Physics and Psychics

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Richard Noakes discusses the connections between Victorian physical sciences and the study of the controversial phenomena broadly classified as psychic, occult and paranormal.

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Richard Noakes discusses the connections between Victorian physical sciences and the study of the controversial phenomena broadly classified as psychic, occult and paranormal.

Image courtesy of interviewee. July 24, 2024

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This video features a speaker reflecting on their academic journey related to the intersections of physics and spiritualism, starting from their PhD in 1998. They recount how their supervisor suggested studying phenomena at the Cavendish Laboratory that intersected with both physics and spiritualist interests, such as electrical discharges and the physicality of psychic phenomena.

The speaker explores the historical context from the early 19th century to the 1930s, noting that many scientists at the time engaged with spiritualism, mesmerism, and other paranormal inquiries while also developing the field of physics. The talk discusses the relationship between science and religion during this period, highlighting that many scientists sought ways to reconcile scientific discoveries with spiritual beliefs, rather than contradict them.

Through examples of scientists like William Crookes and Cromwell Varley, the speaker illustrates how early physicists employed rigorous scientific methods to investigate psychic phenomena and spiritual mediums, creating instruments and methodologies to explore claims of paranormal abilities. These investigations varied in focus, with Crookes emphasizing physical mediumship and Varley incorporating engineering techniques into his spiritual inquiries.

As the narrative progresses into the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the speaker describes challenges faced by scientists due to the declining presence of reputable mediums and changing interests in psychical research. They also indicate that while some investigations into physical mediumship waned, interest in mental mediumship grew, which didn't align as closely with physicists' observational strengths.

Towards the end, the speaker discusses modern implications, stressing the importance of maintaining an open-minded approach toward scientific inquiry of all phenomena, including the paranormal. They advocate for a recognition of the courage and ingenuity of early scientists, encouraging a broader view of scientific history that acknowledges the complexities of these intersections. They conclude by emphasizing the relevance of this historical understanding in addressing contemporary global challenges.

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Well, it goes back to, my PhD, which started,

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eons ago in 1998 when,

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my supervisor, professor Simon Schaffer,

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suggested that I work on the great, center of physics,

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the Caven Laboratory.

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Um, the place where DNA was discovered, the place where the

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electron was discovered and so on,

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and where Oppenheimer was a student on enough.

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Um, and, I was advised to look at

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some of the strange phenomena that students and,

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and professionals at the carbon dish were looking at,

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and they included the phenomena of electrical discharge

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through gases.

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And so I began to study this,

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but I realized that some of the people

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that were interested in this

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were also interested in spiritualism,

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and I couldn't get my head around this.

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Um, and from then on, I was interested in

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why would, why would people practicing

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and studying physics be interested in phenomena that had

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seemingly nothing to do with physics, spirits

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of the dead telepathy, telekinesis, haunted houses,

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water dowsing, and so on.

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And, it was a rabbit hole.

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I disappeared into it, and I haven't come out of it.

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Uh, I'm still interested in that connection.

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Uh, it's kind of broadened out to include engineering

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and other sciences, but, I'm still in there.

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And it's, it's, it's fascinating still,

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after all this time for the, period that I've studied.

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I mean, for the,

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for the period from the early 19th century forward

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to the 1930s,

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the connections were very,

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were multiple.

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Um, there were plenty of, people who thought that,

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that life

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and mind was somehow physical in nature

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and should be studied as physical phenomena.

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Um, so that opened up the door for the study

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by physicists who,

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as they became known from the 1850s onwards,

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the way I see it is that both the phenomena of the realm

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of psychics and the world of physics converged,

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in very interesting ways in this period.

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So the phenomena of psychics are,

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in some cases, very physical.

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We're talking about, objects that move

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without having been, push by anything.

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Um, we're talking about phenomena that are,

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to do with light to do, to do

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with electricity and magnetism.

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So these appear to be relevant to physics

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and the study of physical inquiry.

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On the other hand, then physics itself is becoming very,

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very complex and interesting.

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Physics deals with phenomena that are,

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that are on the borders of mechanical,

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are on the borders of the material.

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So physics deals with electricity

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and magnetism, which are in some, is quite occult

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and immaterial and spiritual even.

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And it deals with something called the ether of space

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that very strange,

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and now largely discredited entity that's supposed to

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explain how energy reaches us from the sun across.

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So-called empty space.

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So one of the conclusions of the, of the book is

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that we have forgotten how exciting

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and strange lots of aspects of physics were in the past,

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and that it's precisely in those areas

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where it seems to be a little bit similar to

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the extraordinary, phenomena of psychics.

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I think there are lots of, there are lots of reasons why

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those scientists then, and,

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and there are a couple of reasons that stand out.

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The first is that this is the period in the history of,

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the sciences that's witnessing a huge amount

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of boundary construction.

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So disciplines are, are being put together.

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They're being negotiated.

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They is the period when the word scientists has just been

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invented in 18, 31.

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It's the period when the borders of sciences are being

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really negotiated and put together,

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and they're, all these borders are also being expanded.

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And physics is one of those subjects

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that's coming together in the 19th century.

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And many of its architects are pushing those borders into

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all kinds of interesting places, into engineering,

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into chemistry, into the life sciences.

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And, the enthusiasm,

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and dare I call it the imperial vision of many

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of these psych, of these early physicists,

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takes them into the realm of psychics too.

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So they see the world of psychics, spiritualism, mesmerism

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as another territory, as another area of inquiry

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that physics might be extended to,

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just like they've been extending physics to, the realms

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of physiology and,

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and to e electrical and to engineering.

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Um, another reason why those scientists then

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is surely the relationship

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between the sciences and religion.

