Welcome to the PEEP Podcast. I’m your host Nicolle Morock, and on this episode, we’re starting to review the history of parapsychology – a topic requested by listener Dave Fritz. I had a little help with my research when Brandon Massullo, who was on Episode 6, shared a photo on his Twitter page of the book that I’ve used as a basis for much of the information I’m going to cover. The book is Parapsychology: A Concise History by John Beloff.  (And I hope I pronounced his name right. Please email me if you know the proper pronunciation and I’m wrong. Also, there are many European names in this episode, and I’ll do my best to pronounce them correctly. As an American who’s had Latin and Italian courses decades ago, I’m not 100% confident in pronunciations.)

Considering we have a few centuries to cover, this topic will be broken into several episodes, and I’ll use them to fill in spaces between guests. My goal is authenticity, and I’m not afraid to share that sometimes scheduling interviews with busy researchers, professors, and everyday people with personal paranormal stories can be challenging, especially since we all have full-time jobs, families, etc.

Before we dive in to Part 1, allow me the luxury of getting on my soap box for just a moment.

If looking into the history of parapsychology has taught me anything – or more accurately – reinforced my knowledge of anything – it’s that some things never change. Believers are going to believe and point to any grasped straw as evidence of their belief. Skeptics (with a K) are going to doubt and no amount of solid evidence will convince them. Those in the middle will weight both viewpoints and do our best to understand that which has yet to be explained.

It’s not my job to convince the skeptics or to defend the incredible. It is my duty to present the stories that I’m granted opportunities to share and let you decide for yourself what you wish to believe.

As previously noted most of the following summation of the study of parapsychology comes from Dr. Beloff’s book, Parapsychology: A Concise History. Any additional information from other sources will be noted as we go.

For as long as people have lived and died, we’ve had a fascination with the idea of an afterlife, or a world “beyond the veil” – that which under so-called “normal” circumstances we cannot see. Angels, demons, ghosts, spirits, fairies, elementals, Djinn, and cryptids are subjects of our stories to explain what’s on the other side. Beyond myths and folklore, we have anecdotes and documentation of hauntings, apparitions, near-death experiences and other till now unexplained phenomena. Enough for believers to say with self-assurance that there is far more to the world than we know.

And even those of a sceptical nature have to admit that in this world, there are things we know, things we don’t know, and things that we don’t know that we don’t know – meaning those things that are obscured, hidden, etc. In other words, as much as we’d like to think we do, we don’t know everything.

To study the paranormal is to be open-minded and curious about the obscured part of our world. It takes humility and courage. Courage to face the unknown, as well as courage to face ridicule from those who refuse to entertain the idea that there is something worth studying here.

I applaud those with the humility and courage and the insatiable curiosity that have brought us this far.

At the end of his forward, I found a statement by Dr. Beloff that has become a favorite quote:

The fact that opinions differ should never be an excuse for not expressing an opinion. One needs also to remember that skepticism is not necessarily a badge of tough-mindedness: it may equally be a sign of intellectual cowardice.

In that quote, skepticism is spelled with a K. Often when discussing the paranormal and parapsychology two different ways of being sceptical are differentiated by spelling the word with a C or a K. Skeptical with a K denotes someone who refuses to believe despite evidence. Sceptical with a C is the more open-minded form of scepticism –which is questioning what’s presented and looking for mundane explanations but also being open to alternative explanations when the evidence points in that direction.

Dr. Beloff’s book starts with his prologue about Renaissance Magic. He felt the need to include that period even though, technically, the scientific study of paranormal phenomena didn’t really get started until the 1800s.

Renaissance magic is separated into two branches: natural and supernatural. The natural branch invoked only properties that were innate to objects whether terrestrial or celestial. It was closer to science and intertwined with the medicine of the time. The philosophical basis for natural magic was neoplatanism, which basically stated “virtually everything in creation possesses a soul of some description,” and that man is a microcosm mirroring “the universe, the macrocosm.” Everything was connected, and the natural magician had to learn how to work with those connections. Astrology and alchemy were sub-branches of natural magic.

Some famous names that fit into this category include Henry Cornelius Agrippa who published his handbook on the occult sciences, De Occulta Philo-so-phia; Phillipus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim who insisted that man’s nature, not evil spirits, was the cause of his illnesses; Giordano Bruno, who was executed in Campo di Fiori, Rome, for among other things, belief in the plurality of worlds (AKA the possibility of intelligent life on other planets); and Galileo Galilei, who like Bruno believed the earth revolved around the sun. (How dare they!) John Dee was also a famous name at this time. He was a court astrologer to Queen Elizabeth, and a mathematician and inventor.

If any of this sounds odd to you, remember that what scientific theory has yet to prove lives in the realm of magic until proven. In the 15- and 1600s what we know now as science was often seen as heretical mumbo jumbo that could get you executed for defying the dominant religious beliefs.

