William James and psychical research: towards a radical science of mind

Introduction

The authority and relevance of William James (1842–1910) to psychology and psychiatry are undisputed, as is his international prominence as the philosopher of pragmatism, ¹ earning him a place in the history of human thought (Dewey, 1910; Taylor, 1996; Taylor and Wozniak, 1996). As a consequence, his accomplishments such as being the first to teach the new scientific psychology in the USA (at Harvard in 1878), as well as being the first American to write a world-famous psychology textbook that is still in print (The Principles of Psychology, 1890), were celebrated in 2010, the centenary of his death.

However, a considerable part of James’s work, resulting from his investigation of psychic phenomena, ² is not so well known. His interest in these phenomena has been discussed (Alvarado and Krippner, 2010; Blum, 2006; Gitre, 2006; Knapp, 2001; Schmeidler, 1992) and a number of historians have argued that psychical research contributed to a better understanding of the mind (Almeida and Lotufo Neto, 2004; Alvarado, 2002a, 2002b, 2010a, 2010b; Crabtree, 1993; Ellenberger, 1970; Le Maléfan, 1999; Moreira-Almeida, 2007; Shamdasani, 1993), but traditional textbooks on the history of psychiatry and psychology fail to recognize the importance of this aspect of his work (Alexander and Selesnick, 1968; Brett, 1963; Goodwin, 2005; Hothersall, 2006; Schultz and Schultz, 1998; Wertheimer, 1976).

There are two available compilations of James’s works on the subject (James, 1986; Murphy and Ballou, 1973) and scholarly works that either argue for the connection between James’s psychical research and his theories on consciousness (Taylor, 1996) or that his efforts in that field of enquiry were an attempt to reconcile science and religion (Knapp, 2003). Nevertheless, his continuous and resolute activity in a domain deemed as pertaining to a supernatural sphere, therefore anti-scientific, has been considered by many, more as an intellectual eccentricity than a legitimate effort to consolidate a new discipline of research (Ford, 1998; Perry, 1996; Taylor, 1996).

The purpose of this article is to further the discussion on this feature of James’s work, supporting the thesis that his interest in psychic phenomena ‘was not one of his vagaries’ (Perry, 1996: 204). It is argued that, for James, psychical research was a relevant part of a project of an all-inclusive science, for he viewed psychic phenomena as part of human nature and believed that the scientific study of mind had to encompass the mental processes involved in occurrences such as trance-mediumship. ³ In order to include them as subjects of research necessary to broaden the scope of science, James had to overcome theoretical and methodological hindrances. His radical, yet alternative solutions, once assembled, appear to shape the outline of a science of mind capable of exploring these phenomena and related mental states as well.

William James: spiritualism and science in his early years

William James was the firstborn of the five children of Mary Walsh and Henry James, Sr (1811–82), ‘a metaphysician, a mystic and a hereditary Calvinist’ (Perry, 1996: 8), whose interests focused mainly on Fourier’s ideas and Swedenborgian theology and philosophy (Knapp, 2003). Born in 1842 in New York, young William was exposed early to conversations hosted regularly by his father at their home in the 1840s and 1850s with intellectuals such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, among others. ⁴ At these dinner meetings, children were not only allowed but were required to participate (Knapp, 2003).

The list of debated topics was extensive, varying from politics to social reforms such as abolition, women’s suffrage and, of course, spiritualism, a common subject of enquiry at that time. Even though opinions were divided, accounts of supernatural phenomena were treated rigorously through critical analysis and neutral evaluation of evidence. Nonetheless, alleged communications from the dead, spirit-possessions and trance states in general made the deepest impression on young William (Knapp, 2003). Thus, from an early age he was exposed to an intellectual environment which, besides acquainting him with the supernatural and the non-normal, was a stimulant to critical assessments of evidence-based phenomena.