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Now, we tend to think that the conflict between science

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and religion has been going on for centuries.

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That science, that that science

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and religion are somehow inherently at war with each other.

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But this is a great simplification at best.

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The period in which

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physicists became interested in psychics was also one where

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science and religion were

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actually in a very interesting dialogue with each other.

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And there were plenty of scientists who

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were busy trying to figure out ways in which science

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and religion could work together more in a more,

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coherent way.

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For example, is it possible that the results

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of scientific inquiry might actually enhance

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our religious and spiritual beliefs, not,

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not attack them or undermine them?

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And of course, one of those beliefs is, to do

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with the spirit world, do what happens to us

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after we die, which is a, a pretty fundamental belief

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across religious, religious faiths.

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And many

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of the scientists I work on were actually

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very religious people.

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They were signed up members

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of different Christian denominations.

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Um, they had great anxieties

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that the sciences appeared to be challenging Christianity.

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There were many scientists who, who were trying

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to use science against religion.

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But the people I've worked on were trying

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to do the opposite in some ways.

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They were trying to show, well, actually, physics

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and religion are not incompatible.

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Um, physics might actually help us better understand

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the wisdom and purposes of, of the, of the divine.

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It might help us,

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produce stronger evidence for, some of the claims,

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some of the, some of the doctrines in Christianity

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that we find really hard to accept on faith alone.

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For example, the survival

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of the personality following bodily death.

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So it is a time of great dialogue between the sciences

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and different religious faiths

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and, psychic phenomena appear to address

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that, that dialogue, they appear

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to be relevant to that dialogue.

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They appear to offer ways in which the sciences can,

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help and address religious questions in very important ways.

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Um, so that's a pretty important reason

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in my view, why it was those scientists then

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and compared with now where most scientists are ostensibly

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in most of their publications

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and public, presentations agnostic

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in the 19th century, many scientists were,

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were pretty explicit about their,

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about their religious beliefs and,

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and how their scientific work could,

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could inform their religious beliefs as well.

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The scientists I've worked on, who were

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born in the early 19th century we're talking about,

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they were born between roughly

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1820 and 1860.

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Um, a lot of them were British.

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Um, a lot of them grew up among

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stories about occult phenomena, which they tended not

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to believe or take seriously.

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So they grew up in a world in which spiritualism was new.

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Spiritualism started growing in the 1840s.

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It was a world that was seeing the kind of the end

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of mesmerism and the beginning of hypnotism.

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Um, they may have grown up thinking

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that these things were, were probably,

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the result of fraud or self delusion,

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but they never quite dismissed the possibility

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that there was something in them worth studying from a

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scientific perspective.

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And by the time they were young,

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young adults, by the time they'd gone

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through scientific training, they

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had developed this interest in the occult to the point where

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they were literally investigating it.

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In some cases, it was

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because a friend of theirs, a relative, had

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had a very, very strong experie,

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a very impressive experience of some kind of occult

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phenomena or practice.

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So if we take the case of William Crook's, British chemist,

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born in 1832,

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in 1867, he suffered,

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quite a, a serious trauma when his brother died,

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after having caught yellow fever,

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aboard a ca a telegraph cable laying ship.

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So crooks was very, raw emotionally.

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And some historians think that this made him,

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take a little bit more seriously reports of

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spiritualist media that he'd been reading about. Okay,

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Yes. But

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what's also important about this time is

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that a very distinguished

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and trusted friend of his,

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a colleague called Robert Anga Smith, who's a chemist, very,

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important for understanding public health in Britain.

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Robert Anga Smith had gone to a spiritual seance

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and come back thinking, I don't believe what I just saw.

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Um, I've done everything to exclude fraud.

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I don't think I've deluded myself, William,

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you've gotta go and see it for yourself.

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And crooks trusted Robert Angar Smith's scientific judgment,

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and on the basis of that went along to, for himself.

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And from then on,

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started building up a pretty impressive set of experiences

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of, of spiritualistic phenomena.

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And this pattern is repeated.

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Um, for other scientists that I've worked on,

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they will hear about from a relative or a trusted friend

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or professional colleague, a strange experience

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of a seance or mesmeric trance, mind reading.

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And they'll follow it up

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and come back thinking, I can't explain everything I saw

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with the laws of science I have to carry on investigating.

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Um, now, in some cases, what's driving them

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to go back and return again

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and again to sea is, is sometimes

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a religious preoccupation.

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They are trying to figure out,

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a way to, to marry their religious

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and scientific worldviews.

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In other cases, it's a purely professional thing like

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William Crooks, who,

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he generally sees the study of spiritualistic phenomena

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as a way of extending the boundary of the sciences

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and to take, to take spiritualism away from all the cranky

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and deluded spiritualists.

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And it's so, it becomes a, a subject of what,

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of, of proper scientific inquiry.

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And not, he doesn't, he doesn't want

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to leave it in the hands of unscientific people

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that he thinks the spiritualists are dominated by.

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So, that is a way

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to explain, you know, how do these scientists start?

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There are studies and what happens next?

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Some of the people that I've studied take a a very,

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technical approach to studying the phenomena that are,

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that we associate with ISTs mediumship.

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Um, they see the study of

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mediumship as a study in engineering

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and physical inquiry.

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So for that, you need instruments that are adapted

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to the particular phenomena.

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You need, skills that are appropriate

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to the, to the use of those instruments.

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And you need spaces, that are controlled, that are

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suitable for the, pursuit of those inquiries.

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So if we take the case of Crooks

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and Cromwell Valley, they both represent

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quite high tech for their time.

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High tech instrumental approaches to, to spiritualism crooks

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is fascinated by the, the alleged powers

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of the Scottish American medium.

