Psychical research and parapsychology interpreted

Introduction

What are we to make of the history of psychical research and its successor parapsychology? Is it merely the intriguing story of a failed ‘pseudoscience’ or does the practice of parapsychological research reflect similar problems to those in any other scientific enterprise? Is its development inherently linked to the insecurities of the fin de siècle or is its survival far into the 20th century a sign of the persistence of the most vital and permanent questions of concern to humanity? In short: what is the historical relevance of parapsychology and psychical research?

Through the discussion of several of the most important historical and sociological studies on the history of parapsychology – and its ancestor psychical research – this article will suggest a direction in order to try to answer these questions. This suggested direction will be aimed at a country whose unique history of parapsychology has not been investigated thus far – the Netherlands. It will become clear that although the historiography of psychical research and parapsychology has resulted in numerous intriguing studies, thus far several vital issues have largely been disregarded. These issues might shed new light on the questions stated above and are particularly relevant for the case study of Dutch parapsychology.

Psychical research and parapsychology are concerned with the scientific investigation of those phenomena alleged to be ‘paranormal’. ¹ The phenomena that were (and are) investigated by psychical researchers and parapsychologists are usually negatively defined as those anomalies which have not been explained yet by science (e.g. Beloff, 1993: 12). They include phenomena such as telepathy, communications with ghosts and spirits, and psychokinesis – the last being the movement of small or large objects with the ‘power of the mind’. All these concepts and definitions are not without their problems. Due to lack of space this will largely be left aside here. Psychical research and parapsychology will be understood as those scientific enterprises that try to investigate paranormal phenomena. Even though in this article psychical research and parapsychology are used together, it should be kept in mind that there is a difference between the two enterprises. Psychical research is the older term, usually referring to the investigation of specific cases or individuals – most often mediums. Parapsychology is the more contemporary term which generally encompasses the experiments in laboratory settings using statistical methods. ²

In 1882 the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was founded in London by, among others, the professor of physics William Barrett (1844–1925), Frederic Myers (1843–1901), Edmund Gurney (1847–88) and the philosopher Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900). Many of the founders and first members of the British SPR were eminent philosophers or respected scientists. In other countries the first psychical researchers were respected intellectuals; for example, the French physiologist Charles Richet (1850–1935), the pioneer psychologist William James (1842–1910) in the United States, or the German biologist Hans Driesch (1867–1941). We will see that also in the Netherlands the first psychical researchers were renowned scholars.

The foundation of the British SPR marks the official, institutional beginning of psychical research. Non-institutional ‘scientific’ research into paranormal phenomena had already started in the 18th century. It is in this century that Franz Anton Mesmer (1743–1815) introduced his theory of animal magnetism with the central idea of a fluid that could be redirected by the stroking of hands to cure diseases. Halfway through the 19th century spiritualism became the successor of mesmerism in stimulating research on paranormal phenomena. Spiritualism was not the only movement at the end of the 19th century related to the ‘occult’. Theosophy was another crucial movement within the broader context of occultism. ³

The mediums central to spiritualism were the first subjects of psychical researchers. As psychical research progressed into the 20th century the researchers partly turned away from these mediums. Especially with the experiments of Joseph Banks Rhine (1895–1980) in the 1930s with the use of Zener cards, the focus of attention switched from mediums to more statistical and empirical investigations. It was Rhine who popularized the term ‘parapsychology’ – first introduced by the German philosopher Max Dessoir (1867–1947) in 1889 – as the successor of psychical research. Psychical research and parapsychology were never easily accepted by the scientific community. Their struggle for scientific acceptance continued throughout the 20th century, even though in 1969 parapsychology was accepted as an affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Nowadays, few academic places are to be found worldwide where research into paranormal phenomena is an accepted enterprise. ⁴

It will be argued that although recent studies have provided valuable insights in the history of a contested science such as parapsychology, thus far the focus has mainly been on the religious, political and social context in which the research into paranormal phenomena originated. What is currently lacking is an analysis of the scientific context in which psychical research emerged in the 19th century and in which parapsychology had to maintain itself in the 20th. This article pleads for a history of parapsychology focusing on the – much-neglected – 20th century and emphasizing the – largely disregarded – complex relation between parapsychology and ‘mainstream’ psychology. Such a modern scientific history will show the influence of social and contextual factors on the acceptance of a scientific field, without lapsing into fascinating but also sometimes opaque cultural histories of the subject. It will be argued that such an approach to the history of parapsychology is especially suitable for the history of Dutch parapsychology.

This article is divided into four sections. The first section discusses the internal accounts given by psychical researchers and parapsychologists themselves. They mainly show the persistent discussions regarding the validity of the results that research into paranormal phenomena has brought forth. The second section discusses the interests of historians and sociologists in interpreting psychical research and parapsychology as deviant and potential revolutionary sciences, underlining the social character of science. The third section deals with those historians who take psychical research and parapsychology to represent central themes of the cultural context in which they arose. It is in the fourth and final section that Dutch parapsychology will be discussed to argue that this specific case study could shed light upon several vital issues that have not received considerable attention thus far.

The insiders’ perspective

The first to write an historical overview of the research into supernatural or paranormal phenomena, were those persons who were actively involved in these investigations themselves. This did not automatically result in positive accounts regarding the results of the research undertaken. Sceptical insiders’ perspectives were present from the beginning as well – sometimes closely related to the internal conflicts within the SPR. Discussions about the existence of paranormal phenomena began at the same moment the phenomena were believed to occur and have not ceased since then. The first internal histories were mostly concerned with one of the key problems inherently linked to research into the paranormal – identifying proof.

