Sommer, Andreas (Author)
Medical History
Volume: 56, no. 2
Issue: 2
Pages: 255-276
Edition Details: Part of a special issue on “Sexology, Medical Ethics and Occultism: Albert Moll in Context”
Language: English
Shortly after the death of Albert von Schrenck-Notzing (1862--1929), the doyen of early twentieth century German para psychology, his former colleague in hypnotism and sexology Albert Moll (1862--1939) published a treatise on the psychology and pathology of parapsychologists, with Schrenck-Notzing serving as a prototype of a scientist suffering from an `occult complex'. Moll's analysis concluded that parapsychologists vouching for the reality of supernormal phenomena, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis and materialisations, suffered from a morbid will to believe, which paralysed their critical faculties and made them cover obvious mediumistic fraud. Using Moll's treatment of Schrenck-Notzing as an historical case study of boundary disputes in science and medicine, this essay traces the career of Schrenck-Notzing as a researcher in hypnotism, sexology and parapsychology; discusses the relationship between Moll and Schrenck-Notzing; and problematises the pathologisation and defamation strategies of deviant epistemologies by authors such as Moll.
...MoreDescription About Moll's identification of parapsychological belief (covering such things as telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis and materialization) as a pathology.
Article Oosterhuis, Harry (2012) Sexual Modernity in the Works of Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Albert Moll. Medical History (pp. 133-155).
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