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

Published Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2020] ©2020

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Description 1 online resource (xi, 319 pages) : illustrations Series Spiritual phenomena Spiritual phenomena. Contents Introduction : at home, with ghosts -- The weather map at the bottom of the mind -- Machines that dream together -- Drawings from the other side -- Psychic domesticity -- The wilderness of insanity -- Conclusion : to keep alive and heap up data Summary "Modeling a new approach to the history of psychology and the mind sciences, this book brings to life the seances, deathbed communions, flashes of clairvoyance, and telepathic experiments that captivated the American public from the 1860s well into the twentieth century. The book contextualizes psychical research, an unorthodox "science of the soul," within a long history of citizen science in the United States. Rather than a superstitious impediment to the progress of laboratory psychology, psychical research belongs to a continuous tradition of knowledge production by ordinary people in everyday settings. The book reveals how an eclectic group of investigators tried to capture the most elusive dimensions of human consciousness. They formed a far-flung network devoted to gathering evidence and making the study of experience an "in vivo" field science. And they persisted despite growing marginalization in the 1920s and 30s, as psychology asserted its professional and laboratory-based status. Each chapter delves into the vigorous experimental culture of amateur psychical researchers, challenging readers to discern whether this was a pseudo-science, a failed science, or a phantom science-one impossible yet persistent, the faint rapping of a curiosity that refuses to be extinguished"-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on April 13, 2021) Subject American Society for Psychical Research -- History SUBJECT American Society for Psychical Research fast Subject Parapsychology -- Research -- United States -- History -- 19th century Parapsychology -- Research -- United States -- History -- 20th century Parapsychology and science -- United States -- History -- 19th century Parapsychology and science -- United States -- History -- 20th century HISTORY / United States / 19th Century. Parapsychology and science Parapsychology -- Research United States Genre/Form History Form Electronic book LC no. 2019051023 ISBN 9781503612785 1503612783

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