| The research project aims to analyze exchanges, frictions, points of interconnection, dialogue and polemic between scientific and esoteric discourse in the 20th century. Specific research interests in this field include psychical research and its 20th century professionalization in parapsychology, the boundary work of debunking literature in-stitutionalized in organized sceptics movements, and modern occultists ambivalent relation to modern science. The main period stretches from 1905 (when Einstein pub-lished his paper on special relativity) to 1976 (with the foundation of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, CSICOP). The project is of an interdisciplinary character, and draws on approaches from the history of ideas, history and philosophy of science, sociology, and religious studies, in addition to re-cent esotericism research. |
