Occult and Supernatural Phenomena - D. H. Rawcliffe

Uudenveroinen pehmeäkantinen kirja, onistajan nimmari ja hintalappu. Melko harvinainen. Tämä on uudempi Dover-painos, 551 sivua.

The Psychology of the Occult is a 1952 skeptical book on the paranormal by psychologist D. H. Rawcliffe. It was later published as Illusions and Delusions of the Supernatural and the Occult (1959) and Occult and Supernatural Phenomena (1988) by Dover Publications. Biologist Julian Huxley wrote a foreword to the book.[1]

Occult psychology or Psychology of Occult

Cover of Illusions and Delusions of the Supernatural and the Occult, 1959.

AuthorDonovan Hilton RawcliffeSubjectOccult, psychologyPublisherLondon: Ridgway / New York: Dover Publications

Publication date

1952, 1959, 1988Media typepsychology

Content

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The book takes influence from the works of Frank Podmore, Joseph Jastrow and Ivor Lloyd Tuckettdealing with the "fallacies underlying psychical research". Rawcliffe critically examines claims of the occult, parapsychology and spiritualismconcluding that they are best explained by psychological factors such as hallucination, hysteria, neurosis and suggestion as well as "delusion, fraud, prestidigitation, and limitless credulity."[2] Rawcliffe found possible naturalistic explanations for all parapsychological experiments he investigated, noting that there is no scientific evidence for any paranormal power. He suggested that many of the results from ESPexperiments can be explained by what he termed endophasic enneurosis (unconscious whispering).[3]

The book offers rational explanations for diverse phenomena such as automatic writing, dowsing, fire-walking, lycanthropy and stigmata.