Either/Or: Spiritualism and the roots of paranormal science

Beichler Yggdrasil: The Journal of Paraphysics, Vol. 1, Issue 1 Winter 1996

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Either/Or: Spiritualism and the roots of paranormal science

by James E. Beichler

Spiritualism is that “system of beliefs, partly religious and partly allegedly scientific, which

is based upon a number of obscure phenomena of which the interpretation is to be sought in

the supposed agency not only in incarnate men and women but also in those who have died and

are still suppose to be active in another sphere of existence.”

E.J. Dingwall. Introduction to F. Podmore’s Mediums of the 19th Century

The Traditional View of History

The rise of “modern” spiritualism is accepted by many historians to have dated from about 1848.

During that year, mysterious rappings occurred in a cabin occupied by the Fox family in Hydesville, New

York. These rappings were attributed to the spirit of a murdered salesman and news of this discovery

traveled far and wide. From this humble beginning, the phenomena were popularized and elaborated upon

during their rapid spread from America to England and Europe. Alan Gauld has remarked on the “rapidity

with which spiritualism spread from America to England,” a case which therefore “merits detailed

investigation by a competent social historian.” (Gauld, p.13) Such a rapid spread of spiritualism could not

have occurred in an intellectual vacuum, but could have only occurred if the way for spiritualism had already

been prepared. A.A. Walsh has found a somewhat different origin for modern spiritualism in the lectures of

J.S. Grimes on physiology of the nervous system and phrenology in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1843

(Walsh, p.168). Yet both of these views belittle if not ignore the vast movements in the occult, earlier forms

of spiritualism, other related disciplines and the scientifically respectable speculations of natural philosophy

that were part and parcel to the European intellectual heritage well before the 1840’s.

Others have found the origins of modern spiritualism within earlier intellectual movements rather than

specific events. Frank Podmore, in his classic history of spiritualism of 1902, Modern Spiritualism, has

offered a much more complex and comprehensive view of the rise of modern spiritualism. He concluded

that modern spiritualism was the outcome of two preexistent strains of belief which came together for the

first time in America. These two strains were to be found in the cult followings of “Animal Magnetism

which prevailed more or less in every civilized country from the days of Mesmer” and “in witchcraft and its

associated phenomena.” (Podmore, Vol.II, p.34) Furthermore, “It was in America, where, as in England, the

cult of Animal Magnetism had won but tardy recognition, that the spiritualistic interpretation found its most

congenial soil, and attained its fullest development.” (Podmore, Vol.II, p.350) Podmore’s view takes fully

into account the social, religious and other aspects of spiritualism.

The new gospel appealed to the sympathies of men in diverse ways. To the idly curious, the

mere brute appetite for the marvelous, it offered signs and wonders; to those whose curiosity was

of a more instructed kind it held out hopes of new developments in science, a science which,


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starting from the physical, should mount up towards the spiritual; those who looked only for an

earthly Utopia were dazzled with the promise of the speedy fulfillment of their dream; it offered

consolation to the mourner; and to all some hope of light on the mystery of the universe. The

movement was thus inspired, in its beginnings, with a genuine enthusiasm which may not unfitly,

perhaps, be called religious. (Podmore, Vol.II, pp.351-2)

However,

The epithet ‘religious’ indeed, seems to require some justification. If the prostration of the heart

before the vision of Ideal Righteousness, of the intellect before Supreme Intelligence, is essential to

religion, the movement was so far not religious. (Podmore, Vol.II, p.352)

Thus it would seem that spiritualism was not religious in the same manner as established religions, but still

had the philosophical trappings of a religion. But Podmore’s opinions may need some qualifications.

Podmore was a major contributor to the scientifically based psychic research of the era as a member of the

Society of Psychical Research. He would have sought, possibly at a subconscious level, to dissociate the

religious aspects of spiritualism from the psychical phenomena upon which modern spiritualism had

evolved in order to demonstrate the scientific validity of studying psychic phenomena. It is exactly in the last

point made by Podmore that modern spiritualism can be seen as differing from the numerous forms of the

occult practices and beliefs that have always haunted mankind.

Modern Spiritualism became associated with or rather evolved into a pseudo-religion and thus differed

from earlier forms of popular occultism. It was also associated with science to a greater or lesser degree. The

level or quality of science included in modern spiritualism depended upon each person’s individual

definition of science and personal worldview. So spiritualism differed from its predecessors not only by its

religious connotations but by its character as a “scientific” movement.

In modern historical research it is customary to study the factors that influence the development of

events rather than looking only at singular isolated events as the causes of larger sequences of events.

Recently, Janet Oppenheim has published a more analytical study of Spiritualism within this newer

historiographic context. In her study, Oppenheim places the spiritual movement of the late nineteenth

century more strictly within its religious context than had Podmore.

With their fellow spiritualists and psychical researchers, they shared goals that were central to

the period in which they lived - a period that perceived the need to bring religion more into line

with the teachings of modern science and thereby to reduce the threat that science posed to the

fundamental tenets of Christianity. (Oppenheim, p.391)

The “they” to whom Oppenheim referred were the few scientists who adopted spiritualistic views and were

also actively engaged in psychical research, but the statement applies more broadly to all practitioners of

modern spiritualism. Oppenheim placed the religious beliefs of all spiritualists squarely in the camp of

individuals who were attempting to find a compromise between Christianity and science. However, it must

be pointed out that involvement in spiritualistic belief and psychical research were not mutually inclusive. A


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few scientists were actively involved in psychical research without ever having themselves become

spiritualists and in fact were highly critical of the spiritualism movement. Podmore was among this group.

These scientists saw in spiritual phenomena physical and mental feats that they thought could be explained

by science without hypothesizing the spirits of once-living humans. These scientists speculated upon the

physics and psychology of what we presently call paranormal phenomena and can be seen as the true

forerunners of modern parapsychologists and paraphysicists.

Gauld also studied the role of standard religions in the development of spiritualism more fully. He

traced the genesis of a religious revival in England during the early nineteenth century which he attributed to

increased interests in Evangelism and Methodism. He further related this revival to the adoption by many

British commoners of spiritualism. But he noted that there was a tendency to “reluctant doubt” in Christian

faith and more general religious beliefs which affected spiritualism as exemplified by the cases of Frederick

Myers and Henry Sidgwick, two of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research. An increasing

religiosity does go a long way toward explaining the evolution of spiritualism as a religion, but it does not

address completely the questions of how and why spiritualism was scientific. Nor does it address the

philosophical attitudes which fostered the change from older occult forms of spiritualism to a more

scientific modern spiritualism as well as the philosophical justification for some scientists’ personal belief in

either spiritualism or the reality of psychic phenomena. To account for these difficulties, Gauld briefly

referred to the success of science as well as the new faith which the common laypeople placed in the

empirical method.

But in the second quarter of the nineteenth century various scientific and technical achievements

gained wide publicity and fired people’s imaginations with the power and possibilities of science. ...

These developments could not fail to arouse, at least in young people, very considerable optimism

as to what scientists might in the future achieve through their methods of empirical investigation.

(Gauld, pp. 45-46)

While this trend helps to explain the rise of modern spiritualism as a scientific endeavor in the eyes of the

common people, it does not fully explain the fact that some scholars and scientists adopted spiritualism as a

personal belief. Nor does it completely account for some scientists’ belief in the reality of spiritualistic or

psychic phenomena and their use as valid grist for the mill of scientific investigation. What seems to be

missing from the story is a complete list of all the major factors that gave rise to modern spiritualism as well

as an explanation of how those factors were related.

Oppenheim also introduced the earlier study of phrenology as another important precursor to modern

spiritualism. Mesmerism developed primarily in pre-Revolutionary France where it became something of a

“cause célèbre” and bulwark against Enlightenment thought as well as being associated with various

sociopolitical movements of the era. After the French Revolution, mesmerism abandoned its dependence

on “animal magnetism” and “vitalistic fluids,” and in so doing moved away from its extreme rationalism and

even materialism to spiritualism. (Darnton, p.156)

By the time of mesmerism’s apogee in the 1850’s, new techniques had evolved for summoning

ghosts and triggering convulsions. The mesmerized wands and chains remained but the tubs were


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generally abandoned; mirrors had been perfected so that they showed spirits instead of merely

reinforcing the movement of the fluid; spirits communicated their messages by means of rapping

tables and charcoal drawings; and the old-fashioned mesmerist massagers had surrendered the

command of the movement to somnambulists. (Darnton, pp.140-141)

So mesmerism slowly evolved into something resembling spiritualism. This fact has been confirmed by

Gauld who specified that the “principal teachings of early Spiritualism can be found in the mesmeric

literature of the decades prior to 1848.” (Gauld, p.23)

On the other hand, phrenology developed after the 1820’s. Phrenology’s major contribution to the

science of mind lay in the “firm assertion that the brain alone is the organ of the mind.” (Oppenheim p.208)

Also, as a science of the mind, focusing on the human brain as the seat of the human mind, phrenology

became a precursor to psychology, the same science to which psychical research was intimately tied in its

infancy. Many of the same people be they laymen, medical practitioners, scholars or scientists, who worked

with the newer form of mesmerism also became interested in phrenology and these two practices came to

share a similar if not common set of beliefs. In the very least, phrenology and mesmerism influenced each

other, and together they influenced the development of modern spiritualism and psychology. Phrenology

and mesmerism both claimed a scientific basis, even if that basis did not represent science as we now

understand science, just as spiritualists later claimed a scientific basis for their beliefs. But the main

difference between mesmerism and phrenology on the one hand and spiritualism on the other was the

development of spiritualism into a pseudo-religious movement.

