Largely unacknowledged by historians of the human sciences, late-19th-century psychical researchers were actively involved in the making of fledgling academic psychology. Moreover, with few exceptions historians have failed to discuss the wider implications of the fact that the founder of academic psychology in America, William James, considered himself a psychical researcher and sought to integrate the scientific study of mediumship, telepathy and other controversial topics into the nascent discipline. Analysing the celebrated exposure of the medium Eusapia Palladino by German-born Harvard (...) psychologist Hugo Münsterberg as a representative example, this article discusses strategies employed by psychologists in the United States to expel psychical research from the agenda of scientific psychology. It is argued that the traditional historiography of psychical research, dominated by accounts deeply averse to its very subject matter, has been part of an ongoing form of ‘boundary-work’ to bolster the scientific status of psychology. (shrink)

The Psychic Home: Psychoanalysis of Consciousness and the Human Soul develops, from a number of different viewpoints, the significance of home in our lives. Roger Kennedy puts forward the central role of what he has termed a 'psychic home' as a vital psychic structure, which gathers together a number of different human functions. Kennedy questions what we mean by the powerfully evocative notion of the human soul, which has important links to the notion of home and he suggests that what (...) makes us human is that we allow a home for the soul. As an illustration of this concept he explores how it can help to understand a vital element of William Wordsworth's development as a poet. The word soul is both abstract and yet also powerfully emotive. Kennedy shows that it can be approached from a number of different angles, from psychoanalysis, philosophy, religion, sociology, literature and neuroscience. The Psychic Home, discusses the mysteries and complexities of the soul, and aims to evoke some restoration of its place in our thinking. It illustrates how the word soul and similar key words, such as spirit and inwardness, express so much that is essential for humans, even if we cannot be too precise about their meanings. Insightful, enlightening and broad reaching, The Psychic Home brings the concept of the soul centre stage as an entity that is elemental, an essence, irreducible, and what makes us human as subjects of experience. It will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, neuroscientists, philosophers and those interested in spirituality and religion. (shrink)

The author considers the way in which psychic life is generated by the social operation of power, and how that social operation of power is concealed and fortified by the psyche that it produces. Power is no longer understood to be 'internalized' by an existing subject, but the subject is spawned as an ambivalent effect of power, one that is staged through the operation of conscience. To claim that power fabricates the psyche is also to claim that there is a (...) fictional and fabricated quality to the psyche. The figure of a psyche that 'turns against itself' is crucial to this study, and offers an alternative to describing power as 'internalized'. Although most readers of Foucault eschew psychoanalytic theory, and most thinkers of the psyche eschew Foucault, the author seeks to theorize this ambivalent relation between the social and the psychic as one of the most dynamic and difficult effects of power. (shrink)

This article explains the various techniques that psychics can use to convince both their clients and themselves that they really do have occult powers. Tony Youens, the author, regularly demonstrates these techniques, and usually succeeds in convincing his audience of his amazing psychic abilities before he reveals all. On one recent TV show, a person who uses psychics was asked, after a long session with both Tony and a ‘real’ psychic, which of the two had genuinely psychic powers. (...) They chose Tony. (shrink)

Synonyms Cognitive universals; Human nature; Human universals Definition The “psychic unity” idea denotes the existence of a set of psychological and cognitive capacities universally shared by human beings and grounded in biological equality.

First, a close reading of Judith Butler’s The Psychic Life of Power underscores the ways in which Butler’s account of power liquidates issues of political economy and problematically ontologizes Freudianism as a kind of first philosophy of the subject. Second, drawing largely from secondary sources, the religious studies reader is introduced to the life and work of Ernest Dicther, the father of motivational research, an influential American mid-twentieth century psychoanalytic school of marketing that Freudianized marketing discourse and transformed it into (...) the present day. Third, drawing from primary sources in Dichter’s published archive, a comparative reading of Butler and Dichter reveals strong points of confluence around the psychology and performativity of ritual, concomitantly highlighting scholars’ hidden participation in the American religious history Kathryn Lofton figures according to the terms of ‘consuming religion’. (shrink)

