Many authors quote Freud as saying “If I had my life to live over again I should devote myself to psychical research rather than to psychoanalysis.” However, Freud did not exactly say this, and was not as ardent a supporter of the occult as some would like to believe. And do we really need him to be? Do we even want colonial, materialist science to incorporate the occult?
Psychoanalysis emerged during a high tide of interest among scientists and laypeople alike in psychical research and spiritualism. Freud and subsequent psychoanalysts held conflicting, ambivalent attitudes toward the occult. In this post, I explore some of the historical attitudes held toward the occult and divination within the field of psychoanalysis.
A recent New York Times article claimed that “most psychologists agree that astrology’s appeal rests largely on ‘confirmation bias’—the human tendency to seek out, recall and favor information that confirms what we already believe.” This claim reflects a long history within psychology of reducing belief or interest in astrology to error or psychopathology. In doing so, my fellow psychologists fail to do justice to the empirical data and miss an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the meanings and purposes of astrology in people’s lives.