Émile Boirac

Émile Boirac (26 August 1851 - 20 September 1917) was a French philosopher, parapsychologist, promoter of Esperanto and writer.

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Biography

Boirac was born in Guelma, Algeria. He became president of the University of Grenoble in 1898, and in 1902 president of Dijon University. A notable advocate for the universal language, Esperanto, he presided over its 1st Universal Congress (Boulogne-Sur-Mer, France, 7 August to 12 August 1905) and directed the Academy of Esperanto.

He was one of the first to use the term "déjà vu", where it appeared in a letter to the editor of "Review Philosophique" in 1876,[1] and subsequently in Boirac's book L'Avenir des Sciences Psychiques, where he also proposed the term "metagnomy" ("knowledge of things situated beyond those we can normally know") as a more precise description for what was, then, commonly known as clairvoyance.[2].

He was one of a group that conducted experiments on the Italian medium Eusapia Palladino.[3] He also investigated animal magnetism, and various hypnotic phenomena such as the induction of sleep, "transposition of senses", "magnetic rapport", "exteriorisation of sensitiveness", "exteriorisation of motor nerve force" etc.[4]

Boirac died in Dijon in 1917.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Review Philosophique", 1, 1876 p. 430-431. See, also, Alan S. Brown, "Deja Vu Experience: Essays in Cognitive Psychology" (2004) p. 11.
  2. ^ Boirac, The psychology of the future, p. 233.
  3. ^ M. Brady Brower. Unruly Spirits: The Science of Psychic Phenomena in Modern France (University of Illinois Press, 2010) p. 63.
  4. ^ Boirac, "La psychologie inconnue", 1917.

Bibliography

Books on parapsychology:

Books on Philosophy and education:

Esperanto books: