recursal/Fanatic-Fandom huggingface dataset:
Max Weber

‘The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the ‘disenchantment of the world.’’

Karl Emil Maximillian ‘Max’ Weber was born in Erfurt, Prussia in April 1864. Known primarily for his pioneering influence within the emerging field of sociology (alongside Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx), Weber was also a philosopher and political economist.

Weber was a key proponent of ‘methodological anti-positivism’, an outlook which maintained that the social world should not be subjected to the same methods of investigation as the natural world. Rather than the utilisation of empiricism and positivist scientific method, anti-positivists believed that concepts, ideas and linguistics shape how humans conceive their social world.

Weber’s main intellectual theorisation centred on an understanding of the processes of rationalisation, individualisation, secularisation, and ‘disenchantment’ associated with the advent of capitalism and modernity. According to Weber, modernity hailed a new way of thinking about the world, a mindset which no longer had a place for enchantment, magic and mystery. He believed that as the world becomes more explained, mysticism fades and society progresses from polytheistic religions to atheism, individualism and modernity.

Arguably, his most famous work was *The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism* (1904) which combined economic sociology and the sociology of religion. Weber believed that religion was one of the core forces driving social change. In this work, he tied Calvinism and capitalism, arguing that the spirit of Western capitalism, the ‘rational’, individualistic strive for economic prosperity, is inherently tied to the wider Protestant cultural values and beliefs.

After the First World War, Weber helped to found the German Democratic Party. Following this, he was an advisor to the committee that drafted the Weimar Constitution in 1919. He died in 1920 after contracting Spanish flu.

McFalls, L., *Max Weber's 'Objectivity' Reconsidered* (2007).

Saler, M., 'Modernity and Enchantment: A Historiographical Review', *The American Historical Review* 111:3 (2006), pp.692-716.
Séance

Originating from the French word “seoir” (to sit), séance came to be used as meaning the attempt to communicate with those in the spiritual world. Typically this came to be associated with a group of people meeting  in order to receive messages from the dead and speak to ghosts through a spirit medium. Mediums ranged from humans claiming to channel spirit voices to Ouija boards and trances.  *Communication with the Other Side* by George Lyttelton in 1760 was a notable text advocating the use of séance, however the popularity of the séance increased greatly with the founding of Spiritualism around the mid nineteenth century. Famous individuals such as Mary Todd Lincoln 1818-1882 (wife of President Abraham Lincoln) and stage magicians such as John Nevil Maskelyne (1839-1917) and Harry Houdini (1874-1926) contributed to popularizing the séance.  However stage mediumship and séances came under attack by many skeptics as many were accused of using fraudulent stage magic to pretend paranormal activities were occurring. Similarly séances were criticized by the Catholic Church, who believed mediums attempt to connect with the spiritual world was an example of transgression into the sacred realm of God. Séances today are still used, particularly by the Spiritualist community who use this event as normal practice within their religion.
Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin

Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin (1805-1871) was a French magician. He is considered to be the father of the
modern style of conjuring.

Much of what we know about Robert-Houdin comes from his memoires, and his writings were intended to entertain rather than chronicle, thus rendering it difficult to separate fact from fiction.

Robert-Houdin presented himself as a principled man of science and good taste, describing himself as a ‘simple conjurer.’ (p.372) He reformed magic into a respectable bourgeoisie entertainment by purging it of problematic associations with the supernatural.

The Magical Mission

In 1856 Robert-Houdin was asked by the French state to pacify the tribes in French Algeria though the performance of his stage ‘magic.’ Following colonisation, Algeria remained largely anticolonial and actively resistant to French authority. Napoleon was concerned about the social power held by the religious tribe called the Marabouts, who were thought to have magical powers. The French attempted to combat this subversive behaviour by preforming modern European magic, with the intention of proving all Marabout magic to be the product of trickery. Robert-Houdin saw his work in Algeria as a military mission, it was his duty to the state to prove all magic to be false tricks.

Modern illusionism was used as a demonstration of power calculated to both disenchant local modes of religious authority and enchant European dominion. Graham Jones argues that ‘the French used magic as a powerful marker of cultural difference and divergent social evolution.’ (p.71)

In comparison to Robert-Houdin’s magic, the magic of the Algerians was seen as svage and religious.

Robert-Houdin preformed twice weekly, and also gave special performances to the country’s tribal chiefs. His signature trick was The Light and Heavy Chest, where he would use an electromagnet hidden under the floor to make a box immovable. He also preformed the Gun Trick, where he seemed to make a loaded gun fail to discharge by the power of his mind. These tricks were intended to publicly demonstrate Algerian inferiority to the French.

Intended to prove all magic to be the result of trickery, rather than religious sorcery. He wrote, ‘the blow was struck…henceforth the interpreters and all those who had dealings with the Arabs received orders to make them understand that my pretended miracles were only the result of kill, inspired and guided by an art call prestidigitation, in no way connected with sorcery.’

