The Sixth Sense Reader

by Howes, David

• ISBN13: 9781847882615
• ISBN10: 1847882617
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-12-15
• Publisher: Berg Pub Ltd

Summary

What is the sixth sense? Is it physical, mental or spiritual? Do we all possess it or is it unique to exceptional individuals? Might there be a seventh sense and an eighth sense as well? What role does culture play in determining the range of our perceptual abilities? The search for a supplementary sense has taken many directions and yielded numerous possibilities for an "additional faculty" of perception from magnetism and movement to dreaming and clairvoyance. Stimulating reflection and debate, The Sixth Sense Reader explores the cultural contexts which give rise to such reports of "psychic" and other powers that exceed the ordinary bounds of sense. In this groundbreaking volume, leading scholars in history, anthropology and biology take the reader on a tour of the far borderlands of consciousness. From the world beneath to the world beyond the five senses, every potential avenue of sensation is opened up for investigation.

Author Biography

DAVID HOWES is Professor of Anthropology at Concordia University and the general editor of the Sensory Formations series from Berg. He is the author of Sensual Relations: Engaging the Senses in Culture and Social Theory, co-author (with Constance Classen and Anthony Synnott) of Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell, and editor of Empire of the Senses: The Sensual Culture Reader, among other works.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction: The Revolving Sensorium	p. 1
Bearings
The Search for a Sixth Sense: The Cases for Vestibular, Muscle, and Temperature Senses	p. 55
Sense of Direction	p. 87
Bushman Presentiments	p. 93
Anatomy of Mysticism	p. 97
Historical Investigations
The Five Senses in Classical Science and Ethics	p. 107
The Mesmerism Investigation and the Crisis of Sensationist Science	p. 119
Swedenborg's Celestial Sensorium: Angelic Authenticity, Religious Authority, and the American New Church Movement	p. 151
The Erotics of Telepathy: The British SPR's Experiments in Intimacy	p. 183
Intuition and Reason in the New Age: A Cultural Study of Medical Clairvoyance	p. 209
Refusing to Give Up the Ghost: Some Thoughts on the Afterlife from Spirit Photography to Phantom Films	p. 233
Uncanny Sensations
The Sense of Being Stared At	p. 247
Tactility and Distraction	p. 267
Cross-Cultural Investigations
Sense-Experience and Mystical Experience	p. 277
Peyote and the Mystic Vision	p. 297
The Embodiment of Symbols and the Acculturation of the Anthropologist	p. 311
Sensing Divinity, Death, and Resurrection: Theorizing Experience through Miracles	p. 325
Zulu Dreamscapes: Senses, Media, and Authentication in Contemporary Neo-Shamanism	p. 339
ABCDERIUM of Extra/Sensory Powers	p. 357
Notes on Contributors	p. 361
Copyright Acknowledgments	p. 364
Index	p. 367
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