Although some aspects of modern spiritualism were religious at the level of the common man, just as

some adherents to the spiritualist doctrine saw the movement as sociopolitical and a substitute for

traditional religions, the movement in modern spiritualism also came to be adopted and accepted as

legitimate science by some well known and respected scientists. It is within this scientific context that

spiritualism must be interpreted. Most of the scientists who showed the greatest interest in modern

spiritualism were either British or German, while spiritualism remained more of a common practice in

America (Wundt, pp.577-8). This fact should not be taken as denigrating the contributions to psychical

research by the French, Italians and other nationalities. The very fact that noted scientists became interested

in modern spiritualism at all is of historical importance. Why, during a time when the Newtonian

mechanistic worldview had supposedly reached the zenith of its success would some scientists begin to

show interest in spiritualism and/or psychical research? After all, spiritualism would seem antithetical to the

prevailing scientific view of a mechanistic universe. Oppenheim has already answered this question by

stating that these scientists sought to find a common ground between Christianity and science while other

scholars have not sought to answer these questions at all.

However, answering these questions is not that simple. Many factors must be taken into consideration.

To distinguish any portion of modern spiritualism as a scientific endeavor, the opinions of what constituted

science during the period in question becomes crucial. While this task would seem quite difficult because

science as a whole was in a state of flux during the latter half of the nineteenth century, Oppenheim has

concluded that


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One needs to know precisely what science meant to the British public after 1850 and what were

perceived as the limits of its jurisdiction. But there are no clear answers to those questions during

the period under consideration, for people thought about science from widely diverse perspectives.

For some, science was restricted to laboratory research. For others, it included every realm of

knowledge concerning man and nature, and every form of technical expertise. There was,

furthermore, an infinite number of intermediate positions between the two extremes. Although

spiritualism and psychical research, both of which eluded repeatable laboratory tests, were

evidently outside the former interpretation of the scientific enterprise, the latter, obviously, was

broad enough to embrace them. (Oppenheim, p.391)

Oppenheim’s stated conclusion only begs the questions of the relationship between science and spiritualism

and justifies still more questions which demand answers. How broadly or narrowly could science be defined

to allow for the incorporation of spiritualistic and/or psychic phenomena? To what extent did science

include metaphysical speculation on the nature of reality? Was reality considered to be merely physical,

merely mental, or some combination of both? To what extent are science and religion mutually inclusive or

exclusive? These questions are directly related to the historical roots of the modern spiritualism movement

as well as the development of a true science of the paranormal. Their answers can only be found within

historical analyses of the evolution of science itself.

While some scholars and scientists may have wished a lessening of the conflict between science and

religion, and even worked toward that goal after their own manners, it is important to note that these

scientists did not try to explain science in terms of religion, but instead sought to find in science a place for

religion. This fact does not necessitate spiritualism as a solution to the conflict as implied by Oppenheim.

Scientists who wished a compromise to the conflict between science and religion could more easily try to

resolve that conflict without resorting to spiritualism. On the other hand, in order to either accept or reject

the phenomena upon which spiritualism was based, all scientists, as well as all laymen, must have had some

fundamental notion of reality, whether their notions were explicitly expressed by them or were acted upon

as inward mental filters to discriminate which phenomena were acceptable as valid or real. This proposition

indicates that the fundamental concepts which underlie spiritualism and religion as well as science could not

be found in any single individual’s concept of reality. In turn, the scientific concept of reality is based on the

predominant worldview at any given moment in history. Thus, the commonality of spiritualism, science and

religion would be found at the point in history where the most fundamental concepts upon which they are

based were unified, before the supernatural and natural world were split apart. At that point in history, the

fundamental question was one of the relations between mind and matter.

Modern spiritualism within the evolutionary context of science

In the late nineteenth century, the predominant scientific worldview upon which scientists based their

concept of reality was Newtonian and mechanistic as well as materialistic in most cases, but this exact same

worldview was not as universally held by laymen. Those people who were not actively engaged in science at

some level were not as completely committed to the Newtonian worldview as were the academics. During

the previous century and a half, the successes of Newton’s physics and related technologies had been so

great that a basic knowledge of science had filtered down to the common educated layperson. However, in


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the translation from scientists, scholars and philosophers to the commoners, changes as to the nature,

domain and practice of science had occurred. So the layperson’s concepts of science were not always the

same as those held by professional academics who worked in science. Even then, within the bounds of

individual variation and opinion, common factors can be found in the intellectual makeup of the science of

the late nineteenth century which bears upon the questions raised concerning the scientific study of

spiritualism. As stated above, the most common factor was the search for a synthesis of mind and matter.

At the very outset, all attempts to bridge the gap between mind and matter in either a scientific or

pseudoscientific manner were paradoxical. Ideas such as animal magnetism, vitalistic fluids, life forces and

bumps on the head, to mention only a few, were developed in the search for a conjunction of mind and

matter. Humans and other living beings seemed to be more than just automatons or mechanisms, and

animate matter had special qualities which went beyond the characters imposed by its inanimate parts.

This search represented an attempt to solve a paradox which had been common to philosophical

thought for as long as records had been kept. The paradox itself seemed a constant factor which influenced

both the history and development of science and philosophy and as such represented a constant factor in

overall human intellectual development. Both Arthur Lovejoy and Gerald Holton have studied such

constants and the affects that they have had within history. In The Great Chain of Being, Arthur Lovejoy

recognized that

There are, first, implicit or completely explicit assumptions of more or less unconscious mental habits,

operating in the thoughts of an individual or a generation. (Lovejoy, p.7)

He then introduced the notion of a “unit-idea” which “consists in a single specific proposition or ‘principle’

expressly enunciated by the most influential or early European philosophers, together with some further

propositions which are, or have been supposed to be, its corollaries.” (Lovejoy, p.14) Lovejoy introduced

the concept of a “unit idea” within the context of cultural history or the history of ideas. In a similar

manner, Gerald Holton developed the notion of “themata” in The Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought which

fulfill nearly the same function in the history of science that Lovejoy’s unit-ideas hold in the history of ideas.

In Holton’s evolutionary view of the history of science (also held by the philosophers of science

Stephen Toulmin and Lewis Feuer) there are no radical historical changes such as scientific revolutions, but

rather a continuous evolution of the concepts of science with renewed hypotheses becoming popular at any

given time in history. These hypotheses are the themata which continually recur in science. These ‘themata’

change within limited bounds and progress according to the stage of advancement of science since they

were last in vogue. In other words, there are basic and fundamental concepts which retain some constancy

throughout the history of culture and science. These concepts evolve or progress through various stages of

advancement according to the state of science and culture within any given period of history.

When studying histories of spiritualism such a Podmore’s Modern Spiritualism or Oppenheim’s The Other

World, it is not difficult to recognize recurring concepts which seem to fit the characteristics of Lovejoy’s

unit-ideas and Holton’s themata. These same recurring concepts are well known in other branches of

history. For example, the philosophical debates on reality and the mind-matter dichotomy form very broad

unit-ideas in cultural history. Occultism, spiritualism (before 1848), witchcraft, mysticism and other


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superstitious beliefs (viewed by some as pseudo-scientific) form a special type of themata, which interfaced

with the cultural and scientific attitudes during the nineteenth century to become modern spiritualism.

When seen within this context, neither modern spiritualism nor psychical research need be regarded as

a scientific aberration of the late nineteenth century, but can be viewed as a legitimate questioning and

coming to grips with the duality of the concepts of mind and matter within a scientific context. Since

spiritualists considered their beliefs scientific and some scientists accepted the existence of spirits to varying

degrees, it would certainly seem that spiritualism should be a legitimate area of scientific enquiry. At the very

least, spiritualism was based upon physical phenomena, whether real or imaginary, which by their reported

existence demanded either scientific verification or investigation. Spiritualism and the mind/matter

dichotomy had always existed just below the surface of practical science, but were relegated to metaphysics

rather than physics. But the recent successes and advances in science were rapidly bringing this part of

metaphysics back into the realm of physics and natural science.

Perhaps modern spiritualism existed on the very periphery, the outermost edge of science, but that

would make it no less a part of science during the late nineteenth century. Common laymen clearly viewed

spiritualism as a scientific endeavor whether the scientific community accepted spiritualism as scientific or

not. In the eyes of the spiritualists “spiritualism simply extended the range of the natural sciences into areas

labeled supernatural, thereby ‘converting supernatural into the natural’.” (Barrow, p.54) As the scientific

movement came to encroach upon the supernatural, the older spiritualism evolved and accordingly

developed specific characteristics which distinguished it from its immediate predecessors in several ways;

The modern version of spiritualism was more permanent than other similar movements (Podmore, Vol.I,

p.283); The “spiritual beings, ..., which by popular belief of the 17th and 18th centuries intervened in mortal

affairs, were not human spirits (Podmore, Vol.I, p.14, also mentioned in Barrow, p.5) while modern

spiritualism dealt with the spirits of human deceased; Modern spiritualism had a “propensity to generate

sweeping statements about the nature of reality;” (Barrow, p.55) And finally, the spiritual world was no

longer separate from the living material world, but together they formed a continuous world. Each of these

characteristics of modern spiritualism was the product of an evolutionary process of human thought which

included scientific concepts.

Such changes emphasized the encroachment of science on the supernatural, but that encroachment is

not enough to completely explain the changes from the occult or primitive spiritualism to modern

spiritualism. Wilhelm Wundt, a philosopher at the University of Leipzig, wrote that,

I see in spiritualism... a sign of the materialism and Barbarism of our time, from early times, as you

well know, materialism has had two forms; the one denies the spiritual, the other transforms it into

matter. The latter form is the older. From the animism of the popular mythologies, it passes into

philosophy, in order to be by the latter gradually overcome. As civilized Barbarism can experience

relapses into all forms of primitive conditions, so it is not spared from this also. (Wundt, p.593)

The two forms of materialism expressed by Wundt represent the two methods by which science traditionally

rationalized spiritualism in those cases where scientists thought it necessary to do so. On the other hand, a

strict duality of mind and matter could be adhered to by a denial of spiritualism whereby the realms of

science and the spiritual were kept separate. This view was Cartesian and mechanistic.


