Paranormal Research

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MA Dissertation

This paper examines whether esotericism was specifically rejected at the foundation of the Royal Society, or whether the prevalent turbulent religious, political, and rapidly changing scientific endeavours in seventeenth century Europe merely rendered it irrelevant. The question arises from the esoteric interests held by a large proportion of the Founding members of the Royal Society, such as Robert Boyle, compared to the almost exclusively secular experimental science undertaken from its inception. It is necessary to consider the definition of esotericism based on recent scholarship in the field, and posit an updated designation, critically enhancing some of the existing characteristics. Esotericism in this work is restricted to the utopian, and millenarian themes of religious and educational reform, largely driven by the Renaissance revival of Hermeticism, and German and English Puritanism. Influenced by Plato’s Republic and More’s Utopia, the themes of universal reformation are given form by the seventeenth century works and activities of, Campanella, Bacon, Andreae, Comenius, Hartlib, and their associates, amongst others. Many of the members of the various scientific groups who met from the mid-1640s, and were later integral to the foundation of the Royal Society, were either acquainted with, or influenced by, this collection of reformists. Following periodic political interference, first during the English Civil War, and then at the Restoration, these scientific meetings developed through a complex and circuitous manner until those held at Gresham College in London manifested as the Royal Society in 1660. While some of these natural philosophers were clearly influenced by the utopian aspirations of the prior decades, it had proved fruitful for them to circumvent contentious political and religious issues in order to further their collaborative scientific activities. As a consequence of this, and against a backdrop of greater political stability, which made the need for universal reform largely irrelevant, esotericism was largely avoided by them at this time, but not intentionally rejected.

PhD Thesis

The late-Victorian period was characterised by rapid social, cultural, and intellectual changes, with all domains open to challenge from numerous and diverse directions. This thesis focusses on a short period in ‘the Age of Enlightenment’, from the mid-nineteenth century to 1914, during which many groups and individuals wanted to try to answer the ultimate questions about the nature of the universe and humanity’s place within it. For them, the well-established fields of science, religion, and philosophy each proved to be inadequate individual tools with which to attempt to answer these questions. Consequently, many members of the cultural and intellectual elite turned to the paranormal domain, within which they saw the potential to answer some of their fundamental questions. Psychical research was a nascent intellectual field that investigated strange phenomena which existed at the borders of orthodox thinking, sitting precariously between the acceptable and the unacceptable. This thesis investigates the cultural, evidential, and sometimes personal motivations of the early paranormal researchers, all of which were members of the Society for Psychical Research, and some of the first theories developed by them. The thesis thus establishes the significance of paranormal research during this period. It discusses, in an intentionally eclectic way not done before, several of the key thinkers of the time. It posits a typology to help understanding of the period. This ‘paranormal domain’ represents a combination of an intellectual mindset, an investigative methodology, and a spiritual perspective, particular to the early psychical researchers of the SPR.