William’s education can be characterized as a threefold experience: ‘schooling, travel and vocation’ (Perry, 1996: 42). The convictions of his father that education should not be limited to institutionalized activities was one of the reasons that prompted trips of the Jameses to England, France, Germany and Switzerland, as Henry James thought they were a way of educating the young. Indeed, moving from school to school in different countries and being under the guidance of several tutors led William to develop a facility for reading and speaking the European languages (Perry, 1996). Another consequence of these experiences was a later habit of travelling whenever he felt that crises, whether physical, intellectual or vocational, were imminent.

In 1861 William enrolled to study chemistry at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University. The long hours of laboratory experiments made him change in 1863–4 to the Department of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology at Harvard Medical School, studies that he interrupted a year later to join naturalist Louis Agassiz (1807–73) on his Brazilian expedition in 1865. Back from Brazil due to illness in 1866, William James resumed his medical studies until 1867, when a trip to Europe marked ‘another period devoted to searching life and considering the alternatives it offered’ (Perry, 1996: 78–9). Even though ill-health, vocational doubts and perfecting his languages are some of the reasons ascribed to his journey, it also served to ease the symptoms of his relentless desire for something else. To that end James occupied himself with philosophical studies and lectures on physiology, which he considered a viable approach to the emergent psychology (Perry, 1996).

In the 1860s William James’s academic training and interest in psychology also coincided with his contact with spiritualism as an adult. According to Knapp, he participated in a few séances and indicated in letters to friends his intentions to pursue the subject intellectually and to develop ‘a scientific method of studying it’, as his interest was closely associated with ‘his desire to help cure the sick’ (Knapp, 2003: 152). Some evidence that corroborates this argument is a review article written by James (1868/1987) on Ambrose-Auguste Liébeault’s book Du sommeil et des états analogues (1868), in which he relates mental illness to phenomena deemed as occult.

Returning to Harvard in 1868, James completed his studies, obtaining his MD degree in 1869. However, his career moved towards teaching instead of practising medicine. He spent almost all his academic years at Harvard, where he taught Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of Vertebrates in 1873, Psychology in 1875–6 (first graduate course in psychology taught in the USA) and the following year Physiological Psychology to undergraduates and, beginning in 1878, Philosophy (Houghton Library, n.d.).

James became known for his authorship of such works as The Principles of Psychology (1890/1981), Psychology: Briefer Course (1892/1984), The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897/1979), ‘Human immortality’ (1898/1982), Talks to Teachers on Psychology (1899/1983), The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902/1985), Pragmatism (1907/1975), and A Pluralistic Universe (1909/1977).

Psychical research

In the nineteenth century, a varied set of beliefs and practices became popular throughout Europe and the USA. Alleged communications from the dead through rappings and trance-mediumship were among the practices included in the term ‘occultism’. ⁵ At the time, these occurrences were regarded as a marginal subject by the mainstream scientific view and as heretical by orthodox religious denominations (McDermott, 1986).

However, in 1882 a group of Cambridge scholars founded the Society for Psychical Research (SPR, which is still active today). Physicists William F. Barrett (1844–1925) and Balfour Stewart (1828–87), philosopher Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900) and his wife, mathematician Eleanor Sidgwick (1845–1936), intellectual Edmund Gurney (1847–88), classical scholar Frederic W.H. Myers (1843–1901), civil servant Frank Podmore (1856–1910) and Professor of Legal Studies Richard Hodgson (1855–1905) formed the nucleus of the SPR. In its first two years, membership was 300 and by 1893 reached about 1000. Furthermore, several of those who joined the SPR’s ranks over the years were illustrious statesmen and authoritative professionals in their fields, some of them even Nobel Prize laureates ⁶ (Knapp, 2003). Following SPR ideals, similar organizations were also founded in Germany, Italy, France, Russia, Switzerland, Austria, Poland and the USA (Knapp, 2003).