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However, the second form of materialism transforms spiritualism into matter and has as its basis the

monads of the seventeenth century German philosopher Gottfried von Leibniz as modified by Leibniz’

followers. Leibniz’ development of the concept of “monads” represented his personal attempt to synthesize

matter and mind. If matter and mind could be synthesized by reduction to a common factor, a flexible

boundary could exist between the natural and the supernatural. Such a boundary could be extended

whenever necessary by any new developments in science. In his Monadology, Leibniz stated that,

14. The passing condition which involves and represents multiplicity in the unity, or in the simple

substance, is nothing else that what is called Perception. This should be carefully distinguished from

Aperception or Consciousness, as will appear in what follows. In this matter the Cartesians have

fallen into serious error, in that they treat as non-existent those perceptions of which we are not

conscious. It is this also which has led them to believe that spirits alone are monads and that there

are no souls of animals or other Entelechies, and it has led them to make the common confusion

between a protracted period of actual unconsciousness and actual death. They have thus adopted

the Scholastic error that souls can exist entirely separated from bodies, and have even confirmed

ill-balanced minds in the belief that souls are immortal. (Leibniz, p.253)

Actually, there was no interaction between spirit and body in Leibniz’ philosophy, instead there was a

“preestablished harmony.” The “substance” to which Leibniz referred was the substance of the scholastics.

However, Leibniz’ development of monads was an attack on several philosophical problems; the Cartesian

duality which allowed an absolute separation of mind and matter, the fact that matter was separate from

spirit, and finally the fact that souls can exist separate from material bodies. Leibniz introduced continuity

between the world of spirit and that of matter which was lacking in the Cartesian view. Soul and body in the

monad were inseparable but absolutely autonomous from each other according to Leibniz. This continuity

between the world of mind and matter, reached by the reduction of matter to the atom-like monads, is an

early precursor to the spiritualist views of a single world consisting of a material segment continuous with

the spiritual as well as a precursor to that propensity of the spiritualists to make sweeping statements about

the nature of reality. The success of science also allowed science to make ever sweeping statements about

the nature of reality, and in this respect there is a confluence of physics, the mind\matter dichotomy and

spiritualism.

Yet other factors were important in the gradual change of the intellectual attitudes which underlie

modern spiritualism. Barrow has noted that spiritualism evolved as a confluence of factors.

Most generally, one may surmise that spiritualism was influenced by a partial confluence, during a

very long period of Enlightenment rationalism ... with local healing practices, ‘natural’ magic and

so-called ‘white-witchcraft.’ (Barrow, p.54)

This view is naive and simplistic. The rationalism of the Enlightenment had as its philosophical basis the

Cartesian doctrine of the separation of mind and matter. A more important factor in such a confluence,

which led over a long period of time to modern spiritualism, was the rise of Romanticism. As a

philosophical movement, Romanticism has been commonly viewed as a reaction to the rational strictures of


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the Enlightenment in roughly the same manner that mesmerism was a reaction to the extreme mechanistic

rationalism of Enlightenment science.

Both Lovejoy and the philosopher Ernst Cassirer have found the seeds of the Romantic movement

within the Enlightenment itself, even though a more commonly held view of the relationship of the

Enlightenment to the Romantic is that the latter was a reaction to the former. After noting that the German

philosopher Herder marked the break from the Enlightenment, Cassirer went on to state that,

His progress and ascent were possible only by following the trails blazed by the Enlightenment.

This age forged the weapons with which it was finally defeated; with its own clarity and consistency

it established the premises on which Herder based his inference. (Cassirer, p.253).

The rationalism usually associated with the Enlightenment is strictly objective, an attempt to explain the

world as mechanistic, the reduction of the world to a combination of matter and forces. In the extremes of

Enlightenment philosophy, the separation of mind and matter was complete, Cartesian. If, then,

Romanticism was a complete rejection of that rationalism, it would be completely subjective, and not bother

with the reduction of the world to matter and forces.

But Romanticism as such is misunderstood. The Romantic to some extent was a rejection of the

mechanistic reductionism, but at the same time it was a continuation of that rationale. There seemed to have

been a realization that the reduction of the world to a mechanism, an automaton, was not enough and more

was needed than the simple mechanical reduction to explain natural phenomena. Leibniz had discovered

this problem with science a century earlier and sought a solution in his association of mind and soul with the

monad, a physical entity. The monad itself was a reduction of our physical world, but it was also a

unification of the physical with the mental, mind with matter, objective with subjective. The importance of

Herder was that he discarded the autonomy of the soul and body in the Leibnizian monad and made them

interactive. The monad had a unified substance that strove to realize itself, a “spirit,” a “kraft” or force.

Herder was the one who influenced Romanticism through his extension and amplification of Leibniz’ ideas,

rather than Leibniz.

Though more than a century before what historians have termed the Romantic, Leibniz’ concepts

represented the organic view of Romanticism, as well as an attitude of the unity of forces and nature which

was the cornerstone of the German ‘Naturphilosophie.’ Many other traits of Romanticism can also be said

to characterize mesmerism. In fact, “French romantic writing is full of electric shocks, occult forces, and

ghosts’ (Darnton, p.150) which may have been adopted from mesmerism and “Mesmerism provided

[Alexander] Dumas and other romantic writers with the material they wanted, ... ‘the fantastic, the

mysterious, the occult, the inexplicable’.” (Darnton, pp.150-151) Given this information, it should be

evident that there was a confluence leading to modern spiritualism as Barrow said, but his conception of

that confluence was much too narrow.

The concept of the unity of forces, the fundamental tenet of ‘Naturphilosophie,’ finds its roots in the

more fundamental principle of continuity. In some early views of mechanism, forces and matter were not

distinctly separate in nature, but were at some point continuous. For example, in the early eighteenth

century Roger Boscovich developed a theory whereby atoms of matter were reduced to combinations of

attractive and repulsive forces. If force and matter were thus continuous, there would be a unity to nature


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underlying any attempt at the scientific reduction of phenomena. So it was possible that mechanical

reduction might not represent the endpoint in finding the basis of nature. In such a scheme, all forces could

be converted at their point of continuity. This concept later gave science a philosophic basis for the laws of

the Conservation of Matter and Conservation of Energy. But the Principle of Continuity is itself a unifying

fundamental thought process in science and thus considered one of the basic unit-ideas by Lovejoy. In fact,

Lovejoy used Leibniz’ philosophy to illustrate his own ideas.

The essential characteristics of the universe are for him (Leibniz) plenitude, continuity and linear

gradation. The chain consists of the totality of monads, ranging in hierarchical sequence from God

to the lowest grade of sentient life, no two alike, but each differing from those just below and just

above it in the scale by the least possible difference.

And,

He habitually employs without hesitation the ordinary language of physical realism, and discusses

the problems of physical science as genuine, not as fictitious problems. And in the material world

too the same three laws hold good; and they should be used by the investigator in nature as guiding

principles in his empirical researches. (Lovejoy, p.144)

It is important to note that for Leibniz there was no absolute void in the universe. This idea hearkened back

to the Aristotelian concept of the plenum, a continuous material substance which filled the whole universe.

The Principle of Continuity and the notions of unity, convertibility and conservation, seen explicitly in the

Romantic scientific movement of ‘Naturphilosophie,’ are philosophical and intellectual preconditions for

the rise of modern spiritualism as well as other scientific attitudes of the latter nineteenth century.

The influence of the Principle of Continuity can be found chiefly in the literature of spiritualism itself.

Just as continuity was the link for the Leibnizian soul and matter in the monad, it became the justification

for a link between the living and the dead. If one didn’t believe completely in the mechanistic worldview,

and assumed something beyond the reduction of the matter and forces in living beings, then something

must continue when the body dies. According to A.R. Wallace,

As nothing in nature actually ‘dies,’ but renews its life in another and higher form, so Man, the

highest product of natural laws here, must by the power of mind and intellect continue to develop

hereafter. (Wallace, Vol.I, p.58)

In this sense, the Principle of Continuity became a linking mechanism in the evolutionary development of

man. Wallace, as co-founder of ‘Darwinism,’ held a great deal of prestige in the scientific world. Neither he

nor Darwin could cope with the problems presented by the special evolutionary character of the human

mind. Mind separated humankind from the rest of the rest of the animal kingdom, and even though man

was believed to have evolved from lower forms of animals, the development of the human mind could not

be made to fit the evolutionary picture. With the development of the theory of evolution, the paradox of


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mind and matter became even more important. This problem became a main bone of contention between

Darwin and Wallace.

The definite statement of his (Wallace’s) belief in this ‘something’ other than material in the

evolution of Man appeared in his essay “The Development of Human Races under the Natural

Law of Selection” (1864). In this he suggested that, man having reached a state of physical

perfection through the progressive Law of Natural Selection, thenceforth Mind became the

dominating factor, endowing man with an ever-increasing power of intelligence which, whilst the

physical had remained stationary, had continued to develop according to his needs. This

‘inbreathing’ of a Divine Spirit, or the controlling force of a supreme directive Mind and Purpose,

... was one of the points of divergence between his theory and that held by Darwin ... .(George,

p.415)

The theory of evolution formed another of the important factors or preconditions for the rise of modern

spiritualism in just the same manner that it affected all of later science. When added to other factors such as

continuity, the unity of nature, conservation of energy and matter, and general metaphysical questions

concerning the relations between mind and matter, the affects of evolution theory help to explain the basic

characteristics which separate modern spiritualism from older forms of spiritualism and make it unique.

