Parapsychologie

Psychical Research and Parapsychology in the History of Medicine and the Sciences

Registration is now open for our conference Psychical Research and Parapsychology in the History of Medicine and the Sciences, to be held at University College London on 25-27 January 2013. 

To register offline, please contact Andreas Sommer at a.sommer@ucl.ac.uk

Conference Programme

Friday, 25 January

10.00-10.45. Registration

Session 1

10.45. A. Sommer, Welcome & Historiographies of psychical research, or: What does it mean to be rational?

11.30. A. Sech et al., William James and psychical research: Toward a radical science of mind

12.00. R. Noakes, Exceptional phenomena: Congruence of psychical and physical sciences, circa 1870-1930

12.30. Lunch break

Session 2

14.00. I. Kidd, Was Sir William Crookes epistemically virtuous?

14.30. S. Delorme, Physiology or psychic powers? William Carpenter’s notion of ‘unconscious cerebration’ in the debate over spiritualism in mid-Victorian Britain

15.00. T. Trochu, On some unknown historical aspects of the British Society for Psychical Research’s foundation: ‘Mind-reading or muscle-reading?’ A controversy with George Miller Beard

15.30. Tea/Coffee break

Session 3

16.00. R. Evrard, Pierre Janet and the enchanted boundary of psychical research

16.30. J. Gyimesi, Psychical research and psychoanalysis in Hungary

Saturday, 26 January

Session 4

11.00. E. Sutton, Mrs. Piper, ‘mind-cure’, and the medical epistemology of William James

11.30. M.T. Brancaccio, Enrico Morselli and the psychology of spiritism

12.00. S. Shamdasani, Mediumship and serial paradigmicity: S. W. and Jung

12.30 Lunch Break

Session 5

14.00. S. Normandin, Vitalism, psychical research and medical thought in France, 1857-1940

14.30. S. Dieguez, At the margin of the margin: Paul Sollier and unorthodox science at the turn of the XXth century

15.00. A. Puglionesi, The cream puff, the surprise visit, the sudden feeling of danger: relational knowledge-making in psychical research

15.30 Tea/Coffee break

Session 6

16.00. A. Mülberger & A. Graus, Who is talking? Mental dissociation and spiritualist mediumship in Spain

16.30. F. de Sio & C. Marazia, Give me a dog and I will move the earth. Animals as experimental ‘levers’ in the quest for psychic phenomen

17.00. Tea/Coffee break

17.30. Keynote Lecture:

I. Grattan-Guinness, Some remarks on physical mediumship

Sunday, 27 January

Session 7

11.00. J. Kragh, A contested society: psychical research in Denmark, 1905-1950

11.30. G. Blowers et al., ‘Explaining the inexplicable’: The beginnings of psychic research in Republican China (1917-1920)

12.00. E. Bauer, ‘Psychohygiene’ (mental hygiene) and parapsychology

12.30. Lunch break

Session 8

13.30. W. Kramer, The first use of EEG in The Netherlands was within psychical research

14.00. I. Kloosterman, The vital feature of early Dutch parapsychology. Animal magnetism and the Dutch SPR in the 1920s

14.30. H. Wolffram, The medium as criminal: Psychical research, criminology and female criminality in early twentieth-centuryGermany

15.00 Tea/Coffee break

Session 9

15.30. K. Price, Negotiating authority in 1960s dream letters to J.B. Priestley

16.00. A. Thornton, Spirited ladies: Women, psychical research and psychology in the early 20th century

16.30: End