Afterlife Research: Spiritual Animal Magnetism and the Beginning of a Scientific Culture

The open access publication of this book was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

From lunar spirit travels to prospective hospital studies, Afterlife Research traces the efforts of individuals and groups in the West who, since the late nineteenth century, have sought to investigate life after death scientifically. This book reconstructs a distinctive “scientific culture” that extends from spiritual animal magnetism in the late eighteenth century through Spiritualism, Spiritism,...