The science of an ‘Unseen Universe’

Yet another example of the Principle of Continuity can be found in The Unseen Universe: or Physical

Speculations on a Future State by the Scottish physicists P.G. Tait and Balfour Stewart. It was no coincidence

that the Unseen Universe was published at the height of the spiritualism movement in 1875. The same

historical forces that brought different ideas together to give the world modern spiritualism also affected

pure physics resulting in Tait’s and Stewart’s Unseen Universe. This particular work held a peculiar position

with respect to the spiritualist movement. It was not as such a work on spiritualism, yet it so closely

paralleled the attitudes of spiritualists that it could not be ignored by them. Nor could it be ignored by

scientists and scholars because it was based on the latest thermodynamical principles and authored by two

well known and respected physicists.

It must be remembered that the movement of modern spiritualism dealt to some degree with attempts

to put older forms of spiritualism on a scientific basis. Any work which was spiritualistic or shared common

fundamental characteristics with spiritualism, while being authored by so widely known a scientist as Tait,

deserved special attention. However, Tait and Stewart left it to no one’s imagination that they were not

spiritualists even if they did qualify their opposition to spiritualism.

We do not therefore hesitate to choose between the two alternative explanations, and to regard these

pretended [spirit] manifestations as having no objective reality.

49. But while we altogether deny the reality of these appearances, we think it likely that the

spiritualists have enlarged our knowledge of the power which one mind has on influencing

another, and this is in itself a valuable subject of inquiry. We agree too in the position assumed by

Swedenborg, and by the spiritualists, according to which they look upon the visible world not as


12

something absolutely distinct from the visible universe, and absolutely unconnected with it, as is

frequently thought to be the case, but rather as a universe which has some bond of union with the

present. (Tait, p.70)

Tait and Stewart disavowed the physical manifestations sought by the spiritualists, but adopted the same

fundamental basis as spiritualism with a unity of the material and spiritual worlds. The unity of these worlds,

as well as the mere existence of the spiritual world, was derived by Tait and Stewart in a logical manner

based on the scientific theories of their time.

They claimed that the Second Law of Thermodynamics implied that the heat in the universe

would be dissipated so that ‘the final state of the present universe must be an aggregation (into one

mass) of all the matter it contains’ at a uniform temperature. They concluded that the present

visible universe had begun and would end in time, so that ‘Immortality is therefore impossible in

such a universe.’ Thus the visible universe must, certainly in transformable energy, and probably in

matter come to an end. We cannot escape from this conclusion! nevertheless, they went on, ‘the

Principle of Continuity upon which all such arguments are based still demanding a continuance of

the universe, we are forced to believe there is something beyond that which is visible, and they

concluded that the frame of nature contained an invisible realm, the ‘Unseen Universe,’ which

existed independently of and was in communication with the visible universe. (Heimann, p.77)

The Conservation of Energy played an important part in this scheme whereby the aether which permeated

both the visible and invisible realms acted as a medium of energy transfer between these realms, allowing

the energy of the universe as a whole to remain constant. In this way “the Great Whole is infinite in energy,

and will last from eternity to eternity.” (Tait,p.172)

Tait and Stewart tried to show that “immortality is strictly in accordance with the Principle of

Continuity.” (Tait, pp.xxii-xiii) With the immortality of man assumed through the auspices of the Unseen

Universe, Tait and Stewart concluded that “we are led by scientific logic to an unseen, and by scientific

analogy to the spirituality of this unseen. In fine, our conclusion is that the visible universe has been

developed by an intelligence resident in the Unseen.” (Tait, p.223) While they were not spiritualists, their

goals were similar to those espoused by the spiritualists, to bring together religious beliefs and science. But

the existence of Tait and Stewart’s work in this area refutes Oppenheim’s contention that spiritualism was

an attempt to bring together Christianity and science by emphasizing an attempt to do the same thing

outside of conventional spiritualism. This indicates a common root or underlying need for both that

Oppenheim has not considered. This common root lies deeper than Oppenheim’s analysis has indicated. It

is also quite evident that Tait and Stewart were influenced by Darwinian evolution. In some ways their ideas

are not wholly unlike those of Wallace.

The Unseen Universe was an extremely popular and controversial book during its day. It was read,

discussed, believed, denied and criticized. The latter part of the nineteenth century was a time when the

common people had gained enough education to read about and learn some science. According to Barrow

(Barrow, p.55), this may have been one reason for the popularity of spiritualism with the common people.

They were educated enough to participate in scientific demonstration, yet science had not yet become so


13

complex and mathematized that they could not follow its progress. The common people had no problems

in experimenting in spiritualism on their own. These people were also affected by the moves to popularize

science. One popular lecturer and essayist of the period was John Fiske, who was a critic of the Unseen

Universe. In his popular essay, “The Unseen World,” Fiske’s main argument against Tait and Stewart lay in

the fact that the Unseen Universe exists beyond our senses.

We are invited to entertain suggestions concerning the peculiar economy of the invisible

portion of the universe which we have no means of subjecting to any sort of test of probability,

either experimental or deductive. These suggestions are, therefore, not to be regarded as properly

scientific. (Fiske, p.39)

And further,

Any hypothesis relating to such a region of experience is not only disproved by the total failure of

evidence in its favour, but the total failure of evidence does not raise even the slightest prima

facie presumption against its validity.

These conditions apply with the great force to the hypothesis of an unseen world in which

physical phenomena persist in the absence of material condition. (Fiske, p.64)

Writing in 1876, Fiske’s reasoning was based on a strictly Newtonian system whereby any unseen world is

strictly separated from a material world which is readily available to scientific investigation. Within the

strictly Newtonian context, Fiske’s criticisms were valid and thus represented similar criticisms made by

other commentators and critics. Tait and Stewart’s “unseen world” was beyond human senses even though

its existence was implied through scientific reasoning and allegedly sound scientific principles. This was its

major failing and in this respect Tait and Stewart’s work paralleled spiritualism. Yet a precedent for the

existence of some type of physical reality beyond human sensations could be found at the very foundations

of Newtonianism.

For his own part, in 1687 Newton separated the world into that of absolute space and absolute time as

opposed to relative space and relative time. Relative space and time completely constituted the realm of

scientific investigation. Although he wasn’t explicitly comparing mind to the absolute, Newton did associate

God with the absolute in his famous “General Scholium” in the Principia.

He is not eternity and infinity, but eternal and infinite; he is not duration and space, but endures

and is present. He endures forever, and is everywhere present; and, by existing always and

everywhere, he constitutes duration and space. Since every particle of space is always, and every

indivisible moment of duration is everywhere, certainly the Maker and Lord of all things cannot

be never and nowhere. ... In him are all things contained and moved; yet neither affects the other;

God suffers nothing from the motion of bodies; bodies find no resistance from the omnipresence

of god. It is allowed by all that the Supreme God exists necessarily; and by the same necessity he

exists always and everywhere. (Newton, Vol.II, p.545)


14

That part of the world which for Newton was scientifically investigable was the world of relative space and

time. The absolute could only be inferred since certain phenomena, such as centripetal acceleration during

circular motion, could not be explained relative to any Euclidean point in space. The absolute must

therefore exist to give such accelerations any mechanical validity. The same was true for God. God is

everywhere and always, material motion does not affect him nor does his presence offer resistance to

material motion. These same characteristics could be said to characterize absolute space, but God was not

equivalent to absolute space and time, but instead absolute space and time formed God’s Sensorium.

Newton surmised that God coexisted with the physical absolute.

So, neither God nor absolute space and time were prone to any scientific measurement, but absolute

space, the domain of God, was a logical abstraction from our senses

.

And so, instead of absolute places and motions, we use relative ones; and that without any

inconvenience in common affairs; but in philosophical disquisitions, we ought to abstract from our

sense, and consider things themselves, distinct form what are only sensible measures of them. For

it may be that there is no body really at rest, to which the places and motions of others may be

referred. (Newton, Vol.I, p.8)

It is quite evident that Newton thought of God, absolute space and absolute time as abstractions from our

senses. On the other hand, Newton was seeking a scientific validation of both God and an unseen,

scientifically motivated yet non-demonstrable, world. For Newton, the Principle of Continuity would have

to be found in the scientific inference of the absolute from the relative. He sought a point of continuity

while trying to retain a separation of spirit (in the religious sense of the word) and matter.

Fiske’s arguments were strictly Newtonian in that he saw no demonstrable scientific evidence for an

unseen world.

But in the nature of things, even were there a million such souls round us, we could not become

aware of the existence of one of them, for we have no organ or faculty for the perception of soul

apart from the material structure and activities in which it has been manifested throughout the

whole course of our experience. (Fiske, pp.64-65)

Fiske found a further weakness in the concept of an unseen universe in that it was “thoroughly materialistic

in character.” (Fiske, p.47) He developed his arguments against the physical possibility of an Unseen

Universe in reference to a rationalistic, Enlightenment style of mechanistic philosophy. Fiske’s criticism was

essentially the same as the criticism which Wundt had used whereby he described modern spiritualism as the

type of materialism which reduces spiritualism to matter. Fiske denied neither God nor the spiritual, but

only their material reduction and the possibility of their measurement in the physical world. Fiske would

have been happy to have a complete separation of the spiritual and material with no chance of their ever

coming together.

On the other hand, the Scottish theologian Henry Drummond sought to draw science and religion

closer together, as had Tait and Stewart. Whereas Tait and Stewart tried to connect their unseen universe to


15

this world, Drummond, as a theologian, was trying to connect this world to the unseen universe. He meant

to accomplish his synthesis by showing that Spiritual and Natural Law were the same.