The group of renowned scientists and intellectuals in the SPR became actively committed to conduct thorough investigations on ‘that large body of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric, psychical and “spiritualistic’” with ‘the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned enquiry which has enabled Science to solve so many problems’ (SPR, 1882–83: 2). The Society believed that the best methodological approach to these phenomena would be first to gather as much evidence as possible without concern for its veracity and subsequently to filter out any that was doubtful or suspicious. They hoped that the remaining data would be sufficient for scientific and statistical evaluation (Cole, 2001). Data collection came from direct observations of spontaneous or produced phenomena, and methods of control as well as the means of recording were in keeping with the scientific standards of the time (Broughton, 1992; Price, 1939). Their goal was to compose a body of indisputable facts large enough to allow the construction of explanatory theories of such occurrences.

One of the most important records of these early investigations was the book Phantasms of the Living (1886) by Edmund Gurney, Frederic Myers and Frank Podmore, a collection of about 700 cases in which the mind of one individual appeared to have affected the mind of another by means other than the five senses. In order to argue for the hypothesis of telepathy, ⁷ the authors’ attention concentrated on apparitions of dying people perceived from a distance by friends or relatives who had no knowledge of the fact (Gurney, Myers and Podmore, 1886).

This led to the SPR’s project known as the Census of Hallucinations, designed specifically to determine the prevalence of those spontaneous perceptions (visual, auditory or tactile) by healthy and awake individuals. From the 2272 initial reports, after several eliminatory screenings, 32 were found to have occurred within 12 hours of the death of the individual and the person who had the perception was not aware of the death (Cole, 2001). At the International Congress of Experimental Psychology held in Paris in 1889, the SPR proposed a wide international investigation of this type of phenomena. In 1894, with 17,000 questionnaires analysed, SPR’s final report concluded: ‘Between deaths and apparitions of the dying person a connexion exists which is not due to chance alone’ (Sidgwick et al., 1894: 394). In the USA, James superintended the census and concluded that ‘apparitions on the day of death are, according to our statistics, 487 times more numerous than pure chance ought to make them’ (James, 1889–97/1986: 75), a result compatible with those obtained by his colleagues in Europe.

The possibility of thought-transference was also tested through targeting methods (e.g. playing cards and drawings) and by means of hypnotically induced states of consciousness. In fact, hypnosis was the subject most discussed by SPR researchers between 1882 and 1900 (Alvarado, 2002a) since some of them considered it to be a technique capable of revealing potentials of the mind related to psychic phenomena (Gurney, 1884; Myers, 1886), as well as an instrument to study its makings (Alvarado, 2002a).

Despite the interest in hypnosis, physical and mental mediumship also became a focus of scrutiny. Many hundreds of séances were held to that end, but the vast majority of investigations on physical phenomena such as table moving, rappings and materialization of objects resulted in the exposure of frauds (Knapp, 2003: 368). However, mental mediums also produced more complex phenomena that were hard to confute, such as conveying messages through automatic writing or trance speaking, purportedly from the spirits of deceased people (Alvarado, 2002a), thus apparently providing evidence more likely to be verified and further analysed.

Among the many mental mediums tested by the SPR, Mrs Leonora Piper (1857–1950) was outstanding, considering the many articles published on studies conducted with her (Alvarado, 2002a). She was first investigated by William James in the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR), an organization similar to the SPR founded in the USA in 1884, and because of his positive impressions of her mental faculties Mrs Piper was invited to England for further research. During her stay from November 1889 to February 1990, SPR researchers took full precautions to prevent her from getting information from any possible source, hiring private detectives to follow her day and night and constantly checking her belongings and correspondence (Cole, 2001). After three months of painstaking observations and testing, even though the spirits hypothesis could not be proved, SPR researchers were ‘almost unanimous in the conclusion that during trance, Mrs. Piper revealed “super-normally” acquired information that could not be explained normally’ (Alvarado, 2002a: 19).

Regardless of the controversies that have hitherto surrounded psychic phenomena, and thanks to the writings of historians such as Ellenberger (1970), Crabtree (1993), Gauld (1992), Knapp (2003) and Alvarado (2002a, 2002b), SPR’s efforts cannot be dismissed as a pseudoscientific venture. On the contrary, their vast collection of records testifies to their commitment to science in the attempt to understand phenomena through rigorous methodologies which analyse evidence, test them through objective experiments and formulate theories with the purpose of a better understanding of nature – in this case, human nature.