For the first (self-acclaimed) historian of psychical research, Frank Podmore (1856–1910), the main issue at stake was to determine whether the evidence justified the spiritualistic claim for the ‘agency of the spirits of dead men and women’ (Podmore, 1902: xi). Podmore was himself a central member of the SPR since its foundation in 1882. As time progressed, he became increasingly sceptical regarding the results of psychical research because explanations involving fraud and trickery often appeared more plausible to him. For Podmore this was especially true regarding investigations that involved the so-called ‘physical’ mediums. ⁵ The historian Janet Oppenheim takes Podmore’s ‘caution regarding the physical manifestations of spiritualism’ to be ‘very nearly … an obsession’ (Oppenheim, 1985: 147). Oppenheim might exaggerate this a bit, just as the scepticism of Podmore is often exaggerated. Certainly he was highly critical of physical manifestations, but nonetheless throughout his life he kept a firm belief in the reality of telepathy – a conviction which was mainly fed by the promising results with the medium Mrs Piper (Podmore, 1902: II, 348–61). Podmore’s writings are still very useful resources to study the history of psychical research in its early days. Furthermore, Podmore nicely illustrates the difficulties concerning the evaluation of the evidence of psychical research – especially with those researches concerning physical mediums.

Sixty years later, when psychical research had changed drastically through the years, Trevor H. Hall (1910–) has extended considerably the scepticism present in Podmore’s writings. Hall was trained in psychical research at Trinity College in Cambridge himself, but he was especially interested in stage magic. This might explain Hall’s interest in the uses of fraud and trickery by physical mediums, but his critiques on mediums and their researchers went further than that. Hall being a former member of the SPR, his harsh criticisms are probably related to internal polemics of this society during the 1960s (Luckhurst, 2002: 75).

In his discussions of the medium Florence Cook (1856–1904; Hall, 1962) and the psychical researcher Edmund Gurney (1847–88; Hall, 1964) respectively, Hall does not eschew digging up the dirt. He elaborates on the affair Florence Cook supposedly had with the psychical researcher and physicist William Crookes (1832–1919). Crookes was, according to Hall, very infatuated with the beautiful medium and therefore deliberately disguised her fraudulent tricks.

The suspicious death of the well-known psychical researcher Gurney is an obvious case of suicide to Hall. He argues that Gurney, whose melancholic life revolved around psychical research, could not deal with the disappointment of yet another fraudulent trick of the hypnotist George Albert Smith he experimented with. Gurney’s death was no accident according to Hall – Gurney intentionally took an overdose of chloroform. Hall believes that Gurney’s suicide was covered up by the SPR to minimize the damage it could do to psychical research itself. So, with Hall, not only the mediums are fraudulent, but the psychical researchers actively participate herein. The truth of these allegations would make one very sceptical about the results of psychical research and, consequently, could discredit several of the most important figures in the history of the SPR – something that might have been Hall’s aim after all.

Hall’s close friend and a psychical researcher himself, Eric John Dingwall (1890–1986), claims to know where to situate the problem:

… [s]ince there is no training to be obtained in psychical research it follows that there are hardly any reliable psychical researchers. … The result is that from century to century we go floundering on in a morass of doubt, fraud, imbecility and incompetence. (Dingwall, 1962: 208)

Podmore, Hall and Dingwall do not a priori dismiss the phenomena themselves. But they do question the sincerity of the persons who witness or produce them. It is important to note that the ways in which insiders of the field felt the need to discuss the history of psychical research revolve around one of the most central issues in its historiography – the interrelated problem of identifying proof and fraud.

The discrediting of the persons involved in psychical research prompted the psychologist and ex-president of the SPR Alan Gauld to write his own account of The Founders of Psychical Research (Gauld, 1968). In an intimate portrayal of three key figures in the SPR (Henry Sidgwick, Edmund Gurney and Frederic Myers) Gauld aims to show that these figures were respectable researchers. Gauld argues that the ‘Sidgwick group’ was successful in producing ‘facts which strongly suggest that not all manifestations of personality can be understood within the accepted framework of biological science’ (ibid.: 355). He defends his psychical researchers against the claims made by his predecessors: psychical researchers were respectable and successful indeed. Gauld argues that this success is shown by the production of facts which cannot be fitted within ‘regular’ science.

Brian Inglis (1916–93), another member of the SPR, provides in two volumes a history of the ‘supernatural’ from ancient times up to 1939 (Inglis, 1977, 1984). Inglis claims to ‘accept the evidence for the paranormal on precisely the same basis’ as he would ‘accept the evidence for, say, meteorites or lightning’ (Inglis, 1984: 11). Nonetheless, similarly to Gauld, Inglis argues that paranormal phenomena do not fit within the existing scientific paradigm. ⁶ This makes acceptance of the phenomena by the scientific community very difficult. Furthermore, Inglis feels that ‘psychical research had taken a wrong turning, in seeking academic recognition’ (ibid.: 341). By obedience to the rules of the scientific community, ‘the researchers had to introduce controls of a rigour which no other academic discipline was asked to accept’ (ibid.) and for Inglis this made viable psychical research nearly impossible. ⁷

The most recent comprehensive history of parapsychology by an insider is the book Parapsychology: A Concise History written in 1993 by John Beloff (1920–2006). As a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh he had the opportunity to perform experiments in the domain of parapsychology himself. ⁸ He gives an overview of investigations into the paranormal from the Renaissance until recent times. Following Gauld and Inglis, Beloff believes that ‘parapsychology can best be understood as challenging the mechanistic and reductionist implications of official science by reaffirming the autonomy of mind’ (Beloff, 1993: 12). Beloff thinks of parapsychologists as brave pioneers whose results cannot and should not be easily dismissed.

