The author considers the way in which psychic life is generated by the social operation of power, and how that social operation of power is concealed and fortified by the psyche that it produces. Power is no longer understood to be 'internalized' by an existing subject, but the subject is spawned as an ambivalent effect of power, one that is staged through the operation of conscience. To claim that power fabricates the psyche is also to claim that there is (...) a fictional and fabricated quality to the psyche. The figure of a psyche that 'turns against itself' is crucial to this study, and offers an alternative to describing power as 'internalized'. Although most readers of Foucault eschew psychoanalytic theory, and most thinkers of the psyche eschew Foucault, the author seeks to theorize this ambivalent relation between the social and the psychic as one of the most dynamic and difficult effects of power. (shrink)

This article adds to contemporary analyses of neoliberalism by shedding light on its psychic life. Writers in the Foucauldian tradition have explored how subjectivities are reconstituted under neoliberalism, showing that the neoliberal self is an entrepreneurial subject. Yet, there has been little empirical research that explores entrepreneurial subjectivity and, more specifically, its psychic life. By drawing on over 60 in-depth interviews with individuals who may be entrepreneurial subjects par excellence, this article adds to our understanding of how neoliberalism (...) is lived out. The article is divided into 10 sections, with each section exploring a distinct contour of entrepreneurial subjectivity. They show, for example, that competition is not only other-directed under neoliberalism, but also directed at the self, and that exclusionary processes lie at the heart of the constitution of entrepreneurial subjectivities. By providing a theoretically informed analysis of a wealth of empirical data, the article makes an original contribution to our understanding of the psychic life of neoliberalism. (shrink)

It is a happy circumstance that this important aspect of method should be brought to our attention by a distinguished scientist in the field of biology. In the past any reference to the “psychical” by the scientific methodologist has been regarded as a dubious departure from his strict routine. But the recognition, finally, by a man of science, of the aleatory, autonomous character of a spontaneous universe, disclosed in biological directives as well as in the dynamics of the atom, is (...) a stimulating enhancement of that philosophy which, as Dewey says, is “the critical theory of methods of criticism.”. (shrink)

Develop your psychic abilities and raise your frequency with nearly one hundred easy-to-use yoga poses that activate your chakras.

Excerpt from Higher Psychical Development (Yoga Philosophy): An Outline of the Secret Hindu Teachings I wish to acknowledge, here, my very great indebted ness to Mr. Frederick T. Harris, for his invaluable as sistence in the preparation of this work. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original (...) format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

One of the reasons the history of parapsychology and its ancestor psychical research is intriguing is because it addresses a central issue: the boundaries of science. This article provides an overview of the historiography of parapsychology and presents an approach to investigate the Dutch history of parapsychology contributing to the understanding of this central theme. In the first section the historical accounts provided by psychical researchers and parapsychologists themselves are discussed; next those studies of sociologists and historians understanding parapsychology as (...) deviant and even potentially revolutionary are dealt with; third, more contemporary studies are examined whereby enterprises such as parapsychology are understood as central to the culture in which they arose. On the basis of this analysis a new direction in the historiography of the subject is suggested in the fourth section, centred upon the relation between parapsychology and psychology in the Netherlands throughout the 20th century. In the Netherlands not only were pioneering psychologists such as Gerard Heymans (1857–1930) actively involved in experiments into telepathy, the first professor in parapsychology in the world – Wilhelm Tenhaeff (1894–1981) – was appointed in 1953 at Utrecht University and in the 1970s and 1980s parapsychology had its own research laboratory at Utrecht University in the division of psychology. This unique situation in the Netherlands deserves scholarly attention and makes an interesting case to investigate the much-neglected connections between the fields of psychology and parapsychology in the 20th century. The connections between psychology and parapsychology might help us to understand why parapsychology came to be regarded as a pseudoscience. (shrink)

