- Driesch , Hans . 1923 . "Der Okkultismus als neue Wissenschaft," . Psychische Studien , 50 : 48 – 50 . Driesch was by no means alone in singling out his experimental and theoretical work in biology as a causal factor in epistemological changes within the life sciences. See for example:
- Mikuska , Viktor . 1923 . "Hans Driesch als Biologe, Philosoph und Okkultist," . Psychische Studien , 50 : 41 – 6 .
- Driesch . "Der Okkultismus," . 51
- "In der er auf die weltanschauliche Bedeutung der psychischen Forschung hinwies und großes Vertrauen in ihre Zukunft bekundete; er ging dann auf allgemeinen Fragen über, bekannte sich als überzeugten Pazifisten und wies gerade auch der Parapsychologie eine roße Rolle bei der Befriedigung der Nationen zu. Beide Male schloß er mit den Worten: 'L'avenir est á nous' Nach Verabredung mit meinen deutschen Kollegen übernahm ich die Erwiderung; ich bekannte meine volle Übereinstimmung mit allem, was Richet gesagt hatte, und schloß mit den von ihm selbst gebrauchten vertrauensvollen Worten." Driesch, Lebenserinnerungen, 239.
- Ibid., 275.
- Bergson , Henri . 1913 . "Presidential Address," . Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research , 27 (68) : 157 – 75 . The interest of the European parapsychological community in vitalism was not limited to that espoused by Driesch. For example, the Society for Psychical Research elected Henri Bergson as their president in 1913 largely on the basis of his theory of élan vital. See:
- Driesch . "Presidential Address," . 173
- Driesch , Hans . 1933 . Psychical Research: The Science of the Supernormal , Edited by: Bestermann , Theodore . 119 London : G. Bell .
- A. Freiherr v. Schrenck-Notzing, "Die Entwicklung des Okkultismus zur Parapsychologie in Deutschland," Zeitschrift für Parapsychologie 9 (September 1932): 402-3.
- Schrenck-Notzing , A. von . 1962 . "Professor Dr. me. et phil. Karl Gruber," ” . In Grundfragen der Parapsychologie , Edited by: Walther , Dr. Gerda . 360 Stuttgart : W. Kohlhammer . . Note that this obituary first appeared in July 1927 in Zeitschrift für Parapsychologie.
- "So scheinen also gewisse primitive Vorgänge aus dem Gebiet der Biologie zur Aufklärung des mediumistischen Materialisationsproblems wichtige Beiträge zu liefern." See: A. Freiherr v. Schrenck-Notzing, Grundfragen der Parapsychologie, ed. Dr. Gerda Walther (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1962), 132. This first appeared as an article in Psychische Studien in July 1921.
- Driesch . Lebenserinnerungen , 218
- Francé-Harrar , Annie . 1962 . So war's um Neunzehnhundret: Mein Fin de Siècle , 178 München und Wien : Albert Langen & Georg Müller .
- Ibid., 182.
- Webb , James . 1976 . "Thomas Mann and the Occult: An Unpublished Letter," . Encounter , 46 (4) : 24
- Driesch . Lebenserinnerungen , 155
- Harrington . Reenchanted Science , 190
- Driesch . "Presidential Address," . 181
- Driesch . Psychical Research , 132 – 3 .
- Harrington . Reenchanted Science , 61 Quoted in
- The rhetoric of German holism was appropriated by the National Socialists during the 1930s and many of Driesch's ideas, which had provided a foundation for the broader holistic movement, were used in support of a racist doctrine that he abhorred. See: Ibid., 190.
- Ibid., 190.
- Ibid., 52.
- Driesch , Hans . 1925 . "Die metapsychischen Phänomene in Rahmen der Biologie," . Psychische Studien , 52 : 1 – 14 . Ibid., 47. Driesch reiterated this argument in an article that appeared in 1924 in the Revue Metapsychique. It was reprinted as
- Driesch . "Der Okkultismus," . 52 Driesch contended that at least four other intellectuals had come to the same conclusion about the cause of materialisation. See
- Driesch . "Die metapsychischen Phänomene," . 14
- Driesch , Hans . 1951 . Lebenserinnerungungen: Aufzeichnungen eines Forschers und Denkers in entscheidender Zeit , 201 München und Basel : Ernst Reinhardt . Driesch notes in his autobiography that his interest in questions of the "soul-life" dated from 1903. He adds that he first became a corresponding member of the English Society for Psychical Research in 1913. See:
- Linse , Ulrich . 1996 . Geisterseher und Wunderwirker: Heilsuche im Industriezeitalter , Frankfurt am Main : Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag . For examples of this reassessment see,
- Sawicki , Diethard . 2002 . Leben mit den Toten: Geisterglauben und die Entstehung des Spiritualismus in Deutschland, 1770-1900 Paderborn : Ferdinand Schöningh, .