What is required, therefore, to draw science and religion together again - for they began the

centuries hand in hand - is the disclosure of the naturalness of the supernatural. Then, and not till

then, will men see how true it is, that to be loyal to all nature, they must be loyal to the part defined

as spiritual. No science contributes to another without receiving a reciprocal benefit. And even as

the contribution of science to Religion is the vindication of the naturalness of the supernatural, so

the gift of Religion to science is the demonstration of the supernaturalness of the natural. Thus, as

the supernatural becomes slowly natural, will also the natural become slowly supernatural, until in

the personal authority of Law men everywhere, recognize the authority of God. (Drummond,

pp.xxii-xxiii).

The primary objective of Drummond’s notion is that the Principle of Continuity requires the Natural Laws

of the physical realm to be continuous with the Laws of the Spiritual realm and further that they be

identical.

The conclusion finally is that from the nature of Law in general, and from the scope of the

Principle of Continuity in particular, the Laws of the natural life must be those of the spiritual

life.... If the Law of Continuity is true, the only way to escape the conclusion that the Laws of the

natural life are the Laws, or at least are Laws, of the spiritual life. It is really easier to give up the

phenomena then to give up the Law. (Drummond, pp.46-47)

Drummond made two very important points. First of all, if the ‘Law of Continuity’ is true (here he has

changed the Principle to the Law, giving it a greater validity), the ending of thought, mind, soul or whatever

is that special characteristic of man above other mechanical configurations of matter, at the time of physical

death, would constitute a discontinuity, leading to a logical contradiction. Therefore the non-existence of a

spiritual world would be a paradox needing to be answered.

Although Drummond used this argument within a religious context, the argument is analogous to Tait

and Stewart’s use of the Conservation Laws of science to logically deduce the Unseen Universe. The second

important point lay in the fact that Drummond explicitly stated that it would be easier to ‘give up the

phenomena than to give up the Law’ of Continuity. The Principle (or Law) of Continuity had been so

thoroughly ingrained in the human mind as the intellectual foundation of culture, that it would have been

impossible to give it up. This fact is strictly in accordance with Lovejoy’s notion of the Principle of

Continuity as a unit-idea in history. The human world, or rather the human interpretation of reality, must be

rationalized within the limits of continuity. Outside of these limits reality is meaningless, even to the extent

that sensible phenomena themselves might not be real. Drummond’s arguments exemplify a conflict of

worldviews at the level of what constituted reality and what point of view, religious or scientific, had the

right to interpret reality for all of humankind. These questions illustrated the fundamental concept upon

which the conflict between religion and science are based. So these questions must be answered before any

conflict between science and religion can be resolved.


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Philosophical developments as a reaction to the same changes in science

Representing the purely scientific point of view, we have Mach’s logical positivistic philosophies of

science. The eminent Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach was notoriously anti-spiritualist, yet he

too was affected by the same intellectual undercurrents and paradoxes. Whereas Drummond would rather

give up the phenomena rather than the Law of Continuity, Mach attempted to redefine the physical world

we experience in terms of the sensations which our minds receive from the outside physical reality. In so

doing, Mach was reacting to the temper of the time no less than were the spiritualists, but he chose to

interpret the synthesis of mind and matter in a different manner than either the spiritualists or Tait and

Stewart.

In his 1897 book The Analysis of Sensations, Mach constructed a consistent philosophy of science based

on the cognitive functions of the human mind. Mankind’s total knowledge of the world about it had been

gained through sensations as interpreted through the human mind. Taking this into consideration, physical

concepts were seen by Mach to be nothing more than “a certain kind of connexion of the sensory

elements.” (Mach, p.42) These elements, which represented the limits by which no further resolution of

reality could be made, “are the simplest materials out of which the physical, and also the psychological,

world is built up.” (Mach, p.42) This interpretation of sensations in the mind formed the common ground

between physics, the science of the material world, and psychology, the science of the mind, from which a

guiding principle for the investigation of the senses could be constructed. Mach termed this the “principle

of the complete parallelism of the psychical and physical” and considered this relationship to be a heuristic

principle of research. (Mach, p.60) The parallel itself served as a guide to Mach’s philosophy of science.

From this basis, Mach found the fulfillment of the Principle of Continuity in a different direction than

others. Instead of seeking continuity completely within the universe external to man, Mach found it as the

intermediary between the external physical universe and the internal mind of man, through sensations.

Reality beyond our sensations was not legitimately questionable by science according to Mach; therefore any

scientific questions regarding either a hypothetical unseen universe or spiritualism were superfluous to

science. Mach’s philosophy offered an alternative solution to the dichotomy of mind and matter by

circumventing the reality of the physical world and thus destroying any possibility of an unseen universe.

Yet his philosophy was a product of the same influences which were driving the spiritualists in their search

for an unseen universe on one hand and Tait and Stewart on the other.

Two of Mach’s contemporaries, J.B. Stallo, an American Judge and Ambassador to Italy, and Karl

Pearson, an English Statistician, shared strikingly similar views of science with Mach. If we were to ask

Mach, Stallo or Pearson what constituted science, they would all agree that science deals with the sensations

or sense impressions that humanity as a whole derives from the physical world in which it exists. These

sensations are grouped, categorized, abstracted and conceptualized in the simplest or most economical

terms to give us Natural Laws. But these Natural Laws are products of our minds and cannot be

superimposed on the physical world since we are limited by our sensing faculties in our knowledge of the

physical world. In this way, these three men, and especially Mach, differed from Drummond, Tait and

Stewart who sought to set up Natural Laws as independent of man’s mind in a universe which had both

sensible (material and physical) and insensible (spiritual) components.

It is no coincidence that Mach’s principle of relativity is noted in the history of science as being a

cornerstone in the destruction of the Newtonian concept of absolute space. For Mach there were no


17

absolutes and anything which could not be sensed, or perhaps in a more scientific sense measured, had no

reality beyond the human imagination. Thus it seems natural for Mach to have challenged the notion of

absolute space. Mach was convinced that all mechanical systems were relative to one another, a view which

had earlier been supported by Leibniz against Newton’s concept of an absolute space. Although Mach’s

motivation for criticizing Newtonian mechanism was different from the spiritualists, they shared common

philosophical roots. The foundation of spiritualist anti-mechanism lay in the continuation of this mechanical

world into the unseen universe of the spirit. For Mach, mechanism explained more than it was capable of

explaining, and for the spiritualists it did not explain enough. This fits well with Mach’s anti-spiritualist

views.

In his Science of Mechanics of 1883, Mach added a lengthy footnote denouncing the use of Non-Euclidean

geometries or other mathematical hyperspaces to scientifically explain the supernatural.

The theoretical investigation of the possibilities above referred to, has, primarily, nothing to

do with the question whether things really exist which correspond to these possibilities; and we

must not hold mathematicians responsible for the popular absurdities which their investigations

have given rise to. The space of sight and touch is three-dimensional; that, no one ever yet doubted.

If, now, it should be found that bodies vanish from this space, or new bodies get into it, the

question might scientifically be discussed whether it would facilitate and promote our insight into

things to conceive experiential space as part of a four-dimensional or multi-dimensional space. Yet

in such a case, this fourth dimension would, none the less, remain a pure thing of thought, a mental

fiction.

But this is not the way matters stand. The phenomena mentioned were not forthcoming

until after the new views were published, and were then exhibited in the presence of certain persons

at spiritualistic séances. The fourth dimension was a very opportune discovery for the spiritualists

and for theologians who were in a quandary about the location of hell. The use the spiritualists

makes of the fourth dimension is this. It is possible to move out of a finite straight line, without

passing the extremities, through the second dimension; out of a closed finite surface through the

third; and, analogously, out of a finite closed space, without passing through the enclosing

boundaries, through the fourth dimension. Even the tricks that prestidigitateurs, in the old days,

harmlessly executed in three dimensions, are now invested with a new halo in the fourth. But the

tricks of the spiritualists, the tying or untying of knots in endless strings, the moving of bodies

from closed spaces, are all performed in cases where there is nothing at stake. All is purposeless

jugglery. We have not yet found an accoucheur who has accomplished parturition through the fourth

dimension. If we should, the question would at once become a serious one. Professor Simony’s

beautiful tricks in ropetying, which, as the performance of a prestidigitateur, are very admirable to

speak against, not for, the spiritualists. (Mach, pp.589-590)

Mach’s sarcasm and wit in the above footnote clearly indicates his opinion of the spiritualists who sought to

find an unseen universe in the fourth dimension. But Mach’s footnote also highlights another type of

unseen universe which had its origins in purely mathematical thought, the hyperspatial universe of non-

Euclidean geometries. Not only did Mach attack the use of this new field of mathematics for spiritualistic


18

theories, but he also attacked the use of non-Euclidean and hyperspaces as physical theories of the universe.

He thus set a dangerous precedent for the future.

It can be assumed that this footnote was, at least in part, aimed at J.K.F. Zöllner, an astronomer at the

University of Leipzig. Zöllner became quite infamous for his support of spiritualism, based on the slate

writing tricks and the description of the contents in sealed boxes by the American medium, Henry Slade. In

particular, Zöllner stated in his Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen of 1873 that his theories were congenial to the

teachings of Mach (Zöllner, pp.lxxxvii-lxxxix). Mach would undoubtedly have disagreed with this

endorsement since it went against his basic philosophy of science. English audiences did not have direct

access to Zöllner’s voluminous work on spiritualism until portions of the third volume of his collected

works were published in English by C.C. Massey as Transcendental Physics. After this publication, Zöllner’s

research gained notoriety among English speaking spiritualists. Elsewhere in the book, Zöllner contended

that miracles of all kinds could be explained by the hypothesis of a fourth dimension. It was theorized by

Zöllner that,

Slade’s soul was, in the first case, so far raised in the fourth dimension that the contents of the box

in front of him were visible in particular detail. In the second case, one of those intelligent beings

of the fourth dimension looked down upon us from such a height that the contents of the

rectangular box were visible to him, and he could describe its contents upon the slate by means of

a pencil. (Zöllner, Transcendental Physics, p.148)

The supposition of the reality of the four-dimensional spaces stemmed directly from abstract mathematics.