**Graham M. Jones, ‘Modern Magic and the War on Miracles in French Colonial Culture’, *Comparative Studies in Society and History*, 52:1 (2010), 66-99.**

**Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, *Memoirs of Robert-Houdin, Ambassador, Author, and Conjurer*, R. Shelton Mackenzie (ed.), (1859), 371-419.**
Development of Mesmerism

Staring with Mesmer and his book,
*Sur La Decouverte Du Magnetisme Animal* (1779),
Mesmer presented the belief as a legitimate science with real medical
possibilities. Following the publication, the belief became popular across the
continent in both a professional and popular capacity. In the popular capacity,
mesmeric salons began to emerge. In a more professional manner, men of science
began investigating the phenomena. In England, development of Mesmeric theory can
be seen through the interaction it had with other discourses such as phrenology.
Elliotson’s joining of the two sciences, displayed in his journal *The Zoist* in which he records his experiments
with Mesmerism and phrenology.

Development of the science into a
more mainstream line of investigation can also be seen through the international
engagement with Mesmerism. Elliotson and Dupotet de Sennevoy collaborated on
experiments, exemplifying this international cooperation.

The Final stage of development
can be seen in James Braid’s association of Mesmerism to, what he coined,
hypnotism. Although his ideas were not accepted initially, today’s hypnotism
can be traced back to Braid, showing the final development of Mesmerism.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, renowned author of the Sherlock
Holmes series, was a trained physician but also a believer in spiritualism and
spent decades researching ghosts, fairies and the paranormal.  His interest began in the 1880s and in 1893,
Conan Doyle joined the British Society for Psychical Research, a society formed
in Cambridge to scientifically investigate the claims of Spiritualism and
paranormal phenomena.

After carrying out experiments, he became convinced of the
existence of telepathy and gave his first lecture on spiritualism in 1917.  He also held séances with his wife in attempt
to contact family members they had lots in the First World War.  His interest intensified at the loss of his
son and younger brother died of flu after the war.  Once at the height of his career with the
Sherlock Holmes novels, Conan Doyle began to devote himself to writing on the
paranormal: his most notable work on Spiritualism was ‘The History of
Spiritualism’ (1924).

Conan Doyle also befriended Harry Houdini and believed he
had psychic powers, despite Houdini himself denying it.  Houdini himself was an opponent of the
Spiritualist movement in the 1920s.  Houdini
died on Halloween in 1926 and Conan Doyle publicly maintained that Houdini’s
dead mother had predicted his death at a séance (D. Slotnik, *New York Times,* 2016).

In 1917, two young girls from Yorkshire, Elsie Wright and
Frances Griffiths, produced two photographs of fairies which they claimed to
have taken.  Conan Doyle accepted these
photos as genuine evidence for fairies; he proceeded to write two pamphlets and
a book, ‘The Coming of the Fairies’ (1922).
He was widely criticised in the press and many believed he had descended
into madness  (A. Diniejko, 2013).

Five days after his death in July 1930, his wife arranged
for a medium to attempt to contact him: a huge crowd gathered at the Royal Albert
Hall to attend.  The medium, Estelle
Roberts, claimed she had seen Conan Doyle sitting in the empty chair on stage
and conveyed a message from him.
However, apparently only his wife sat in the front row heard it (*New York Times* Obituary, 1930).
Experiential Source Hypothesis

The experiential source hypothesis is a hypothesis put forward by David Hufford in 1982, as a potential explanation for the similarities of unconnected events considered to be supernatural.

### History and Explanation

Similarities between unconnected supernatural events across various cultures has been examined for quite some time. In 1894 Andrew Lang commented on the repetition of certain elements in stories of supernatural events from completely separate cultures, such as Australian Aborigines, ancient Egypt, and his contemporary London.

The cultural source hypothesis was another idea to explain the similarities of supernatural experiences, positing that it's cultural stories and tradition that shape people's ideas about the world, and thus the reason for similarities between various supernatural experiences. However this, while accounting for similarities within one culture, is less helpful in explaining them for unconnected ones. On the other hand the experiential source hypothesis suggests that some features of supernatural events are universal and unrelated to culture, and in fact are 'accurate observations interpreted rationally'

This suggests that while specific details of supernatural phenomena may be culturally derived (such as the specific name or purpose of an apparition), there are universal events that can happen to anyone that can inspire such stories.

A good example given by Hufford is the idea of sleep paralysis and Old Hag syndrome. A common feature of sleep paralysis is the sensation of feeling the presence of a supernatural entity of some kind. This has been experienced across nearly all cultures, but the exact details of the entity differ.

1. ↑ The Terror That Comes In The Night, David J Hufford
Intentional Fallacy

A term used in literary theory to mean the misconception of basing an assessment of a work on the author’s intention rather than one’s own response to the actual work.

The intention of the author is not necessarily the only interpretation/meaning of a text; rather readers can interpret it in an infinite amount of different ways, and their interpretation is no less valid.

