Frederic William Henry Myers
Frederic William Henry Myers (1843–1901) was a classical scholar, poet, philosopher, and president of the Society for Psychical Research.[1]
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[edit] Early life
Frederic William Henry Myers was the son of Rev. Frederic Myers, and a brother of poet Ernest Myers (1844-1921) and of Dr Arthur Thomas Myers (1851-1894); his maternal grandfather was the industrialist John Marshall (1765-1845).[2] He was educated at Cheltenham College, and Trinity College, Cambridge where he received a B.A. in 1865,[3][4] and university prizes, including the Bell, Craven, Camden and Chancellor's Medal: however he was forced to resign the Camden medal for 1863 after accusations of plagiarism.[2] He was a Fellow of Trinity College from 1865 to 1874
In 1867, Myers published a long poem, St Paul, which became very popular. It was followed in 1882 by The Renewal of Youth and Other Poems. He also wrote books of literary criticism, in particular Wordsworth (1881) and Essays, Classical and Modern (in two volumes, 1883), which included a highly-regarded essay on Virgil.[citation needed]
[edit] Psychical research
Myers was interested in psychical research and was one of the founder members of the Society for Psychical Research in 1883.[5][6][7] He became the President in 1900.[8]
In 1893 Myers wrote a small collection of essays, Science and a Future Life.[9]
In 1903, after Myers's death, Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death was compiled and published. It was two large volumes at 1,360 pages in length, which presented an overview of Myers's research into the unconscious mind.[7][10][11] Myers believed that a theory of consciousness must be part of a unified model of mind, which derive from the full range of human experience, including not only normal psychological phenomena but also the wide variety of abnormal and "supernormal" phenomena.[10][11]
Frederic Myers may be regarded as an "important early depth psychologist", and his significant influence on colleagues like William James, Pierre Janet, and Théodore Flournoy and also Carl G. Jung has been well documented.[12]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Frederic William Henry Myers |
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Wikisource has original works written by or about: Frederic William Henry Myers |
- ^ William James. Frederic Myers's Service to Psychology The Popular Science Monthly, August 1901, pp. 380-389.
- ^ a b ODNB
- ^ Venn, J.; Venn, J. A., eds. (1922–1958). "Myers, Frederic William Henry". Alumni Cantabrigienses (10 vols) (online ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Catherine W. Reilly (2000). Victorian poetry, 1860-1879: an annotated biobibliography Continuum International Publishing Group, p. 332.
- ^ Joseph Cambray; Linda Carter (2004). Analytical psychology: contemporary perspectives in Jungian analysis. Advancing theory in therapy. Psychology Press. p. 224. ISBN 1583919988.
- ^ I. Grattan-Guiness (1982). Psychical Research: A Guide to Its History, Principles & Practices.
- ^ a b Gail Marshall (2007). The Cambridge companion to the fin de siècle. Cambridge University Press. p. 27. ISBN 0521850630.
- ^ Society for Psychical Research:Past Presidents
- ^ Frederic William Henry Myers. Science and a Future Life
- ^ a b Emily W. Kelly and Carlos S. Alvarado. Images in Psychiatry: Frederic William Henry Myers, 1843–1901 American Journal of Psychiatry, 162:34, January 2005.
- ^ a b W. McDougall. Review: Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death Mind, Vol. 12, No. 48 (Oct., 1903), pp. 513-526.
- ^ Book review:Irreducible Mind, The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Vol.29, No 4, Autumn 2008.
Myers, Frederic William Henry on the website of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (subscription or UK public library membership required)
[edit] Further reading
- Hall, Trevor H. (1980). The Strange Story of Ada Goodrich Freer. Gerald Duckworth and Company. ISBN 0-7156-1427-4.
- Hall, Trevor H. (1980). The strange case of Edmund Gurney. Gerald Duckworth and Company. ISBN 0-7156-1154-2.
- Kripal, Jeffrey J. (2010). Authors of the Impossible; the Paranormal and the Sacred. University of Chicago Press.
- Oppenheim, Janet (1988). The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850-1914. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052134767X.
