Spiritualistic metaphysics in the history of Russian experimental psychology of the late 19th century

The article focuses on the research program of the Russian Society of Experimental Psychology headed by the Russian biologist Nikolai Petrovich Wagner. The activity of the society is considered in the context of the formation of experimental psychology in the late 19th century. On the one hand, its emergence was due to Wagner’s scientific convictions, who believed that the study of the psyche with the methods of experimental psychology could provide new information about human nature. On the other hand, Wagner’s interest in parapsychological concepts, which defined a boundary area between physics, biology and psychology, was due to his spiritualist views on human nature. Adhering to the concept of spiritual evolution, which asserted the teleological nature of the evolutionary process, Wagner sought to identify human characteristics, that would argue in favour of preserving his individuality after the death of the biological organism. The Russian Society of Experimental Psychology should be considered as the first Russian parapsychological society. The research program of the Society, which considered the proof of human immortality as its final goal, is characterized as being at the junction of natural-scientific methodology and natural theology. This thesis explains the increased interest in the Society’s activities on the part of famous Russian religious philosophers, who were deeply interested in resolving problems of psychology from an idealistic point of view. The sources of the Society and, first of all, the archival sources of N.P. Wagner, who reflected on the creation of an original approach to the study of subjective phenomena of the psyche, shows the necessity for historians of psychology to turn to the history of religion, in particular, the history of esotericism, which can clarify the motives of some scientific searches within the framework of experimental psychology of the late 19th century.

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