The internal accounts of the history of the research into paranormal phenomena revolve mainly around the trustworthiness of the evidence regarding the reality of the phenomena. Arguably the insiders’ histories of psychical research and parapsychology had a task to fulfil – either to legitimize the research (Gauld, Inglis and Beloff) or to raise some questions regarding the whole enterprise (Podmore, Dingwall and most explicitly Hall).

Accusations of the pioneers of psychical research (by Hall) led Gauld to defend the psychical researchers and to show that the problems of accepting the evidence might be caused by the fact that they do not fit within the present state of science. This is what Inglis and Beloff claim as well. Because paranormal phenomena are not part of the present scientific paradigm, they are not accepted. What psychical research or parapsychology seems to need, according to these authors, is a scientific revolution.

Kuhnian revolution

The importance of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn (1964) – which appeared first in 1962 – is threefold for the history of psychical research and parapsychology. Kuhn’s theory – regarding the puzzle-solving activities of ‘normal’ science and its insoluble anomalies – provided parapsychologists with a framework to explain the difficult acceptance of parapsychology by ‘mainstream’ scientists. ⁹ Second, Kuhn’s highly influential study made historians look differently at ‘pseudosciences’ such as mesmerism, spiritualism, psychical research and parapsychology. Finally, a more radical interpretation of Kuhn’s ideas gave considerable impetus to the scholarly field dedicated to the social factors of scientific practice – the sociology of science. ¹⁰

As the sociologist Roy Wallis stated in 1979, full appreciation of the social nature of science had only emerged recently. Usually, Wallis states: ‘Logical and the technical procedures of the substantive scientific field were believed to provide not only a complete justification but also a sufficient justification, for the current content of scientific knowledge’ (Wallis, 1979: 5). Using Kuhn’s argument for the ‘trivial’ conditions that constitute science as a starting point, sociologists turned to study scientific practices. Sociologists of science were especially interested in ‘the margins of science’ for they seemed to show the explicit social factors that are inherent in the demarcation between science and non-science. Moreover, parapsychology provided for sociologists of science a highly intriguing case study – it might provide the live-witnessing of a scientific revolution.

This is what Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch wanted to experience in their sociological fieldwork regarding the experiments undertaken with mini-Gellers. ¹¹ Hopefully this ‘would provide an opportunity for the first contemporaneous study of a potential revolution in science’ (Collins and Pinch, 1982: ix). Both witnessing and performing experiments on six children claiming to be able to bend spoons, Collins and Pinch concluded that five out of six were proven to be cheating. The sixth child did not succeed in bending the spoon at all. ¹² A scientific revolution did not seem to be at hand.

The relevance of Pinch’s and Collins’ Frames of Meaning of 1982 in which they discuss the experiments in great detail lies in their conclusion of ‘the inability of experiments in themselves to legislate for the existence of any natural phenomenon’ (1982: 126). They might be overstating this by referring to ‘any natural phenomenon’, but their study does show quite convincingly the difficulties when performing experiments to unveil paranormal phenomena. This is illustrated best by their depiction of the interpretation of photographs and video footage from the experiments when finding proof for fraud. During the experiments the observers were often quickly convinced of fraud, but when the footage was closely examined the pinpointing of the exact moment of fraud was often quite difficult. Furthermore, personal beliefs of the witnesses would influence the consideration of the evidence (ibid.: 115–17). ¹³

Because their analysis of paranormal phenomena has not been entirely sceptical, critics have accused Collins and Pinch of unscientific work (Wallis, 1979: 263). The authors themselves try to remain scholarly agnostic: ‘The authors do not know whether paranormal metal bending is “real” or not – nor, as sociologists, do they care. It would make not one jot of difference to the analysis’ (Collins and Pinch, 1982: 184). However, ponderings such as whether the ‘unfavourable experimental set-up’ ‘had really given the “phenomena” a chance to appear’, might suggest that Collins and Pinch have not entirely given up the hope of witnessing a scientific revolution in their own lifetimes (ibid.: 111). Furthermore, the basic claim of their study that parapsychological research is just as any other scientific research could indicate apologetics.

Collins and Pinch claim that their descriptions of the experiments on paranormal metal bending ‘show the way that what counts as evidence of cheating becomes “negotiated” during discussions’ (1982: 117). In this way parapsychological research – any experimental research according to the (perhaps too) strong conclusion of Collins and Pinch – emerges as essentially a social practice. Even if it is possible to question the objectivity of Collins and Pinch, their study can be regarded as a valuable demonstration of the difficulties surrounding proof and fraud in parapsychological research. Emphasizing the social character of scientific practice might even suggest why discussions of the reality of paranormal phenomena have endured until the present day.