‘*The design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art.’* – W. K. Wimsatt and M. Beardsley, ‘The Intentional Fallacy.’ (1946)

In historical context…Darwin stated that  he did not intend for his theory of evolution to denounce religion, however this does not make that those who interpreted in such a way wrong. Their interpretation of the text is no less important than Darwin’s.
Stigmata

**Stigma/Stigmata**

Oxford Dictionary definition: ‘Marks corresponding to those left on Christ’s body by Crucifixion, said to have been impressed by divine favour on bodies of St Francis of Assisi and others.

Specific case of Louise Lateau:

Louise Lateau was a young girl who suffered from both stigmata and ecstasies. Her first stigmata occurred in April 1868 when she began bleeding from the left side of her chest. The bleeding occurred again the following Friday, however this time she also had wounds on her feet. On the third Friday wounds appeared on her hands. On September 25th small cuts formed on her head forming a bloody crown. These wounds continued to appear weekly for months and years. These cases all signify/represent the marks left on Jesus. For example, the spear through his side, the nails through his hands and feet during his Crucifixion and the crown of thorns placed on his head.
Clever Hans

Clever Hans was a German horse that it was claimed could perform arithmetic and other intellectual tasks. In 1907, after a formal investigation, the psychologist Oskar Pfungst demonstrated that the horse wasn't performing mental tasks, but watching the reactions of his human observers. Clever Hans was responding to the body language of the human trainer, this became known as the *Clever Hans effect*.

D. Hothersall, *History of Psychology*
Clairvoyance

Clairvoyance is an alleged psychic ability to see things beyond the range of the power of natural vision.

R. T. Carroll. "Clairvoyance". *The Skeptic's Dictionary* (19 Sep, 2012) [http://skepdic.com/clairvoy.html]

An early case of clairvoyance is credited to the Marquis de Puységur, a follower of Franz Mesmer, who in 1784 treated a peasant named Victor Race. During treatments, Race would go into trance and undergo a personality change. He would become fluent and articulate, and would even diagnosis his own ailments as well as those of others.

Taves, Ann. *Fits, Trances, and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James*. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999) p. 126.
Mesmerism - Core Ideas

Mesmer’s two basic principles (Kaplan article):

1. Mechanical laws control ‘a mutual influence between the Heavenly bodies, the Earth, and Animate Bodies which exist as a universally distributed and continuous fluid […] of an incomparably rarefied nature.’

2. It is possible to create a new theory; to perfect the art of healing through the use of magnets.

Mesmerism’s Core Ideas:

- Mesmerism as a new, alternative branch of materialistic, progressivist science purporting the existence of an all-encompassing invisible force/fluid/energy that can be manipulated through magnetism in order to heal hitherto incurable diseases, such as epilepsy. Elliotson espouses this view, recounting in his “Case of Epilepsy Cured by Mesmerism” article how through repeatedly mesmerising a female patient previously diagnosed as epileptic, her fits had grown considerably milder.

- Furthermore, according to Mesmer, the curability of mesmerism could be extended to all human activity including relationships, government, health, and economics.

- From this perspective, disease is recognised as induced by the obstruction of this invisible fluid.

- The accessibility of mesmerism: if properly trained, anyone could have the ability to cure diseases or social ills/exert power through magnetism. For example, in *A Full Discovery of the Strange Practices of Dr. Elliotson on the Bodies of His Female Patients*, the anonymous author proclaims how the power to mesmerise ‘seems to reside in anyone.’ In this primary source, material objects are shown to acquire power through mesmerism. This is seen, for example, through the use of gold, aurified lead and water on female patients.
Suggestion

Suggestion is the process whereby a person can influence and guide the thoughts, feelings and behaviour of another person. Emile Coué developed the term suggestion, alongside the emergence of psychology as a science during the nineteenth century. The work of William James used suggestion in order to demonstrate how an idea can bring another idea within the mind. However, the investigation of hypnosis by Clark Leonard Hull, a nineteenth century American psychologist, extended the meaning of suggestion, ultimately separating it from trance. Suggestion is closely connected to hypnosis and the fundamental idea that one a person can induce another into a certain physical or emotional state.
Leonora Piper

Leonora Piper (1857 – 1950) was a famous American trance medium in the area of Spiritualism. Piper was the subject of intense interest and investigation by American and
British psychic research associations during the early 20th century, most
notably William James and the Society for Psychical Research.

In 1885, the year after the death of his young son, the psychologist and SPR member William James had his first sitting with Piper at the suggestion of his mother-in-law.. He later wrote: "My impression after this first visit was that Mrs. Piper was either possessed of supernormal powers or knew the members of my wife's family by sight and had by
some lucky coincidence become acquainted with such a multitude of their domestic circumstances as to produce the startling impression which she did. My later knowledge of her sittings and personal acquaintance with her has led me to absolutely reject the latter explanation, and to believe that she has supernormal powers."

