About the author
Beth A. Robertson's book "Science of the Seance", published by the University of British Columbia Press, is a work of history rather than instruction: it traces the men and women who treated the seance as a laboratory, attempting to study psychic phenomena with the tools of empirical science between 1918 and 1940. The book follows transnational networks of researchers and mediums and examines how ideas about gender and the body shaped what counted as credible evidence in psychical research of the period. It sits in the catalogue's occult-philosophy section as an academic history of how science and spiritualism intersected, rather than as a guide to practice. Readers drawn to the cultural and intellectual history of psychic research, and to how early twentieth-century scientists and spiritualists tried to reconcile empiricism with the paranormal, are the audience for this book.
📖 Where to start with Beth A Robertson
💬 What our editors say about Beth A Robertson's books
“Robertson provides a compelling, albeit academically dense, account of the mid-twentieth century's attempt to legitimize psychic phenomena through scientific rigor. The text is valuable for its detailed mapping of transnational…”
Esoterica Books editorial team, Occult literature desk · on Science of the Seance: Transnational Networks and Gendered Bodies in the Study of Psychic Phenomena, 1918-40
“Robertson delivers a masterful resurrection of a forgotten era where seances were attempted as rigorous laboratory investigations. The analysis of gendered bodies and sensory perception is sharp, contrasting the 'objective…”
Esoterica Books editorial team, Occult literature desk · on Science of the Seance: Transnational Networks and Gendered Bodies in the Study of Psychic Phenomena, 1918-40
