CIIS Faculty Publications
Title
Essays in Psychical Research (The Works of William James)
Files
Description
The more than fifty articles, essays, and reviews in this volume, collected here for the first time, were published by William James over a span of some twenty-five years. The record of a sustained interest in phenomena of a highly controversial nature, they make it amply clear that James's work in psychical research was not an eccentric hobby but a serious and sympathetic concern. James was broad-minded in his approach but tough-minded in his demand that investigations be conducted in rigorous scientific terms. He hoped his study of psychic phenomena would strengthen the philosophy of an open-ended, pluralistic universe that he was formulating during the same period, and he looked forward to the new horizons for human experience that a successful outcome of his research would create.
Robert A. McDermott, in his Introduction, discusses the relation of these essays to James's other work in philosophy, psychology, and religion.
ISBN
978-0674267084
Publication Date
11-14-1986
Publisher
Harvard University Press
City
Cambridge, MA
Keywords
Parapsychology; William James; Psychical Research
Disciplines
Other Psychology | Philosophy
Recommended Citation
McDermott, Robert, "Essays in Psychical Research (The Works of William James)" (1986). CIIS Faculty Publications. 70.
https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/facultypublications/70
Comments
Robert McDermott, PhD, Boston University (Philosophy, 1969), program chair, is CIIS president emeritus and professor of philosophy and religion. He taught at Manhattanville College (1964-71) and is professor emeritus and former chair of the Department of Philosophy at Baruch College, CUNY (1971-90).
His publications include Radhakrishnan (1970), The Essential Aurobindo (1974), The Essential Steiner (1984), and the "Introduction" to William James, Essays in Psychical Research (Harvard University Press, 1986). Robert recently edited The New Essential Steiner: An Introduction to Rudolf Steiner for the 21st Century (Lindisfarne Books, 2009) and edited The Bhagavad Gita and the West: The Esoteric Significance of the Bhagavad Gita and Its Relation to the Epistles of Paul (SteinerBooks, 2009). Both of these volumes include the editor's 80-page introductions.
Robert's essays have appeared in International Philosophical Quarterly, Cross Currents, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and Philosophy East and West.
He was secretary of the American Academy of Religion (1968-71) and secretary-treasurer of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy (1972-76). In 1975-76, he was a Senior Fulbright Lecturer at the Open University, where he coproduced an OU-BBC film, Avatar: Concept and Example on the Bhagavad Gita and Sri Aurobindo.
From 1978 to 1980, he was director of a National Endowment for the Humanities project for the review of audiovisual materials for the study of Hinduism and Buddhism. He is the founding chair of the board of Sophia Project (two homes in Oakland, CA, for mothers and children at risk of homelessness), and has been chair of the board and president of many other institutions.