Piper's talent was
considered to be so extraordinary that she was taken to England for 83 sittings for men considered to be the premiere psychical researchers of the day, including
Henry Sidgwick, Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Barrett and F.W.H. Meyers. Although she was in a place where she had never been before, was
closely watched, Piper did
extremely well and continued to amaze even the most hardened investigators. Hodgson
published a cautious report of his work with Piper in 1892 but in 1898, he
revised slightly this and accepted her as genuine.

Leonora Piper died on July
3, 1950 and has since come to be regarded as a medium of the first rank. She
gave much of her life in the service of science and as a result, many who had
previously doubted the possibility of survival after death became convinced of
its reality. One of those, of course, was Professor William James, whose words
about Leonora Piper have long survived his own passage from this world:

"If
you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, it is enough if you prove
that one crow is white. My white crow is Mrs. Piper."[1]

[1]Murphy,
Gardner; Ballou, Robert O. (1960). William James on Psychical Research. Viking
Press. p. 41
Joseph Arthur, Comte de Gobineau

Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau (14th July 1816 – 13th October 1882)

Life:

Gobineau was a French aristocrat, writer, diplomat, social thinker. He was born 14th July 1816 in Ville-d’Avray, near Paris. His father was an officer in the French army. When Gobineau was seven years old, his mother fled to Switzerland, taking her children with him, where Gobineau received a Germanic education. When Gobineau was 18 however, he returned to France to his father to receive a different education, learning of classics, folklore and oriental studies. Denied from a role in the military academy, Gobineau pursued manual labour in Paris, and while he was there, he published some academic works, including *Mademoiselle Irnois.* After the revolution, Gobineau was appointed private secretary to the French foreign minister, who had been his mentor previously. Gobinea became the first secretary in the Bern embassy, and later also had roles at Hanover and Frankfurt. Gobineau wrote *An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races* (1853-1855), and was not immediately responded to with attention. Gobineau held multiple powerful diplomatic positions, including being the first secretary in Tehran in 1854, the minister to Persia in 1861, the French emissary to Athens in 1864, and French emissary to Rio de Janeiro in 1868. In 1876 however he was forced to retire from diplomacy. After this, he moved to Italy, spending his time in leisure and novel-writing, until he died on 13th October 1882.

Career:

As mentioned, Gobineau wrote *An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races* (1853-55), which he dedicated to King George V, reflecting his royalist and democracy-hating position, and the fact that he saw revolutions and wars as the result of the denigration of society. His work saw Gobineau attempting to create a science of history, and drawing a relationship between the rise and fall of civilisations with racial ideas. Expectedly, Gobineau argued that the “white” race was superior, as descendants of the Vikings. Gobineau became infamous for advocating developing the racist theory of the Aryan master race and his ideas were used (and abused) in Nazism. Gobineau argued that race was the most important factor determining the nature of human society, and that the white race was responsible for all the great advances in history. He saw the barriers between races as natural, having always been there, and that if they break down, it would lead to the destruction of civilisation. Further, Gobineau believed that race created culture, and argued that distinctions between “black”, “white”, and “yellow” races were natural barriers, and that “racial-mixing” inevitably leads to chaos. Gobineau believed that ethnicity was the most important issue in history, and that ethnic differences existed permanently from the beginning of human history. Gobineau saw the Bible to be a reliable historical source, and in his book, he wrote that “Adam is the originator of our white species.” In his book he further argue that in history there have been ten great civilisations, and that they all started with the white race.
Charles Richet

(25 August 1850 – 4 December 1935)

Charles
Richet was a prominent French psychologist.
His particular interest was in extrasensory perception and
hypnosis.  In 1891, he founded the *Annales des sciences Psychiciques* and
kept in correspondence with occultists and spiritualists such as Frederic
William Henry Myers and Albert von Schrenck-Notzing.

His main
aim was to discover a physical explanation for supernatural phenomenon and
explain them in scientific terms.  He
wrote about his beliefs in a ‘Sixth Sense’ which mediums could access beyond
ordinary senses.  However, Richet did not
believe in the afterlife or spirits.

1894,
Richet coined the term ectoplasm; he hypothesised that mediumship could be
explained by the external projection of a material substance from the body of
the medium.  He focused on establishing
metaphysic as a scientific discipline and used the science in explaining
supernatural phenomenon and the human mind.

In 1905,
Richet became president of the Society for Psychical Research and dedicated his
time to investigating famous mediums, such as Eva Carriere and Eusapia
Palladino.   However, some argue that his willingness and
want for a belief in the supernatural prevented his experiments from being
pragmatic.

Richet gained
the Nobel Prize for his work on anaphylaxis in 1913, which was important in the
development of our modern understanding of allergies.

Notable works include:

*Traité de Métapsychique* (Treatise on Metapsychics, 1922)

*Notre Sixième Sens* (Our Sixth Sense, 1928)

*L'Avenir et la Prémonition* (The Future and Premonition, 1931)

*La Grande Espérance* (The Great Hope, 1933)
Jean-Martin Charcot

Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893)

Charcot was 'the most powerful and influential neurological clinician of the nineteenth century' (Goetz, Harter, 2009). He was a medecin des hopitaux de Paris, and head of the Salpetriere hospital in 1862. In 1872 he became a professor of pathology at the Faculty of Medicine of Pari, and then became the first professor to hold the chair of the diseases of the nervous system (a position which was created for him at the Salpetriere hospital in 1882).

