Myers proceeded both Freud & Jung and was contemporary with William James who became a good friend. Although still not as well known as either (although as time passes Myers stature will grow most certainly) his study of the unconscious mind and psychical phenomena is landmark work.
Myers will probably not be remembered for his classical work, but will indeed be remembered for "Phantasms of the Living" and his posthumous work "Human Personality" which even now as I write this 2007 - almost a hundred years later, still goes further than almost any other psychological treatise yet written on the outer bounds of human consciousness and abnormal psychology.
Even though Frederic Myers was a first rate classical scholar, top of his graduating class and a Cambridge Professor, well-loved by students and colleagues alike, his central and most important work in his life would become the Society for Psychical Research, a scientific organization of first-rate scholars of the time, shedding as much scientific observation and light upon the peculiar outer-bounds of psychical phenomena including apparitions, clairvoyance, precognition and telepathy.
He and his colleagues Gurney & Podmore successfully published the landmark work "Phantasms of the Living" providing ample case evidence, spontaneous and laboratory, that proved psychical phenomena does exist and is a serious psychological frontier for the future study of human consciousness. Myers also attempted to thoroughly examine the paranormal data observed and provide one of the first substantial general theories on psychical phenomena, a precursor to Jung's own far-reaching view of the unconscious and the causations of psychical phenomena (psychoid archetypes and the Self archetype, Synchronicity). Myers was however more focused on classifying the psychical phenomena he observed and moving toward the proposition that consciousness can indeed be a phenomena not dependent on physical matter.
Psychology still remains split between orthodox views of consciousness - such as behavioral, cognitive and materialistic drug based solutions of the human mind and the more progressive views such as Jung and Myers both of whom found the human psyche is not dependent on space and time and is a profound repository of knowledge and purpose catering to each individual.
John Amenta
jamenta@yahoo.com
Jan 2, 2007
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