William James. Essays in Psychical Research. Volume 16 of Frederick

mediums to hallucinations to automatic writing to telepathy to communication with the dead. In all, James shows a strong concern that all other possible explanations be explored and eliminated before he was willing to consider that a psychic phenomenon might have actually happened. In that, James was a model for scientific approaches of such subject matter but he was also a model in terms of open-mindedness to the fact that they could possibly happen. Since so many believe in such phenomena, James felt there was a responsibility of science to investigate them, taking lay experience seriously until it could be completely dismissed in favor of other explanations. James never felt that other explanations were proved, any more than he felt that psychic experiences were substantiated as separate phenomena. Thus, he is a model of the scientist who is concerned about the phenomena and investigates them while still maintaining neutrality as to possible conclusions. This volume is scholarly in every sense of the word. The advantages of that are that the volume contains everything ever found that James wrote regarding psychic phenomena, along with appendices, emendations, textual notes, historical collations, and a record of alterations in the manuscripts, which should gladden the heart of anyone who truly enjoys detailed critical, historical methods. The historical scholar on psychic research, or on William James, will have need of and find interest in these details. For the rest of us, "choosing and dipping" is probably the best approach to the volume. Indeed, not being a historical scholar meant that, for me, the repetition of reading James's arguments the third time he gave them for a third audience was conducive to sleep.