Using Shanghai Tennis Masters as an example, this study seeks to explore the psychic income associated with major sports events hosting and whether the psychic income would predict the attitudes of local residents toward events hosting. In addition, the moderating effect of sport involvement on the relationship between psychic income and attitude is also tested. In this study, a questionnaire survey is adopted. The structured questionnaire was developed based on 4 parts, including the demographics of the residents, involvement in the (...) sport event, psychic income from the sport event, and their attitudes toward the sports event, there were 47 items in total. Data were collected from the local residents of Shanghai, as a result, 1,302 valid questionnaires were collected. A series of statistical analyses were conducted by using SPSS25.0 and AMOS 24.0 to examine the reliability and validity of the scales and to test the hypotheses. The results showed that the event has brought a significant level of psychic income to the local community, and the perceived psychic income would predict the attitudes of the residents toward the event hosting. The moderating effect of sports involvement on the relationship between psychic income and attitude is also confirmed. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s later philosophy addresses the subject of connection between the psychic life of the individual and social context, represented by language games which are played within a form of life. Sensations and passions are part of the psychic life of the individual; far from being hidden psychological objects of a private Cartesian, they are inseparable from their social redefinition. In fact, they become visible in the context of the game. Wittgenstein argues that there is a transformation of subjective psychic life (...) by learning language games. The psychic life of the individual is then re-organized by learning a socially defined, characteristic behaviour pattern. However, the learning process of the games is complex and non-deterministic, in that it oscillates between degrees of acceptance and degrees of negation of language game rules. Through this oscillation between acceptance and denial of the game rules, it is possible to develop processes which lead to unpredictable changes in the game and in forms of life. (shrink)

This article reflects on the value of training of health care professionals that find themselves in variously changing and complex settings, and who find themselves interacting with themes, problems and practices related to mental health. Starting from some reflections that emerged with operators involved in a professional training course within a specific research-intervention project, the contribution questions how a renewed “pedagogy of care” can help these professionals to better understand the nature and the constitutive factors of the process of signification (...) and re-signification of the experience of psychiatric illness, especially when one comes into contact with subjects involved in forced migratory experiences. (shrink)

Excerpt from Higher Psychical Development (Yoga Philosophy): An Outline of the Secret Hindu Teachings I wish to acknowledge, here, my very great indebted ness to Mr. Frederick T. Harris, for his invaluable as sistence in the preparation of this work. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original (...) format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

If I miss not the tenor of points and counterpoints, a recent discussion in this journal has been a novelly natural transaction in behalf of a great question at which many philosophers have labored—What is the place of Mind? R. S. Lillie, an eminent physiologist has been working toward a philosophical justification of certain biological key-facts, and H. Heath Bawden, a pioneer naturalist in philosophy and psychology, has been urging a physiological counter-statement. Both are logical men of science and aim (...) to rest on facts. Why do they define and value the “psychical” differently? (shrink)

Develop your psychic abilities and raise your frequency with nearly one hundred easy-to-use yoga poses that activate your chakras.

One of the reasons the history of parapsychology and its ancestor psychical research is intriguing is because it addresses a central issue: the boundaries of science. This article provides an overview of the historiography of parapsychology and presents an approach to investigate the Dutch history of parapsychology contributing to the understanding of this central theme. In the first section the historical accounts provided by psychical researchers and parapsychologists themselves are discussed; next those studies of sociologists and historians understanding parapsychology as (...) deviant and even potentially revolutionary are dealt with; third, more contemporary studies are examined whereby enterprises such as parapsychology are understood as central to the culture in which they arose. On the basis of this analysis a new direction in the historiography of the subject is suggested in the fourth section, centred upon the relation between parapsychology and psychology in the Netherlands throughout the 20th century. In the Netherlands not only were pioneering psychologists such as Gerard Heymans (1857–1930) actively involved in experiments into telepathy, the first professor in parapsychology in the world – Wilhelm Tenhaeff (1894–1981) – was appointed in 1953 at Utrecht University and in the 1970s and 1980s parapsychology had its own research laboratory at Utrecht University in the division of psychology. This unique situation in the Netherlands deserves scholarly attention and makes an interesting case to investigate the much-neglected connections between the fields of psychology and parapsychology in the 20th century. The connections between psychology and parapsychology might help us to understand why parapsychology came to be regarded as a pseudoscience. (shrink)