Collins and Pinch are certainly not alone in their attempt to analyse contemporary parapsychology sociologically. James McClenon (1986), for example, in his study on parapsychology attempts to understand why parapsychology has not been accepted by mainstream science using sociological concepts and methods. The first to consider marginal sciences worthy of historical investigation were Frank Miller Turner and Robert Laurence Moore. As the title of his book already indicates, Turner’s (1974) Between Science and Religion: The Reaction to Scientific Naturalism in Late Victorian England shows in six biographical essays how Victorian Englishmen tried to reconcile the loss of the certainty of comforting Christianity and the unappealing cold world produced by scientific naturalism. Psychical research was one way to try to bind these two seeming extremes together and to find a way out of moral disintegration. The idea that psychical research and parapsychology should be situated in between science and religion recurs; it is one of the most persistent interpretations throughout the literature on the subject. Most of the insiders dealt with in the previous section make preliminary remarks about the dominance of scientific naturalism at the end of the 19th century. They interpret psychical research and its successor parapsychology as a reaction to this.

Discussing (among others) the important psychical researchers Henry Sidgwick and Frederic Myers (and the spiritualist Alfred Russel Wallace [1823–1913]), Turner anachronistically argues that these six figures knew that fields of science ‘as Toulmin, Kuhn, Gillispie, and Barber have since argued, are conditioned by scientific and sometimes nonscientific presuppositions and by professional practices’ (Turner, 1974: 252). That psychical researchers realized the limits of science seems to be somewhat inaccurate. One could argue just as easily that psychical researchers had a huge confidence in the scientific method: it could even prove supernatural phenomena.

Situating parapsychology in between science and religion is also one of the central themes in Moore’s classic of 1977 In Search of White Crows: Spiritualism, Parapsychology and American Culture. In his introduction Moore states that spiritualism and psychical research provided a ‘reasonable solution to the problem of how to accommodate religious and scientific interests’ (Moore, 1977: xii). Moore stresses the importance of studying the seemingly ‘irrational’ and emphasizes the deserved academic attention it has received since the 1960s. Moore is hereby referring to the influence of Kuhn – who demonstrated that what seems rational or scientific alters over time. For the historical accounts of science this meant, for example, that Newton’s interest in alchemy and other occult studies is no longer regarded as ‘superfluous to his scientific discoveries’ (ibid.) but should be understood in the historical and cultural context of Newton’s time. For Moore this justifies sufficiently the study of deviant beliefs such as spiritualism and psychical research, especially when these beliefs represented almost a ‘numerical majority’ (ibid.: xiii).

Moore touches in his study of both spiritualism and psychical research upon relevant and recurring themes, apart from the interpretation of psychical research in between science and religion. Among them are: the connection between spiritualism and social reform; the problems regarding mediums and fraud; the turn away from mediums to empirical research as exemplified by Rhine; the attempt to refute materialistic science; and the reluctance of mainstream science to accept psychical research. Moore concludes that in their ‘attempt to undermine the assumptions of natural science using the methods of natural science’ spiritualism and psychical research found themselves from the beginning of their search for white crows in an uneasy and problematic position (1977: 238).

Although Moore’s important study touches upon relevant interpretations of psychical research, he considers spiritualism and psychical research to be one and the same enterprise. Moore claims that both make use of scientific methods and the scientific language to prove the existence of the paranormal and therefore correct natural science. However, since Moore does not explicitly state what constituted science in these days it does not become clear what precisely is meant by the scientific ‘methods’ and scientific ‘language’ both psychical research and spiritualism are claimed to have used. Therefore his nonetheless highly valuable study remains quite one-dimensional.

Historians such as Turner and Moore truly attempt to treat the subject of psychical research in its own cultural and historical context, but not every historian in the 1980s is concerned with this or succeeds at the attempt. As (assistant) professors in history at Duke University Seymour H. Mauskopf and Michael R. McVaugh were in an advantageous position to study the pioneer of experimental psychical research and the advocate of the term parapsychology – Joseph Banks Rhine (1895–1980). As Rhine was closely tied to Duke University throughout his academic career, Mauskopf and McVaugh were in the 1970s able to make use (for the first time) of the extensive archives at this university. Mauskopf and McVaugh explicitly elaborate on the developments within history of science that made ‘presentistic’ representations of scientific activity unacceptable and they underline the social, institutional and cultural influences on the development of science. However, they themselves mainly focus on internal developments in the field and appear to regard the experimental approach in parapsychology as the ‘accurate’ one. Mauskopf’s and McVaugh’s The Elusive Science: Origins of Experimental Psychical Research is one of the key publications in the history of parapsychology in the late 20th century, but perhaps they do not succeed entirely at their attempt to award the study of psychical research a position similar to the study of alchemy within the history of science (Mauskopf and McVaugh, 1980: xii). The authors claim that ‘it is by no means clear that parapsychology is fated to remain a marginal science’ as alchemy was (ibid.). This makes it seem as though the authors had some difficulty remaining unbiased scholars. Maybe their close ties with Duke University and their close collaboration with Joseph Banks Rhine and his wife Louise Rhine made a disinterested account of the history of experimental psychical research a complex task for them. ¹⁴

The historian of the Victorian era Janet Oppenheim in 1985 seems to disregard the developments within the field of the history of science altogether (Oppenheim, 1985). Oppenheim familiarly positions psychical research between science and religion. Significantly, the third part of her study in which she deals with the scientific aspects of psychical research is named ‘A Pseudoscience’ (ibid.: 205–371). Here Oppenheim parallels psychical research with other ‘pseudosciences’ such as phrenology and mesmerism. Just as in Moore’s In Search of White Crows, Oppenheim provides her reader with a useful, well-researched, comprehensive account of the earliest days of psychical research. However, contrary to Moore, Oppenheim does not believe it is necessary to regard the value of psychical research within its own historical context: ‘Some of their [psychical researchers’] proposed solutions may, in time, seem prophetic; others must always, no doubt, appear absurd’ (ibid.: 397). Based on the present, Oppenheim takes psychical research to be a ‘pseudoscience’ and in this respect she provides her reader with a more or less Whiggish account of the history of psychical research.