Largely unacknowledged by historians of the human sciences, late-19th-century psychical researchers were actively involved in the making of fledgling academic psychology. Moreover, with few exceptions historians have failed to discuss the wider implications of the fact that the founder of academic psychology in America, William James, considered himself a psychical researcher and sought to integrate the scientific study of mediumship, telepathy and other controversial topics into the nascent discipline. Analysing the celebrated exposure of the medium Eusapia Palladino by German-born Harvard (...) psychologist Hugo Münsterberg as a representative example, this article discusses strategies employed by psychologists in the United States to expel psychical research from the agenda of scientific psychology. It is argued that the traditional historiography of psychical research, dominated by accounts deeply averse to its very subject matter, has been part of an ongoing form of ‘boundary-work’ to bolster the scientific status of psychology. (shrink)

The issue of identity cards is hotly debated in many countries, but it often seems to be an oddly backward-looking debate that presumes outdated “Orwellian” architectures. In the modern world, surely we should be debating the requirements for national identity management schemes, in which identity cards may or may not be a useful implementation, before we move on to architecture. If so, then, what should a U.K. national identity management scheme for the 21st century look like? Can we assemble a (...) set of requirements understandable to politicians, professionals and the public? We’ve certainly had some difficulty to date. One reason might be that we lack a compelling, narrative vision. As a result, we’re constructing a legacy system that will subvert the rational goals of worthwhile scheme. We’re not aiming high enough. The technology, I will argue, can deliver far more than the politicians, professionals and public imagine: In particular, it can deliver the apparently paradoxical result of more security and more privacy by exploiting smart cards, biometrics and cryptography. In this paper, I will set out a high-level vision of what a forward-looking national identity management and identity “card” scheme should look like: Dr. Who’s psychic paper. Not only is this a simple, clear vision that is familiar to the expert and layperson alike, but it’s a very useful artistic representation of the capabilities of the technology. I will further suggest that a utility implementation of identity infrastructure can deliver the on this vision in a practical way, and that all of the technology needed to create an ID scheme for the future already exists. (shrink)

Abstract: In this article I intend to highlight how the relationship between the psychic ego (seelischen Ich) and the spiritual ego (geistige Ich) is fundamental to the understanding of intersubjectivity and the lifeworld (Lebenswelt). In Ideas II, Husserl explains how, from the ego, natural, psychic and spiritual objectivities are constituted. These three strata of objectivity are known, first, in the theoretical attitude and, second, in the spiritual attitude. In this process, the ego becomes explicit. In the theoretical attitude, (...) the constitution of nature takes place, for which the body (Körper/Leib) is fundamental. This is followed by the constitution of objects of psychic nature, human or animal (tierisch), including self-perception. In assuming the spiritual attitude, the other is perceived (Urpräsenz) initially as a body together with things, and alongside this perception there is an apprehension (Appräsenz) of co-given horizons. There is an identity between the body of others and mine; it is the moment of empathy (Einfühlung). The scientific world constituted in the theoretical attitude is a reduction of the surrounding world (Umwelt) – the lifeworld (Lebenswelt). This lifeworld is the world of spiritual attitude and precedes any comprehension or explanation of the world. It is therefore through the spiritual attitude that a community of spiritual subjects is constituted and constitutes the lifeworld. Keywords: Husserl, Psyche, Spirit, Intersubjectivity, Lifeworld. (shrink)

The Psychic Home: Psychoanalysis of Consciousness and the Human Soul develops, from a number of different viewpoints, the significance of home in our lives. Roger Kennedy puts forward the central role of what he has termed a 'psychic home' as a vital psychic structure, which gathers together a number of different human functions. Kennedy questions what we mean by the powerfully evocative notion of the human soul, which has important links to the notion of home and he (...) suggests that what makes us human is that we allow a home for the soul. As an illustration of this concept he explores how it can help to understand a vital element of William Wordsworth's development as a poet. The word soul is both abstract and yet also powerfully emotive. Kennedy shows that it can be approached from a number of different angles, from psychoanalysis, philosophy, religion, sociology, literature and neuroscience. The Psychic Home, discusses the mysteries and complexities of the soul, and aims to evoke some restoration of its place in our thinking. It illustrates how the word soul and similar key words, such as spirit and inwardness, express so much that is essential for humans, even if we cannot be too precise about their meanings. Insightful, enlightening and broad reaching, The Psychic Home brings the concept of the soul centre stage as an entity that is elemental, an essence, irreducible, and what makes us human as subjects of experience. It will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, neuroscientists, philosophers and those interested in spirituality and religion. (shrink)

