Science in the early to mid-Victorian period was a mix of increasing diversity and intensifying specialization, and included such contentious disciplines as phrenology
and mesmerism, discussed in more detail in the next chapter.1 A number of scholars
have commented on the importance of these two fields as precursors to the broader
mainstream acceptance of the occult, and the growth of Spiritualism in this period.2
Initially, they were regarded by some as a ‘new science’, despite the obvious threat to the authority of the established sciences, which were already espousing the
ideological superiority of materialism.3 This suggests that the significance of
‘occulture’, to use Christopher Partridge’s term, was very much in evidence, with the
co-existence of orthodox and unusual cultural themes permeating society.4 This
acceptance and attractiveness of the unusual is clearly reflected in Asprem’s notion of
the reaction against disenchantment,5 and Stuckrad’s concept of ‘the other.’6
Materialism at this time was expressed in many different forms and had an influence across the entire range of belief systems. At one extreme was the dogmatic scientism exhibited by some adherents to the modern physical sciences, which
dismissed the concept of spirituality altogether.7 There were others, a little less
1 Alison Winter, ‘The Construction of Orthodoxies and Heterodoxies in the Early Victorian Life Sciences’, in Victorian Science in Context, ed. by Bernard Lightman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), p. 25; and Sherrie Lynne Lyons, Species, Serpents, Spirits, and Skulls: Science at the Margins in the Victorian Age (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009), p. 1.
2 These include: J. Jeffrey Franklin, ‘The Evolution of Occult Spirituality in Victorian England and the Representative Case of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’, in The Ashgate Research Companion to Nineteenth- Century Spiritualism and The Occult, ed. by Tatiana Kontou and Sarah Willburn (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012); Iwan Rhys Morus, When Physics Became King (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2005); Winter, ‘The Construction of Orthodoxies and Heterodoxies’; Richard Yeo, Defining Science: William Whewell, Natural Knowledge and Public Debate in Early Victorian Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), amongst others.
3 Richard Noakes, ‘The Sciences of Spiritualism in Victorian Britain: Possibilities and Problems’, in
The Ashgate Research Companion to Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism and The Occult, ed. by Tatiana Kontou and Sarah Willburn (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 30, 32.
4 Partridge, Re-enchantment, p. 3. 5 Asprem, Disenchantment, p. 78.
6 Stuckrad, Western Esotericism, pp. 10-11. 7 Owen, Enchantment, p. 36.
117
fanatical, who were nevertheless vehemently materialist, and had little interest in Spiritualist or paranormal phenomena. For example, the physicist John Tyndall denied the possibility of spiritual or religious phenomena having any association with the
physical realm, yet a few of his works were misinterpreted by some Spiritualists.8 I
suggest that the lack of a systematic investigative approach by the Spiritualists not only lessened their influence within the early SPR, as we have seen, but perhaps led them to look for scientific validity where none was really forthcoming. The next group consisted of those who were interested in Spiritualist and paranormal
phenomena, but regarded them as still obeying the laws of nature. Their approach was
to use scientific methodology to investigate the seemingly immaterial.9 Asprem
argues for a sharper distinction between the philosophical materialism of the hard-line “scientific naturalists” and the mechanistic physics of the scientists of this
ideologically less extreme group.10 This distinction, which I also make, is important
here as it implies a particular cohesive mindset exhibited by the early psychical researchers which shaped their investigations, and is reflected in the paranormal domain in Chapter 7. In addition, both laypersons and scholars in this group were influenced by discoveries across a number of rapidly advancing scientific fields,
especially in disciplines such as physiology and psychology.11 A key manifestation of
this broad scientific methodology was the formation of The Society for Psychical Research in 1882. As discussed in Chapter 1, its early members, predominantly from the intellectual elite, sought to bring together all data on paranormal phenomena, and introduced many new scientific terms and concepts. Members of the SPR also
included a number of Spiritualists, discussed in Chapter 4, a distinct, but overlapping group for whom the overriding goal was the empirical proof of the afterlife. There was thus some commonality with ‘Spiritual Science’, promoted by Spiritualists who
saw mainstream physical science as inferior.12 The foremost American medium of the
period, Emma Hardinge Britten, promoted a more expansive ‘spiritual science’, driven by both physical and spiritual evidence, fuelled by her perception of the
inadequacy of both science and religion.13 Britten’s views were echoed by many
8 Noakes, ‘Sciences’, pp. 41-42. 9 Beaumont, ‘Socialism’, p. 166.
10 Egil Asprem, ‘Pondering Imponderables: Occultism in the Mirror of Late Classical Physics’, Aries 2 (2011), pp. 137-138.
11 Gauld, Founders, p. 58. 12 Noakes, ‘Sciences’, pp. 34-35. 13 Ibid., pp. 35-36.
118
others, and I have shown, and will continue to demonstrate, that the perceived inadequacy of both science and religion paralleled some of the syncretic thinking of the early psychical researchers. The authority of these purely material doctrines was challenged by both Spiritualists and psychical researchers in the late-nineteenth century. As Trevor Hamilton notes, Frederic Myers highlighted the significance of the
relationships between mind, body, and brain, in the context of psychical research.14
He developed a theory of humanity as having a double nature. On one hand, its nature is earthly and physical, or “terrene”, and on the other, it is spiritual and immaterial, or “extraterrene”. Myers believed in Darwinian evolution for the terrene, but exhibited
Neoplatonist thinking when considering the extraterrene.15 Edmund Gurney presented
his view of mind-body duality in Tertium Quid (1888), in which he described
philosophical ways to transcend the ‘duality of mind and matter’ and alternative
considerations of what matter may be.16 He developed these ideas further, by
suggesting that all matter was correlated with feelings, and therefore intrinsically
linked to ‘mind-stuff’, which was not a reality, but the reality of the material object.