The famous painting (which we saw in the seminar) called Une lecon clinique a la Salpetriere (A clinical Lecture at the Salpetriere), by Andre Brouillet, shows Charcot examining his hysterical patient Blanche Whitman (1859-1913). Charcot is surrounded by his students and various important Parisian figures.

In 1881 Charcot was celebrated at the medical congress of London.

He was acquainted with Sigmund Freud from 1885. Freud translated Charcot's lectures into German and kept a reproduction of Andre Brouillet's painting in his living room.

Charcot is associated with 'anti clerical' ideas.

References

Broussolle, E., J. Poirier, F. Clarac, J. G. Barbara, 'Figures and Institutions of the neurological sciences In Paris from 1800-1950' http://www.biusante.parisdescartes.fr/chn/docpdf/revneurol\_part3.pdf

Goetz, G. C., D. H. Harter, Charcot and Pasteur: Intersecting Orbits in the Fin de Siecle French Medicine. *Journal of the History of Neurosciences*, 18 (2009), pp.378-386.
Spiritualist Phenomena

**Ectoplasm**

*Ectoplasm, n.*

*Pronunciation:  /ˈɛktəʊplaz(ə)m/*

*A viscous substance which is supposed to emanate from the body of a spiritualistic medium, and to develop into a human form or face.*

Ectoplasm is a viscous substance alleged to be produced or 'exteriorised' by the body of a seance medium, while in a trance state.

Usually white in colour, this supposedly supernatural substance was often observed to be excreted from bodily orifices including, but not limited to the ears, nose and mouth.

Investigation into the production and origin of ectoplasmic substances was undertaken by the Society for Psychical Research, who found numerous incidences of fraudulent activity including 'ectoplasm' consisting of chewed paper, which was assumed to have been regurgitated by the medium during a seance, butter muslin or cheesecloth.

**Table Turning**

**Levitation**

**Spirit photography**

 The Oxford English Dictionary, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/59446?redirectedFrom=ectoplasm#eid [accessed 12 February 2017].

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Oxford English Dictionary, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/59446?redirectedFrom=ectoplasm#eid [accessed 12 February 2017] Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; name ":0" defined multiple times with different content
Pierre Janet

Pierre Janet (30 May 1859 – 24 February 1947) was a French philosopher and psychologist who is known for coining the term "dissociation". He is also considered one of the founding fathers of psychology alongside William James and Wilhelm Wundt.

### Dissociation

Dissociation is a psychological phenomena where one is detached from reality. Dissociation may range from mild detachment of immediate surroundings to severe detachment from physical and emotional experience. Janet claimed that dissociation occurred in persons who have weak mental functioning. As a result of this detachment, the persons would be in a state of hysteria when in a stressed condition. He did not believe that dissociation was a psychological defence against traumatic experiences. Instead, he claimed that dissociation was a mental or cognitive deficit which could be worsened by trauma.

### Controversy with Freud

At the 1913 Congress of Medicine in London, there was controversy as to whether Pierre Janet or Sigmund Freud came up with their ideas of hysterical phenomena first. Previously, Freud openly acknowledged the influence of Janet's works on his own works. However, Janet's report on psychoanalysis in 1913 argued that many of Freud's terms in his works were old concepts of Janet but renamed. For example, he argues how his own "psychological analysis" preceded Freud's "psychoanalysis". This led to criticism towards Freud. Although the allegations of plagiarism damaged Freud's reputation, he continued to deny that he had plagiarised Janet. He even refused to meet Janet in 1937 based on the reason that Janet refused to admit that the allegations of plagiarism were false.

Some defenders of Freud have argued that although he may have used Janet's ideas to start his own work, Freud subsequently developed these ideas further in his own fashion. For example, it was Freud's theory that dissociation was a psychological defence mechanism.
Magnetism/Electricity

**Magnetism/Electricity**

 Magnetism: An invisible natural force exerted by e.g animals (in the case of animal magnetism).

(B.R. Hergenhahn, *An Introduction to the History of Psychology*, p504.)

In the early 1770s, Mesmer met a Jesuit priest (Maximilian Hell) who described to Mesmer the cures he had accomplished using a magnet. This was not the first time magnets had been used to cure people as Paracelsus and others had used this technique many years before. Mesmer too then used magnetism to successfully ‘cure’ one of his patients when other treatments had failed. But it must be noted that the magnetic treatment involved telling the patient exactly what they should expect to happen.

Mesmer first believed that each person’s body had a magnetic force field. He thought that good physical and psychological health resulted from this force field being distributed evenly throughout the body. In an unhealthy individual it was believed these magnetic forces were unevenly distributed and not properly aligned.

