Legacies of the Occult - Psychoanalysis, Religion, and Unconscious Communication - Marsha Aileen Hewitt

Legacies of the Occult - Psychoanalysis, Religion, and Unconscious Communication - Marsha Aileen Hewitt

Fluid Subjectivities, Extended Minds and Unseen Worlds: Mystical Psychologies of Frederic W.H. Myers and William James

Legacies of the Occult - Psychoanalysis, Religion, and Unconscious Communication - Marsha Aileen Hewitt

Marsha Aileen Hewitt [+-]
University of Toronto
Marsha Aileen Hewitt is Professor of Religion at Trinity College and the Department for the Study of Religion in the University of Toronto. Professor Hewitt’s books include From Theology to Social Theory: Juan Luis Segundo and the Theology of Liberation (1990), Critical Theory of Religion: A Feminist Analysis (1995) and Freud on Religion (2014). She is a psychoanalyst in private practice.

Description

A detailed analysis contrasting Sigmund Freud’s concept of the unconscious with the subconscious/subliminal regions of consciousness formulated by Myers and James illustrates their radically different notions of the unconscious mind. The psychological theories of Myers and James cannot be fully understood without a detailed analysis of psychical research carried out by the Society for Psychical Research in the late nineteenth century. While Freud accepted the limits of psychoanalysis in fully explaining telepathy, Myers and James formulated theories of telepathy in concert with psychic research. Their goal was to integrate their mystical intuitions within a naturalistic, scientific psychology of consciousness that continues to shape American psychoanalysis. Although rarely explicitly acknowledged, the spiritual psychology of Myers and James continues to exert a powerful influence on contemporary American psychoanalysis.

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Citation

Hewitt, Marsha Aileen. Fluid Subjectivities, Extended Minds and Unseen Worlds: Mystical Psychologies of Frederic W.H. Myers and William James. Legacies of the Occult - Psychoanalysis, Religion, and Unconscious Communication. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 22-57 Jul 2020. ISBN 9781781792797. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=27415. Date accessed: 29 Mar 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.27415. Jul 2020

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