The theory of scientific revolutions as coined by Thomas Kuhn has given rise to interesting studies of psychical research and parapsychology – some more successful than others – aiming to situate these scientific enterprises in their own social and historical contexts. These studies took psychical research and parapsychology to be worthy of scholarly attention precisely because they were deviant, marginal, or pseudosciences. In the next section we will see that, more recently, successful attempts have been made to interpret these ‘fringe sciences’ as products central to the culture in which they arose.

Cultural turn

In 1989 a volume of essays entitled The New Cultural History appeared, with French cultural historian Lynn Hunt as its editor. Under the influence of social and literary theories, this volume is illustrative of the broadening of subjects to historical and sociological exploration. It is not only possible to situate, for example, 19th-century parades and Renaissance works of art in their appropriate cultural and social context, scientific products such as 16th-century medical writings can also be interpreted culturally. ¹⁵ In the ‘sequel’ Beyond the Cultural Turn that was published 10 years later, the difficulties associated with this postmodern deconstructionist approach – such as extreme relativism – are discussed (Bonnel and Hunt, 1999).

A cultural turn is also reflected in the scholarly attention to ‘fringe sciences’ such as spiritualism, mesmerism, psychical research and parapsychology. In 1998 Alison Winter was one of the first cultural historians to write about mesmerism as something essential to Victorian culture, instead of as an interesting but marginal oddity. ¹⁶ Winter aims to argue that ‘mesmerism was not only ubiquitous but challenging within Victorian culture’ (Winter, 1998: 5). Mesmerism was first of all challenging to science, because ‘[w]hat counted as a proper science or as a “scientific” practice, remained open to dispute’ (ibid.: 6). What previous scholars took for granted, namely the status of heterodox science, is taken here as problematic: ‘So we must not presuppose the existence of a scientific or medical orthodoxy to explain why mesmerism did not become established; the very constitution of this orthodoxy was at issue’ (ibid.). In this sense, Winter clearly dissociates herself from the presentistic account of ‘pseudosciences’ and convincingly shows that mesmerism was very much part of Victorian culture. But Winter goes even further than this in her study – she continues to argue that mesmerism was central to emerging ideas of human interaction. Winter tends to be slightly ‘overanalysing’ in her attempt to show how ‘mesmerism provides a window onto how Victorians portrayed relations in their own society’ (ibid.: 8). Nevertheless with her admirable research and her original thesis, Winter has written one of the most objective and scholarly studies on the history of mesmerism in Victorian times thus far.

Winter’s thesis regarding the not yet established demarcation of science at the end of the 19th century is supported by the historian of science Richard J. Noakes. In his essays on the spiritualist interests of telegraph engineer Cromwell Fleetwood Varley and the physicist William Fletcher Barrett, Noakes convincingly and elegantly shows the ways in which natural science and spiritualism were very much intertwined at the end of the 19th century. Noakes stresses ‘the importance of problematizing the “science” practised by scientific investigators of spiritualism’ (Noakes, 1999: 423). It is according to Noakes not justified to interpret the transition from physics to psychical research by certain physicists such as Barrett ‘as one from an orthodox, secure and naturalistic physics to heterodox, risky and metaphysically-tainted psychical research’ (Noakes, 2004: 455).

As a specialist in the history of psychical research and parapsychology, Noakes has written a historiographical essay entitled ‘The Historiography of Psychical Research: Lessons from Histories of the Sciences’ (Noakes, 2008). Following a similar pattern for discussing the historiography of psychical research from an insider’s perspective to an outsider’s interpretation as has been presented here, Noakes pleads that historians of science are best suited to successfully investigate the history of psychical research. Historians of science will provide the most valuable analyses – Noakes argues – because of their profound eclecticism. By looking at anthropological, sociological and geographical factors, the historian of science should not try ‘to understand why anyone ever took psychical research and ancestral enterprises seriously, but to understand how and why they came to be demarcated from other scientific practices as “pseudo-scientific”’ (ibid.: 74). Noakes rightly states that ‘what historians need to do is to understand why it [psychical research] has not commanded the consensus enjoyed by other sciences’ (ibid.: 75).