This magnetic treatment involved giving his patient medications with high doses of iron and then moving magnets over their body. For example in 1774 Mesmer used magnetism on his patient Franzl Oesterline who suffered from hysteria. He gave her medication containing a high dosage of iron and she reportedly felt streams of a mysterious fluid running through her body and was relieved of her symptoms for several hours. Mesmer believed this flow was affected by his own will and named it ‘Animal Magnetism.’

Mesmer soon realised that it was not necessary to use iron magnets because anything he touched became magnetised, such as water, glass, animals and human beings. Mesmer stopped using magnets altogether when he believed he himself possessed magnetic powers and channelled this magnetic force onto his patients by touching, tapping and laying his hands on their body.
Frederic W. H. Myers

Frederic William Henry Myers (6
February 1843, in Keswick,
Cumberland – 17 January
1901, in Rome) was a poet,
classicist, philologist,
and a founder of the Society for
Psychical Research.

**Phantasms of the Living**

Myers was the co-author of the two-volume Phantasms of the Living (1886) with
Gurney and Frank Podmore
which documented alleged sightings of apparitions.
The two volumes consist of 701 cases of alleged spontaneous apparitional
communications. It also explored a telepathic theory to
explain such cases.

**Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily**
Death

In 1893
Myers wrote a small collection of essays, Science and a Future Life. In 1903, after Myers's death, Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily
Death was compiled and published. Myers believed that a theory of
consciousness must be part of a unified model of mind which derives from the
full range of human experience, including not only normal psychological
phenomena but also a wide variety of abnormal and "supernormal"
phenomena. n the book, Myers believed he had provided evidence for the
existence of the soul
and survival of personality after death.

The
Subliminal Self

Myers speculated on the existence of a deep region of the unconscious (collective unconscious) or what he termed the “subliminal
self”, which he believed could account for paranormal
events. He also proposed the existence of a “metetherial world,” a world of
images lying beyond the physical world. He wrote that apparitions are not
hallucinations but have a real existence in the metetherial world which he
described as a dream-like world.

**Criticisms**

Historians
have suggested that Myers was strongly biased to believe in the paranormal and held a
secret religious agenda. G.
R. Searle
described Myers as "having lost his Christian faith, sought a new kind of
religion that could reassure him that death did not lead to extinction."
Professionalization

Professionalization

S. E. Shortt described professionalization as ‘A
process by which a heterogeneous collection of individuals is gradually
recognised, by both themselves and other members of society, as constituting a
relatively homogenous and distinct occupational group.’

The process of professionalization began in full in
the nineteenth century. Medicine is one of the clearest examples (and relates
to topics we cover like medicine & healing, mesmerism etc).The
first ever edition of the British Medical Journal in 1840 discussed a bill to
be passed that would establish a college and register of medicine. The
Medical Act of 1858 was intended to separate the ‘quacks’ from qualified practitioners, by self-regulating the profession through minimum training; a
controlling-body and a register of all practitioners. However, Dr Victoria Bates (Social History of Medicine, University of Bristol) has noted that many
quacks remained practicing.

Some
of the big themes of professionalization are knowledge and power (which we could think about also in relation to magic and science). Specifically in
relation to medicine, scholars such as Foucault and Jewson have argued that as
medicine moved from the ‘bedside’ to the hospital, it lost its discursive
elements between the patient and practitioner. Arguably, the production and dissemination
of knowledge became more one-sided, being imposed from above by the medical profession.

Ruth Barton notes however, that professionalization wasn't necessarily the intended outcome and nor was it dependent on the exclusion of 'amateurs'. Barton groups the changes in the social organization of science into four aspects, corresponding to different causal processes:

1) The increasing number of jobs requiring scientific knowledge and skills.

2) The demands for greater recognition through more and better paid positions, research and respect to expert knowledge.

3) The rise of specialised training and qualifications.

4) The decline of a leisured class.

Barton also emphasises the anachronism of referring to 'Scientists', the contemporary term was 'men of science'

Barton, Ruth., "Men of Science": Language, Identity and Professionalization in the Mid-Victorian Scientific Community, *History of Science*, 41 (2003), 75-106.

‘Professionalization’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professionalization [accessed 10/02/2016]

Mr. Warburton's Bill for
the Regulation of the Medical Profession, *Prov Med Surg J (*1840),
1-13

Waddington, Ivan, ‘The movement towards the
professionalization of medicine’, *BMJ,*301 (1990), 688-90

Jewson, N.
D., ‘The Disappearance of the Sick-Man from Medical Cosmology,
1770–1870’, *International Journal of Epidemiology*, 38 (2009
[1976]), 622-33

Lawrence,
C., ‘Incommunicable Knowledge: Science, Technology and the Clinical Art in
Britain 1850-1914’, *Journal*
of Contemporary History*, 20 (1985), 503–20*
Boundary Disputes

Boundary disputes-

Boundary - ‘A limit of something abstract, especially a subject or sphere of activity’ Oxford English dictionary

Dispute- noun – ‘a disagreement or argument’

Verb- ‘compete for; strive to win’

Thus taking a boundary dispute to mean- a competition/argument over the limits of a set activity.

