William James (1842-1910)
Who Was William James?
Harvard psychologist and philosopher
• Developed the philosophical viewpoint
called Pragmatism
• Experimented with nitrous oxide to induce
mystical experiences
• Attended seances with Boston medium
Leonora Piper
Biographical Outline
• Older brother of novelist
Henry James
• Entered Laurence
Scientific School, Harvard
(1861), and Studied
medicine at Harvard
(1864-69) and in Berlin,
Germany (1867-68).
• Received his MD from
Harvard in 1869.
Taught medicine,
psychology, and
philosophy at
Harvard
University
(1872-1907)
List of Courses Taught By James
Comparative Anatomy & Physiology
The Relations Between Physiology and Psychology
Psychology
Comparative Philosophy
English Philosophy: Locke, Berkeley, Hume
Psychology and Logic
Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz
General Introduction to Philosophy
Cosmology
Psychological Seminar: Questions in Mental Pathology
Psychological Seminar: The Feelings
Metaphysical Seminar: A Pluralistic Description of the World
Metaphysics
• 1875: established the first American
laboratory of experimental psychology
• 1879: Began teaching philosophy; Professor of
Philosophy (1885)
James’s Home, 1889, Cambridge, MA
• Periods of ill-health: 1869-72; 1873-74
• 1890: Published Principles of Psychology
• 1892-93: Received the Ph.D and M.Litt from the
University of Padua (in Italy).
• 1896: Published “Will to Believe” essay
• 1897: Published Will to Believe and Other Essays
• 1902: Published Varieties of Religious Experience
• Taught General Problems in Philosophy course at
Stanford University (1906-1907).
• 1907: Published Pragmatism
• 1901-1902: Gifford
Lectures at the
University of
Edinburgh
• 1906-1907: lectures
on pragmatism at the
Lowell Institute and
Columbia.
• 1908-1909: Hilbert
Lectures at
University of Oxford
James passed away
of an enlarged heart
on August 26, 1910
James’s Interlocutors
John Dewey, Sigmund Freud, Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Charles Sanders Peirce,
Mark Twain, Carl Jung, Helen Keller,
H.G. Wells, and Oliver Wendell Holmes.
William James: The Pragmatist
• Pragmatism: Truth is the name of
whatever proves itself to be good in the
way of belief, and good for definite
assignable reasons.
• The truth of a belief is measured by its
usefulness.
• Absolute certainty is not necessary for
beliefs to be rationally justified.
• Rational proof of any sort is not
necessary for beliefs to be reasonable.
William James:
The Nitrous Oxide Philosopher
British Psychologist Edmund Gurney
(1847-1888)
Gurney claimed that he had
a sudden, mystical insight
into the nature of
immortality.
Gurney told William James about his experience, but
he added one serious complaint. . . .
The moment of insight melted away gradually as the
nitrous oxide he had received at the dentist’s office
wore off.
Effects of Nitrous Oxide (N20)
Disorientation (both spatial and temporal)
Pulsating auditory hallucinations
Pulsating visual hallucinations
Increased pain threshold
Feelings of euphoria
Out of body experiences
• William James experimented with
nitrous oxide in the early 1880s.
• James wanted to have first-hand
experience of mystical states of
consciousness.
• James composed and published a brief
essay documenting his experiences: “On
the Subjective Effects of Nitrous Oxide”
(1882)
“There are no differences
but differences of degree
between different degrees of
difference and no
difference.”
William James:
The Harvard Ghost Hunter
Society for Psychical Research
Founded 1882 in London, England
Sidgwick Group:
Henry Sidgwick, Frederic Myers, Edmund Gurney,
Lord Raleigh, and Arthur Balfour
Objectives of the Society:
Conduct a scientific investigation of anomalous or
paranormal phenomena, e.g., telepathy and
clairvoyance, apparitions, mediums, and levitations
and other phenomena associated with seances.
James’s Interest in Psychical Research
• 1885: co-founder of the American branch
of the Society for Psychical Research
(SPR).
• 1885-1910: Pursued the study of
paranormal phenomena. Published over
500 pages on the topic.
• 1894-95: Served as the SPR’s President
James took a particular interest in mediums, people
with the alleged ability to communicate with the
dead.
Together with Rev. Minot Savage, James visited
prominent mediums in Boston.
Conclusion: the mediums were frauds.
Leonora Piper (1857-1950)
The first medium to provide members of the British
and American societies for psychical research with
convincing evidence of her abilities.
Trance Mediumship
The medium enters a trance-like state
during which a discarnate spirit speaks
using the vocal cords of the medium or
uses her hands to write messages.
Mrs. Piper’s Trance Mediumship
Like many other mediums, Mrs. Piper
manifested two different types of
personalities in her trance states.
Communicator: The alleged discarnate spirit of a formerly living
person who sends messages to the living through the medium.
Control: A personality manifested during trance states that assists
with contacting the spirit world.
Methods of Communication
Mrs. Piper’s controls and communicators spoke
through the medium by taking control of the
medium’s vocal organs and/or producing written
messages by controlling the medium’s arms and
hands (co-called automatic writing).
In some cases voice and automatic writing were both
used, sometimes simultaneously, by one or more
personalities.
• James had 12 impressive initial sittings
with Mrs. Piper in 1885 in which she
revealed intimate details about James’s
family and his own life.
• He sent 25 different persons to Mrs. Piper
as sitters, taking necessary precautions to
ensure that they had never met Piper before.
Sitters were also introduced on separate
occasions and under pseudonyms.
• Mrs. Piper consistently provided correct and highly
detailed information about the deceased relatives of the
sitters and demonstrated an intimate knowledge of the lives
of the sitters. James published the results in 1886.
James wrote the following about his
first personal sitting with Piper:
“My impression after this first visit was that
Mrs. Piper was either possessed of supernormal powers or knew the members of my
wife’s family by sight and had by some
lucky coincidence become acquainted with
such a multitude of their domestic
circumstances as to produce the startling
impression which she did.”
James went on to conclude:
“My later knowledge of her sittings and
personal acquaintance with her has led me
to absolutely reject the latter explanation,
and to believe that she has supernormal
powers”
-Letter to Frederic Myers (1890)
Why Important?
1. The phenomenon of trance mediumship
provides data that are at least suggestive of the
survival of the personality beyond death.
2. Trance mediumship is of general psychological
interest.
Trance mediumship involves altered states of
consciousness, not wholly unlike what is
observed in cases of dissociative identity
disorder.
3. James believed that the study of altered states of
consciousness could help us understand religious
experiences since many of the latter also involve
altered states of consciousness.
4. James believed that through a study of altered
states of consciousness we could better understand
forms of anomalous cognition (ESP) not presently
understood by scientific paradigms.
Many Different Kinds of Truth
If there are different kinds of truths, perhaps
we need different states of consciousness to
come to know these truths.
Openness to Possibilities
These possibilities are particularly
important to understanding the nature and
implications of religious experience.