Nobody knows more about Robert Boyle, a founder of modern experimental science and the Royal Society, than Michael Hunter. Now an Emeritus Professor of History at Birkbeck, Hunter is the author of various essays and books including the award-winning monograph, Boyle: Between God and Science (2009). Apart from producing a catalogue of Boyle’s vast … Read more
There’s certainly no shortage of books on the modern occult produced by academic historians, English literature scholars and other humanities researchers. However, it’s no secret that I feel that much of this literature is characterized by a sadly lax and superficial engagement with primary sources, and methodological aspects of empirical approaches to alleged parapsychological phenomena … Read more
It’s time to announce the next prize for you lovely Forbidden Histories supporters. I’m particularly pleased to be able to offer a copy of Richard Noakes’s new book on the history of the occult entanglements of British physics, of which I posted a pre-release notice with table of contents, a short summary and advance praise … Read more
The latest issue of Aries, the prime academic journal for the study of Western esotericism, includes a comprehensive assessment of Eric Kurlander’s Hitler’s Monsters by Eva Kingsepp at Karlstad University, Sweden. Whereas the first part of my own review here on Forbidden Histories was concerned with Kurlander’s evidence-free depiction of ‘mainstream’ science’s relationship with parapsychology … Read more
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
In keeping with mesmerism and hypnotism as the themes of the last prize (a copy of Adam Crabtree’s From Mesmer to Freud), I selected Alison Winter’s seminal study Mesmerized. Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain for the next draw. Published in 1998 by University of Chicago Press, Winter’s meticulously researched study continues to set the … Read more
Earlier this month I was contacted by a reporter from the Tokyo newspaper Chunichi Shimbun with questions on ghost beliefs in the UK. The occasion for the query was the Obon Festival – the time of the year when spirits of the dead are believed to reunite with their families –, which is currently celebrated … Read more
Dr. Joanne Edge specialises in late-medieval and early modern European social and cultural history, with an emphasis on medicine and the ‘occult’ sciences: divination, magic and astrology. She did her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at the University of London, and held a four-year postdoctoral position as Assistant Editor on the Casebooks Project at the University … Read more
I may have developed a bit of a reputation as a harsh reviewer of historical studies which in my opinion do a poor job at engaging with primary sources and original contexts (such as a recent book on the heretical science of William James, and a study of German occultism and the Third Reich). By … Read more
It’s a great pleasure to announce Forbidden Histories supporter Jules Evans as the winner of the last Patreon prize draw. Jules, who won a copy of Adam Crabtree’s seminal From Mesmer to Freud: Magnetic Sleep and the Roots of Psychological Healing, is currently a research fellow at the Centre for the History of Emotions, Queen … Read more