Testimonies of precognition and encounters with psychiatry in letters to J. B. Priestley
Katy Price
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences August 28, 2014 DOI: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2014.07.006 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Letters sent to J. B. Priestley in 1963 |
| Keywords | Testimonial Relation database Parapsychology Psychoanalysis Witness Jungian analytical psychology |
| Citations | 2 |
| Key points | Argues that testimonial justice for individuals whose precognitive experiences intersect with psychiatric care requires acknowledging tensions between parapsychology and psychiatry and explicitly stating the hearer's orientation. |
Abstract
Using letters sent to British playwright J. B. Priestley in 1963, this paper explores the intersection between patient-focused history of psychiatry and the history of parapsychology in everyday life. Priestley's study of precognition lay outside the main currents of parapsychology, and his status as a storyteller encouraged confidences about anomalous temporal experience and mental illness. Drawing on virtue epistemology, I explore the regulation of subjectivity operated by Priestley in establishing the credibility of his correspondents in relation to their gender and mental health, and investigate the possibility of testimonial justice for these witnesses. Priestley's ambivalent approach to madness in relation to visions of the future is related to the longer history of prophecy and madness. Letters from the television audience reveal a variety of attitudes towards the compatibility of precognition with modern theories of the mind, show the flexibility of precognition in relation to mental distress, and record a range of responses from medical and therapeutic practitioners. Testimonial justice for those whose experience of precognition intersects with psychiatric care entails a full acknowledgement of the tensions and complicities between these two domains as they are experienced by the witness, and an explicit statement of the hearer's orientation to those domains.