- Treitel , Corinna . 1999 . "Avatars of the Soul: Cultures of Science, Medicine, and the Occult in Modern Germany" ” . Harvard University . (Ph.D. dissertation,
- Blackbourn , David and Eley , Geoff . 1984 . The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Germany , 2 – 4 . Oxford and New York : Oxford University Press . As David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley have demonstrated the German Sonderweg was by no means an invention of the post-war era, having been discussed, often quite positively, by academics and social commentators prior to the First World War. Post-1945 however the Sonderweg argument became overwhelmingly negative. See:
- Kocha , Jürgen . 1999 . "Asymmetrical Historical Comparison: The Case of the German Sonderweg," . History and Theory , 38 (1) : 40 – 50 . For an historiographical overview of the Sonderweg thesis see:
- Mosse , G. L. 1961 . "The Mystical Origins of National Socialism, " . Journal of the History of Ideas , 22 : 81 – 96 .
- Mosse , George L. 1964 . The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich , London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson .
- Webb , James . 1976 . The Occult Establishment , La Salle, IL : Open Court Publishing . Webb argued that the "occult underground," which had existed since the seventeenth century, became part of the "establishment" with the ascendancy of the Nazis. See:
- Webb , James . 1974 . The Occult Underground , La Salle, IL : Open Court Publishing . For Webb's survey of late nineteenth-century occultism, which demonstrates the wider significance of this movement see,
- Goodrick-Clarke , Nicholas . 1985 . The Occult Roots of Nazism. Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology. The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890-1935 , New York : New York University Press .
- Hitler's interest in the occult appears to have been minimal. The strongest link that Goodrick-Clarke could establish between Hitler and the Ariosophists, for example, was his visit to Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels during 1909 in an effort to obtain back copies of the mystical-racist periodical Ostara. See Ibid., 192-204.
- Kocha . "Asymmetrical Historical Comparison," . 43 – 5 . Jürgen Kocha's article on the German Sonderweg provides an overview of this change. See:
- Repp , Kevin . 2000 . Reformers, Critics, and the Paths of German Modernity. Anti-Politics and the Search for Alternatives, 1890-1914 , 1 – 18 . Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press . For an early example of this reorientation see Blackbourn and Eley, The Peculiarities of German History. See also which situates itself within the same historiographical tradition.
- Linse also remains sceptical about Webb's concept of an "occult underground," arguing instead that some occult ideas remained part of "establishment" knowledge right up until the twentieth century. See: Linse, Geisterseher und Wunderwirker, 10-11.
- Treitel . "Avatars of the Soul," . 2 – 30 .
- Linse . Geisterseher und Wunderwirker , 10
- Treitel . "Avatars of the Soul," . 254 – 88 . Treitel examines here the use of astrology, graphology, chiromancy, and the sidereal pendulum to assess personality and the use of mediums in the context of criminal investigations. See:
- Gregory , Frederick . 1977 . Scientific Materialism in Nineteenth Century Germany , Dordrecht, Holland and Boston : D. Reidel . Biology's connection with progressive politics dated from at least the 1830s and 1840s when liberals used biology to prove the naturalness of their political beliefs and the artificiality of institutions such as the State and the Church. See: Repp, Reformers, Critics, and the Paths of German Modernity;
- Repp , Kevin . 2000 . '"More Corporeal, More Concrete': Liberal Humanism, Eugenics, and German Progressives at the Last Fin de Siecle," . The Journal of Modem History , 72 (3) : 690 – 3 .
- Harrington , Anne . 1996 . Reenchanted Science. Holism in German Culture from Wilhelm II to Hitler , 25 – 7 . Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press .
