Spectres of the self : thinking about ghosts and ghost-seeing in England, 1750-1920 / Shane McCorristine.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McCorristine, Shane, 1983- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ghosts--England--History.

Ghosts.

Parapsychology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 275 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Spectres of the Self is a fascinating study of the rich cultures surrounding the experience of seeing ghosts in England from the Reformation to the twentieth century. Shane McCorristine examines a vast range of primary and secondary sources, showing how ghosts, apparitions, and hallucinations were imagined, experienced, and debated from the pages of fiction to the case reports of the Society for Psychical Research. By analysing a broad range of themes from telepathy and ghost-hunting to the notion of dreaming while awake and the question of why ghosts wore clothes, Dr McCorristine reveals the sheer variety of ideas of ghost seeing in English society and culture. He shows how the issue of ghosts remained dynamic despite the advance of science and secularism and argues that the ghost ultimately represented a spectre of the self, a symbol of the psychological hauntedness of modern experience.

Contents:

The dreams of the ghost-seers

The haunted mind, 1750-1850

Seeing is believing : hallucinations and ghost-seeing

A science of the soul

Ghost-hunting in the society for psychical research

Phantasms of the living and the dead

The concept of hallucination in late Victorian psychology

Epilogue: towards 1920.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 244-270) and index.

ISBN:

1-316-08778-6

1-139-79336-5

1-139-77898-6

0-511-77974-7

1-107-25364-0

1-139-77594-4

1-139-78197-9

1-283-71578-3

1-139-77746-7

OCLC:

818817521