In the mathematics of Topology and Non-Euclidean geometry, it could easily be proven that knots could

not exist in a four-dimensional space. Therefore, if a medium could produce a piece of untied rope where a

previously knotted rope had been, the existence of the fourth dimension could be validated, or so Zöllner

had thought. This magical trick would seem to be an experimental proof for a scientist like Zöllner, who had

been duped by the magician Slade.

Parallel developments in pure science and spiritualism

As has been stated, it was a characteristic of the modern phase of spiritualism to generate sweeping

statements about the nature of reality. As Scientists, Zöllner and Tait (as well as Stewart) could not invent a

new mathematics or a hypothetical material to explain the spiritual world. There was still a strong taboo on

‘framing hypotheses’ to fit data and metaphysical explanations of physical phenomena. At the very least,

both of these acts were considered scientifically spurious by scientists if not wholly in error. Fortunately,

however, the physical traits of both higher dimensions of space and an aether already existed for

exploitation by these and other scientists to explain spiritual phenomena. In other words, the new

mathematics and an accepted hypothetical material already existed in readily available form in the

Riemannian (Non-Euclidean) Geometry and the aether. In both cases, these were ideal for adaptation to the

mind-matter paradox in its spiritualist manifestation. Either of these concepts could be used to scientifically

explain the “stuff” of “unseen universes.” If spirit, soul or the mind were to exist after physical death, they

would have to have some reality coexistent with life before death. Yet, they could not be material since it

had been known and accepted since Ancient Greek times that whatever matter ultimately was, it was


19

impenetrable, i.e., two quantities of matter could not occupy the same portion of space at the same time.

Any unseen universe or world of spirits, if they were to have any materiality or continuity with our material

world, would have to be explained without denying this principle.

The existence of the aether had been implied by scientists through the necessity of explaining specific

physical phenomena. The concept of action-at-a-distance, without some intervening material substance, was

abhorred in science. Absolute space, postulated by Newton, had no physical properties of its own, and

could not transmit light waves (assuming the wave nature of light) or gravity. Newton’s stipulation that

absolute space be non-demonstrable was strictly adhered to, making the aether necessary to give space

enough of a material existence to act as a light transmitter, while still being immaterial enough to offer no

resistance to physical motion while remaining coexistent with each point of space even where matter

existed. At approximately the same time as the rise of modern spiritualism, theories were being considered

whereby what we consider to be portions of matter were merely specialized configurations (twists, smoke

rings, pulsating spheres or vortices) in the aether. Thus the aether gave space the materiality needed to

explain the mechanical universe. Coexistent with space, beyond direct experimental verification, yet implied

by several types of physical phenomena, the aether was a strong candidate for an explanation of the physical

world within legitimate scientific circles. Those were the same characteristics which any supposed spiritual

world would have, so scientists such as Tait and Stewart, as well as Sir Oliver Lodge found physical

justification in its use. However, Lodge was a confirmed spiritualist, unlike Tait and Stewart, so he used the

physical aether to explain spiritualistic phenomena.

The possibility of a four-dimensional hyperspace was a by-product of the development of Riemannian

geometries during and after the 1850’s, while the aether in its modern manifestation dated from the time of

Newton. Such hyperspaces had some characteristics similar to the aether which made them ideal for

adaptation as a home for the spiritual world. Non-Euclidean geometry, of which Riemannian geometry was

but one form, was the branch of mathematics which gave rise to the notions of hyper-dimensional (greater

than 3) spaces. Rather than being founded on physical necessity, the Non-Euclidean geometries had first

been derived from logical paradoxes within the bases of Euclidean geometry. Until the latter eighteenth

century, mathematics and physical theories had progressed hand-in-hand. However, with the advent of

negative numbers, imaginary numbers, and Non-Euclidean geometries, mathematics slowly separated from

its physical basis. The Non-Euclidean geometries were logically consistent within themselves, but had no

analogs in the physical world. This fact raised the question of ‘why God would create a system of

mathematics without any physical analog.’ Mathematics, until the advent of these strange systems, was

thought to have been part of God’s design and thus mathematical systems were an inherent portion of our

physical world. Until this separation of mathematics and science took place, mathematicians “forged ahead

in the search for the belief that they, the mathematicians, were the anointed ones to discover God’s design.”

(Kline, p.71)

This notion could be restored to some extent, probably resurrecting a subconscious symmetry to man’s

view of the universe, if the Non-Euclidean geometry could be shown to have some real existence in our

world. Our Euclidean space would only be a special case within our universe just as Euclidean geometry is a

special case of Riemannian (Non-Euclidean) Geometry. On a more practical level, as the mechanistic

universe was three-dimensional and Euclidean, the existence of a spiritual world which extended in a fourth

direction would allow the co-existence of soul, mind, or spirit with matter (just as the aether had done)


20

without contradicting the principle of the impenetrability of matter. So non-Euclidean geometries, as

expressed in hyperdimensional spaces beyond normal human sensation or detection, became another

repository for spirits. It was this tendency of placing ghosts and spirits in an unseen universe of dimensions

beyond our normal three dimensions of space that Mach so vehemently rejected.

Both of these types of theories made sweeping statements about the nature of physical reality which

befitted the characteristics of a spiritual world. Yet both of these types of theories strictly emphasized the

physical or material half of the mind/matter dichotomy. There existed still a third type of explanation of the

spiritual world which dealt with the spiritual world in a different manner. This explanation dealt with

psychical phenomena as explained psychologically, emphasizing pure mind rather than matter. Man’s mind,

or his inherent psychological traits, allowed for a specialized psychic communication. This mode of

explanation was undertaken by Frederic W.H. Myers of England, who introduced the concept of ‘subliminal

perception’ to explain psychical phenomena. His explanation was not in the tradition of physical science, but

rather in the tradition of the growth of the science of pure mind, psychology, at about this same time. In the

ensuing years, this concept has been wholly subsumed by psychology and is no longer part of

parapsychology. Many modern psychologists would be surprised to learn of the origins of their prized

concept of ‘subliminal perception.’

Just as mathematics had split from the restrictions of the physical world, the science of mind was also

on the verge of splitting from the science of matter and the physical world. This event marked the birth of

psychology from the ashes of questions raised in the physical sciences regarding the role of mind and the

perception of reality in the development of physical laws and theories. Even though the study of the mind

and perception has been split from its origins in the physical sciences, it cannot be kept separate from the

physical laws that it derives. The question of where the human mind fits into the laws of nature has never

been solved, since the human mind still categorizes and interprets data from the physical world to derive our

physical laws. In these many attempts to explain our physical world, which we call science, the fundamental

elements with which scientists, as well as philosophers, religious leaders, and other thinkers work are mind

and matter. In physics, matter gives a sense of relative position from which the concept of space evolves in

our minds, while changes in position act as a guide for our sense of time. So which is the reality of our

world, the mind which perceives, catalogs and interprets the world of matter, space and time, or the world

of matter, space and time itself? This is a modern explanation of Plato’s shadows on a cave wall. So we have

mind and matter as basic elements of reality. Reality can thus be interpreted as mind, as matter, or as a

combination of both. In application of these fundamentals to spiritualism, the aether and hyperspace

theories represented a world interpreted by matter while Myers subliminal theory relied upon a bias of pure

mind.

There can be no doubt that science had progressed to the point where it became necessary to explain

the relationship between mind and matter during the nineteenth century. By the end of the nineteenth

century, some scientists were so confident that they had discovered ‘all’ of the correct laws of nature that

they felt that all that was necessary to complete science was add a few more decimal places to their

calculations. Meanwhile, just as physical scientists were trying to explain the mind (philosophically) and its

relation to matter, a new breed of scientist was attempting to deal with the same problem of mind and

matter in a different way. Attempts were being made to explain thought processes and the mind by

physiological reduction, such as in Gustav Fechner’s Psychophysics, as well as through psychoanalysis which


21

had its foundations at about this same time in the work of Sigmund Freud and others. These efforts

combined with the other factors mentioned in the development of psychology as we know it today. All of

these changes in science are consistent with and intimately related to the movement in modern spiritualism

in that they were all attempts to solve questions regarding mind and matter and the relation of the human

mind to its existence in the physical world.

Good science versus bad science

In all of these discussions it has been assumed that ‘to be scientific’ had some simple, common and well

known meaning. To be scientific implied a specific objectivity in experimental studies for both scientists and

philosophers, which in turn meant that any scientist must approach his subject of study with no ‘a priori’

notions or prejudices. Once data had been collected a theory or hypothesis could be drawn from the data,

not the other way around. Metaphysical speculation was to be minimized. This dictum had been explicitly

expressed by Newton when he stated “I frame no hypotheses.” The true English translation of the Latin

text of the Principia would change frame to feign, slightly altering the meaning of this phrase. But this

mistake in translation was only discovered during the same period of time by Pierre Duhem. So the idea of

‘not framing hypotheses’ would still have affected the philosophical attitudes of the late nineteenth century

scientists. There is no a priori reason to believe that those scientists investigating spiritualism were being

anything but scientific in this manner. Yet even today we can see the residual prejudice against those

scientists.