It is a happy circumstance that this important aspect of method should be brought to our attention by a distinguished scientist in the field of biology. In the past any reference to the “psychical” by the scientific methodologist has been regarded as a dubious departure from his strict routine. But the recognition, finally, by a man of science, of the aleatory, autonomous character of a spontaneous universe, disclosed in biological directives as well as in the dynamics of the atom, is (...) a stimulating enhancement of that philosophy which, as Dewey says, is “the critical theory of methods of criticism.”. (shrink)

I will begin this paper by stating in rough outline what I consider to be the relevance of psychical research to philosophy, and I shall devote the rest of it to developing this preliminary statement in detail.

This essay explores the relationships between subjection, abjection, and race in Judith Butler's work. That the practices and processes of subjection are central in Butler's thinking is hardly in question. From her early work on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit in Subjects of Desire (1987) through her thinking in Gender Trouble ([1990] 1999), Bodies That Matter ([1993] 2011), The Psychic Life of Power (1997), and Undoing Gender (2004d), Butler has explored the performative and psychic production of gendered subjects. In her work (...) on precarity and precariousness in texts like Precarious Life (2004c), Giving an Account of Oneself (2005), Frames of War (2009), and Dispossession (2013), she theorized how the subject is inextricably caught up in, and becomes a subject through, the very relations with others that can – at times – undo it. Indeed, the title of the collection of her essays published in 2015b, Senses of the Subject, points to how Butler's thinking has returned again and again to the question of how subjects are formed and in what senses. One of those senses of subjection that appears regularly in Butler's thought is one wherein subjects are constituted by, and work to maintain their coherence through, practices of abjection. Abjection is the splitting off and repelling of some part of the self that cannot then be acknowledged, accepted, or touched without bringing that self's constitution as subject into question. Subjection here relies on the production of an always threatening realm of a potentially destabilizing abject. (shrink)

This book is about how we can deepen our understanding of subjectivity through the use of the concept of triangulation. Fundamentally, this book seeks to address the question of how we can be objective about subjectivity. If psychology, as a scientific discipline, is concerned with the study of human experience, which is essentially subjective; then we are faced with the problem of how apply the scientific method, as it is commonly understood. If experience is essentially unique to the experiencer, then (...) there seems to be a basic incompatibility with the scientific method. As currently practised, this method searches for psychic phenomena, which can be validly measured e.g. intelligence; showing a range of individual differences. But this does not enable us to examine individual experience. An individual's experience seems to become impenetrable because generalisation across different individuals' experience entails the loss of individuality in the generalisation. (shrink)

The author of this paper aimed to understand the early Buddhism community in its entirety by examining the individual episodes in the "Mahavagga". There is a remarkable experience of the psychic power between the Buddha and the Brahmins. They are both aware of coming across of psychic forces that entered the way to the Buddhist Community. Using the brahmins mythology as a instrument for missionary work, the early Buddhism brings people close to Buddha's community. The Buddha visited Uruvela-Kassapa and took (...) lodging for the night where the sacred fire was kept, in spite of Kassapa's warning that the spot was inhabited by a fierce Naga. The Buddha, by his magical powers, overcame, first this N ganad then another, both of whom vomited fire and smoke. Kassapabeing pleased with this exhibition of iddhi-power, undertook to provide the Buddha with his daily food. The Buddha spent the whole rainy season there, performing, in all, three thousand five hundred miracles of various kinds, reading the thoughts of kassapa, splitting firewood for the ascetic sacrifices, heating stoves for them to use after bathing in the cold weather, etc. Still Kassapa persisted in the thought, "The great ascetic is of great magic power, but he is not anarahant like me." Finally the Buddha decided to startle him by declaring that he was not an arahant, neither did the way he followed lead to arahantship. Thereon kassapa owned defeat and reverently asked for ordination. The Buddha asked him to consult with his pupils, and they cut off their hair and threw it with their sacrificial utensils into the river and were all ordained. Nadi Kassapa and Gaya Kassapa were ordained with their pupils. At Gay sisa the Buddha preached to them the Fire Sermon, and they all attained arahantship for the early Buddhist Community. The episode of Uruvela Kassaps in the Mahavagga text ultimately idealizes the power of psychic and the start of the community. It is probable, even at the time when the episode were written, that as a matter of fact every one, in ordinary daily life, spoke imply the vernaculars in a much more simple and natural state of society. It is the Mahavagga authors, when addressing a cultured public at a date when the vernaculars had become the paramount literary language. Another point is that though brahmins take part in the religious and philosophical conversations of those early tims, and in the accounts of them are always referred to with respect, and threaten with the same courtesythat they always themselves extended also to others, yet they hold no predominant position. The majority of the ascetic, and the most influential individuals among them, are not brahmins. That is only a matter of course will be the obvious subjection. The Mahavagga texts I quotes, if not the work of bitter opponents, were at least composed under India bramins influence, and are prejudiced against the brahmins. (shrink)