James and psychical research

Harvard MD, physiologist, psychologist and philosopher, William James formally commenced his involvement in psychical research in 1882, the year of the foundation of the SPR in London, and it lasted until his death in 1910; this 28-year period overlapped his work in psychology, philosophy and religion (McDermott, 1986). Three years later, the first official meeting of the ASPR took place at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston. Along with scholars and scientists, most of them from Harvard, James played a leading role in its establishment (Murphy, 1973; Myers, 1886; Perry, 1996; Taylor, 1996), chairing the Committees on Hypnotism and Mediumship. Nevertheless, James actively participated in the other committees as well, namely those on Thought-Transference, Apparitions and Hallucinations, by chairing meetings, writing reports, answering letters of those who claimed to have had a psychic experience and, more importantly, conducting research (Knapp, 2003). He also wrote articles and reviews in the Proceedings and Journal (SPR and ASPR periodicals), as well as in magazines such as Forum and Scribner’s with the purpose of popularizing psychical research (Knapp, 2003).

James participated in both of the Societies, directly conducting and giving support to the US cases, while in the British cases he was consulted for ‘his philosophical insight and scientific expertise on a regular basis’ (Knapp, 2003: 371). He observed, described, summarized and interpreted countless occurrences of psychic phenomena (McDermott, 1986), but he concentrated most of his attention on Mrs Piper. For several years, he attended ‘sittings’ (sessions) where she manifested mental abilities which often challenged explanations advanced by orthodox scientific theories. On a good day, during her mediumistic trances, Mrs Piper was able to disclose verifiable data about the private life of James, as well as factual details about the ‘sitters’, even those of whom she had no prior acquaintance, attributing the information communicated to the spirits of the deceased (Taylor, 1996). These demonstrations led him to believe that it was possible to acquire knowledge through a channel other than the regular sensory organs, and he called her his ‘white crow’ ⁸ (James, 1896/1986: 131).

Outside SPR circles, opinions about Mrs Piper’s mental abilities were far from unanimous. As an example, psychologist James McKeen Cattell, editor of Science, published in the April 1898 issue sarcastic comments about the legitimacy of her faculties, backed up by five instances – taken from Hodgson’s (1898) article ‘A further record of observations of certain phenomena of trance’ – in which no conclusive evidence could be established (Cattell, 1898). James (1898) quickly replied, pointing out that Cattell had ignored the large portion of the report in which inexplicable accurate knowledge had been advanced by Mrs Piper. James further censured Cattell for withholding the truth from his readers in order to discredit the case, rather than to debate the matter on its merits.

James’s dedication to psychical matters is obvious, and arguably it delayed his work for The Principles of Psychology, as indicated in a letter he wrote to his wife: ‘Subjectively, my main problem is to get through my psychology [book] … I shan’t touch a medium and probably not a mesmeric subject, with the end of a long pole. Psychical Research took up a long time last year’ (James, 1886/1998). Nevertheless, his belief that the exploration of such states of consciousness would advance our understanding of the human psyche prompted him to further his psychical research project (Knapp, 2003), to the point of incorporating part of his findings in The Principles of Psychology: ‘Mediumistic possession … seems to form a perfectly natural special type of alternate personality, and the susceptibility to it … is by no means an uncommon gift, in persons who have no other obvious nervous anomaly’ (James, 1890/1981: 372). He also wrote: ‘I am myself persuaded by abundant acquaintance with the trances of one medium that the “control” may be altogether different from any possible waking self of the person’ (James, 1890/1981: 374).

James was referring to Mrs Piper’s mediumship, arguing that certain exceptional mental states may also be non-pathological, thus disagreeing with Pierre Janet’s theory that those manifestations were exclusive to hysterics and epileptics (Janet, 1889). Most importantly, James advanced the possibility of the existence of secondary streams of thought within the same individual and, referring to Frederic Myers’ studies on automatic writing, concluded that ‘The selves may be more than two, and the brain systems severally used for each must be conceived as interpenetrating each other in very minute ways’ (James, 1890/1981: 378).