Supernatural, also called Supercelestial magic, was derived from the Judaic Cabala (also spelled Qabbalah but Beloff uses the “C” spelling). “It represented the compendium of Jewish mystical beliefs but its main relevance in this context was its claim that, by manipulating the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in various ways, one could spell out the secret and sacred attributes of God, or of His angels, and thereby conjure up spirits to do one’s bidding. Thus the Cabala was a species of word-magic but, since the letters of the Hebrew alphabet also correspond with numerals, it also served as a system of number magic or numerology and this could be used for prophecy.” (Beloff, p.6)

Encyclopedia.com offers this passage on one such Cabalic practitioner:

The Italian humanist Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), in his Three Books on Life (completed 1489), provided one of the most important and influential syntheses of magical literature. Ficino was associated with Cosimo de' Medici (1519–1574), at whose urging he translated the Hermetic Corpus into Latin. He was also well acquainted with the third-century Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus (205–270), from whom he took the notion of the universe as a great living being whose members worked in sympathetic harmony one with another; the fourth-century Neoplatonist Iamblichus, who had taught how to summon and make use of spirits by means of magical procedures; the Picatrix, which he used as a source for some of his prescriptions; and other works of Arabic astrological magic. His main interest was in using the beneficent influence of heavenly bodies (particularly the Sun and Jupiter) to enhance human life and health. This might be done by fashioning astrological images with the symbols of these celestial bodies, but in general Ficino was more favorably disposed to astrological "medicines" by which astral influences could be transmitted more effectively to humans: Saffron and honey, for example, were good repositories of solar virtue. Ficino also made use of Orphic hymns for their beneficent effect. Anticipating criticism for his use of magic, he pointed out that the magi in Matthew's gospel were honorable models for imitation, that Jesus had exercised healing arts, and that it was thus fitting for a priest and healer such as Ficino himself to use magical techniques to promote health and enhanced life. He insisted that he was advocating only natural magic, not demonic magic, although he did see astral powers as coming from heavenly bodies that were associated with attendant spirits, and he left himself open to the suspicion that these spirits were demonic.

Eventually, many of the Renaissance magicians who practiced natural magic, studied the Cabala and became well-versed in supernatural magic, including John Dee, who was said to have kept a diary record of the séances he held at which he claimed to have summoned angels. This eventually got him into trouble since his enemies had the ability to accuse him of diabolical sorcery and cost him the queen’s favor.

Eventually, magic was no longer safe to practice, and the cry of “witchcraft” meant derision, persecution, and death to those accused. It was a dark time across Europe and in the New World for those who used their knowledge of the natural world to produce folk remedies for illnesses. But I think we all know those stories, and if you don’t, Aaron Mahnke’s Unobscured podcast did a wonderful job of covering the Salem Witch Trials in its Season 1. I highly recommend it.

The Scientific Revolution gave rise to the distinction between “normal” and “paranormal.” Beloff stated “In the aftermath of this revolution an ‘enchanted boundary’ has ever since divided parapsychology from conventional science.” (Beloff, p.8) The era spans the time from Galileo through Newton (late 1500s to early 1700s) and included such names as Descartes and Boyle as well.

In the 18^th century, we have the result of the Scientific Revolution by way of the Enlightenment. “… Life should be conducted on the basis of reason as opposed to dogma, revelation, and tradition.” Enlightenment basically killed the mystery of the universe by stating that “the universe was a coherent and intelligible system whose workings could be known accurately, and eventually in full, through observation, calculation and the due exercise of reason and reflection.” (Beloff, p.9.) Any belief in miracles was folly.

In the late 1700s, a Viennese physician named Franz Anton Mesmer believed he had discovered a fundamental energy that governed the health and well-being of humans. He called it animal magnetism – as opposed to the earth’s mineral magnetism. To treat diseases of all types, he believed you needed to transfer this magnetic fluid from a healthy person to the ill person. Originally, he used magnets, but soon realized that “the act of stroking or making passes with hands across the patient’s body” would have the same effect. Both would induce convulsions and then the patient would start to feel better.

And the patients lined up – most likely because the conventional medicine of that era wasn’t all that helpful to begin with.

Eventually, the practice evolved from inciting convulsions to lulling the patient into a trance-like state they called somnambulism. When in that state, it was discovered that the patient could feel no pain, and so it was often used to allow for painless surgical operations – a big deal in a time before chemical anesthetics were discovered.

Beyond being used to heal the sick as those claims went, it has been called the forerunner to modern psychiatry and even parapsychology. “… Mesmerism was the precursor to hypnotism, which in turn gave rise to the concept and theory of the unconscious culminating in the work of Freud.” It was also discovered that some patients while in their trance state had heightened extrasensory perception, or ESP.

So fascinating, and that, my friends, is where we’ll pick up next time!

Thank you for listening! If you’ve enjoyed this first in the series of the history of parapsychology, I recommend finding a copy of Parapsychology: A Concise History. It goes much deeper into these topics than I can and is full of fascinating stories and documentation. What I covered tonight barely got us to Chapter 1!

If you have an idea for a show topic, you can fill out the contact form at peeppodcast.com That’s P-E-E-P-PODCAST.COM. Remember that stands for People Experiencing Everyday Paranormal. If I can find a study about it or someone actively researching it, I’ll be happy to use it!

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