- Wolsky , Alexander A. 1992 . "Bergson's Vitalism in the Light of Modern Biology," ” . In The Crisis in Modernism. Bergson and the Vitalist Controversy, ed. Frederick Burwick and Paul Douglass , 155 Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . On this change within embryology see: Maria de Issekutz Wolsky and
- Harrington . Reenchanted Science , 48
- Repp . "More Corporeal, More Concrete," . 698 – 700 . As Repp points out however there existed a stream of biological thought, represented most vividly by August Weismann, which maintained the mechanical nature of organic life. See:
- Wolsky and Wolsky . "Bergson's Vitalism in the Light of Modern Biology," . 155
- Driesch , Hans . 1926 . "Presidential Address: Psychical Research and Established Science," . Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research , 36 (99) July : 173
- Ash . Gestalt Psychology , 81
- Gruber , Elmar . 1978 . "Hans Driesch and the Concept of Spiritsm," . Journal of the Society for Psychical Research , 49 : 862 Elmar Gruber dates Driesch's interest in the publications of the Society for Psychical research to as early as 1890. See
- Driesch , Hans . 1927 . "Psychical Research and Philosophy," ” . In The Case For and Against Psychical Belief , Edited by: Murchinson , Carl . 171 – 2 . Worcester, MA : Clark University .
- Driesch . "Presidential Address," . 185 – 7 .
- Driesch . Lebenserinnerungen , 152
- Gruber . "Hans Driesch and the Concept of Spiritism," . 862
- Driesch . The Science and Philosophy of the Organism . 335 – 6 .
- Oppenheim , Janet . 1985 . The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850-1914 , 120 – 1 . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . For an account of Eleanor Sidgwick's involvement with the Society for Psychical Research see:
- Harrington . Reenchanted Science , 48 – 9 . By 1891 Driesch had become disenchanted with the Darwinian model of heredity posited by his former teacher Ernst Haeckel, not least because Haeckel's emphasis on phylogeny failed to account for how organisms were produced out of eggs. He turned instead to August Weismann's theory of inheritance, which rejected the Lamarkian approach of Darwin and argued that evolutionary change occurred only as a result of mutations or random changes of the heritable traits encoded within the sexual cells. See:
- Driesch , Hans . 1929 . The Science and Philosophy of the Organism, , 2nd edition , 34 – 8 . London : A. & C. Black .
- Ibid., 38-40.
- Ibid., 42-3.
- Harrington . Reenchanted Science , 50
- Driesch , Hans . 1894 . Analytische Theorie der Organischen Entwicklung , Leipzig : Wilhelm Engelmann .
- Churchill , Frederick B. 1969 . "From Machine-Theory to Entelechy: Two Studies in Developmental Teleology," . Journal of the History of Biology , 2 (1) : 171 – 2 .
- Ash , Mitchell G. 1998 . Gestalt Psychology in German Culture, 1890-1967 , 80 Cambridge : Cambridge University Press .
- "Die Bekanntschaft mit Mrs Sidgwick, einer klugen geistvollen Frau, wurde dadurch bedeutungsvoll für mich, daß sie mir jenen Gegenstand näher brachte, der in England Psychical Research, bei uns Parapsychologie … genannt wird, und von dem ich bisher nur wenig wußte, was mich allerdings stark beeindruckt hatte." Driesch, Lebenserinnerungen, 152-3.
- Ibid., 201.
- Driesch . "Presidential Address," . 180
- Driesch . Lebenserinnerungen , 202 "Zu den physischen Paraphänomenen stand ich skeptischer, obwohl ich 1922 bei SchrenckNotzing einer Sitzung mit Willi Schneider beigewohnt hatte, die sehr eindrucksvoll gewesen war. Ich hatte keine Betrugsmöglichkeit gefunden … aber völlig genügend im Wissenschaftlichen Sinne waren die Versuchsbedingungen eben doch nicht gewesen."
- Schrenck-Notzing , A. von . 1933 . Die Phänomene des Mediums Rudi Schneider , 119 Berlin und Leipzig : Walter de Gruyter & Co. . "… die Sitzung mit Rudi hat mich mehr als alles, was ich bisher sah, von der Realität der physichen Phänomene überzeugt. Wiederholt habe ich das Gesehene bei mir überdacht: es ist da wirklich keine Lücke." Letter from Hans Driesch to Albert von Schrenck-Notzing dated 13 May 1928 quoted in
- Gruber . "Hans Driesch and the Concept of Spiritism," . 865 For Driesch there was no contradiction here: he believed strongly that there was no harm in hypothesising about such matters as long as everyone understood that it was just a hypothesis. See:
- Gruber . "Hans Driesch and the Concept of Spiritsm," . 865 Elmar Gruber links Driesch's election as president of the Society for Psychical Research to his discussion of parapsychology in his Grundprobleme der Psychologie, translated into English in 1925 as The Crisis of Psychology. See
- Driesch . "Presidential Address," . 172
- Driesch stated here that "… we may call vitalism a bridge that leads to parapsychology." Ibid., 175.
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