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Daniel Dun Glass Hume Hume is allegedly able

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to move objects with the power of,

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through some kind of power.

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He calls, crooks, calls it psychic force.

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This enables Hume to lift objects at a distance

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to lift himself,

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to play musical instruments without touching the

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keys and that kind of thing.

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So crooks invents a whole series of elaborate,

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devices to,

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to isolate and to measure this psychic force that appears

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to be flowing from Didi Hume's hands.

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And these instruments are, some of them are quite crude.

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They're things like, a simple spring balance

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that, that Hume pushes down,

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or Hume rests hands on the balance,

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and it appears to move in ways that he couldn't have caused

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by just pressing down.

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Um,

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and crook is convinced that the results he gets

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could not have been produced by any known force that,

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that we know to exist in nature.

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Cromwell Varley approaches the question of

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spiritualistic phenomena as one in telegraphic engineering.

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So his, focus is the medium Florence cook.

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She's one of the most celebrated

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and notorious mediums of her day,

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because she is allegedly capable of producing

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a, a kind of avatar of the spirit world,

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a materialized spirit form, fully a full-bodied walking,

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talking piano, playing ghostly figure that walks

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around, people's front rooms.

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And the problem that Ali faces is how

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to tell whether

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or not this ghostly form is actually the medium

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simply dressed up with a white, white costume put on.

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And he uses the tools of telegraphic engineering

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to devise a, effectively a remote sensing device so

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that the medium is part of an,

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of an electrical telegraphic circuit.

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And during the seance, she has to hold onto the circuit.

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And if she moves in a particular way, if she were

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to stand up and,

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and pretend to be the ghost, he would know

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that from the readings on his instruments.

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And the result of of Val's test is that he doesn't think

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she could have broken the circuit,

18:20.195 --> 18:22.685
and yet the ghost still appears,

18:22.745 --> 18:24.005
the spirit forms still appears.

18:24.025 --> 18:26.045
So he's pretty convinced

18:26.755 --> 18:30.085
that whatever this ghostly form is, it isn't,

18:30.185 --> 18:31.325
it isn't Florence Cook,

18:31.465 --> 18:33.485
she couldn't possibly have broken the circuit

18:34.145 --> 18:36.165
and masqueraded as the spirit form.

18:36.985 --> 18:41.135
Um, so this kind of more instrumental approach to

18:41.975 --> 18:46.375
questions of spiritist mediumship, is carried on,

18:46.875 --> 18:50.815
throughout the la later 19th century into the 20th

18:50.875 --> 18:53.975
by a series of other scientists and,

18:54.195 --> 18:55.775
and cyclical researchers.

18:56.715 --> 19:01.215
Um, but none of them is really as elaborate as, as

19:01.215 --> 19:02.775
what crooks and valley do.

19:03.015 --> 19:05.575
I mean, they are kind of variations on that.

19:06.315 --> 19:11.075
Um, but what you get from these tests as much

19:11.075 --> 19:14.315
as anything else is the sheer enthusiasm

19:14.495 --> 19:18.635
and ingenuity of scientists in this period that they think

19:19.225 --> 19:22.515
they, they are so confident in their skills

19:23.095 --> 19:25.675
and the power of their, of their instruments,

19:26.145 --> 19:29.315
that they can extend them from the laboratory into the

19:29.315 --> 19:34.275
sales, and hopefully come up with pretty conclusive evidence

19:34.615 --> 19:37.475
for or against, the genuineness of,

19:37.575 --> 19:38.955
of spiritualist mediumship.

19:40.055 --> 19:44.435
So crooks effectively abandons,

19:44.855 --> 19:48.475
his spiritualistic inquiries in the mid

19:48.775 --> 19:50.275
to late 1870s.

19:51.055 --> 19:55.235
And it's for a number of reasons, in his case, the,

19:55.335 --> 19:59.355
the sheer pressure of other commitments he has,

19:59.685 --> 20:04.675
scientific research, commercial, business

20:05.515 --> 20:08.715
interests that he has make it really difficult for him

20:09.375 --> 20:11.475
to carry on studying spiritualism.

20:11.865 --> 20:14.555
Another reason why he has to kind of withdraw is

20:14.555 --> 20:19.075
because the mediums that he's working on,

20:19.655 --> 20:22.915
are either really ill and unable to carry on,

20:23.535 --> 20:26.155
or they just aren't strong mediums anymore.

20:26.155 --> 20:29.555
They're not being replaced by new mediums on the block.

20:30.615 --> 20:33.235
So a couple of, there are a couple of reasons why his,

20:34.215 --> 20:36.835
his kind of physics approach to psychics.

20:37.415 --> 20:38.715
It kind of tapers off.

20:39.535 --> 20:41.915
Um, other scientists have the same problem.

20:42.655 --> 20:47.365
Um, Oliver Lodge in the 1890s tries to

20:48.825 --> 20:53.765
follow up crook's approach with the medium sapia paladino,

20:53.785 --> 20:55.365
but he really doesn't have time.

20:55.675 --> 20:58.685
He's too busy, with teaching

20:58.905 --> 21:01.005
and research at the University of Liverpool,

21:01.345 --> 21:04.365
and he delegates a lot of his, work

21:04.465 --> 21:06.365
to his assistant Benjamin Davis.

21:07.465 --> 21:11.245
Um, and Davis himself is frustrated

21:11.245 --> 21:16.125
because the medium that he uses to follow up,

21:16.465 --> 21:20.605
the study of telekinesis, he disappears, Lee,

21:20.805 --> 21:22.165
emigrates to Australia, I think.

21:22.985 --> 21:27.165
And it makes carrying on the experiments quite difficult.

