- Paperback: 370 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books; Reprint edition (29 May 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0143038958
- ISBN-13: 978-0143038955
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 13.7 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,659,052 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Fascinating . . . Blum tells her literally wondrous tale very well. ("The New York Times Book Review")
A fascinating reminder that reason and revelation are not opposites. (James Shreve, author of "The Genome War")
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
A fascinating reminder that reason and revelation are not opposites. (James Shreve, author of "The Genome War")
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Book Description
The fascinating history of 19th century scientists' quest to discover the boundaries between this world and the next.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
William James's interest in psychical research has typically been neglected or marginalised by James scholars and biographers, most of whom have passed over the roughly forty years of his involvement in psychical research and the question of its impact on the works that made him famous, e.g. 'Principles of Psychology' and 'Varieties of Religious Experience', in seemingly embarrassed silence.
Although not primarily written for an academic audience, 'Ghost Hunters' is an interesting contribution to helping illuminate this important but hitherto largely unexplored chapter in the life and work of one of the greatest and most influential minds of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Deborah Blum, a science journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner, explicitly takes the perspective of the outsider with no previous interest in psychical research, which seems to make her contribution particularly interesting in so far as personal investments and biases have typically been among the most stubborn confounding variables in the science business whenever concerned with a certain class of unusual human experiences.
To novices of the study of the history of science, Blum's compilation of excerpts from letters and publications documenting certain goings-on not necessarily apt to flatter Wilhelm Wundt's famous disciples (Münsterberg, Hall, Titchener, etc.) and other eminent contemporaries of James, is likely to smack of conspiracy theory. To the sociologist and historian of science, 'Ghost Hunters' gives much food for thought and provides potentially rich material for the study of another hitherto neglected field of research, namely the social dynamics in academia, particularly on the fringes of established sciences.
Despite sometimes serious flaws (which may, however, to a certain degree be forgivable in a popular book), 'Ghost Hunters' deserves a place on the bookshelf of everyone interested in the history of psychology, psychical research, and the history, philosophy and sociology of science in general. It is compulsory reading, or at least a good starting point, for any James scholar and biographer who may wish to conduct research on the place of psychical research in the psychological and philosophical systems of William James, which then will have to be documented more thoroughly and published in a more scholarly style than in the present book.
Although not primarily written for an academic audience, 'Ghost Hunters' is an interesting contribution to helping illuminate this important but hitherto largely unexplored chapter in the life and work of one of the greatest and most influential minds of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Deborah Blum, a science journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner, explicitly takes the perspective of the outsider with no previous interest in psychical research, which seems to make her contribution particularly interesting in so far as personal investments and biases have typically been among the most stubborn confounding variables in the science business whenever concerned with a certain class of unusual human experiences.
To novices of the study of the history of science, Blum's compilation of excerpts from letters and publications documenting certain goings-on not necessarily apt to flatter Wilhelm Wundt's famous disciples (Münsterberg, Hall, Titchener, etc.) and other eminent contemporaries of James, is likely to smack of conspiracy theory. To the sociologist and historian of science, 'Ghost Hunters' gives much food for thought and provides potentially rich material for the study of another hitherto neglected field of research, namely the social dynamics in academia, particularly on the fringes of established sciences.
Despite sometimes serious flaws (which may, however, to a certain degree be forgivable in a popular book), 'Ghost Hunters' deserves a place on the bookshelf of everyone interested in the history of psychology, psychical research, and the history, philosophy and sociology of science in general. It is compulsory reading, or at least a good starting point, for any James scholar and biographer who may wish to conduct research on the place of psychical research in the psychological and philosophical systems of William James, which then will have to be documented more thoroughly and published in a more scholarly style than in the present book.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Blum's book focuses on William James's psychical research almost to the exclusion of his major works in other fields. Putting this aside, Blum has written a deeply flawed account of psychical literature - as it is this book contains an alarming number of factual errors and glosses over highly significant investigations of the past.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Blum's book is not an accurate portrayal of the overlapping cultures of established science and psychical research. It's a hard work to recommend because of so many elemental errors, huge gaffs, monumental blunders and the often forced way that Blum writes.
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