Monday 23rd February 2026 ZOOM SPR WEB EVENT at 8pm (GMT): Psychical Research and Trance States in China, 1900-1949 - Luis Fernando Bernardi Junqueira

REGISTRATIONS FOR THIS EVENT WILL CLOSE TWO HOURS BEFORE THE TALK IS DUE TO START. ALL SPR WEB EVENTS ARE RECORDED AND A LINK TO THE RECORDING WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY SENT TO THOSE WHO REGISTER TO ATTEND WHEN THE RECORDING IS READY. From the speaker: This paper interrogates how early 20th-century Chinese reformers engaged with psychical research amid their efforts to modernise their country. Originating among cutting-edge scientists and intellectuals in late 19th-century Britain, psychical research captivated the imagination of scientists and intellectuals worldwide, including from East Asia, who saw in the study of paranormal phenomena the potential to expand the boundaries of human knowledge beyond the material world. The field promised to showcase the supremacy of mind over matter, casting exceptional human abilities within a scientific realm. I argue that the Chinese engagement with psychical research must be seen as the interplay between local Chinese interests and a global wave of late 19th- to mid-20th-century movements that denounced Western modernity as materialistic, violent, and dehumanising. As China was being ravaged by foreign imperialism and civil war, Republican reformers lauded psychical research as a scientific means to enhance the Chinese mind by unlocking hidden psychic powers. It was believed that this would save China from the grip of Western materialism, paving the way for a superior form of ‘spiritual modernity’ rooted in science, tradition, and mental reality. In this paper, I trace the development of psychic studies in China during the first half of the 20th century, particularly how it evolved into what became known as ‘Spiritual Science’ (xinling kexue 心靈科學), the Chinese expression of transnational psychical research.