Although Noakes’ plea is persuasive and he does point in an interesting direction to the non-judgmental investigation of the history of psychical research which could convincingly elucidate the profound social character of science – two important remarks are to be made. First, Noakes rightly acknowledges that an analysis of the scientific context of psychical research is needed to ‘complement the range of excellent historical studies of the religious, political and social contexts’ but he merely refers to the ‘natural-scientific background’ (2008: 72). Noakes’ focus is mainly on the ‘hard sciences’, especially on physics. Even though this is very much part of the scientific background of psychical research, when one aims to understand the demarcation of science and pseudoscience the scientific background of psychology should be placed at the centre of the analysis. ¹⁷ Especially in the 20th century the complex relation between psychology and parapsychology contributed extensively to the branding of parapsychology as a pseudoscience. ¹⁸ The relationship between psychology and parapsychology seems to play a particularly important role in the Netherlands, as will be demonstrated in the next section. Second, Noakes rightly appreciates the excellence of historical studies on the religious, political and social contexts of psychical research but these studies are themselves not unproblematic. As will be shown by the discussion of Owen’s The Place of Enchantment (2004) and Luckhurst’s The Invention of Telepathy (2002) in the remainder of this section, such analyses sometimes run the risk of relapsing into somewhat evasive and over-analysing attempts of contextualization – of which the previously discussed study on mesmerism by Alison Winter could be regarded as an example. When the historian of science is going to study the scientific context of psychical research or parapsychology, he or she should be aware of this pitfall.

At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century scholarly interest in mesmerism, spiritualism, psychical research and related ‘occult’ studies from within the domain of the history of religions emerged. Historians of religion have only recently developed scholarly interest in the movements at the end of the 19th century that developed in between science and religion. Some examples include: Wouter J. Hanegraaff’s New Age Religion and Western Culture (1996), Olav Hammer’s Claiming Knowledge (2001) and Catherine L. Albanese’s A Republic of Mind and Spirit (2007). These studies relate the emergence of occultist sciences – of which psychical research can be regarded as a representative – to the culture in which they arose.

A growing number of specific cultural histories of mesmerism, spiritualism, psychical research and parapsychology have been published in the last decennium – often of cultures outside the Anglo-Saxon world. In 2001 the Dutch historian Joost Vijselaar gives in his De Magnetische Geest [The Magnetic Mind] a social and cultural analysis of the importance of mesmerism in Dutch culture between 1770 and 1830. Corinna Treitel – an historian at Washington University – claims in her study of 2004 that ‘occult’ practices were very central to German culture. This point is also raised by the German historian Diethard Sawicki in 2002. The American historian John Warne Monroe (2008) situates the position of mesmerism, spiritism (the French version of spiritualism, which focuses upon reincarnation) and occultism in between science and religion during the politically turbulent times of modern France after 1848. The main goal of these four authors is to ground seemingly deviant scientific enterprises firmly within their cultural contexts and they generally succeed at this attempt.

The British historian Alex Owen provides us with an interesting and valuable framework regarding the relation between science and religion at the end of the 19th century and the place of the occult therein. In 1989 Owen introduces a perspective on spiritualism in England at the end of the 19th century and its mediums, by focusing on the ideas of femininity in that period. The issues regarding power sometimes appear a bit farfetched: ‘it could be said that mediums used powerlessness to achieve and wield power’ (Owen, 1989: 233). Nevertheless Owen produced a much-needed analysis of an issue central to spiritualism – the obvious fact that most mediums were female.

In 2004 Owen suggests a solution to how psychical research might have been connected to science and religion simultaneously. Owen’s statement that ‘occultism alone … seemed … to offer the synthesized answers that religion, science, and philosophy in isolation could not provide’ (Owen, 2004: 66) is explained by invoking a third party – the modern self. In Owen’s words: ‘Occultism … was … deeply involved in an elaboration of the self that worked to reconcile the secular and spiritual’ (ibid.: 114). With its close involvement in the development of the idea of a subjective self, occultism was certainly not anti-modern but very modern indeed. However, although Owen does discuss the intertwinement between occultism, psychical research and psychology ¹⁹ her study could have benefited from a thorough analysis of the circulation of ideas regarding the self in this period. Now it remains rather unclear to what extent occultists and psychical researchers used scientific ideas as they emerged in the pioneering scientific field of (medical) psychology and to what extent they were reinterpreting religious ideas.

A study that specifically focuses on the subject of psychical research and parapsychology, is the truly original and well-written research undertaken by the literary historian Roger Luckhurst into the subject of telepathy. Luckhurst wonders how a couple of seemingly ‘fringe figures’ could produce such a successful term as telepathy. ²⁰ In answering this question Luckhurst relies heavily on the ideas of postmodern intellectuals such as Latour and Derrida. First he demonstrates how the scientific concept of telepathy tied together in a ‘knot’ ‘diverse social, cultural, and scientific resources’ (Luckhurst, 2002: 3). Second, Luckhurst aims to show how the concept of telepathy came to be used in the matrix of the broader culture. He analyses the use of telepathy in, for example, popular journalism and Gothic fiction. By picking one scientific concept, telepathy, Luckhurst touches upon most of the central aspects regarding psychical research and parapsychology. Furthermore, in a beautiful and smoothly written way he shows us how psychical research was intertwined with science and culture. Nonetheless – being a historian of literature and because of his reliance on postmodern thinkers – Luckhurst is in the substantial part of his book concerned with the metaphorical use of the concept of telepathy. This makes his research at some points somewhat evasive. However, Luckhurst’s focus upon telepathy as a crucial subject of inquiry for psychical research is an inspiring one. He rightly states: ‘There is another history to write which would trace the transformation of telepathy into first ESP, then “Ganzfeld” researches in the 1960s, and then new categories of “Exceptional Human Experiences” in the 1980s and 1990s’ (ibid.: 277). Indeed, such a history could very well map the scientific development of psychical research and parapsychology in the 20th century. And it seems the history of parapsychology in the Netherlands provides an excellent case study to do so.