21:27.345 --> 21:31.885
So one of the problems that all the people I've studied face

21:32.825 --> 21:37.325
is the availability of good, strong, reliable mediums.

21:37.425 --> 21:41.685
And they, they, they are not, they plentiful as blackbirds.

21:41.715 --> 21:43.365
They are very often very rare.

21:44.545 --> 21:47.365
And you, when you do find them, you have

21:47.365 --> 21:49.125
to drop everything and study them.

21:49.945 --> 21:54.005
Um, so there simply weren't the, the kind of,

21:54.005 --> 21:57.765
the good number of, of strong, powerful mediums available

21:58.065 --> 22:02.845
to make the kind of the crooks approach sustainable.

22:03.505 --> 22:07.125
Um, cyclical research o of the kind

22:07.125 --> 22:09.645
that crooks pursued is very sporadic

22:09.665 --> 22:13.045
and very, is very dependent on,

22:13.225 --> 22:14.725
on these rare resources.

22:14.745 --> 22:15.765
And they simply weren't there.

22:17.015 --> 22:21.635
And by the time, by the turn of the 20th century,

22:23.015 --> 22:27.215
the, the particular focus of, of

22:27.735 --> 22:32.015
investigation that crooks ley, lodge had pursued

22:32.655 --> 22:37.055
physical mediumship was basically in, in a bit of decline.

22:37.555 --> 22:41.255
And what was more important was mental mediumship.

22:41.355 --> 22:45.575
So mediums who are good at, at,

22:46.755 --> 22:50.295
at relaying information from the afterlife

22:50.325 --> 22:53.295
that can persuade people that their loved ones really have

22:53.915 --> 22:55.695
passed on into the other world.

22:56.475 --> 22:59.175
For many sign for many physicists that wasn't so interesting

22:59.485 --> 23:02.095
because it wasn't physical, it was very psychological.

23:02.315 --> 23:07.215
So they didn't see that that kind of medium ship was

23:07.275 --> 23:08.935
as relevant to their skills

23:09.195 --> 23:13.835
and instruments as say the, the, the, the medium ship of of,

23:14.055 --> 23:17.635
of, cook and Palladino and Hume, who were very physical.

23:18.455 --> 23:23.395
Um, I'm not saying that the the crooks approach was,

23:24.215 --> 23:25.515
you know, fizzled out entirely.

23:25.575 --> 23:29.155
Plenty of people much later in the 20th century carried on

23:29.155 --> 23:31.115
with this because new mediums became available.

23:31.745 --> 23:34.435
Many of your listeners will have heard of Uri Guler.

23:35.055 --> 23:39.435
Um, and Guler represents one of the most extraordinary,

23:40.095 --> 23:42.515
cases of physical mediumship.

23:43.015 --> 23:44.875
He was able to bend metal

23:45.225 --> 23:47.005
By some kind of paranormal power.

23:47.585 --> 23:49.405
And what do you notice? Lots

23:49.405 --> 23:52.165
of physicists get interested in gala's powers.

23:52.825 --> 23:56.045
So the, the connections between physics

23:56.065 --> 24:00.235
and psychics, become more interesting in,

24:00.375 --> 24:04.475
in times like that when we've got very strange

24:05.945 --> 24:07.905
physical effects that are paranormal.

24:08.725 --> 24:11.305
So maybe physicists should be investigating

24:11.305 --> 24:12.465
it, and many of them did.

24:12.845 --> 24:17.065
At the moment, what I'm working on is a kind of, it's the

24:17.135 --> 24:18.185
what happened next book.

24:18.205 --> 24:21.425
So it's what happens in the later 20th century.

24:22.205 --> 24:26.585
And what I'm interested in now is not so much the kind

24:26.585 --> 24:28.865
of a, a-list scientists

24:28.865 --> 24:30.705
that I worked on in the first book,

24:31.405 --> 24:35.705
but scientists who are not particularly well known,

24:36.205 --> 24:39.465
who were very much mid to late 20th century

24:40.245 --> 24:44.505
who were connected with, government,

24:44.895 --> 24:47.185
with industry, with the military,

24:47.965 --> 24:51.755
and who were using,

24:52.455 --> 24:55.315
the 20th century and, science

24:55.335 --> 24:57.635
and technology to pursue paranormal effects.

24:57.905 --> 24:59.355
There's one particular individual

24:59.385 --> 25:00.995
that interests me in particular,

25:01.095 --> 25:04.195
and his name is Alec Harley Reeves.

25:05.275 --> 25:08.755
Reeves is, turns out to be a pioneer

25:09.215 --> 25:10.915
of the digital revolution.

25:11.215 --> 25:15.635
He was a, an incredible inventor and and engineer.

25:16.105 --> 25:19.075
Much of his work laid the foundations for our modern

25:19.765 --> 25:23.355
techniques of encoding and digitalization.

25:24.295 --> 25:28.835
And yet, while this was going on in his professional,

25:28.845 --> 25:31.715
daily research life, at the same time,

25:31.975 --> 25:35.315
he had a private laboratory where he was investigating

25:35.905 --> 25:38.315
psychokinesis and dowsing,

25:39.095 --> 25:43.235
and he was holding seances with,

25:43.745 --> 25:46.755
spirits of people like Michael Faraday.

25:47.895 --> 25:51.595
Um, and he was taking all this extremely seriously.

25:52.055 --> 25:56.435
He was one of many scientists from this later 20th century

25:56.435 --> 26:01.035
period who were finding new directions

26:02.635 --> 26:06.495
for, for studying, for, for bringing together

26:07.235 --> 26:08.495
new types of science

26:08.555 --> 26:12.655
and engineering, whether it was,

26:12.685 --> 26:16.575
information theory, radar, that kind of thing,

26:17.135 --> 26:21.855
bringing this kind of new material to bear on on still

26:22.885 --> 26:25.075
quite difficult questions about the existence

26:25.175 --> 26:27.595
and nature of paranormal phenomena.