One of the most innovative and brilliant philosophers of his generation, but largely neglected until he was brought to public attention by Gilles Deleuze, Gilbert Simondon presents a challenge to nearly every category and method of traditional philosophy. Psychic and Collective Individuation is undoubtedly Simondon's most important work and its influence, clearly felt in Stiegler and DeLanda, has continued to grow. David Scott provides the first full introduction to this work, which will inspire as well as instruct philosophers working in (...) Continental thought, philosophy of science, social theory and political philosophy. (shrink)

Last year I published an autobiographical text in the form of interviews with a young psychologist entitled Je me voyage. The title’s neologism gives a nod to my foreign status in the French language which has largely determined my psychosexual positioning in research and in writing; the psychic experience has been central to my life’s trajectory In my familial context, culture constituted a world that made life liveable —and I experienced life, due to the importance accorded to language, as survival, (...) as an intimate resistance and an inherent creativity in social time. (shrink)

This article adds to contemporary analyses of neoliberalism by shedding light on its psychic life. Writers in the Foucauldian tradition have explored how subjectivities are reconstituted under neoliberalism, showing that the neoliberal self is an entrepreneurial subject. Yet, there has been little empirical research that explores entrepreneurial subjectivity and, more specifically, its psychic life. By drawing on over 60 in-depth interviews with individuals who may be entrepreneurial subjects par excellence, this article adds to our understanding of how neoliberalism is lived (...) out. The article is divided into 10 sections, with each section exploring a distinct contour of entrepreneurial subjectivity. They show, for example, that competition is not only other-directed under neoliberalism, but also directed at the self, and that exclusionary processes lie at the heart of the constitution of entrepreneurial subjectivities. By providing a theoretically informed analysis of a wealth of empirical data, the article makes an original contribution to our understanding of the psychic life of neoliberalism. (shrink)

The issue of identity cards is hotly debated in many countries, but it often seems to be an oddly backward-looking debate that presumes outdated “Orwellian” architectures. In the modern world, surely we should be debating the requirements for national identity management schemes, in which identity cards may or may not be a useful implementation, before we move on to architecture. If so, then, what should a U.K. national identity management scheme for the 21st century look like? Can we assemble a (...) set of requirements understandable to politicians, professionals and the public? We’ve certainly had some difficulty to date. One reason might be that we lack a compelling, narrative vision. As a result, we’re constructing a legacy system that will subvert the rational goals of worthwhile scheme. We’re not aiming high enough. The technology, I will argue, can deliver far more than the politicians, professionals and public imagine: In particular, it can deliver the apparently paradoxical result of more security and more privacy by exploiting smart cards, biometrics and cryptography. In this paper, I will set out a high-level vision of what a forward-looking national identity management and identity “card” scheme should look like: Dr. Who’s psychic paper. Not only is this a simple, clear vision that is familiar to the expert and layperson alike, but it’s a very useful artistic representation of the capabilities of the technology. I will further suggest that a utility implementation of identity infrastructure can deliver the on this vision in a practical way, and that all of the technology needed to create an ID scheme for the future already exists. (shrink)

This book argues that the irreducible singularity of each person as a psychical subject implies the privacy of the psychical and that of experience, and yet the private accessibility of each person to his or her mind is compatible with interpersonal communication and understanding. The book treats these major issues against the background of the author's original metaphysics--panenmentalism."--Publisher's website.