Gurney described the Universe as consisting of nothing but ‘mind-stuff’, some within
minds, and some without.17 This suggests that Gurney saw the immaterial realm as
superior to the material one, without ever entirely dismissing the critical requirement for a material consideration of the universe, implying an inherent universality with
clear similarities to Spinoza’s double-aspect theory.18 Most removed from the
proponents of materialist scientism were adherents to esoteric movements such as Theosophy and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, both discussed in Chapter 4,
who nevertheless sought tangible proof for their ideas.19 The methodology employed
by Theosophists when utilizing the concepts of contemporary science has, however,
been noted by scholars as speculative and idiosyncratic.20 This is in contrast to the
attempted systematic scientific endeavours and aspirations of the SPR and its members.
14 Hamilton, Immortal, p. 4. 15 Kripal, Impossible, p. 68.
16 Gurney, Tertium Quid, I, pp. 320-321. 17 Ibid., I, p. 325.
18 For a standard translation, see Benedict Spinoza, Ethics (Penguin Classics), ed. by Edward Curley (London: Penguin Classics, 1996).
19 Beaumont, ‘Socialism’, p. 166.
20 Asprem, ‘Pondering’, pp. 132-133; and Olav Hammer, Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of
119
Operating alongside the concept of materialism was an increasingly prominent rationalist discourse. This, of course, was especially evident within science during this
period, helping to establish its authority and legitimacy,21 and therefore attractive to
the SPR, which was likewise seeking mainstream acceptance. Despite many of the foremost scientists of the mid-nineteenth century being deeply religious, rationalism became an increasingly critical element of scientific thinking at this time. A key treatise which argued that the only valid way to garner accurate information about the
world was via senses was John Stuart Mill’s (1806-1873) Logic (1843). As Aaron
Cobb has discussed, ‘Mill’s philosophy of science reflected a commitment to the view that [empirical] experience alone is the source and justification for all knowledge
claims, including knowledge of both mathematical and physical truths.’22 This work
proved influential to numerous scholars at both the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, with Henry Sidgwick, who was introduced in Chapter 1, as one of the
founding members of the SPR and its first president, amongst them.23 The
increasingly rationalist considerations of those who went on to undertake psychical research no doubt influenced their scientific investigative methodology. While the increasing interest in mysticism, Spiritualism, and other occult phenomena during this period can no longer be considered as simply a consequence of a growing
dissatisfaction with mainstream religion, this ‘crisis of faith’ hypothesis cannot be completely dismissed for all. For some psychical researchers, rationalism provided a
key to unlock the doubts raised by their faith, and explore them in a new way.24 A
number of rationalist and scientifically driven agnostic works written in the latter part
of the 1870s, such as G. H. Lewes’ Spiritualism and Materialism (1876), probably
reflected the zenith of rationalist thinking at this time. Together with the growth of the new Oxford idealist philosophy, rationalist scepticism based on science alone became somewhat more diluted, but it had already performed its role as one stream of doubt
flowing alongside many others.25 As well as contributing broadly to the questioning
21 James R. Lewis, ‘The Science Canopy: Religion, Legitimacy, and the Charisma of Science’,
Temenos 46 (2010), p. 10.
22 Aaron Cobb, ‘Mill’s Philosophy of Science’, in A Companion to Mill, ed. by Christopher MacLeod and Dale Miller (Oxford: John Willey, 2017), pp. 234-249; see also Gauld, Founders, pp. 45-46. 23 Gauld, Founders, p. 46; and Hamilton, Immortal, p. 82.
24 Christine Ferguson, ‘Recent Scholarship on Spiritualism and Science’, in The Ashgate Research
Companion to Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism and The Occult, ed. by Tatiana Kontou and Sarah Willburn (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), p. 19, and Gauld, Founders, pp. 46-48, 53-54.
120
environment of the period, this inherent rationalism will be shown to have underpinned many of the works and activities of the early psychical researchers.
Another important theme influencing science during this period was that of specialization. As scientific advances were made in both existing and new fields, areas of expertise became more distinct in order to cope with an increasingly complex society. Professional scientists had deeper, more specialized, yet progressively less connected knowledge. Like rationalism, this enhanced expertise implied a greater
sense of authority.26 The increased effort now required to become expert in a
particular discipline increasingly precluded the ability to do so in other fields
concurrently.27 There was also an impact on laypersons, who were now less able to
undertake scientific activities. Also, scientific terms were now increasingly being used
by non-scientists incorrectly or speculatively.28 The increasing specialization also had
the effect of further distancing mainstream science from mainstream religion. Those who undertook psychical research, however, largely continued to use scientific methods in their investigations of the paranormal. Consequently, while utilizing an overtly scientific investigative approach, the early SPR used experts from many different scientific (and non-scientific) fields in an intentionally eclectic manner, in order to overcome this increased specialization. Thus, the inclusivity of the material and the immaterial forms a critical characteristic of the mode of thinking, and eclecticism forms an important element of the mode of doing within the paranormal domain presented in Chapter 7.