InPresence 0149: William James and Psychical Research

InPresence host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). For many years he served as president of the non-profit Intuition Network, an organization dedicated to creating a world in which all people were supported and encouraged in developing inner intuitive abilities.

Jeffrey Mishlove has based this monolog on a lecture he has prepared for a graduate level course on William James. He reviews James’ history with the Society for Psychical Research in England, starting in 1882. James regarded the spiritualistic hypothesis of communication between the living and the dead as worthy of and amenable to empirical testing. Toward the end of his career he came to accept the spiritualist hypothesis based on the “dramatic probability”. But, he realized that more needed to be done with regard to the accumulation of empirical data.

(Recorded on August 8, 2018)

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