Within the apparently unified scientific community there appears to be underlying boundary disputes furthered by the growing the professionalisation and specialisation of scientific study. Considerations for such disputes can be found in S.Sturdy’s work on the tensions between the medical field and the pursuit of science, when scientists try and assert their knowledge within the medical practitioners’ jurisdiction. (Sturdy, S. 'Looking for Trouble: Medical Science and Clinical Practice in the Historiography of Modern Medicine', Social History of Medicine, 24 (2011), 739-57.) However, Sturdy’s work implies that tensions between the two have been over stated.

Further conflict within the ‘sphere of professional science’ can be found in R. Barton’s work which considers the hierarchy within the scientific field, the primary labels are amateur and professional, with amateurs normally being unable to break free from their boundaries due to financial deprivation.

Between science and the supernatural there appear to be boundary disputes as to what can be examined with the consideration of religion or science, which field has the right to consider what aspects of the human body. These are evident in works from both fields, such as the dispute caused by the concept of naturalism - it challenged the Church’s doctrines of man’s creation. But is this case similar to Sturdy’s belief; is there too much focus
on disagreements and not enough on the work achieved together?

There are also boundary disputes within the Spiritualism movement between those who believed in materialism and those who believed in dualism.
Spiritualism/Dualism

Spiritualism as a specific Anglo-American religious movement should not be confused with the general belief in ‘spiritualism’ and ‘dualism’, within a broader global and historical context. From the perspective of ‘spiritualism’ as a philosophical belief rather than a tangible religious movement, it is maintained, on a metaphysical level, that the world is composed of two fundamental elements: matter and spirit. The spiritual entities encompassed within this outlook are varied; including for example, the soul, afterlife, spirits of the dead and psychic mediumship.

It is important to note that few people positioned themselves as either strictly materialist or spiritualist in this period. For example, many notable nineteenth century scientists such as, William Crookes and Alfred Russel Wallace were not wholly materialist as we might anachronistically presume. Crookes was renowned for his scientific experiments on the medium Florence Cook and her full-form materialisation Katie King. Equally, Spiritualists, despite the alleged refusal of materialism, gave the utmost importance to the collecting of empirical and supposedly scientific evidence of spirit communication.

‘Dualism’ in theological terms is an outlook claiming that the world is influenced by opposing forces: good and evil. In a philosophical sense, this term refers to the relationship between the mind and the brain. According to ‘dualism’, the brain in not entirely made up of physical matter, but transcends physicality, being the incorporeal component of a person. From this perspective, the mind (soul) and brain (body) communicate with one another, yet they are not concretely linked. The soul triggers activity in the material brain and activity in the brain can impact the workings of the soul. Thus, when a person dies, their mind (soul – their essence) continues to exist.
James Braid

James Braid (1795-1860) was a Scottish surgeon credited with
the field of Hypnotism. He first became interested in Mesmerism after observing
Lafontaine in 1841. He began writing on his findings and published them in *Neurypnology; or the Rationale of Nervous*
Sleep *(1843).*

In this book, he outlines that behaviours such as
convulsions, increased sensory acuity, intellectual enhancement, and
spontaneous amnesia were inter-correlated because of intrinsic changes in the
nervous system that occurred when the patient entered "magnetic or
hypnotic sleep". He rejected theories about ‘mesmeric fluid’ stating:

“Anyone can hypnotise himself by
attending strictly to the simple rules that I lay down”.[1]

Braid’s theory was the earliest of this type, but he revised
it as he became increasingly aware of the role played by the hypnotist's
expectations in guiding the subject's behaviour. He developed the notion of
monoideism: the hypothesis that the subject's behaviour was a function of the
specific idea dominating the mind at the time and that the dominant idea
resulted from cues provided by the hypnotist.[2]

During his life, Braid faced criticism from mesmerists and members
of the medical profession. He was excluded from the Zoist and met with
hostility by Elliotson. Attitudes in the medical profession gradually improved
as his phenomena were shown to need requisite proof.

However, his influence is felt far more after his death.  Although mesmerism and his hypnotism began to
lose public focus after 1860, it began to gain traction in France. Historians
have shown that Braid certainly inspired Jean-Marie Charcot (the so called
founder of modern neurology) and helped inspire the foundation of the Nancy
School, the central location for the study of hypnosis.

[1]Alan
Gauld, A History of Hypnotism, p281

[2]Nicholas
P. Spanos and Jack Gottlieb, Demonic Possession, Mesmerism, and Hysteria: A
Social Psychological Perspective on Their Historical Interrelations
Spiritualism

Spiritualism originated in the US in 1848 and was introduced into Britain in 1852 from American and the Continent. In Britain, it reached Spiritualism was at its height of popularity in the 1860s. Whilst the movement as a whole lacks homogeneity and has no central organization there are some defining characteristics,

1) A Spiritualist believes in the survival of the human personality after the death of the physical body and that survival can be proven.