If one seeks information on Zöllner in the Encyclopedia Britannica, it will be found that Zöllner is

portrayed as somewhat of a crackpot in spite of his astronomical investigations and accomplishments, about

which little is said. If one seeks the same information in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography (DSB), Zöllner is

described as an excellent experimental astronomer who became eccentric in his later life when he dealt with

spiritualism. This discrepancy raises a distinct historical problem. Zöllner was not two different people. So

either the account in the Britannica or the DSB is ambiguous if not completely erroneous. A possible answer

to this discrepancy lay in the animosity between Zöllner’s and Mach’s science. Mach was a historical winner

in that history has favored Mach and his followers, while the movement in modern spiritualism has been a

historical loser. Positivistic philosophy, as represented by Mach, either ruled science or greatly influenced

scientific endeavors during the early part of the twentieth century, so spiritualism was seen as an aberration

of science by many scholars of that era. This bias still remains.

In the course of history Mach’s ideas came to constitute what was considered good science while the

notions of spiritualism were held to be suspect and considered pseudo-scientific, of little worth in historical

investigation. However, spiritualism must be regarded in the context of the science of the latter nineteenth

century in order to completely understand the era. It is not enough, nor is it proper, to consider spiritualism

as either outside the history of science or as an aberration of science. Within this context, spiritualism can be

viewed as an important component within the development of science. Important and relevant historical

questions can then be raised regarding the role of modern spiritualism within the overall development of

science. The first question that comes to mind deals with the reason that scientists rejected spiritualism and

answering this question helps to define the science of that period. What constituted good science during the

latter part of the nineteenth century? The answer to this question has two aspects: What constituted valid

phenomena in the eyes of scientists (phenomena worthy of scientific investigation) and to what extent did


22

metaphysical speculation have a proper role in science? Answering these questions, one can determine

whether or not spiritualism was a valid part of science or an aberration.

In Mach’s view, the study of either spiritualism or psychic phenomena would be superfluous to science.

Mach saw the dualism of the ‘physical and psychical’ (Mach’s words for matter and mind) as being artificial

and unnecessary. (Mach, Analysis of Sensations, p.41) But Mach’s view was not valid for the whole of science.

It was only during the same period in which modern spiritualism was current that Mach formulated his

philosophical views on science, so Mach’s philosophy could not have influenced scientific thought just prior

to that time period when modern spiritualism was evolving. Instead, Mach’s opinions were reactions to the

same stimuli and factors that gave rise to modern spiritualism. Science itself was changing and there were

many different reactions to those changes, including both Mach’s philosophies and modern spiritualism.

Within the scientific method, the repeatability of experiments for the verification of theories has been a

primary element since the Scientific Revolution. In Mach’s view, sensory elements which make up Natural

Law must be common to all of mankind, and thus, experimentally repeatable. The very fact of repeatability

was one of the major problems of scientific spiritualism. Psychical phenomena were not repeatable at the

mere instigation of any scientist or observer. Nor were non-psychical spiritual phenomena repeatable.

Whether or not a medium being tested was legitimate, i.e., not a charlatan or fake trying to deceive the

psychic investigators, if that medium was expected to show results but not capable of positive results at the

particular time of a scientific experiment, there always existed the possibility that a genuine medium would

fake the results to satisfy the investigating scientist. This one moment of deception was always a distinct

possibility. There exist records of cases where people who were thought to be true mediums were caught

cheating just once rendering all of their previous work suspect. The motto of the critics was once caught,

always guilty. Criticisms based on this possibility were raised by the opponents of spiritualism and this

criticism did not go unrecognized by the proponents of spiritualism. According to C.C. Massey, who

translated Zöllner’s book to English,

The fact that he (Slade) cannot command these phenomena, at least the most striking of them,

at will, points to conditions of their production varying with his own physical and mental states,

and probably with those also of the person resorting to him. And this is the reason these

phenomena, though as capable of verification by scientific men and trained observers (by whom

they in fact been repeatability verified) as by anyone else, are not exactly suitable for scientific

investigation. There is no clear distinction between the two things. Scientific verification supposes

that the conditions of an experiment are ascertained, that they can be regularly provided, and the

experiment repeated at pleasure.... Yet it is equally consistent with the medium’s knowledge that

the conditions (of which he is himself ignorant) cannot be controlled, and with his consequent

failure and discredit. (Massey in Zöllner, p.15)

Massey ended this statement with a suggestion for science:

Systematic investigation of this subject by science is much to be desired, but it must not be

undertaken in a magisterial spirit, with the imposition of a test, and the demand of an immediate

result. The only claim which spiritualists make upon scientists is that they shall not, in entire


23

ignorance and contempt of the evidence, sanction and encourage the public prejudice by their

authority. (Massey in Zöllner, pp.15-16)

And then he offered an example in a footnote, as if it were an afterthought. “For example, by describing

Spiritualism as ‘a kind of intellectual whoredom.’ - Professor Tyndall.” (Zöllner, p.16) It seems that the

scientists who investigated spiritual and related phenomena, being scientists, would take these factors into

account. And, judging from their written experimental procedures they did so whenever possible.

Massey’s suggestion for the ‘systematic investigation of this subject by science’ represented the same

sentiment for which the Society of Psychical Research was established in 1882. According to Wallace,

So strong was the feeling against the paper (“On some Phenomena associated with Abnormal

Conditions of the Mind” by W.F. Barrett) in official scientific circles at the time that even an

abstract was refused publication in the Report of the British Association, and it was not until the Society

for Psychical Research was founded that the paper was published, in the first volume of

its Proceedings. It was the need of a scientific society to collect, sift and discuss and publish the

evidence on behalf of such supernormal phenomena as Prof. Barrett described at the British

Association that induced him to call a conference in London at the close of 1881, which led to the

foundation of the Society for Psychical Research early in 1882. (Marchand, p.425)

It would seem from this that those scientists who “ran” the establishment or had convinced themselves that

they alone were the arbiters of what constituted proper scientific research would ‘a priori’ discount

spiritualistic phenomena. This is not to suppose that they did not believe in the spiritual world. They could

deny the phenomena while still keeping intact personal beliefs of a separate spiritual (in a religious sense)

world. A similar conclusion can be drawn from an editor’s note in an American magazine, The Popular Science

Monthly. An anti-spiritualist article presented as an open letter had appeared in the August 1879 issue of the

magazine. In another letter to the editor, A.L. Child of Nebraska suggested that the opposing views should

also be published. The editor’s reply was quite instructive in illustrating the “official” attitude on

spiritualism.

We give the pros and cons of subjects that are within the legitimate sphere of science. We give

the pros and cons of discussion only where imperfect knowledge leads to diverse views, and where

both sides recognize the canons of evidence by which all science has been created. But, though

admitting of controversy under this limitation, our journal is devoted to the interests of science,

and it cannot be denied that we are partisans.... partisans of science generally. Our magazine was

started expressly to represent this side of things, and we have no right to publish the other side -

that is, anti-scientific papers; it would be a breach of contract with subscribers. (Popular Science

Monthly, 1879, p.700)

Although he did continue to say that many spiritualist articles had been published in the magazine, but only

when the phenomena were investigated by competent authorities, the greater part of spiritualism challenges

the very essence of science and “between your spiritualism and my materialism there is a fundamental


24

antagonism; your position is radically anti-scientific; and so let us keep clear of each other.” (Popular Science

Monthly, p.701) By qualifying which type of articles was to be published, the editor could censor any article

with which he disagreed, whether scientific or not. It can be assumed from this and similar instances that the

scientific establishment did not see spiritualism as legitimate in most cases. But it must also be noted that

the establishment did not explicitly deny the scientific methods used in psychical research. Instead,

spiritualism and psychical research were defined as anti-scientific on basic principles.

In those cases where trained scientists investigated psychic or spiritual phenomena, they tried to be as

thorough and scientific as possible. While some individuals in the scientific and academic communities may

have thought that such investigators were not conducting proper scientific investigations, they themselves

thought they were following the proper tenets of science. According to William Crookes, a well known and

respected physicist as well as a psychic investigator,

I am scarcely surprised when the objectors say that I have been deceived merely because they

are unconvinced without personal investigation, since the same unscientific course of a

priori argument has been opposed to all great discoveries. When I am told that what I describe

cannot be explained in accordance with preconceived ideas of the laws of nature, the objector

really begs the question at issue and resorts to a mode of reasoning which brings science to a

standstill. The argument runs in a vicious circle: we must not assert a fact till we know what it is in

accordance with the laws of nature, while our knowledge of the laws of nature must be based on

an extensive observation of facts. If a new fact seems to oppose what is called a law of nature, it

does not prove the asserted fact to be false, but only that we have not yet ascertained all the laws

of nature, or not learned them correctly. (Medhurst and Goldney, p.36)

In many senses, Crookes was correct. There was an ‘a priori’ prejudice on both sides of the issue. Many

critics refused to even admit the possibility of psychic phenomena on philosophical grounds. Yet other

scientists, such as Michael Faraday, were willing to investigate some of the purported phenomena. However,

as was stated by the editor of the Popular Science Monthly, the main scientific argument against spiritualism was

that it challenged the foundations of science itself and in so far as this was true, it was also true that this

argument ran into a “vicious circle,” as Crookes correctly pointed out. The editor’s argument took it for

granted that science had run its course and there was nothing new to be discovered which could eventually

challenge the laws of nature as then known. This attitude was anti-scientific.

John Tyndall, an English scientist and popularizer of science for the common folk, agreed with the

editor’s appraisal, making essentially the same claim against the spiritualists that Crookes made against their

critics.

The present promoters of spiritual phenomena divide themselves into two classes, one of which

needs no demonstration, while the other is beyond the reach of proof. The victims like to believe,

and they do not like to be undeceived. Science is perfectly powerless in the presence of this frame

of mind... When science appeals to uniform experience the spiritualist will retort ‘How do you

know that a uniform experience will continue uniform? ... The drugged soul is beyond the reach of


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reason. It is in vain that impostors are exposed, and the special demon cast out. (Tyndall, pp.451-

452)

Tyndall then updated this comment with a footnote in the final printed product.

