Enrico Morselli's Psychology and “Spiritism”: Psychiatry, psychology and psychical research in Italy in the decades around 1900

This paper traces Enrico Morselli's intellectual trajectory from the 1870s to the early 1900s. His interest in phenomena of physical mediumship is considered against the backdrop of the theoretical developments in Italian psychiatry and psychology. A leading positivist psychiatrist and a prolific academic, Morselli was actively involved in the making of Italian experimental psychology. Initially sceptical of psychical research and opposed to its association with the 'new psychology', Morselli subsequently conducted a study of the physical phenomena produced by the medium Eusapia Palladino. He concluded that her phenomena were genuine and represented them as the effects of an unknown bio-psychic force present in all human beings. By contextualizing Morselli's study of physical mediumship within contemporary theoretical and disciplinary discourse, this study elaborates shifts in the interpretations of 'supernormal' phenomena put forward by leading Italian psychiatrists and physiologists. It demonstrates that Morselli's interest in psychical research stems from his efforts to comprehend the determinants of complex psychological phenomena at a time when the dynamic theory of matter in physics, and the emergence of neo-vitalist theories influenced the theoretical debates in psychiatry, psychology and physiology.