Towards a new history: Dutch parapsychology

With several important exceptions, the majority of the scholarly accounts of the history of psychical research and parapsychology have focused on the Anglo-Saxon world at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th. ²¹ The history of Dutch parapsychology has received virtually no scholarly attention, if indeed any at all. This appears to be a profound hiatus, because the history of Dutch parapsychology is unique. For example, it is in the Netherlands that the first professor in parapsychology worldwide was appointed at Utrecht University in 1953.

The pioneering psychiatrist and well-known author Frederik van Eeden (1860-1932) was the first Dutchman actively interested in the work of the British SPR. Through international congresses van Eeden got into contact with Frederic Myers. In 1901 and 1913 van Eeden gave lectures for the British SPR, regarding spiritualism and dreams respectively. Van Eeden was profoundly interested in spiritualism and psychical research. This interest is also to be recognized in his literary work (van Dongen and Gerding, 1983: 15–17).

Another important intellectual in the early days of Dutch parapsychology was Gerard Heymans (1857–1930). He was a pioneering psychologist and philosopher. Heymans was the first president of the Dutch Society for Psychical Research, established in 1920. In that same year Heymans undertook one of the most famous experiments in telepathy in the Netherlands, together with the psychiatrist Weinberg and another pioneering psychologist Brugmans. In this sophisticated experiment, performed in Heymans’ laboratory which was set up in 1892 as the first laboratory in the Netherlands, the student Van Dam would be asked to point out the field on a chessboard which the experimenter had in mind. According to Heymans, Weinberg and Brugmans the results were highly significant. It is interesting to note that the insider Beloff, discussed in the first section, believes ‘[t]hese were perhaps the earliest parapsychological experiments to be carried out under university auspices’ (Beloff, 1993: 237). Thus, these experiments are internationally still renowned. In 1925 Heymans – together with Brugmans and Weinberg – withdrew from the Dutch SPR because he believed the research of the society was no longer scientific enough.

In the 1930s the next significant step in the history of Dutch parapsychology took place. In 1932 Paul Dietz (1878–1953) became an unsalaried university lecturer at the University of Leiden and in 1933 Wilhelm Tenhaeff (1894–1981) acquired a similar position at Utrecht University. Although these positions were unpaid for, this changed after the Second World War. In 1951 Tenhaeff was appointed as a salaried lecturer at Utrecht University and from 1953 onwards he held at the same university the first chair in the world in parapsychology – albeit an extraordinary one. In 1963 the board of Utrecht University decided it wanted to replace the extraordinary chair in parapsychology with a regular one. However, Tenhaeff had objections to all the suggested candidates, which led to the establishment of two chairs in parapsychology at Utrecht University in 1974 – a regular one held by the Swede Martin Johnson and the extraordinary one still occupied by Tenhaeff.

This led to a unique situation: from 1974 to 1986 Utrecht University had two professors in parapsychology and two corresponding research institutes. The full chair in parapsychology and the accompanying parapsychological laboratory were abolished owing to budgetary cuts in 1989. Tenhaeff had retired in 1978; his extraordinary chair in parapsychology and his Parapsychological Institute were taken over by the philosopher Henri van Praag (1916–88). Due to health reasons, van Praag resigned in 1986. Because of complicated internal affairs it was not until 1991 that a successor for van Praag was appointed – the physicist and psychologist Dick Bierman. The faculty of social sciences at Utrecht University was not willing to welcome the extraordinary chair in parapsychology any more and therefore Bierman’s chair fell directly under the board of Utrecht University. Finally, in 2006, the chair in parapsychology was abolished by the same board. Bierman and the Dutch SPR – the supporter of the extraordinary chair – found at the University for Humanistics in Utrecht a way to uphold a professorship and in 2007 at this university the ‘Heymans chair in exceptional human experiences’ was established. The chair was occupied by Bierman until his retirement in 2008 and is currently held by the German psychologist Stefan Schmidt.

The sole comprehensive history of Dutch parapsychology thus far has been written by the philosophers Hein van Dongen and Hans Gerding – themselves active members of the Dutch SPR – and dates from 1983. Other Dutch parapsychologists have also written some historical accounts, such as George Zorab (1954) and Tenhaeff (1962). The more contemporary (former) parapsychologists Sybo Schouten and Wim Kramer have demonstrated that much of the history of Dutch parapsychology remains to be discovered (Schouten, 1989, 1994; Kramer, 2005a, 2005b, 2005c, 2006a, 2006b, 2007). It seems the historiography of Dutch parapsychology is still in its first, insiders’ phase.

Nonetheless, there have been some investigations into its history by outsiders. The philosopher Ilse Bulhof (1983) has discussed the relation between psychoanalysis and parapsychology. Regarding the ancestors of Dutch parapsychology – most notably in animal magnetism, spiritualism and theosophy – rather extensive scholarly research has been undertaken, e.g. Romein (1967), Kluveld (2000), Gijswijt-Hofstra (1997), Kemperink (2001), Vijselaar (2001), Jansen (1994), Bax (2006), Ackers (2007), Vermeer (2007). Currently lacking is still a well-researched historical account of Dutch parapsychology.