26:28.455 --> 26:31.435
Um, for me, there are lots of

26:32.305 --> 26:33.915
take home lessons from the book.

26:34.315 --> 26:37.745
I think one of the most solitary

26:38.755 --> 26:41.765
is probably our admiration

26:42.665 --> 26:45.085
of the courage, skill

26:46.485 --> 26:50.145
and imagination of scientists in the past.

26:50.745 --> 26:53.865
I think the more I think about people like large and crooks

26:53.865 --> 26:57.825
and Bali and Reeves, the more I admire their

26:58.505 --> 27:02.545
tenacity, their ability to, to stick with

27:03.175 --> 27:07.385
very puzzling, often very controversial, questions

27:07.575 --> 27:10.745
that could potentially damage their reputation.

27:12.285 --> 27:13.415
They stuck with things

27:13.755 --> 27:18.055
and they pursued them in such ingenious ways with a measure

27:18.195 --> 27:22.935
of technical ingenuity, with imaginative literary flare.

27:23.875 --> 27:26.775
And I think we often forget that about scientists,

27:26.775 --> 27:29.415
whether in the past or the present that they have.

27:30.365 --> 27:33.655
They're much less materialistic and mechanical

27:34.035 --> 27:37.815
and cold and unemotional than we might think.

27:39.015 --> 27:43.785
I mean, that image of them is very handy for some people.

27:44.645 --> 27:47.185
Uh, it's, it's very often handy

27:47.325 --> 27:51.225
for people coming from religious and spiritual perspectives,

27:51.245 --> 27:53.785
but many scientists have, are turn out

27:53.785 --> 27:55.545
to be extremely broad minded.

27:57.085 --> 28:01.025
And the more I dig around, the more that becomes,

28:01.735 --> 28:04.385
that becomes very, very compelling.

28:05.045 --> 28:09.895
So yeah. So I think the book has tried to to,

28:09.915 --> 28:12.375
to revise our understanding of scientific,

28:13.115 --> 28:14.655
the scientific world view.

28:14.765 --> 28:18.895
It's tried to make it more interesting, nuanced, broad mind,

28:18.895 --> 28:19.935
broad ranging.

28:20.675 --> 28:24.565
Um, the book has also,

28:24.795 --> 28:29.045
been an attempt to show why, how

28:29.795 --> 28:33.365
easy it is, how easy it was for

28:34.005 --> 28:37.685
sciences in the past to take, to take psychic

28:37.685 --> 28:39.805
and paranormal phenomena very seriously.

28:40.825 --> 28:44.005
Um, and that we shouldn't be dismissive of.

28:44.225 --> 28:48.625
Si the scientists today who, who are the same, plenty

28:48.645 --> 28:51.665
of very well known scientists today take psychic

28:51.905 --> 28:53.185
phenomena really seriously.

28:53.885 --> 28:56.465
And we are talking about scientists

28:56.565 --> 28:58.905
who are very eminent in their own fields.

29:00.625 --> 29:05.505
I, I think it's very, very problematic at best

29:06.955 --> 29:09.295
to dismiss their, the, what they've done.

29:10.035 --> 29:12.655
Um, I mean, they're far better scientists than I am

29:12.795 --> 29:14.015
and I, I ever was.

29:14.115 --> 29:18.895
And so I, I'm very, I'm very, very tolerant of

29:19.495 --> 29:23.895
scientists who take a whole range of phenomena seriously,

29:23.895 --> 29:25.655
including paranormal phenomena.

29:26.275 --> 29:29.775
Um, I, I have to admire their courage and their imagination

29:29.915 --> 29:33.535
and their tactical scientific skill in, in doing this.

29:34.395 --> 29:39.335
Um, so my book, funnily enough,

29:39.885 --> 29:43.245
physics and psychics has been more interesting to people,

29:44.655 --> 29:48.115
who take, who study the history

29:48.115 --> 29:49.675
of psychics and the history of physics.

29:50.375 --> 29:55.095
But actually I'd like my book to be, to tell,

29:55.355 --> 29:59.135
to be, to address more people interested in physics.

30:00.215 --> 30:02.255
'cause I want people that are interested in the history

30:02.255 --> 30:07.055
of physics, to, to learn more about how,

30:07.915 --> 30:12.665
how tolerant old, physicists of the past were.

30:12.735 --> 30:15.465
They weren't really narrow-minded.

30:16.365 --> 30:20.825
Um, you know, we often hear about some physicists

30:20.845 --> 30:24.545
who were very, very broad-minded like the,

30:24.565 --> 30:28.785
the early 20th century, architects of, of,

30:29.125 --> 30:33.745
of quantum theory like Neil's Bo and, Avena Heisenberg.

30:34.085 --> 30:38.465
And we, we uphold them as being a physicist

30:38.645 --> 30:40.465
who were very imaginative.

30:40.695 --> 30:44.025
They challenged very materialistic conceptions of nature.

30:45.285 --> 30:47.305
But there's a longer history to this.

30:47.415 --> 30:51.585
There's a longer history to scientists who have a much

30:52.275 --> 30:53.625
wider world view.

30:54.565 --> 30:58.565
And I think the more that we can appreciate that,

30:59.225 --> 31:01.045
the more that we can better understand

31:01.105 --> 31:04.725
how science can function in our culture today and tomorrow.

