ForbiddenHistories @forbiddenhistories - Tumblr Blog

Modern Psychology, the ‘Occult’, and Evidence-Free History: An Interview with The Psychologist Magazine

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 an…

View On WordPress

A Remedy for Historical Split Personalities: In Memory of Carlos S. Alvarado (1955-2021)

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 periodical based at the University of Lund, Sweden. I’m grateful to the…

View On WordPress

TEST

TEST POST

View On WordPress

Patreon Prize Draw: Antiquarian Gems from the Library of Richard Noakes

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 French, Italian and British research into hypnosis,…

View On WordPress

#Albert Moll #Hypnosis #Hypnotism #Paul Joire #Psychical research #Richard Noakes #Society for Psychical Research #William F. Barrett

Warts and All: Francis Bacon’s Account of a Cure by “Sympathetic Magic”

When Francis Bacon – a key figure of the Scientific Revolution in Britain – travelled France as an adolescent, he was puzzled by a number of strange experiences. As mentioned in my video on Bacon’s views on “natural magic”, one such experience involved his dream which seemed to predict the unexpected death of his father back in England. Since my own primary focus has been on links between…

View On WordPress

From the Library of Richard Noakes: Place a bid for W. T. Stead’s Borderland (vols. 1893 & 1894) on eBay!

Richard Noakes, author of the seminal Physics and Psychics (Cambridge University Press, 2019), is thinning out his personal library and just put two volumes of the Victorian spiritualist journal Borderland on eBay. Edited by the famous journalist William T. Stead (who died on the sinking Titanic in 1912), Borderland was one of the most prominent British magazines of spiritualism and other “occult…

View On WordPress

Prize Draw: Win a Copy of Justinus Kerner’s Biography of Mesmer!

Thanks to the generosity of Dr. Clare Mingins, I’m pleased to offer not one but three (!) copies of a fascinating book as a prize for the latest draw, into which all current and new supporters on Patreon will be entered. Franz Anton Mesmer, the Discoverer of Animal Magnetism is a new improved and annotated English translation of substantial parts from an important biography of F. A. Mesmer – one…

View On WordPress

“Stigmata Science: Naturalizing Supernatural Wounds.” Guest Post by Kristof Smeyers

Kristof Smeyers is a historian of nineteenth- and twentieth-century religion and folklore, currently focusing on so-called supernatural phenomena within European Christianity. He is writing a PhD on stigmata in Britain and Ireland as member of the Religious Bodies research team at the University of Antwerp. He previously worked as a research assistant in the Archaeology of Reading in Early Modern…

View On WordPress

#Eleonore Zugun #Harry Price #History of medicine #Psychosomatic medicine #Stigmata #Stigmatics

A Classicist in Search of Modern Oracles: Free Download of E.R. Dodds’s Article on Interpretations of Trance Mediumship (1934)

Eric Robertson Dodds (1893-1979). Image credit: Hugh Lloyd-Jones/Verlag C.H. Beck. If you enjoyed my video plug for the reading group and are keen on additional background readings about Oxford classicist Eric R. Dodds, I got you sorted: you can now download a free PDF of Dodds’s article “Why I do not believe in survival” (1934) from the website of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR, whose…

View On WordPress

#Albert von Schrenck-Notzing #E. R. Dodds #Eric Robertson Dodds #Eugen Bleuler #Francis Bacon #Frederic W. H. Myers #Gladys Osborne Leonard #Neoplatonism #Oliver Lodge #Robert Fludd #Telepathy #Théodore Flournoy #William James

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

I’m very excited to introduce a brand-new Forbidden Histories 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…

View On WordPress

New Video: “Francis Bacon – Scientist or Magician?”

Legendary science popularizer Carl Sagan quoted Francis Bacon, a key figure of the Scientific Revolution, as an enemy of superstition, and suggested he was an early advocate of modern scientific naturalism. Never mind Bacon was a firm believer in occult phenomena and proposed experiments to test them – only to advise against such research in the end. Find out why in the latest video: KEY…

View On WordPress

New on Youtube: Poltergeist – the Finale!

The third and final video in our series on poltergeist phenomena and hauntings in the history of science (and this time also medicine) has just gone live. This episode is on the longer side, as we will dwell quite a bit on twentieth-century continental Europe. Once again, you are going to encounter several figures not usually associated with “things that go bump in the night” – including but not…

View On WordPress

#Albert von Schrenck-Notzing #Alfred Winterstein #Carl Gustav Jung #Charles Richet #Eugen Bleuler #Fanny Moser #Hans Thirring #Hauntings #Johannes Kepler #Julian Ochorowicz #Poltergeist phenomena #Positivism #psychoanalysis #Robert Fludd #Schizophrenia #Sigmund Freud #Synchronicity #Vienna Circle of Logical Empiricism #Wolfgang Pauli

“The Experimental Fire” and “The Secrets of Alchemy”

Readers interested in the history of alchemy will be pleased to hear that Jenny Rampling’s long-awaited “The Experimental Fire: Inventing English Alchemy, 1300-1700” (University of Chicago Press) has now been published. Offering plenty of new original insights into the alchemical practices of figures such as John Dee (and fellow spirit conjuror, Edward Kelley), the book also takes a new and…

View On WordPress

#Alchemy #Jennifer Rampling #Lawrence Principe

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

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 to these phenomena during the Enlightenment, the second instalment traces…

View On WordPress

#Alfred Russel Wallace #Camille Flammarion #Hauntings #History of science and medicine #Poltergeist phenomena #Spiritualism

Valentine Greatrakes vs. the “Royal Touch”: Magical Healing during the Scientific Revolution

About every other Christmas I go into full geek mode and binge-watch the extended versions of the Lord of the Rings movies. In the concluding part, ‘The Return of the King’, there’s a scene where Aragorn, finally having come to terms with his kingship, lays his hands on the wounded with the intent to restore them to health after battle. This scene is a reminder of an ancient healing ritual called…

View On WordPress

#Animal magnetism #Healing #History of science and medicine #John Flamsteed #King Charles II #Lord of the Rings #Marc Bloch #Mesmerism #Royal Society

Hidden Histories of the Unconscious Mind: Rediscovering Freud’s “Brilliant Mystic”, Carl du Prel (1839-1899)

The philosopher and occult writer Carl du Prel was the most prominent German-language theorist of the unconscious self immediately before Sigmund Freud, who once called du Prel “that brilliant mystic.” Revered by artists like R. M. Rilke, Wassily Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint, du Prel’s writings informed the work of renowned psychologists other than Freud, such as William James and Carl Gustav…

View On WordPress

#Carl du Prel #Carl Gustav Jung #Frederic W. H. Myers #Germany #Hilma af Klint #History of psychology #Rainer Maria Rilke #Sigmund Freud #Wassily Kandinsky #William James

William James and the Occult: Download a Free PDF of my Oxford Handbook Chapter, “James and Psychical Research in Context”

I’m glad to share the news that my contribution to the Oxford Handbook of William James has just appeared in an electronic version ahead of print.

View On WordPress

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

ForbiddenHistories