Approaches to telepathy in Russia in the late 19th – early 20th century

Abstract

The article describes a variety of approaches to realizing the phenomenon of telepathy in Russia in the late 19th – early 20th century. Telepathy kindled interest of scientists, occultists, members of religious groups and general public. Reasons behind the interest towards this phenomenon varied in each specific case. Scientists viewed telepathy as a phenomenon that was worth exploring, and created theories that would explain it. At the same time, some of them regarded such studies as a way of justifying the possibility of life outside of a physical body. Telepathic experiments aimed to prove the independence of human psyche from the body were also conducted by those not associated with academic science. Occultists preferred describing the phenomenon of telepathy without resorting to scientific terminology and used occult anthropological concepts instead. In popular occultism represented by mentalism, telepathy was viewed as a practice capable of improving the quality of living. Christian spiritualists and some representatives of Orthodox clergy took interest in telepathy as a means of proving the immortality of soul. Moreover, they used the telepathy theory to justify the efficacy of traditional religious practices, in particular the prayer. Despite of the variances in the reasons behind the interest towards telepathy and in its explanations, the interest to this phenomenon reflected a common trend of that age towards rethinking the anthropology.