31:05.465 --> 31:10.125
Um, and you know, we face so many challenges in the world,

31:10.395 --> 31:15.285
climate change, inequalities of wealth, race, gender,

31:15.395 --> 31:17.325
ethnicity,

31:18.865 --> 31:20.925
and science needs to help with that.

31:21.785 --> 31:25.045
Um, but if we better understand how science can help

31:25.115 --> 31:28.445
with very puzzling questions,

31:28.835 --> 31:31.005
then I think we are more likely to move forward.

"Exploring the Intersection of Physics and Spiritualism: A Journey Through Scientific Curiosity"

00:00:00 - Well, it goes back to, my PhD, which started, eons ago in 1998 when, my supervisor, professor Simon Schaffer, suggested that I work on the great, center of physics, the Caven Laboratory. the place where DNA was discovered, the place where the electron was discovered and so on, and where Oppenheimer was a student on enough. and, I was advised to look at some of the strange phenomena that students and, and professionals at the carbon dish were looking at,
00:00:46 - through gases. And so I began to study this, but I realized that some of the people that were interested in this were also interested in spiritualism, and I couldn't get my head around this. and from then on, I was interested in why would, why would people practicing and studying physics be interested in phenomena that had seemingly nothing to do with physics, spirits of the dead telepathy, telekinesis, haunted houses,
00:01:26 - And, it was a rabbit hole. I disappeared into it, and I haven't come out of it. I'm still interested in that connection. it's kind of broadened out to include engineering and other sciences, but, I'm still in there. And it's, it's, it's fascinating still, after all this time for the, period that I've studied. I mean, for the, for the period from the early 19th century forward to the 1930s, the connections were very, were multiple.
00:02:13 - that life and mind was somehow physical in nature and should be studied as physical phenomena. so that opened up the door for the study by physicists who, as they became known from the 1850s onwards, the way I see it is that both the phenomena of the realm of psychics and the world of physics converged, in very interesting ways in this period. So the phenomena of psychics are,
00:02:52 - We're talking about, objects that move without having been, push by anything. we're talking about phenomena that are, to do with light to do, to do with electricity and magnetism. So these appear to be relevant to physics and the study of physical inquiry. On the other hand, then physics itself is becoming very, very complex and interesting. Physics deals with phenomena that are, that are on the borders of mechanical, are on the borders of the material.
00:03:34 - and magnetism, which are in some, is quite occult and immaterial and spiritual even. And it deals with something called the ether of space that very strange, and now largely discredited entity that's supposed to explain how energy reaches us from the sun across. So-called empty space. So one of the conclusions of the, of the book is that we have forgotten how exciting and strange lots of aspects of physics were in the past, and that it's precisely in those areas

"Exploring the Intersections of Science, Spiritualism, and Religion in the 19th Century"

00:04:17 - the extraordinary, phenomena of psychics. I think there are lots of, there are lots of reasons why those scientists then, and, and there are a couple of reasons that stand out. The first is that this is the period in the history of, the sciences that's witnessing a huge amount of boundary construction. So disciplines are, are being put together. They're being negotiated. They is the period when the word scientists has just been invented in 18, 31.
00:05:01 - really negotiated and put together, and they're, all these borders are also being expanded. And physics is one of those subjects that's coming together in the 19th century. And many of its architects are pushing those borders into all kinds of interesting places, into engineering, into chemistry, into the life sciences. And, the enthusiasm, and dare I call it the imperial vision of many of these psych, of these early physicists,
00:05:40 - So they see the world of psychics, spiritualism, mesmerism as another territory, as another area of inquiry that physics might be extended to, just like they've been extending physics to, the realms of physiology and, and to e electrical and to engineering. another reason why those scientists then is surely the relationship between the sciences and religion. Now, we tend to think that the conflict between science and religion has been going on for centuries.
00:06:20 - and religion are somehow inherently at war with each other. But this is a great simplification at best. The period in which physicists became interested in psychics was also one where science and religion were actually in a very interesting dialogue with each other. And there were plenty of scientists who were busy trying to figure out ways in which science and religion could work together more in a more, coherent way. For example, is it possible that the results
00:07:05 - our religious and spiritual beliefs, not, not attack them or undermine them? And of course, one of those beliefs is, to do with the spirit world, do what happens to us after we die, which is a, a pretty fundamental belief across religious, religious faiths. And many of the scientists I work on were actually very religious people. They were signed up members of different Christian denominations. they had great anxieties that the sciences appeared to be challenging Christianity.
00:07:47 - to use science against religion. But the people I've worked on were trying to do the opposite in some ways. They were trying to show, well, actually, physics and religion are not incompatible. physics might actually help us better understand the wisdom and purposes of, of the, of the divine. It might help us, produce stronger evidence for, some of the claims, some of the, some of the doctrines in Christianity that we find really hard to accept on faith alone. For example, the survival of the personality following bodily death.

Exploring the Intersection of Science, Spiritualism, and Personal Belief in the 19th Century

00:08:30 - and different religious faiths and, psychic phenomena appear to address that, that dialogue, they appear to be relevant to that dialogue. They appear to offer ways in which the sciences can, help and address religious questions in very important ways. so that's a pretty important reason in my view, why it was those scientists then and compared with now where most scientists are ostensibly in most of their publications and public, presentations agnostic
00:09:15 - were pretty explicit about their, about their religious beliefs and, and how their scientific work could, could inform their religious beliefs as well. The scientists I've worked on, who were born in the early 19th century we're talking about, they were born between roughly 1820 and 1860. a lot of them were British. a lot of them grew up among
00:09:57 - to believe or take seriously. So they grew up in a world in which spiritualism was new. Spiritualism started growing in the 1840s. It was a world that was seeing the kind of the end of mesmerism and the beginning of hypnotism. they may have grown up thinking that these things were, were probably, the result of fraud or self delusion, but they never quite dismissed the possibility that there was something in them worth studying from a
00:10:36 - And by the time they were young, young adults, by the time they'd gone through scientific training, they had developed this interest in the occult to the point where they were literally investigating it. In some cases, it was because a friend of theirs, a relative, had had a very, very strong experie, a very impressive experience of some kind of occult phenomena or practice. So if we take the case of William Crook's, British chemist,
00:11:19 - in 1867, he suffered, quite a, a serious trauma when his brother died, after having caught yellow fever, aboard a ca a telegraph cable laying ship. So crooks was very, raw emotionally. And some historians think that this made him, take a little bit more seriously reports of spiritualist media that he'd been reading about. Okay, Yes. But what's also important about this time is
00:11:58 - and trusted friend of his, a colleague called Robert Anga Smith, who's a chemist, very, important for understanding public health in Britain. Robert Anga Smith had gone to a spiritual seance and come back thinking, I don't believe what I just saw. I've done everything to exclude fraud. I don't think I've deluded myself, William, you've gotta go and see it for yourself. And crooks trusted Robert Angar Smith's scientific judgment, and on the basis of that went along to, for himself. And from then on,

"Exploring the Intersection of Science and Spiritualism: The Investigative Journey of Early Physicists"

00:12:41 - of, of spiritualistic phenomena. And this pattern is repeated. for other scientists that I've worked on, they will hear about from a relative or a trusted friend or professional colleague, a strange experience of a seance or mesmeric trance, mind reading. And they'll follow it up and come back thinking, I can't explain everything I saw with the laws of science I have to carry on investigating. now, in some cases, what's driving them
00:13:21 - and again to sea is, is sometimes a religious preoccupation. They are trying to figure out, a way to, to marry their religious and scientific worldviews. In other cases, it's a purely professional thing like William Crooks, who, he generally sees the study of spiritualistic phenomena as a way of extending the boundary of the sciences and to take, to take spiritualism away from all the cranky and deluded spiritualists. And it's so, it becomes a, a subject of what,
00:14:05 - And not, he doesn't, he doesn't want to leave it in the hands of unscientific people that he thinks the spiritualists are dominated by. So, that is a way to explain, you know, how do these scientists start? There are studies and what happens next? Some of the people that I've studied take a a very, technical approach to studying the phenomena that are, that we associate with ISTs mediumship. they see the study of
00:14:47 - and physical inquiry. So for that, you need instruments that are adapted to the particular phenomena. You need, skills that are appropriate to the, to the use of those instruments. And you need spaces, that are controlled, that are suitable for the, pursuit of those inquiries. So if we take the case of Crooks and Cromwell Valley, they both represent quite high tech for their time. High tech instrumental approaches to, to spiritualism crooks
00:15:27 - of the Scottish American medium. Daniel Dun Glass Hume Hume is allegedly able to move objects with the power of, through some kind of power. He calls, crooks, calls it psychic force. This enables Hume to lift objects at a distance to lift himself, to play musical instruments without touching the keys and that kind of thing. So crooks invents a whole series of elaborate, devices to, to isolate and to measure this psychic force that appears
00:16:09 - And these instruments are, some of them are quite crude. They're things like, a simple spring balance that, that Hume pushes down, or Hume rests hands on the balance, and it appears to move in ways that he couldn't have caused by just pressing down. and crook is convinced that the results he gets could not have been produced by any known force that, that we know to exist in nature. Cromwell Varley approaches the question of

"The Convergence of Science and Spiritualism: Investigating the Mediumship of Florence Cook"

00:16:51 - So his, focus is the medium Florence cook. She's one of the most celebrated and notorious mediums of her day, because she is allegedly capable of producing a, a kind of avatar of the spirit world, a materialized spirit form, fully a full-bodied walking, talking piano, playing ghostly figure that walks around, people's front rooms. And the problem that Ali faces is how
00:17:31 - or not this ghostly form is actually the medium simply dressed up with a white, white costume put on. And he uses the tools of telegraphic engineering to devise a, effectively a remote sensing device so that the medium is part of an, of an electrical telegraphic circuit. And during the seance, she has to hold onto the circuit. And if she moves in a particular way, if she were to stand up and, and pretend to be the ghost, he would know
00:18:13 - And the result of of Val's test is that he doesn't think she could have broken the circuit, and yet the ghost still appears, the spirit forms still appears. So he's pretty convinced that whatever this ghostly form is, it isn't, it isn't Florence Cook, she couldn't possibly have broken the circuit and masqueraded as the spirit form. so this kind of more instrumental approach to questions of spiritist mediumship, is carried on, throughout the la later 19th century into the 20th
00:18:54 - and cyclical researchers. but none of them is really as elaborate as, as what crooks and valley do. I mean, they are kind of variations on that. but what you get from these tests as much as anything else is the sheer enthusiasm and ingenuity of scientists in this period that they think they, they are so confident in their skills and the power of their, of their instruments, that they can extend them from the laboratory into the sales, and hopefully come up with pretty conclusive evidence
00:19:37 - of spiritualist mediumship. So crooks effectively abandons, his spiritualistic inquiries in the mid to late 1870s. And it's for a number of reasons, in his case, the, the sheer pressure of other commitments he has, scientific research, commercial, business interests that he has make it really difficult for him to carry on studying spiritualism. Another reason why he has to kind of withdraw is because the mediums that he's working on,
00:20:23 - or they just aren't strong mediums anymore. They're not being replaced by new mediums on the block. So a couple of, there are a couple of reasons why his, his kind of physics approach to psychics. It kind of tapers off. other scientists have the same problem. Oliver Lodge in the 1890s tries to follow up crook's approach with the medium sapia paladino, but he really doesn't have time. He's too busy, with teaching and research at the University of Liverpool,

