title: Are you afraid of the dark? Notes on the psychology of belief in histories of science and the occult.
abstract: The popular view of the inherent conflict between science and the occult has been rendered obsolete by recent advances in the history of science. Yet, these historiographical revisions have gone unnoticed in the public understanding of science and public education at large. Particularly, reconstructions of the formation of modern psychology and its links to psychical research can show that the standard view of the latter as motivated by metaphysical bias fails to stand up to scrutiny. After highlighting certain basic methodological maxims shared by psychotherapists and historians, I will try to counterbalance simplistic claims of a 'need to believe' as a precondition of scientific open-mindedness regarding the occurrence of parapsychological phenomena by discussing instances revealing a presumably widespread 'will to disbelieve' in the occult. I shall argue that generalized psychological explanations are only helpful in our understanding of history if we apply them in a symmetrical manner.
authors.affiliation: Churchill College & Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge , Cambridge , UK.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sommer
keywords: Erforschung von Übersinnlichem; Historiografie; Historiography; Parapsychologie; Pragmatismus; Psychologie des Glaubens; Wissenschaftsgeschichte; histoire des sciences; historia de la ciencia; historiografía; historiographie; history of science; investigación psíquica; parapsicologia; parapsicología; parapsychologie; parapsychology; pragmatism; pragmatisme; pragmatismo; psicologia delle credenze; psicología de la creencia; psychical research; psychologie de la croyance; psychology of belief; recherche psychique ; ricerca psicologica; storia della scienza; storiografia; ιστορία των επιστημών; ιστοριογραφία; παραψυχολογία; πραγματισμός; ψυχική έρευνα; ψυχολογία της πίστης