Since the time when the foregoing remarks were written I have been more than once among the

spirits, at their own invitation. They do not improve on acquaintance. Surely no baser delusion ever

obtained the dominance over the weak mind of man. (Tyndall, p.452)

Tyndall not only agreed with the magazine’s editor, but went a good deal further. His sarcastic wit betrayed

his non-scientific subjectivity toward spiritualism and his argument that ‘science is perfectly powerless’

against spiritualism betrayed his resolution to ignore the possibility of new phenomena, a distinctly non-

scientific close-mindedness, which, in effect, proved that he was judging spiritualism according to an a

priori dogma of science. However, Tyndall cannot be held to blame for his shortcomings in investigating

psychic phenomena by modern standards. Since psychology had not yet been developed, he could not have

known that his own prejudice could have negatively affected the séances that he attended.

Tyndall’s seems to be the very attitude which Crookes attacked in his statement that “the objector really

begs the question at issue and resorts to a mode of reasoning which brings science to a standstill.” Whether

or not spiritualism has a place in the real physical world is not the question. At point, according to Crookes,

was whether it was scientifically valid to investigate phenomena outside the realm of normal science as

determined by the scientific establishment. If it is not valid to do so, then the scientific establishment

becomes a static, dogmatic authority and science fails to progress.

From this statement, it is clear that keeping an open mind and not limiting science to only those

phenomena that tended to confirm what had already been established as Natural Law could be considered

valid science. It is to this end that scientists investigating spiritualism were directed. They thought they were

dealing with legitimate phenomena and thus doing proper science. They also tried as best they could to keep

charlatanism to a minimum.

Regarding metaphysical speculation claims that the spiritualists were subjecting their objectivity to

preconceived, ‘a priori’ metaphysical systems which were counter to established Natural Laws, could be

either true or untrue, but such changes can only be answered on a case by case basis by individual scientists.

It was not necessary to blanket all of spiritualism with the same criticism. Then again, the same objection

could be leveled against the anti-spiritualists, and was by Crookes. They were victims of their own

metaphysical ‘a priorism.’ No scientist, nor any person at any level, works in an intellectual vacuum. Those

scientists who became interested in either the possible existence of a spiritual world which was continuous

with our physical world, as well as the further possibility of communication between these two worlds, or

with ‘psychic’ phenomena which were unconnected with such a spiritual world, were merely seeking to

answer ancient metaphysical paradoxes concerning the interactions of mind and matter in the terms of their

own intellectual, cultural and scientific background.


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CONCLUSION

During the latter years of the nineteenth century there occurred a confluence of intellectual, cultural

and scientific notions which gave rise to modern spiritualism. Several of these notions have been noted;

Evolution, conservation laws in physics and chemistry, the ‘Naturphilosophie’ ideas of convertibility of

forces and unity of nature, the Romantic notions of organic nature as opposed to a strictly mechanistic view

of nature, the Principle of Continuity, the mind-matter paradox, aether theories, Riemannian (non-

Euclidean) geometries and other geometries of hyperspace, as well as older forms of occultism and

spiritualism. Among these notions, the Principle of Continuity has been identified as a “unit-idea” which has

influenced the intellectual development of mankind since the early Greek era. But to a far greater extent, the

rise of modern spiritualism was a continuation of scientific speculations on the interaction between mind

and matter. When considered within this context, both the development of the scientific aspect of

spiritualism and psychical research in the latter nineteenth century were a valid scientific endeavor as well as

an integral part of the overall development of science.

When continuity was applied to the mind-matter problem, it was postulated that there existed

continuity between mind and matter (in a Leibnizian manner) rather than a discontinuity (in a Cartesian

sense). When this synthesis of ideas of continuity came into contact with evolutionary theory, it resulted in

the scientific speculations on the possibility of life after death. Or, so some scholars and scientists thought,

and these scientists considered a study of the phenomena of spiritualism a legitimate scientific endeavor.

Life after death, or rather a continuation of some aspect of an immaterial aspect of human life associated

with mind after the death of the physical body of matter, was called the spirit. It was further speculated that

this spirit must exist somewhere after the death of the physical body, leading to the postulation of an unseen

universe.

As an extension of our normally sensed universe, this unseen universe was associated with either the

physical aether theories or hyper-dimensional Non-Euclidean spaces for the purposes of spiritualism

through an analogy with its suspected characteristics. This scenario does not exhaust the possibilities for the

rise of Modern Spiritualism, but offers a more comprehensive view than already offered. Podmore, for

example, stated that

... the explanation of the facile acceptance and rapid spread of the new marvels is chiefly to be

sought, as we have endeavored to indicate ... in the special conditions of the nation and the times;

in the general diffusion of education combined with an absence of authoritative standards of

thought and the want of critical thinking; in the democratic genius of the American people; in their

liability to be carried away by various humanitarian enthusiasms; in the geographical conditions

incident to a rapidly expanding civilization. But especially, as we have seen, this tendency to belief

was fostered by the still recent growth of popular interest in Mesmerism and in the various theories

of a physical effluence - odyle, etherium, or vital electricity - which were associated with it, and had

already been employed to explain the manifestations of various “electric” girls and other

impostors, as well as the probable innocent hallucinations of Reichenbach’s sensitives. No doubt,

too, the introduction throughout the continent of the electric telegraph, an invention still so recent

that the popular mind had not become familiarized with it, and still regarded its operation with

something like childlike wonder, helped to quicken expectation and generally to induce a mental


27

condition favourable to belief in other phenomena, which after all were to the uninstructed not

more mysterious. As we have seen, it was in electricity the Spiritualists sought the physical basis of

their phenomena. (Podmore, p.287)

But Podmore sought the development of modern spiritualism in events rather than the confluence of more

elusive thoughts, beliefs and attitudes. So the rendering of this reconstruction of intellectual development by

Podmore raises several questions. Primarily, why did spiritualism develop precisely at this point of history

and the corollary to this question, was the rise of modern spiritualism a specific part of the growth of

science or an aberration of science? These questions could only be answered by a more comprehensive

study of the development and change in science’s fundamental worldview which leads us to the

mind/matter dichotomy.

In her own study of the issues, Oppenheim recognized this need to look at more fundamental attitudes

to explain spiritualism.

The attempt to enunciate those principles, to locate the common denominators of the

universe, to find the ever-elusive “basic building block” or “ultimate substance” of nature - these

aspirations inspired spiritualists and psychical researchers, just as they inspired scientists who

criticized spiritualism and psychical research. The quest for a hidden pattern, a unifying framework,

a fundamental theory, to bring together every diverse particle and force in the cosmos, was

intrinsically the same, whether one stressed the links between heat, electricity, magnetism, and

light, or looked for connections between the mind, spirit, and matter. The vision of a “new

science,” which a number of spiritualists shared, may have been incapable of realization, but the

search for a tertium quid between spirit and matter, mind and body, still haunted scientific

consciousness around the turn of the century. (Oppenheim pp.396-397)

But Oppenheim’s analysis, although extensive and very thorough, did not ferret out the most fundamental

attitudes and thoughts on the problem of mind and matter, but sought the easier solution to the rise of

spiritualism in a search to resolve the conflict between science and Christianity. Oppenheim carefully

analyzed and explained the interplay of ideas which answered the question of why spiritualism developed

when it did, by noting the confluence of ideas which evolved into modern spiritualism. But since her

analysis did not proceed far enough to uncover the depth of the relations of spirit to the mind/matter

dichotomy, her analysis did not completely place spiritualism and psychical research within their correct

cultural and scientific context. Yet her study did go further toward that goal than any other study to date .

As to the second question, the answer is no. Modern spiritualism and kindred studies were not an

aberration of science, but rather a sign of the success and maturity of science. During the latter half of the

nineteenth century, science in general and physics in particular had become so successful that an

opportunity presented itself to finally answer the lingering questions regarding mind and matter. Spiritualism

and psychical research were both attempts at the different levels of common science and academic science

to deal with this problem. Psychology and psychiatry were alternative attempts to deal with the mind/matter

dichotomy and both successfully evolved into their modern forms from their origins in the late nineteenth

century.


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Psychology developed from psychical research and other disciplines when the question of mind was

completely separated from matter and thus taken out of the hands of philosophers and physicists and placed

in the hands of biologists, physiologists and medical practitioners. Although these new demarcations of

academic territory did not completely answer the questions and issues raised, they put off the inevitable

clash of mind versus matter to a higher level, at which modern science now comes within the disciplines of

parapsychology and paraphysics. Mind and matter were not so easily divorced, but new definitions of mind

and matter were needed before progress in restoring the dichotomy could be made.

In the sense that the scientists investigating spiritualism were, in their minds, doing legitimate science

and reacting to the important philosophical questions of their time, the rise of modern spiritualism cannot

be considered an aberration outside of the normal evolution of science. Non-mainstream areas of science

such as modern spiritualism, parapsychology and paraphysics are not invalid because they are not at the

forefront of scientific efforts. Nor can they be ignored in either modern science or the history of science or

science would become incomplete. The questions concerning our world that were considered in modern

spiritualism, basically dealing with the interrelationships of mind and matter, were also considered at the

same time by other scholars in other contexts, i.e. Mach’s philosophical views, the development of

psychoanalysis (Freud) and the attempts at psychological reduction of mind to matter

(Fechner’s Psychophysics) to name a few. This wider context of the approaches to resolving the mind/matter

question alone should adequately demonstrate the importance of scientific spiritualism and the ‘psychic’

movements to the overall body of science during the latter nineteenth century, even to the skeptics.

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