Psychical research enriched James’s work in psychology and philosophy through the intellectual exchanges he maintained with members of the SPR and ASPR, particularly Myers. As argued by Taylor (1996: 79): ‘Myers’s formulations were … central to the development of James’s psychology and philosophy in the 1890s, and they form the epistemological core of James’s scientific activities in abnormal psychology and psychical research’. In James’s writings, this symbiotic relationship is sometimes general and subtle, but it can also be overt and unequivocal as evidenced in his 1896 Lowell Lectures (Taylor, 1984). In his second lecture, on ‘Automatism’, James introduces Myers’ concept of the subliminal consciousness, which he insists, throughout his talks, was one of the best theories yet proposed to explain the workings of the mind in psychic phenomena (Taylor, 1984).

Myers’ model of mind hypothesizes that our everyday self (our ordinary waking consciousness) is but a small segment of our psyche, whereas a far wider range of psychic functions, including paranormal, is active in a subliminal ⁹ region (Myers, 1903). Myers conceived a membrane that easily ‘allows information to flow from the supraliminal to the subliminal, but the reverse movement is much more inhibited’ (Crabtree, 1993: 335).

As James embraced Myers’ conception of a subliminal consciousness, he later came to the conclusion that the mind could not be reduced to the brain or seen as its epiphenomenon, for it must function as a transmitter (transmission theory) or a filter of a larger conscious field (James, 1898/1982). By the end of his life, he was still speculating on higher dimensions of consciousness, pointing to the possibility of a collective mental net connecting all individuals as islands: ‘Just so there is a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against which our individuality builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge as into a mother-sea or reservoir’ (James, 1909/1986: 374).

A radical science of mind

In addition to the addresses, reports and articles accrued from almost three decades of contact with psychic phenomena, James left us another legacy: the outline of an open, yet rigorous scientific framework intended to support research on mental phenomena in all their varieties. By assembling scattered evidence from several of his writings, as well as resorting to articles which allude to his method, we argue that James’s ideas envisaged an encompassing science of mind capable of dealing not only with the objective and the subjective dimensions of psychological experience, but also with exceptional ¹⁰ states of consciousness. On one occasion, James clearly stated his views about the limitations of science with regard to psychic phenomena:

We all, scientists and non-scientists, live on some inclined plane of credulity. The plane tips one way in one man, another way in another; and may he whose plane tips in no way be the first to cast a stone! As a matter of fact, the trances I speak of have broken down for my own mind the limits of the admitted order of nature. Science, so far as science denies such exceptional occurrences, lies prostrate in the dust for me; and the most urgent intellectual need which I feel at present is that science be built up again in a form in which such things may have a positive place. (James, 1897/1979: 236)

By his words, James showed no intention of creating a distinct branch of science or branding empiricism as counterproductive, but wanted to lay bare its limitations concerning phenomena deemed as paranormal, demanding a more comprehensive scientific approach relative to psychological events in general. In ‘The hidden self’, he had already affirmed that ‘Anyone will renovate his science who will steadily look after the irregular phenomena’ (James, 1890/1983: 248, original italics). He further wrote in the same paragraph: ‘And when the science is renewed, its new formulas often have more of the voice of the exception in them than of what were supposed to be the rules’. His words indicate his belief that, for a new science of mind to emerge, all mental states must be considered its definitive subjects of research. According to historian of psychology Edna Heidbreder (1933: 152), while other psychologists intended to make the new psychology a science, ‘James was more concerned that the new science be psychology’. But what would be the contours of a Jamesian concept of psychology and under what conditions would such a science be attainable?

