into the heterodox preoccupations of many … Read more

What is a Supernatural Phenomenon? Aquinas, Hume, and Alfred Russel Wallace’s ‘Naturalistic Spiritualism’

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[This article continues my earlier post, “Materialism vs. Supernaturalism? ‘Scientific Naturalism’ in Context”]. Is the popular conflation of scientific naturalism with ontological materialism historically legit? Our first look at the context of Thomas H. Huxley’s first usage of ‘scientific naturalism’ in the sense in which it is deployed today suggested that it is not: Yes, … Read more

Materialism vs. Supernaturalism? “Scientific Naturalism” in Context

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In my last article on William James’ heretical science I mentioned that among the many opponents of his studies of alleged psychic phenomena were representatives of “scientific naturalism”, which I stated was “not the same as ontological materialism, of which major science ‘naturalizers’ such as Thomas Huxley and John Tyndall in Britain, and Emil du … Read more

Robert Hare, the Spiritoscope, and Playfulness in Science. By Simone Natale

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Simone Natale is a Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies at Loughborough University, United Kingdom. He is the author of Supernatural Entertainments: Victorian Spiritualism and the Rise of Modern Media Culture, published by Pennsylvania State University Press in 2016. You can follow him on Twitter and Academia.edu. One of the peculiarities of spiritualism, a religious … Read more

Spirits, Science and the Mind: The Journal ‘Psychische Studien’ (1874-1925)

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1874 is a significant year in the history of psychology. Wilhelm Wundt published the first edition of Outlines of Physiological Psychology, and Franz Brentano issued his epistemological study, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. Another event in the same year is usually passed over by chronologists of the mind sciences: The foundation of Psychische Studien (Psychical … Read more