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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- GENERAL INTRODUCTION
- INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME
- CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE AND MAJOR WORKS OF ANDREW LANG
- A NOTE ON THE TEXT
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- 1 THE METHOD OF FOLKLORE
- 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND FOLKLORE
- 3 FAIRY TALES
- 4 ANTHROPOLOGY, AND THE ORIGINS OF RELIGION
- 5 ANTHROPOLOGY AND PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
- 6 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
- ‘Ghosts Up To Date’, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (January 1894)
- ‘Science and Demonology’, Illustrated London News (June 1894)
- ‘Science and “Miracles”’, The Making of Religion, 2nd edition (1900)
- Three Seeresses (1880–1900, 1424–1431)', Anglo-Saxon Review (September 1900)
- ‘Magic Mirrors and Crystal Gazing’, Monthly Review (December 1901)
- ‘Human Personality After Death’, Monthly Review (March 1903)
- ‘Presidential Address, Delivered on May 16th, 1911’, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (August 1911)
- Letters to Oliver Lodge
- Letters to William James
- ‘Letter to E. B. Tylor on Home and the Brownings’
- APPENDIX I: NAMES FREQUENTLY CITED BY LANG
- APPENDIX II: ETHINIC GROUPS CITED BY LANG
- EXPLANATORY NOTES
- Index
‘Science and “Miracles”’, The Making of Religion, 2nd edition (1900)
from 6 - PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 October 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- GENERAL INTRODUCTION
- INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME
- CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE AND MAJOR WORKS OF ANDREW LANG
- A NOTE ON THE TEXT
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- 1 THE METHOD OF FOLKLORE
- 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND FOLKLORE
- 3 FAIRY TALES
- 4 ANTHROPOLOGY, AND THE ORIGINS OF RELIGION
- 5 ANTHROPOLOGY AND PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
- 6 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
- ‘Ghosts Up To Date’, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (January 1894)
- ‘Science and Demonology’, Illustrated London News (June 1894)
- ‘Science and “Miracles”’, The Making of Religion, 2nd edition (1900)
- Three Seeresses (1880–1900, 1424–1431)', Anglo-Saxon Review (September 1900)
- ‘Magic Mirrors and Crystal Gazing’, Monthly Review (December 1901)
- ‘Human Personality After Death’, Monthly Review (March 1903)
- ‘Presidential Address, Delivered on May 16th, 1911’, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (August 1911)
- Letters to Oliver Lodge
- Letters to William James
- ‘Letter to E. B. Tylor on Home and the Brownings’
- APPENDIX I: NAMES FREQUENTLY CITED BY LANG
- APPENDIX II: ETHINIC GROUPS CITED BY LANG
- EXPLANATORY NOTES
- Index
Summary
Historical Sketch
Research in the X region is not a new thing under the sun. When Saul disguised himself before his conference with the Witch of Endor, he made an elementary attempt at a scientific test of the supernormal. Croesus, the king, went much further, when he tested the clairvoyance of the oracles of Greece, by sending an embassy to ask what he was doing at a given hour on a given day, and by then doing something very bizarre. We do not know how the Delphic oracle found out the right answer, but various easy methods of fraud at once occur to the mind. However, the procedure of Croesus, if he took certain precautions, was relatively scientific. Relatively scientific also was the inquiry of Porphyry, with whose position our own is not unlikely to be compared. Unable, or reluctant, to accept Christianity, Porphyry ‘sought after a sign’ of an element of supernormal truth in Paganism. But he began at the wrong end, namely at Pagan spiritualistic séances, with the usual accompaniments of darkness and fraud. His perplexed letter to Anebo, with the reply attributed to Iamblichus, reveal Porphyry wandering puzzled among mediums, floating lights, odd noises, queer dubious ‘physical phenomena.’ He did not begin with accurate experiments as to the existence of rare, and apparently supernormal human faculties, and he seems to have attained no conclusion except that ‘spirits’ are ‘deceitful.’
Something more akin to modern research began about the time of the Reformation, and lasted till about 1680. The fury for burning witches led men of sense, learning, and humanity to ask whether there was any reality in witchcraft, and, generally, in the marvels of popular belief. The inquiries of Thyraeus, Lavaterus, Bodinus, Wierus, Le Loyer, Reginald Scot, and many others, tended on the whole to the negative side as regards the wilder fables about witches, but left the problems of ghosts and haunted houses pretty much where they were before. It may be observed that Lavaterus (circ. 1580) already put forth a form of the hypothesis of telepathy (that ‘ghosts’ are hallucinations produced by the direct action of one mind, or brain, upon another), while Thyraeus doubted whether the noises heard in ‘haunted houses’ were not mere hallucinations of the sense of hearing.
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- The Edinburgh Critical Edition of the Selected Writings of Andrew LangAnthropology, Fairy Tale, Folklore, The Origins of Religion, Psychical Research, pp. 271 - 283Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2015