Novalis and Magical Idealism
A Forgotten Pioneer of Parapsychology?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31156/jaex.26138Keywords:
Novalis, Romanticism, Naturphilosophie, History of parapsychology, MagicAbstract
German natural philosophy was an important intellectual movement from the late 18th to the mid-20th century. It integrated phenomena such as animal magnetism into a multidisciplinary vision aimed at bringing the sciences closer together. Its influence on parapsychology remains little-known, however. I take the example of Friedrich von Hardenberg, better known by his pseudonym Novalis (1772-1801). Not cited in parapsychological literature, the young scientist and poet nevertheless mentioned his personal experiences of the apparition of his dead fiancée and his practice of animal magnetism. He also theorized a new metaphysics called "magical idealism," which aims to go beyond other forms of idealism to identify, within an immanentist yet moral framework, "magic" as a possible solution to the union of opposites (subject and object, ideal and real). His project seems coincident with that of modern theoretical parapsychology, and in particular dual-aspect monism.
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