James and Psychical Research in Context
August 8, 2018 A. Sommer
William James's open advocacy and empirical investigation of telepathy, mediumship, and other supernatural phenomena was a central but often misunderstood part of his work. This chapter argues that James's psychical research can be reconciled with his progressive canonical ideas when placed in the context of an international network of elite intellectuals who viewed such phenomena as fundamental scientific anomalies. James's collaborations with F. W. H. Myers and others in studying trance states and hallucinations in non-pathological populations were integral to his experimental psychology. His unorthodox work grew from discontent with dogmatism in science and religion and shared origins with his pragmatist and radical empiricist philosophy. The story illustrates that scientific naturalism as an absolute standard emerged from concerns not self-evidently science-based or humanistic.