Synonyms Cognitive universals; Human nature; Human universals Definition The “psychic unity” idea denotes the existence of a set of psychological and cognitive capacities universally shared by human beings and grounded in biological equality.

How do we know our mental life, and how is our mental life altered by our efforts to know it better? Originally published in 1984, this title attempts an epistemological and ontological discourse concerning the understanding of human mental processes, and it aims toward a definitive thesis on the dialectics of knowing and being in this work of psychological understanding. What this work reconfronts are questions pertaining to all psychology and to all human sciences. Yet much of its focus is (...) on the understanding of unconscious mental contents, on the question of knowing and being in Freud¿s psychology. (shrink)

This book argues that the irreducible singularity of each person as a psychical subject implies the privacy of the psychical and that of experience, and yet the private accessibility of each person to his or her mind is compatible with interpersonal communication and understanding. The book treats these major issues against the background of the author's original metaphysics--panenmentalism."--Publisher's website.

There is increasing recognition within psychoanalysis and related therapies that awareness of the body is important in understanding and treating patients. Psychic Threats and Somatic Shelters explores the ways in which adults and children become acquainted with the range of physical issues that arise within their psychoanalytic or psychological treatments. Nitza Yarom discusses in a practical and clinically focused way the large variety of physical outlets which today's person uses to shelter from the many troubles and restrictions that are (...) placed on everyday life. Her book is divided into two main sections: Somatic shelters, which explores the variety of physical symptoms encountered by patients, including problems with weight and eating; with sensation through sight, sound, smell and taste; in movement through hyper activity or rigidity and through the communication of physical pain. Embodied dialogue, in which the author updates the use of the basic technical principles of psychoanalysis to involve the body in the treatment including transference and counter-transference between analyst and patient. In Psychic Threats and Somatic Shelters the emotional communication of these body narratives are vividly demonstrated in the treatments presented, here the interaction in the consulting room is revealed in bodily resonance and its therapeutic effects. This book is written for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, psychologists, body therapists, family therapists, social workers and art/movement therapists. (shrink)

This article explains the various techniques that psychics can use to convince both their clients and themselves that they really do have occult powers. Tony Youens, the author, regularly demonstrates these techniques, and usually succeeds in convincing his audience of his amazing psychic abilities before he reveals all. On one recent TV show, a person who uses psychics was asked, after a long session with both Tony and a ‘real’ psychic, which of the two had genuinely psychic (...) powers. They chose Tony. (shrink)

Using Shanghai Tennis Masters as an example, this study seeks to explore the psychic income associated with major sports events hosting and whether the psychic income would predict the attitudes of local residents toward events hosting. In addition, the moderating effect of sport involvement on the relationship between psychic income and attitude is also tested. In this study, a questionnaire survey is adopted. The structured questionnaire was developed based on 4 parts, including the demographics of the residents, (...) involvement in the sport event, psychic income from the sport event, and their attitudes toward the sports event, there were 47 items in total. Data were collected from the local residents of Shanghai, as a result, 1,302 valid questionnaires were collected. A series of statistical analyses were conducted by using SPSS25.0 and AMOS 24.0 to examine the reliability and validity of the scales and to test the hypotheses. The results showed that the event has brought a significant level of psychic income to the local community, and the perceived psychic income would predict the attitudes of the residents toward the event hosting. The moderating effect of sports involvement on the relationship between psychic income and attitude is also confirmed. (shrink)

