Charles Richet
| Charles Richet | |
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| Born | August 25, 1850 Paris |
| Died | December 4, 1935 (aged 85) Paris |
| Notable awards | Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1913) |
Charles Robert Richet (August 25, 1850 – December 4, 1935) was a French physiologist who initially investigated a variety of subjects such as neurochemistry, digestion, thermoregulation in homeothermic animals, and breathing. He won the Nobel Prize "in recognition of his work on anaphylaxis" in 1913.[1]
He also devoted many years to the study of spiritualist phenomena.
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Life [edit]
In 1887 Richet was named professor of physiology at the Collège de France, and in 1898 he became a member of the Académie de Médecine. It was, however, together with Paul Portier, their work on anaphylaxis (his term for a sensitized individual's sometimes lethal reaction to a second, small-dose injection of an antigen) that in 1913 won him the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. This research helped elucidate hay fever, asthma and other allergic reactions to foreign substances and explained some previously not understood cases of intoxication and sudden death. In 1914 he became a member of the Académie des Sciences.
Richet was a man of many interests, and his works included books about history, sociology, philosophy, psychology, as well as theatre plays and poetry. He was a pioneer in aviation.
He also had a deep interest in extrasensory perception and hypnosis. In 1884 Alexandr Aksakov interested him in the medium Eusapia Palladino. In 1891 Richet founded the Annales des sciences psychiques. He kept in touch with renowned occultists and spiritists of his time such as Albert von Schrenck-Notzing, Frederic William Henry Myers and Gabriel Delanne.
In 1905 Richet was named president of the Society for Psychical Research in the United Kingdom, and coined the term "ectoplasm." He experimented with Marthe Béraud, Elisabette D'Espérance, William Eglinton and Stefan Ossowiecki.
In 1919 he became honorary president of the Institut Métapsychique International in Paris, and, in 1929, full-time president.
Parapsychology [edit]
As a scientist, Richet was positive about a physical explanation for paranormal phenomena.[2] He wrote: "It has been shown that as regards subjective metapsychics the simplest and most rational explanation is to suppose the existence of a faculty of supernormal cognition … setting in motion the human intelligence by certain vibrations that do not move the normal senses."[3]
He later wrote about a “sixth sense,” an ability to perceive the hypothetical vibrations; he discussed this hypothesis in his book Our Sixth Sense (1928).[4]
Spiritualism [edit]
Richet believed that some mediumship could be explained physically due to the external projection of a material substance (ectoplasm) from the body of the medium, however he denied this substance had anything to do with spirits.[5] Richet rejected the spirit hypothesis of mediumship, instead supporting the sixth sense hypothesis.[6] According to Richet:
| “ | It seems to me prudent not to give credence to the spiritistic hypothesis... it appears to me still (at the present time, at all events) improbable, for it contradicts (at least apparently) the most precise and definite data of physiology, whereas the hypothesis of the sixth sense is a new physiological notion which contradicts nothing that we learn from physiology. Consequently, although in certain rare cases spiritism supplies an apparently simpler explanation, I cannot bring myself to accept it. When we have fathomed the history of these unknown vibrations emanating from reality -- past reality, present reality, and even future reality -- we shall doubtless have given them an unwonted degree of importance. The history of the Hertzian waves shows us the ubiquity of these vibrations in the external world, imperceptible to our senses.[7] | ” |
Richet was also known for having a sexual relationship with Eusapia Palladino, the spiritualist medium he had investigated.[8]
Works [edit]
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Wikisource has original works written by or about: |
Richet's works on parascientific subjects, which dominated his later years, include Traité de Métapsychique (Treatise on Metapsychics, 1922), Notre Sixième Sens (Our Sixth Sense, 1928), L'Avenir et la Prémonition (The Future and Premonition, 1931) and La grande espérance (The Great Hope, 1933).
- Richet, C. Traité de métapsychique (Paris, F. Alcan, 1922).
- Maxwell, J & Richet, C. Metapsychical phenomena: methods and observations (London : Duckworth, 1905).
See also [edit]
Notes [edit]
- ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1913 Charles Richet". Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
- ^ Alvarado, C. S. (2006). Human radiations: Concepts of force in mesmerism, spiritualism and psychical research. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 70, 138–162.
- ^ Richet, C. (1923). Thirty Years of Psychical Research. New York: Macmillan. (Translated from the second French edition)
- ^ Richet, C. (nd, ca 1928). Our Sixth Sense. London: Rider. (First published in French, 1928)
- ^ Richet, C. (1923). Thirty Years of Psychical Research. New York: Macmillan. (Translated from the second French edition)
- ^ Robert H. Ashby The Guidebook for the Study of Psychical Research Rider, 1972
- ^ Various Reflections on the the [sic] Sixth Sense by Charles Richet
- ^ William Kalush, Larry Ratso Sloman The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero 2006, p. 419
External links [edit]
- Short biography and bibliography in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
- Richet's Dictionnaire de physiologie (1895–1928) as fullscan from the original
- Charles Robert Richet photo
- Charles Richet Biography on Nobel Prize website
- Short biography by Nandor Fodor on SurvivalAfterDeath.org.uk with links to several articles on psychical research
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