"The Challenges of Researching Mediumship: Availability and Transition from Physical to Mental Phenomena"

00:21:04 - to his assistant Benjamin Davis. and Davis himself is frustrated because the medium that he uses to follow up, the study of telekinesis, he disappears, Lee, emigrates to Australia, I think. And it makes carrying on the experiments quite difficult. So one of the problems that all the people I've studied face is the availability of good, strong, reliable mediums. And they, they, they are not, they plentiful as blackbirds.
00:21:44 - And you, when you do find them, you have to drop everything and study them. so there simply weren't the, the kind of, the good number of, of strong, powerful mediums available to make the kind of the crooks approach sustainable. cyclical research o of the kind that crooks pursued is very sporadic and very, is very dependent on, on these rare resources. And they simply weren't there. And by the time, by the turn of the 20th century,
00:22:27 - investigation that crooks ley, lodge had pursued physical mediumship was basically in, in a bit of decline. And what was more important was mental mediumship. So mediums who are good at, at, at relaying information from the afterlife that can persuade people that their loved ones really have passed on into the other world. For many sign for many physicists that wasn't so interesting because it wasn't physical, it was very psychological. So they didn't see that that kind of medium ship was
00:23:09 - and instruments as say the, the, the, the medium ship of of, of, cook and Palladino and Hume, who were very physical. I'm not saying that the the crooks approach was, you know, fizzled out entirely. Plenty of people much later in the 20th century carried on with this because new mediums became available. Many of your listeners will have heard of Uri Guler. and Guler represents one of the most extraordinary, cases of physical mediumship. He was able to bend metal By some kind of paranormal power.
00:23:49 - of physicists get interested in gala's powers. So the, the connections between physics and psychics, become more interesting in, in times like that when we've got very strange physical effects that are paranormal. So maybe physicists should be investigating it, and many of them did. At the moment, what I'm working on is a kind of, it's the what happened next book. So it's what happens in the later 20th century. And what I'm interested in now is not so much the kind of a, a-list scientists
00:24:31 - but scientists who are not particularly well known, who were very much mid to late 20th century who were connected with, government, with industry, with the military, and who were using, the 20th century and, science and technology to pursue paranormal effects. There's one particular individual that interests me in particular, and his name is Alec Harley Reeves. Reeves is, turns out to be a pioneer

"Exploring the Intersection of Science and the Supernatural: The Legacy of Pioneering Minds"

00:25:11 - He was a, an incredible inventor and and engineer. Much of his work laid the foundations for our modern techniques of encoding and digitalization. And yet, while this was going on in his professional, daily research life, at the same time, he had a private laboratory where he was investigating psychokinesis and dowsing, and he was holding seances with, spirits of people like Michael Faraday. and he was taking all this extremely seriously.
00:25:56 - period who were finding new directions for, for studying, for, for bringing together new types of science and engineering, whether it was, information theory, radar, that kind of thing, bringing this kind of new material to bear on on still quite difficult questions about the existence and nature of paranormal phenomena. for me, there are lots of
00:26:34 - I think one of the most solitary is probably our admiration of the courage, skill and imagination of scientists in the past. I think the more I think about people like large and crooks and Bali and Reeves, the more I admire their tenacity, their ability to, to stick with very puzzling, often very controversial, questions that could potentially damage their reputation. They stuck with things
00:27:18 - of technical ingenuity, with imaginative literary flare. And I think we often forget that about scientists, whether in the past or the present that they have. They're much less materialistic and mechanical and cold and unemotional than we might think. I mean, that image of them is very handy for some people. it's, it's very often handy for people coming from religious and spiritual perspectives, but many scientists have, are turn out
00:27:57 - And the more I dig around, the more that becomes, that becomes very, very compelling. So yeah. So I think the book has tried to to, to revise our understanding of scientific, the scientific world view. It's tried to make it more interesting, nuanced, broad mind, broad ranging. the book has also, been an attempt to show why, how easy it is, how easy it was for
00:28:37 - and paranormal phenomena very seriously. and that we shouldn't be dismissive of. Si the scientists today who, who are the same, plenty of very well known scientists today take psychic phenomena really seriously. And we are talking about scientists who are very eminent in their own fields. I, I think it's very, very problematic at best to dismiss their, the, what they've done. I mean, they're far better scientists than I am and I, I ever was.

"Exploring the Intersection of Physics and Spirituality: A Call for Open-Mindedness in Science"

00:29:19 - scientists who take a whole range of phenomena seriously, including paranormal phenomena. I, I have to admire their courage and their imagination and their tactical scientific skill in, in doing this. so my book, funnily enough, physics and psychics has been more interesting to people, who take, who study the history of psychics and the history of physics. But actually I'd like my book to be, to tell,
00:30:00 - 'cause I want people that are interested in the history of physics, to, to learn more about how, how tolerant old, physicists of the past were. They weren't really narrow-minded. you know, we often hear about some physicists who were very, very broad-minded like the, the early 20th century, architects of, of, of quantum theory like Neil's Bo and, Avena Heisenberg. And we, we uphold them as being a physicist
00:30:40 - They challenged very materialistic conceptions of nature. But there's a longer history to this. There's a longer history to scientists who have a much wider world view. And I think the more that we can appreciate that, the more that we can better understand how science can function in our culture today and tomorrow. and you know, we face so many challenges in the world, climate change, inequalities of wealth, race, gender, ethnicity,
00:31:28 - but if we better understand how science can help with very puzzling questions, then I think we are more likely to move forward.

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