Common phantoms : an American history of psychic science / Alicia Puglionesi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Puglionesi, Alicia, author.

Series:

Spiritual phenomena.

Spiritual phenomena

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American Society for Psychical Research--History.

American Society for Psychical Research.

Parapsychology--Research--United States--History--19th century.

Parapsychology.

Parapsychology--Research--United States--History--20th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 319 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California0 : Stanford University Press, [2020]

Summary:

"Séances, clairvoyance, and telepathy captivated public imagination in the United States from the 1850s well into the twentieth century. Though skeptics dismissed these experiences as delusions, a new kind of investigator emerged to seek the science behind such phenomena. With new technologies like the telegraph collapsing the boundaries of time and space, an explanation seemed within reach. As Americans took up psychical experiments in their homes, the boundaries of the mind began to waver. Common Phantoms brings these experiments back to life while modeling a new approach to the history of psychology and the mind sciences. Drawing on previously untapped archives of participant-reported data, Alicia Puglionesi recounts how an eclectic group of investigators tried to capture the most elusive dimensions of human consciousness. A vast though flawed experiment in democratic science, psychical research gave participants valuable tools with which to study their experiences on their own terms. Academic psychology would ultimately disown this effort as both a scientific failure and a remnant of magical thinking, but its challenge to the limits of science, the mind, and the soul still reverberates today."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of figures

Acknowledgments

Introduction. At Home, with Ghosts

1 The weather map at the bottom of the mind

2 Machines that dream together

3 Drawings from the other side

4 Psychic domesticity

Chapter 5 The wilderness of insanity

Conclusion. To keep alive and heap up data

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781503612785 (electronic book)

1503612783

OCLC:

1127063475