Hearing Voices/Hallucinations Research: 19th Century
Last updated 11/06/2007
For those people who are interested in researching into the history of hallucinatory experiences, I recommend two books from the 1890s that I looked through yesterday.
1) Parish, E. (1897). “Hallucinations and Illusions: Study of the Fallacies of Perception”. Walter Scott Ltd.; London. This book presents the results of “an exhaustive study of the German, English, French and American literature of the subject” (p.vi). It is chocka full of references to other studies/theories from the 1800s, and some from the 1700s.
2) Sidgwick, et al. (1894). ‘Report on the Census of Hallucinations’. In: “Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research”. Vol.X, pp.24-422. This is a report resulting from “the statistical inquiry into the spontaneous hallucinations of the sane” (p25), in which 17000 people were interviewed between April 1889 – May 1892. The following question was put to participants – “Have you ever, when believing yourself to be completely awake, had a vivid impression of seeing or being touched by a living being or inanimate object, or of hearing a voice; which impression, so far as you could discover, was not due to any external physical cause?” (p.35). “Of the 17,000 answers, 2,272 were in the affirmative” (p.36).
Traced and recommended by Brian Spittles, INTERVOICE Forum member (thanks Brian!)