Despite creating vast inequalities and propping up reactionary world regimes, capitalism has many passionate defenders—but not because of what it withholds from some and gives to others. Capitalism dominates, Todd McGowan argues, because it mimics the structure of our desire while hiding the trauma that the system inflicts upon it. People from all backgrounds enjoy what capitalism provides, but at the same time are told more and better is yet to come. Capitalism traps us through an incomplete satisfaction that compels (...) us after the new, the better, and the more. Capitalism's parasitic relationship to our desires gives it the illusion of corresponding to our natural impulses, which is how capitalism's defenders characterize it. By understanding this psychic strategy, McGowan hopes to divest us of our addiction to capitalist enrichment and help us rediscover enjoyment as we actually experienced it. By locating it in the present, McGowan frees us from our attachment to a better future and the belief that capitalism is an essential outgrowth of human nature. From this perspective, our economic, social, and political worlds open up to real political change. Eloquent and enlivened by examples from film, television, consumer culture, and everyday life, Capitalism and Desire brings a new, psychoanalytically grounded approach to political and social theory. (shrink)

We are living in a time of meta-organics and post-biology, where we perceive everything in our world as customizable and changeable. Modelling biology within a technological context allows us to investigate GEO-volutionary alternatives/alterations to our original natural systems, where augmentation and transmutation become standards in search of overall betterment (Genetically Engineered Organics). Our expectations for technology exceeds ubiquitous access and functional perfection and enters the world of technoetics, where our present hyper-functional, immersively multi-apped, borderline-prosthetic, global village devices fail to satiate (...) our desires to be synaptically surpassed. Most real-time interactive behavioural systems in art utilize two and three dimensions. Artificial neural networks and prediction (Latin: from pr- before plus dicere to say) systems give rise to experimentation within the third-plus-one (3+1) dimension of the spacetime continuum. Spacetime in accordance with string theory requires the where and when to describe something in existence, rather than mere points in space. It explains the workings of the universe from both super-galactic and subatomic levels. Physical cosmology studies the motions of the celestial bodies in relation to the first cause (ie. primum movens) or the source of all-being. In book 12 of Metaphysics, Aristotle spoke of something which moves without (itself) being moved (by anything), and referred to being as motion. In quantum mechanics, a particle is described by a wave. Physiognomy is an evolving area of psychological research that describes a direct correlation between human gesture (or movement) and thought. Early twentieth-century Persian philosopher Abdul-Baha mentioned that the reality of man is his thought, not his material body. Prediction systems apply models of the mind, or artificial neural networks and machine learning strategies, to use the recorded past with the present to anticipate the future. This article investigates existing human and artificial psychic systems in hopes of identifying tools necessary in building a gesture prediction system. The relationship of intent to gesture and whether intent can be perceived without the evidence of gesture are two factors that must be tested. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: This article investigates the experience of individual learners who have been allocated learning support in the further education system in England. The particular focus is on interviewees’ constructions of their emotional and psychic experiences. Through the adoption of a psycho-social perspective, learners’ tendency to ‘idealise’ their learning support workers is understood as a strategy for coping with the anxiety generated by a range of previous experiences. The implications for policy-makers are discussed.

This paper explores the potential for psychic conflict within Seneca's moral psychology. Some scholars have taken Seneca's explicit claim in De Ira that the soul is unitary to preclude any kind of simultaneous psychic conflict, while other interpreters have suggested that Seneca views all cases of anger as instances of akrasia. I argue that Seneca's account of anger provides the resources for accommodating some types of simultaneous psychic conflict; however, he denies the possibility of psychic conflict between two action-generating impulses, (...) thus rejecting the phenomena of genuine akrasia and enkrateia. Although superficially counterintuitive, Seneca's cognitivist account of anger, according to which anger is complex and requires assent to the propositions that ‘I have been wronged’ and ‘I ought to seek revenge’, renders his denial of akrasia and enkrateia more plausible. (shrink)

