Spirit and matter. Julian Ochorowicz's mediumistic experiments

Abstract

This article presents Julian Ochorowicz's positivist view of the relationship between soul and body. He perceived the soul as the essential basis of inner, moral and mental life but abstracted from any met- aphysical concepts. He took an empirical stance and was convinced that its qualities were also cog- nisable through hypnosis. He built a hypnoscope for this purpose. Hypnosis and mediumistic expres- sions brought him fame in the West, but ostracism in his own homeland. He formulated the theory of ideoplasty in which he expressed the fusion of spiritual and physical elements. With his research Ochorowicz expanded the subject of empirical psychology to include somnambulism and unconscious states. What brings Ochorowicz's legacy closer to contemporary humanities is the holistic approach to the human being, in his case expressed in the concept of mental medicine.