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

The nineteenth century saw a historically novel position emerging in empirical approaches to the occult: Previously, efforts to establish the reality of what is commonly called ‘supernatural’ phenomena served the purpose of countering ‘atheism’, ‘materialism’, and other beliefs perceived to threaten Christian notions of an immortal soul. In contrast to traditional religion-based approaches, among the most eminent representatives of fin-de-siècle psychical research were devoutly materialist, positivist or otherwise areligious representatives of the sciences.

The future French Nobel Laureate in Physiology, Charles Richet; the philosopher-psychologist and leader of Polish Positivism, Julian Ochorowicz; the German sexologist Albert von Schrenck-Notzing; the Italian criminal anthropologist and psychiatrist Enrico Morselli and his fellow countryman, the biochemist Filippo Bottazzi, were only some of the investigators of spiritualism who vehemently rejected spiritualist explanations of the strange phenomena they investigated, and believed to have corroborated. Far from trying to debunk the alleged marvels of spiritualism, these and other researchers – including Marie and Pierre Curie – were convinced some of the phenomena constituted genuine scientific anomalies, whose exploration had the potential of advancing the understanding of nature.

Moreover, while German-speaking countries are commonly viewed as major cradles of Enlightenment anti-supernaturalism, it is there of all places that we find some of the strongest continuities of attempts to ‘naturalize’ alleged mediumistic phenomena without reducing their anomalous character. Among interwar figures who in line with Richet and Schrenck-Notzing were convinced of the reality of certain mediumistic phenomena while also categorically rejecting spiritualist explanations were, e.g., the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, the Austrian physicist Hans Thirring, and a member of the Vienna Circle of Logical Positivism, Hans Hahn.

This talk will be guided by the following questions: How do we make sense of the tradition of materialist, positivist and other explicitly nonreligious representatives of science who studied ‘supernatural’ phenomena to verify rather than disprove them? What does the previous neglect to historically study instances which fundamentally challenge traditional dichotomies of ‘naturalism’ and ‘supernaturalism’ tell us about our own historiographical habits?

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