Abstract: In this article I intend to highlight how the relationship between the psychic ego (seelischen Ich) and the spiritual ego (geistige Ich) is fundamental to the understanding of intersubjectivity and the lifeworld (Lebenswelt). In Ideas II, Husserl explains how, from the ego, natural, psychic and spiritual objectivities are constituted. These three strata of objectivity are known, first, in the theoretical attitude and, second, in the spiritual attitude. In this process, the ego becomes explicit. In the theoretical attitude, the constitution (...) of nature takes place, for which the body (Körper/Leib) is fundamental. This is followed by the constitution of objects of psychic nature, human or animal (tierisch), including self-perception. In assuming the spiritual attitude, the other is perceived (Urpräsenz) initially as a body together with things, and alongside this perception there is an apprehension (Appräsenz) of co-given horizons. There is an identity between the body of others and mine; it is the moment of empathy (Einfühlung). The scientific world constituted in the theoretical attitude is a reduction of the surrounding world (Umwelt) – the lifeworld (Lebenswelt). This lifeworld is the world of spiritual attitude and precedes any comprehension or explanation of the world. It is therefore through the spiritual attitude that a community of spiritual subjects is constituted and constitutes the lifeworld. Keywords: Husserl, Psyche, Spirit, Intersubjectivity, Lifeworld. (shrink)

Elaine Kuzmeskus retraces historical sâeance sessions and retells firsthand accounts of spirits reaching from beyond the veil so that we, the living, can better understand what happens in these encounters and why.

Castoriadis portrays the psyche in its originary state as a ‘psychic monad’ - an infantile psyche that experiences itself as omnipotent, omnipresent, undifferentiated and sufficient unto itself. According to Castoriadis, this totality is fragmented in a ‘triadic phase’ through the experience of desire, which brings to the fore the encounter with the Other. In contrast, Marcel Gauchet rejects the concept of the psychic monad, arguing that the unformed psyche enters the world with a primordial openness to being formed and transformed. (...) Psychic tension does not arise from the immersion of the closed monad in a hostile world, but from within the psyche itself, for the psyche must form itself and be formed by the world. Gauchet’s understanding of an inherent psychic tension provides an important corrective to Castoriadis’s theory of the monad that nevertheless remains consistent with Castoriadis’s anthropology. (shrink)

This article offers an account of Nietzschean decadence as a psycho-physiological condition characterized by a failure of psychic integration—a failure Nietzsche thinks precludes genuine agency, since the psychic integration the decadent fails to achieve is necessary for agency. As part of this account, this article develops an interpretation of an underexplored but crucial form of decadence: repressed decadence. Exploring this variety of Nietzschean decadence both enables us to make sense of the case of Wagner’s alleged decadence and adds nuance to (...) predominance models of Nietzschean unity. After developing this account, the article argues that Nietzsche finds decadence especially problematic when it disempowers (or obstructs the empowerment of) the individual who suffers from it, even if only in the long run. The article concludes by demonstrating that in (rare) cases in which decadence facilitates individual empowerment, Nietzsche evaluates it positively, finding such a condition worthy of affirmation. (shrink)

This paper contends that Catherine Malabou’s concepts of cerebrality and the new wounded extend Frantz Fanon’s theory of colonial trauma to illuminate the link between violent oppression and contemporary profile of psychic disorders, as they relate to the diagnostic measure of PTSD. It begins by demonstrating colonial psychoanalyst Octave Mannoni’s failure to engage psychoanalytic theory to negate the racial theses of French colonial psychiatry. Next, it explicates Fanon’s refutation of both Mannoni’s use of the idea of dependence and his theory (...) of social evolutionism to describe the colonial relation. In brief, Fanon critiques Mannoni for neglecting to integrate the psychic effects of colonial violence into his analysis of unconscious complexes in the colonized. Finally, this paper shows that Malabou corelates violent ruptures with the PTSD diagnosis, in order to better understand the relation between sociopolitical violence and neuropsychiatric trauma. This paper proposes that both Fanon and Malabou be mobilized to theorize the violent origins of psychic trauma. (shrink)