ArgumentEusapia Palladino (1854-1918) is remembered as one of the most famous mediums in the history of spiritualism. Renowned scientists attended her séances in Europe and in the United States. They often had to admit to being unable to understand the origin of the phenomena produced. Cesare Lombroso, for example, after meeting Eusapia, was converted first to mediumism, then spiritualism. This article will retrace the early stages of her career as a medium and shed light on the way she managed to (...) gain the attention of scientists. It will also show why they chose her as an epistemic object. (shrink)

In addition to the usual array of interesting papers and reviews, this issue of the JSE features a debate that I consider especially noteworthy. The topic of the debate is hypnosis and the participants in the dialogue are all recognized authorities on the subject. However, the backgrounds and perspectives of the participants are also quite different, and so the discussion of the issues is commendably broad and wide-ranging. I’ve often wondered whether JSE readers noticed and were puzzled by the fact (...) that hypnosis has received little (if any) attention in the pages of this Journal. It has certainly puzzled me. Granted, unlike some of the phenomena (or alleged phenomena) discussed in the JSE, the existence of hypnosis is not generally disputed. However, the process and nature of hypnosis, and the implications of hypnotic phenomena for our understanding of the mind, remain acknowledged mysteries. To be sure, a small number of researchers cling obdurately to the belief (associated perhaps most often with Nicholas Spanos) that hypnosis is nothing but social compliance or role-playing designed to please the hypnotist.1 But the transparent absurdity of that position becomes clear as soon as one considers some of the more dramatic hypnotic phenomena—for example, failing to register pain during major surgery (e.g., limb amputation, the removal of 100-lb scrotal tumors [yes, that’s right], and the removal of toenails by the roots), and also the prevention of well-known involuntary responses to other noxious stimuli, such as ammonia placed under the nose and needles inserted in the mucous membranes of the eyes. Clearly, the subjects in these cases aren’t simply complying with the wishes of the surgeon by (say) feigning a lack of pain. These are paradigm cases of genuine and profound—and poorly understood—altered states, and they’re quite different from the non-reactions to relatively mild pain (e.g., hands in ice water) considered by Spanos...... (shrink)

ABSTRACT This study explores the influence of the French Symbolist poet, novelist, and literary critic Remy de Gourmont on Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca's conception of dissociation. It proposes translatio—the medieval trope describing a transfer of ideas—as a lens through which to read the significance of Gourmont's thought on the New Rhetoric Project. Thus forgoing more traditional comparative approaches such as intertextuality, this study argues that translatio serves here as a particularly valuable conceptual tool: it unveils the evolution of Perelman's (...) thought over time, and Olbrechts-Tyteca's significant contribution to it; it also provides a clearer understanding of the relationship between association and dissociation in the NRP than what is generally understood by scholars of the Traité. More importantly, translatio unveils the features that make their conception of dissociation one of the truly innovative aspects of the NRP. (shrink)

While there were several psychical research journals during the nineteenth century many interesting discussions about psychic phenomena took place as well in a variety of intellectual reviews and scholarly and scientific journals of various disciplines. One such example was the French journal Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’Étranger founded in 1876 by Théodule Ribot. Reflecting the various interests of psychologists during the nineteenth century many topics were discussed in the Revue, among them hypnotic phenomena, as well as mental (...) suggestion and mediumship. The journal provided an important forum for French discussions in psychology and in the social sciences in general that helped the development of those disciplines. The same may be said about psychic phenomena, which were discussed in the pages of the Revue by authors such as Émile Boirac, Victor Egger, Théodore Flournoy, Jules Héricourt, Pierre Janet, Léon Marillier, Julian Ochorowicz, Charles Richet, and Albert Ruault. We present summaries of some of these writings which we hope will bring some of this material to the attention of non-French readers. (shrink)

The creation of this new section of the Journal of Scientific Exploration (JSE) reflects the traditional view that one of the best ways to understand a discipline is through a study of its history. The historical perspective illuminates the intellectual and social factors leading to the development of science, including issues such as emphases on particular phenomena or topics, as well as methodology and theory. Study of the areas covered by JSE has much to gain from study of their past.

In 1884 French physiologist Charles Richet published an article on ‘‘mental suggestion’’ in the Revue philosophique de la France et de l’etrangere that is an early classic of experimental parapsychology. This work is generally remembered for the use of statistical evaluation of ESP experiments. Nonetheless, Richet discussed other issues as well that are generally neglected. This included reanalyses of previously published thought-transference studies, and discussions of topics such as the place of mental suggestion in science, study participants, and the relationship (...) of mediumship to the unconscious mind. Furthermore, in this paper Richet wrote about a variety of issues related to ESP such as its various features, targets, motor automatisms, its unconscious nature, and theoretical issues. Keywords: Charles Richet—mental suggestion—ESP—French psychical research—mediumship. (shrink)

Composer and musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky published a fascinating and delightful book entitled Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven’s Time (Slonimsky 1965). The book is a collection of what Slonimsky called “biased, unfair, ill-tempered, and singularly unprophetic judgments” (p. 3) about famous composers and their works. We find, for example, the Gazette Musicale de Paris on August 1, 1847, saying of Verdi, “there has not yet been an Italian composer more incapable of producing what is commonly called (...) a melody.” And this publication stuck to its guns. On May 22, 1853, it said of Rigoletto that it “lacks melody. This opera has hardly any chance to be kept in the repertoire.” The May 1804 issue of Zeitung für die Elegente Welt proclaimed Beethoven’s Second Symphony is a crass monster, a hideously writhing wounded dragon, that refuses to expire, and though bleeding in the Finale, furiously beats about with its tail erect................ (shrink)

This paper is an overview of aspects of the French journal Annales des Sciences Psychiques (ASP, 1891-1919) with emphasis on nineteenth century developments. The ASP was founded by Charles Richet and Xavier Dariex. The development of the journal was assisted both by the prestige and influence of Richet as a scientist and of Félix Alcan as a publisher. For the nineteenth-century period the journal emphasized cases and experiments over theories. Much of this was about spontaneous telepathy and physical mediumship. Some (...) of the authors included in the pages of the ASP were Émile Boirac, Ernesto Bozzano, Albert de Rochas, Giovanni Battista Ermacora, Paul Joire, and Julian Ochorowicz. There were translations of the work of members of the Society for Psychical Research, such as Frederic W. H. Myers. In 1908 the ASP was affiliated with the Sociétè Universelle d’Études Psychiques, becoming its official publication. The ASP was important in establishing standards and in providing a forum for the development of psychical research in France. (shrink)