James’s evolving person-centred psychology (Taylor, 1996) took experience in all its varieties as the axis and the matrix from which people continuously construct reality in their minds in unique ways. Thus for him, through experience, the world was multiple, ever-changing and in constant flux (Marchel and Owens, 2007), like a stream whose waters never rest. From his perspective, scientific knowledge was no exception to the ever-flowing stream of reality, since knowledge itself was also a process that was part of the flux. In ‘The meaning of truth’, James (1909/1975: 55) asserted: ‘Owing to the fact that all experience is a process, no point of view can ever be the last one’. He also wrote: ‘To know an object is to lead to it through a context which the world provides’ (James, 1909/1975: 35). If the context provided by the world is plural, so must science be in order to apprehend it, because for James, ‘no summary, no single scheme could ever contain the creative totality of the real’ (Murphy, 1973: 13).

Considering the nature and complexity of psychic experiences whose occurrence relies upon contexts hardly replicable, it is our understanding that he recognized the impossibility of a plausible explanation by means of a single discipline or through the observation of a limited number of hard-to-control phenomena. Consequently, James seems to have envisioned a scientific approach able to embrace mental experience in all its varieties, including psychic phenomena (McDermott, 1986), as legitimate instances of human psychology. However, this programme could only be accomplished through radical changes in the sciences of mind of his time, ranging from its scope to its approaches proper. Even though not explicitly systematized, James’s proposals, once assembled, constitute a threefold approach: first, a radical shift of theoretical principles; second, a broadening of methodological procedures; and third, a new scientific attitude.

Radicalizing empiricism

The first aspect is relative to a conceptual change regarding the foundations of reality. James’s intention was to radicalize the scientific view of his time, to which he referred as ‘agnostic positivism, radical materialism, mechanical rationalism, a vicious intellectualism’, according to Taylor (1996: 112), because it excluded any phenomena or explanation which escaped the grasp of the natural laws known at that time. This positivistic attitude drew a picture of a discontinued reality with discrete and successive elements, which fails to notice a myriad of processes of our inner life (James, 1884b/1983). Moreover, since James believed that a theory should be based on facts, and that whenever a conflict ensued, theory had to yield (Schmeidler, 1992), his proposal to overcome these limitations was what he named ‘radical empiricism’, a term he coined as a collective label for a set of metaphysical principles of epistemological consequences drawn from experience (Taylor, 1996). While the empiricists’ world, based upon a metaphysics of physicalism, was purely rational, contained, impersonal, mechanical and closed, James’s was personal, alive, overflowing, novel and open, once seen through the lenses of a radical theory which propounded instead, a metaphysics of experience as its foundation (Taylor, 1996).

Contrary to the classical empiricist’s concept of scientific verification exclusively accessed through observation, radical empiricism was based upon experience taken in its most unrestricted sense. James’s empiricism was grounded on the metaphysical principle of ‘pure experience’ in which the term ‘pure’ qualifies a dimension prior to any experience whether of psychological or philosophical nature; in other words, it was a neutral field of infinite experiential possibilities which precedes any dual constitution, e.g. body and soul, subject and object or consciousness and content (Taylor and Wosniak, 1996). For James, these established categories are but human constructs, subsequent to – and retrospectively built from – pure experience. Moreover, in radical empiricism, the experiential relations are considered as real as their terms, for all of them occur in the interior of experience (James, 1904a/1976, 1904b/1976). According to Theodore Flournoy (1854–1920), with radical empiricism James made both reality and experience coincide (Flournoy, 1911). In James’s own words: ‘Everything real must be experienceable somewhere, and every kind of thing experienced must somewhere be real’ (James, 1905/1976: 81).

By broadening the concept of experience to its utmost limit, he dissolved all boundaries, not only between objects and their relations, but also between knower and known, inner and outer, visible and invisible. Therefore, from this perspective, the discontinuity of discrete objects as representations of reality gave way to the continuous flow of experience. Furthermore, his radical empiricism made every constituent phenomenon of this flux susceptible to scientific consideration, as long as they are sensed, perceived, experimented or lived, in other words, experienced. ¹¹

It is fair to argue that James’s philosophy might have provided a basic theoretical framework for advances in the field of psychical research. However, as pointed out by McDermott (1986), considering James’s firm view that facts should prevail over speculations, research on psychic phenomena seems to have influenced the formulation of his own intellectual project as well, a project built on the robust complementarity of these parallel modes of inquiry. As he stated in ‘The will to believe’ (1897): ‘… he who will pay attention to facts of the sort dear to mystics, while reflecting upon them in academic-scientific ways, will be in the best possible position to help philosophy’ (James, 1897/1979: 224).