2)  A Spiritualist believes that it is possible to communicate with the spirits of the dead and joins others to effect or participate in such communication.

Spiritualism was associated with a wide range of ancient and  contemporary supernatural phenomenon. Including Christian ian miracles, witchcraft and socery, apparitions of the living and dead, haunted houses, fairies and second sight.

Most people gained their experience of Spiritualism in the domestic seance, typically in the presence of a Spiritualist medium. Those attending séances in Britain in the early 1850s could expect to experience such remarkable phenomena as clairvoyance, tables rapping out coded messages from the dead, and levitation.-       The most controversial aspect was the interpretation of manifestations. Spiritualists insisted that manifestations furnished proof of one or more of the following claims: the independence of spirit and matter, the survival and immortality of the spirit following bodily death, the eternal progress of all in the other world, and the possibility that
under certain conditions spirits of the dead could manifest themselves to the living.

However, the contemporary reception of Spiritualism wasn't always positive. Illustrated London News associated it with an 'epidemic delusion'.

Nelson, Geoffery K., The Spiritualist Movement and the Need for a Redefinition of Cult, *Journal of Scientific Study of Religion,* 8 ( 1969), pp.152-160.

Noakes, Richard., 'Spiritualism, Science and Supernatural in mid-Victorian Britain', in Nicola Brown, Carolyn Burdett and Pamela Thurschwell (ends), *The Victorian Supernatural*, (Cambridge, 2004), pp.26-30.
Ether

The ether is a 'throughly nineteenth-century notion' debated amongst the physicists of the period. It began with the experiments of Thomas Young in 1801 that demonstrated interference patterns produced by two beams of light. The notion was developed on the premise that is light travelled through a vacuum with no observable diminution of speed, then it seemed reasonable that there was some medium to carry the light. For Young, it was a stationary ether that was unaffected by the motion of material bodies or the passage of waves, a 'luminiferous ether'. By the middle of the nineteenth century ether was widely accepted amongst British physicists.

S. Connor, *'Transported Shiver of Bodies': Weighing the Victorian Ether,* http://www.stevenconnor.com/ether/.
Henry Sidgwick

Henry Sidgwick (May 1838 – 28 August 1900) was an English utilitarian philosopher and economist.

He was one of the founders and first president of the Society for Psychical Research and a member of the Metaphysical Society.

He also founded Newnham College in 1875, a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge.

Brought up in the Church of England, he drifted away from orthodox Christianity, and as early as 1862 he described himself as a theist, independent from established religion. For the rest of his life, although he regarded Christianity as "indispensable and irreplaceable – looking at it from a sociological point of view," he found himself unable to return to it as a religion.

"Losing My Religion":Sidgwick, Theism, and the Struggle for Utilitarian Ethics in Economic Analysis by Steven G. Medema.
Providentissimus Deus

Providentissimus Deus (translated as "On the Study of Holy Scripture"), was a the title given to a papal letter issued on issued on 18 November 1893 by Pope Leo XIII.

The letter reflects the Catholic Churches official late nineteenth century position on the study of scripture and rational criticism of religion, outlining how religious teaching and scientific thought should be considered separately and therefore as non-contradictory..

Providentissimus Deus refers to apparent contradictions between the Bible and physical science, and encourages theologians to educate themselves in the theories of rational or scientific thought, so as to be better able to defend religious theology.
Modernism

‘Modernism’ is a philosophical movement or socially progressive mode of thought, that emerged in response to social, economic, technological and economic changes particularly: imperialism; urbanisation; class conflict; the consolidation of middle-class culture; a ‘crisis of faith’; and the struggle between the sexes, all of which took place within the wider context of the late-nineteenth century. These multiple changes and tensions converged and accumulated until the discourse of novelty became inescapable.

However, unlike the European Enlightenment or the
twentieth-century avant-garde in the arts, Modernity is not a solely fixed set of characteristics that might have appeared in a fixed space or time. Its origins remain in question and as Michael Levenson highlights, it is difficult to pinpoint the first modernist; he maintains how we can look back to figures such as, Edgar Allan Poe, Lord Byron and Francois Villon who can be deemed a
precursor to the movement. Further to this, we can never be sure that it *is* a Modernity. Today we talk about living in ‘new’ times, yet the origins of this newness remain contested.

Typical marks of Modernism include: discontinuity; literary self-consciousness; irony; and the use of myth. The philosopher Frederick Nietzsche embraced what he viewed as a cultural rupture, the creative destruction of traditionalism, a moment in time whereby the revival of a powerful artistic vision was possible. The traditional ideology of realism in art was rejected by modernists, in favour of art that fascinated and appalled, such as the work of artists Richard Wagner and Henrik Ibsen. It must be noted that Modernism was not an elite craft refined in secret but constituted a complex exchange between artists and their audiences. This ‘new’ art was regarded by some as a modernist novelty, a dangerous and contagious threat, symptomatic of madness.

M. Levenson, *Modernism* (Yale University Press, 2011).