In my recent paper on Living Systems and Non-living Systems I considered briefly the question of the special rôle assignable to the psychic, as natural factor associated with yet different from the physical, in the activities of living organisms. The general conclusion was reached that this rôle is primarily integrative, in correspondence with the integrative character which is the essential distinguishing feature of the psychic in our experience. As integrative, the psychic factor has a special relation to (...) the synthetic activity so highly developed in living organism, since synthesis is by its nature integration or whole-formation. Originative or novelty-producing activity is the special prerogative of the psychic, rather than simple repetition or routine; the latter, as exemplifying the stable or conservative side of nature, belongs in the field of the physical. According to this conception, the psychic is the source of initiative when action takes on a novel or creative form, as in conscious voluntary activity or in natural creative action in general. For example, in animals vegetative or routine processes may be purely physiological and unconscious, while actions requiring special initiative or innovation demand conscious effort and attention. (shrink)

This paper discusses the relationship between Axel Honneth’s intersubjective theory of recognition and his political theory of democratic ethical life by addressing the potentials and difficulties attached to the notion of social pathology. Taking into account the diverse uses of this concept throughout Honneth’s oeuvre, it focuses initially on two of its formulations: first, the more recent discussions presented in “The Diseases of Society”, some of which can be read in continuity with arguments presented in Freedom’s Right; second, an implicit (...) conception of social pathology that can be found in Struggle for Recognition. These formulations involve contrastingly different premises with regard to phenomenological, methodological, social-ontological and etiological matters. I argue that such differences can be better grasped if one bears in mind two distinctive ways of understanding the fundamental intuition at the basis of the notion of social pathology: either as an analogy or as a homology. By disclosing the actual or potential discrepancies between both conceptions, the aim is to outline the grounds on which they could be brought together within the framework of a comprehensive concept. With this purpose, I then critically examine a third conception of social pathology which was first presented in Suffering from Indeterminacy and later developed, with some restrictions, in Freedom’s Right. Finally, a definition of social pathology is suggested which can bring together the different contributions of each conception while avoiding their pitfalls. (shrink)

Last year I published an autobiographical text in the form of interviews with a young psychologist entitled Je me voyage. The title’s neologism gives a nod to my foreign status in the French language which has largely determined my psychosexual positioning in research and in writing; the psychic experience has been central to my life’s trajectory In my familial context, culture constituted a world that made life liveable —and I experienced life, due to the importance accorded to language, as (...) survival, as an intimate resistance and an inherent creativity in social time. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s later philosophy addresses the subject of connection between the psychic life of the individual and social context, represented by language games which are played within a form of life. Sensations and passions are part of the psychic life of the individual; far from being hidden psychological objects of a private Cartesian, they are inseparable from their social redefinition. In fact, they become visible in the context of the game. Wittgenstein argues that there is a transformation of subjective (...) psychic life by learning language games. The psychic life of the individual is then re-organized by learning a socially defined, characteristic behaviour pattern. However, the learning process of the games is complex and non-deterministic, in that it oscillates between degrees of acceptance and degrees of negation of language game rules. Through this oscillation between acceptance and denial of the game rules, it is possible to develop processes which lead to unpredictable changes in the game and in forms of life. (shrink)

First, a close reading of Judith Butler’s The Psychic Life of Power underscores the ways in which Butler’s account of power liquidates issues of political economy and problematically ontologizes Freudianism as a kind of first philosophy of the subject. Second, drawing largely from secondary sources, the religious studies reader is introduced to the life and work of Ernest Dicther, the father of motivational research, an influential American mid-twentieth century psychoanalytic school of marketing that Freudianized marketing discourse and transformed it (...) into the present day. Third, drawing from primary sources in Dichter’s published archive, a comparative reading of Butler and Dichter reveals strong points of confluence around the psychology and performativity of ritual, concomitantly highlighting scholars’ hidden participation in the American religious history Kathryn Lofton figures according to the terms of ‘consuming religion’. (shrink)