Following Noakes, to understand how and why Dutch parapsychology has been accepted or rejected throughout the 20th century, the focus should be upon the scientific context. However, this should not solely be a natural scientific one, as Noakes seems to argue. The context of psychology is especially relevant for the Dutch situation. Not only was the first professor in parapsychology – Wilhelm Tenhaeff – a psychologist himself and the parapsychological laboratory an integrated part of the general psychological laboratory, but pioneering psychiatrists and psychologists such as Frederik van Eeden and Gerard Heymans were also actively interested in psychical research.

The professor in the history of psychology Douwe Draaisma has written extensively about Gerard Heymans without neglecting the experiments this pioneering Dutch psychologist undertook in the 1920s regarding telepathy (Draaisma, 1992). Draaisma concludes that in the formative years of psychology several pioneers were involved in psychical research, but that in the process of demarcation parapsychology ended up in the margins of science. However, Dutch parapsychology managed to retain a foothold on academic ground even after the 1920s. Whereas during certain periods in the 20th century parapsychology seems to have been treated as a serious scientific discipline, at the end of the century its respected status seems to have faltered. The disappearance of the chair in parapsychology at Utrecht University after over half a century is symptomatic in this respect.

The especially important context of psychology for the Dutch situation has been largely disregarded in the international historiography thus far. Furthermore, the history of Dutch parapsychology might provide a perfect case study of the history Luckhurst argues remains to be written – a history that focuses on the alterations in methods and research subjects. Whereas at the end of the 19th century the focus was upon the qualitative investigation of mediums and their contact with the spirits of the deceased, throughout the 20th century parapsychologists have switched to more quantitative research of less spectacular and less transcendent phenomena – such as card-guessing. It could be argued that the turn from qualitative to quantitative research in parapsychology and the narrowing of the boundary of the normal and the paranormal was used by parapsychologists to gain or maintain scientific acceptance – perhaps specifically from psychologists.

The unique history of Dutch parapsychology in the 20th century provides a perfect opportunity to investigate the scientific history of parapsychology. By focusing upon the relation between scientific communities in the history of parapsychology and the different research subjects and methods that were employed, the question as to when and how parapsychology came to be regarded as a ‘pseudoscience’ in the 20th century can be clarified. The central question that could be addressed is: when, to what extent and how did parapsychology (try to) become accepted – specifically in relation to the discipline of psychology – as a scientific domain or discipline in the Netherlands during the 20th century?

This investigation of the history of Dutch parapsychology would address two related historical themes. The first important historical theme is the interaction between parapsychology and psychology both on an institutional and a scientific level and the mirroring thereof in the methods and subjects of parapsychology. The second theme is the changing boundaries between normal/paranormal or between natural/supernatural and therefore the boundaries of what is considered suitable for scientific investigation. In doing so, the proposed research would provide the first systematic account of the fascinating history of Dutch parapsychology and pay much-needed attention to the context of psychology in the 20th century.

Conclusion

The historiography of psychical research and parapsychology demonstrates a development from insiders’ histories to interpretations by outsiders. The histories written by those involved in research into paranormal phenomena themselves have served either to refute or to defend these investigations – often by focusing on the credibility of the psychical researchers themselves or the mediums they investigated. The Kuhnian idea of scientific revolutions stressed the importance of social factors in scientific practice and made a ‘pseudoscientific’ enterprise such as psychical research or parapsychology a suitable object for scholarly evaluations by outsiders. Scholars in this more or less sociological approach were interested in the history of psychical research and parapsychology because these sciences were deviant or different. The cultural turn expanded attention from the contexts in which psychical research and parapsychology operated to the general culture in which research into paranormal phenomena emerged.These scholars believed this ‘science of the paranormal’ to be an essential part of the (fin de siècle) culture in which it first arose.

In his historiographical essay, Noakes rightly concludes that the religious, political and social contexts of parapsychology and psychical research have received considerable attention. But what is currently still lacking is a mapping of the scientific context. This scientific context should not solely be a ‘natural scientific’ one. If the eclectic historian of science wants to seriously investigate how parapsychology came to be regarded as a pseudoscience, the history of psychology probably constitutes one of the most crucial contexts. Such a ‘scientific’ history of parapsychology should not end with the beginning of the First World War – as most of the studies discussed in this article have done – but should pay attention to the entire 20th century.

The unique history of Dutch parapsychology in the 20th century provides a perfect opportunity to investigate the scientific history of parapsychology – thereby emphasizing the relation with the scientific community of psychologists. Through focusing upon the relation between scientific communities in the history of parapsychology, the question as to how parapsychology came to be regarded as a ‘pseudoscience’ in the 20th century might be clarified. As suggested by Luckhurst an analysis of the changing research subject of psychical research and parapsychology – from telepathy to ESP, to Ganzfeld, to exceptional human experiences – would be a valuable method for investigating the Dutch history of parapsychology.

When investigating the history of Dutch parapsychology one should try to refrain from the downsides of overly attached sociological histories or even apologetic insiders’ perspectives. Simultaneously, it has been demonstrated that a cultural approach entails the risk of lapsing into abstract and rather evasive interpretations of the history of psychical research and parapsychology. The interaction between culture and science, and therefore the changing boundaries of science and pseudoscience, might be demonstrated best by writing a history of 20th-century Dutch parapsychology which is firmly embedded in its changing scientific practices and scientific communities – thereby taking the intertwinement with the discipline of psychology into full account.