In the laboratory of the Ghost-Baron: parapsychology in Germany in the early 20th century

During the early twentieth century the Munich-based psychiatrist Albert von Schrenck-Notzing constructed a parapsychological laboratory in his Karolinenplatz home. Furnished with a range of apparatus derived from the physical and behavioural sciences, the Baron's intention was to mimic both the outward form and disciplinary trajectory of contemporary experimental psychology, thereby legitimating the nascent field of parapsychology. Experimentation with mediums, those labile subjects who produced ectoplasm, materialisation and telekinesis, however, necessitated not only the inclusion of a range of spiritualist props, but the lackadaisical application of those checks and controls intended to prevent simulation and fraud. Thus Schrenck-Notzing's parapsychological laboratory with its stereoscopic cameras, galvanometers and medium cabinets was a strange coalescence of both the séance room and the lab, a hybrid space that was symbolic of the irresolvable epistemological and methodological problems at the heart of this aspiring science.