If I miss not the tenor of points and counterpoints, a recent discussion in this journal has been a novelly natural transaction in behalf of a great question at which many philosophers have labored—What is the place of Mind? R. S. Lillie, an eminent physiologist has been working toward a philosophical justification of certain biological key-facts, and H. Heath Bawden, a pioneer naturalist in philosophy and psychology, has been urging a physiological counter-statement. Both are logical men of science and aim (...) to rest on facts. Why do they define and value the “psychical” differently? (shrink)

This article reflects on the value of training of health care professionals that find themselves in variously changing and complex settings, and who find themselves interacting with themes, problems and practices related to mental health. Starting from some reflections that emerged with operators involved in a professional training course within a specific research-intervention project, the contribution questions how a renewed “pedagogy of care” can help these professionals to better understand the nature and the constitutive factors of the process of signification (...) and re-signification of the experience of psychiatric illness, especially when one comes into contact with subjects involved in forced migratory experiences. (shrink)

I will begin this paper by stating in rough outline what I consider to be the relevance of psychical research to philosophy, and I shall devote the rest of it to developing this preliminary statement in detail.

Some recent interpretations of his philosophy of mind argue that Hegel endorses one or both of a pair of Aristotelian ideas about human reason: first, that our responsiveness to reasons is a capacity we acquire through the development of our second nature; second, that our rationality is not merely one more capacity alongside those capacities we appear to share with nonrational animals but rather transforms the latter qualitatively. In this paper I argue, through an interpretation of Hegel’s discussion of gestation (...) and childbirth, that he endorses these ideas only in a negatively united form in which both the naturalism of the first and the rationalism of the second are sublated. The result is a uniquely Hegelian understanding of our rational animality. (shrink)

The author of this paper aimed to understand the early Buddhism community in its entirety by examining the individual episodes in the "Mahavagga". There is a remarkable experience of the psychic power between the Buddha and the Brahmins. They are both aware of coming across of psychic forces that entered the way to the Buddhist Community. Using the brahmins mythology as a instrument for missionary work, the early Buddhism brings people close to Buddha's community. The Buddha visited Uruvela-Kassapa (...) and took lodging for the night where the sacred fire was kept, in spite of Kassapa's warning that the spot was inhabited by a fierce Naga. The Buddha, by his magical powers, overcame, first this N ganad then another, both of whom vomited fire and smoke. Kassapabeing pleased with this exhibition of iddhi-power, undertook to provide the Buddha with his daily food. The Buddha spent the whole rainy season there, performing, in all, three thousand five hundred miracles of various kinds, reading the thoughts of kassapa, splitting firewood for the ascetic sacrifices, heating stoves for them to use after bathing in the cold weather, etc. Still Kassapa persisted in the thought, "The great ascetic is of great magic power, but he is not anarahant like me." Finally the Buddha decided to startle him by declaring that he was not an arahant, neither did the way he followed lead to arahantship. Thereon kassapa owned defeat and reverently asked for ordination. The Buddha asked him to consult with his pupils, and they cut off their hair and threw it with their sacrificial utensils into the river and were all ordained. Nadi Kassapa and Gaya Kassapa were ordained with their pupils. At Gay sisa the Buddha preached to them the Fire Sermon, and they all attained arahantship for the early Buddhist Community. The episode of Uruvela Kassaps in the Mahavagga text ultimately idealizes the power of psychic and the start of the community. It is probable, even at the time when the episode were written, that as a matter of fact every one, in ordinary daily life, spoke imply the vernaculars in a much more simple and natural state of society. It is the Mahavagga authors, when addressing a cultured public at a date when the vernaculars had become the paramount literary language. Another point is that though brahmins take part in the religious and philosophical conversations of those early tims, and in the accounts of them are always referred to with respect, and threaten with the same courtesythat they always themselves extended also to others, yet they hold no predominant position. The majority of the ascetic, and the most influential individuals among them, are not brahmins. That is only a matter of course will be the obvious subjection. The Mahavagga texts I quotes, if not the work of bitter opponents, were at least composed under India bramins influence, and are prejudiced against the brahmins. (shrink)