Radicalizing methodologies

A second aspect concerns methodology, more specifically, how James appeared to pursue a balance between rigorous processes and openness to different approaches of investigation. By aiming at human experience in its entirety as the key to uncover alleged mental potentialities, he proposed a methodological approach intended to break away from any type of bigotry. Some of the constituents necessary for such a stance were: ‘Fidelity to fact, avoidance of abstract categories, patient attention to ultimate questions, and preference for complexities over the dogmatism of either the skeptic or the believer’ (McDermott, 1986: xiv). Hence, James identified three levels of explanation as indispensable to any kind of scientific research, including inquiries into the paranormal. They were the descriptive, the empirical and the truly causal. The first level comprised accurate description and measurement of facts, and their ordering in some intelligible manner. The second involved the statement of all observed uniformities or sequences of behaviour evidenced by the phenomena. ‘The causal factors must be carefully distinguished and traced through series from their simplest to their strongest forms, before we can begin to understand the various resultants in which they issue’ (James, 1909/1986: 367). Finally, at the third level, experimentally testable causal relations should be presented (Baum, 1935). However, James acknowledged that the haphazard character of psychical phenomena hampered the complete attainment of any of these levels of elucidation; in other words, these rigorous criteria were not sufficient for the development of a true science of mind.

In order to overcome these challenges, methodological openness appears to have been not only a characteristic of James’s attitude as a researcher, but also his prescription. In The Principles of Psychology, the functionalism he had already set out required the use of multiple methods in basic and applied psychological research (Marchel and Owens, 2007), notwithstanding his methodological preference for introspection (James, 1890/1981). Even with its limitations and difficulties, he believed that the results of the introspective method could be controlled and verified through the comparison of findings from other observers. He also acknowledged the legitimacy of the experimental (i.e. laboratory-based) method, but only for a very limited scope of research, e.g. in psychophysical queries, as well as spatial perception and memory. Moreover, for James, comparative methods applied to different populations (children, primitive peoples and the mentally ill) could also reveal significant variations and similarities, both of which were useful to comprehend the human psyche (Schultz and Schultz, 1992). Evidence for this was his participation in the statistical inquiry of the Census of Hallucinations, mentioned above (James, 1889–97/1986).

Radicalizing attitudes

With respect to the third aspect, scientific attitude, we shall first consider the following definition given in his Principles: ‘Psychology is the Science of Mental Life, both of its phenomena and of their conditions’ (James, 1890/1981: 15). When we compare this with the objective of psychical research as ‘the systematic study of the laws of mental action’ (ASPR Executive Committee, 1886: 55), the coincidence of objects of investigation might indicate another angle of the schema envisioned by James, that is, the emerging science of mind understood as a multi- and interdisciplinary science.

Concluding remarks

James’s views regarding the workings of the mind will certainly be debated for a long time among psychiatrists, psychologists and neuroscientists, for his book The Principles of Psychology remains a rich source of concepts not yet fully explored. However, as the evidence shows, James thought that in order to understand the complexity of human nature, the investigation of psychic phenomena and the mental states involved could not be ignored. As a matter of fact, he insisted that they had to be considered as legitimate subjects of science and that they should be carefully analysed from this perspective: ‘I am persuaded that a serious study of these trance-phenomena is one of the greatest needs of psychology …’ (James, 1890/1981: 375), he wrote in The Principles.

Countering classical empiricism, he advanced a set of metaphysical postulates with epistemological consequences, which place experience in its broadest sense as the cornerstone of reality. Consequently, through philosophical reasoning, he was able to encompass any kind of experience, objective or subjective, ordinary or extraordinary, as targets of scientific examination.

James’s radical empiricism was intended to broaden the scope of the sciences of mind of his time. Thus, if his project were to be defined, it would be fair to say that his was not a philosophical psychology, nor a psychological philosophy, but a science of mind supported by robust theoretical bases, revealing an open and dynamic world, holding possible and continuous constructions from personal experiences, which, when manifested, expose an all-inclusive reality of visible and invisible dimensions.

Furthermore, in this process, James also advanced radical guidelines for this science: he proposed standards far beyond the scientific norms of his time, which provided methodological alternatives of investigation on phenomena deemed as paranormal. The science of mind conceived by James, while retaining logical rigour and empirical-theoretical dialogue, recognized that multiple methodologies and interdisciplinary exchanges were necessary to approach phenomena so hard to replicate and measure.

In conclusion, the evidence and arguments advanced in this paper constitute introductory material that deserves further examination and research, bearing in mind the following remarks. First, it is fair to affirm that James’s interest in psychical research went beyond mere eccentricity. In fact, it is reasonable to assert that his many years of active investigation of psychic phenomena played a significant role, not only in the furtherance of his psychological project, but also in his philosophical enterprise. This means that in order to understand James’s works in a more comprehensive manner, psychical research as an intersection of his psychology and philosophy must be considered. Future research may focus on the interplay of these branches of knowledge in James’s thought through the possible logical implications between them.

Second, it can be argued that investigating alleged paranormal phenomena and the exceptional aspects of mental life involved is a necessary way to understand human nature in its total expression. It is certain that for those who choose this investigative path, there are no simple solutions. Well-designed experiments will always be at the forefront of scientific advances. However, to that effect, the theoretical conceptions and methodological strategies advanced by William James for psychic phenomena, as well as the scientific attitude he urged, might contribute not only as instruments of reflection and evaluation upon the work of present day researchers, but also as effective tools to avoid possible problems.

Moreover, research on exceptional states of consciousness related to alleged paranormal phenomena can also contribute to advance the understanding of an old and not yet resolved issue: the mind-brain problem (MBP). Nowadays, some philosophers of mind and neuroscientists are directing their efforts towards a materialistic monist solution (Blackmore, 2006; Churchland, 1993, 1995; Gazzaniga, 1998, 2005; Ramachandran, 2004; Tye, 2009); to them, consciousness is a mere characteristic of the brain. In the meantime, other researchers are striving to counter-reductionist materialistic explanations of the relation between mind and brain (Almeder, 1992; Araujo, 2003, 2012; Beauregard, 2007; Kelly et al., 2007; Moreira-Almeida and Santos, 2012; Parnia and Fenwick, 2002).

In spite of the arguments from both sides, the MBP still remains a point in question, so that the premature closure of a scientific discussion before taking into consideration all empirical evidence and theoretical possibilities available may compromise the scientific search for the best knowledge possible about the world (Chibeni and Moreira-Almeida, 2007; Moreira-Almeida and Santos, 2012). Therefore, the possibility of someone’s mind acting upon another mind, or upon matter – his own brain or body or anyone else’s – calls for additional research, whether experimental or theoretical. We believe that historical accounts of scientific endeavours hold valuable lessons, for they might constitute sources of new insights capable of casting some light on fundamental and unresolved problems such as the MBP.

Third, the literary evidence of James’s interest in psychic phenomena presented in this paper is just part of a larger body of historical sources on this topic. Besides James, men such as Myers, Sidgwick, Hodgson, Hyslop, Richet and Lombroso, just to mention a few, also published original works with plenty of theoretical and practical proposals. The innumerable accounts of observations, experimental designs and explanatory theories, all accessible to any researcher, tell part of a narrative yet to be fully examined. In accordance with William James’s view, it is our belief that multi-perspective analysis of this past literature conducted by historians, psychiatrists, psychologists, philosophers, anthropologists and others interested in the sciences of mind will increase our understanding, not only of psychical research in the nineteenth century, but also of human experience.