Frederic Myers

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Frederic William Henry Myers

For his father, the clergyman and theologian, see Frederic Myers.

Frederic William Henry Myers (6 February 1843, in Keswick, Cumberland – 17 January 1901, in Rome) was a poet, classicist, philologist, and a founder of the Society for Psychical Research.^[1]

Contents 1 Early life 2 Psychical research 2.1 Metetherial World 3 Personal life 4 See also 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links

[edit]Early life

Myers was the son of Revd Frederic Myers (1811–1851)^[2] and his second wife Susan Harriet Myers nee Marshall (1811–1896).^[3] He was a brother of poetErnest Myers (1844–1921) and of Dr. Arthur Thomas Myers (1851–1894).^[2] His maternal grandfather was the wealthy industrialist John Marshall (1765–1845).^[4]

Myers was educated at Cheltenham College and at Trinity College, Cambridge where he received a B.A. in 1865,^[5][6] 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.^[4] He was a Fellow of Trinity College from 1865 to 1874 and college lecturer in classics from 1865 to 1869. In 1872 be became an Inspector of schools.^[4]

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.^[7][8][9]He became the President in 1900.^[10]

In 1893 Myers wrote a small collection of essays, Science and a Future Life.^[11]

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.^[9][12][13] 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.^[12][13]

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.^[14]

[edit]Metetherial World

Myers speculated on the existence of a deep region of the unconscious (collective unconscious) or what he termed the “subliminal self” which he believed could account for paranormal events. He also proposed the existence of a “metetherial world,” which he wrote to be a world of images lying beyond the physical world. He wrote that apparitions are not hallucinations but have a real existence in the metetherial world which he described as a dream-like world.^[15] Myers’ belief that apparitions occupied regions of physical space and had an objective existence was in opposition to his contemporaries views such as Edmund Gurney and Frank Podmore who wrote that apparitions were hallucinations. But later proven wrong by other scientists.^[16]

[edit]Personal life

In 1880, Myers married Eveleen Tennant (1856–1937), daughter of Charles Tennant and Gertrude Tennant. They had two sons, the elder the novelist Leopold Hamilton Myers (1881–1944), and a daughter.^[4]

[edit]See also

Poetry portal

• Bruce Greyson
• Irreducible Mind

[edit]References

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Frederic William Henry Myers

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Frederic William Henry Myers

1. ^ William James. Frederic Myers's Service to Psychology The Popular Science Monthly, August 1901, pp. 380–389.
2. ^ ^a b J. H. Lupton; George Herring (2004). "Myers, Frederic (1811–1851)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/19688.(subscription or UK public library membership required)
3. ^ Kripal, Jeffrey J. (2010). Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. p. 43. ISBN 978-0-226-45386-6.
4. ^ ^a b c d Gauld (2004)
5. ^ Venn, J.; Venn, J. A., eds. (1922–1958). "Myers, Frederic William Henry". Alumni Cantabrigienses (10 vols) (online ed.). Cambridge University Press.
6. ^ Catherine W. Reilly (2000). Victorian poetry, 1860–1879: an annotated biobibliographyContinuum International Publishing Group, p. 332.
7. ^ Joseph Cambray; Linda Carter (2004). Analytical psychology: contemporary perspectives in Jungian analysis. Advancing theory in therapy. Psychology Press. p. 224. ISBN 1-58391-998-8.
8. ^ Grattan-Guinness, Ivor (1982). Psychical Research: A Guide to Its History, Principles & Practices – in celebration of 100 years of the Society for Psychical Research. Aquarian Press. ISBN 0-85030-316-8.
9. ^ ^a b Gail Marshall (2007). The Cambridge companion to the fin de siècle. Cambridge University Press. p. 27. ISBN 0-521-85063-0.
10. ^ Society for Psychical Research:Past Presidents
11. ^ Frederic William Henry Myers. Science and a Future Life
12. ^ ^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.
13. ^ ^a b W. McDougall. Review: Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death Mind, Vol. 12, No. 48 (Oct., 1903), pp. 513–526.
14. ^ Book review:Irreducible Mind, The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Vol.29, No 4, Autumn 2008.
15. ^ Myers, F. H. W. (1903). Human personality and its survival of death. London: Longmans.
16. ^ Gurney, E., Myers, F. W. H., & Podmore, F. (1886a). Phantasms of the living. Vol I and II London: Trubner.

• Gauld, Alan (2004). "Myers, Frederic William Henry (1843–1901)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35177. (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.
• Hamilton, Trevor (2009). Immortal Longings: F.W.H. Myers and the Victorian search for life after death. Imprint Academic. ISBN 978-1-84540-248-8.
• 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 0-521-34767-X.

[edit]External links

• Works by Frederic William Henry Myers at Project Gutenberg

v   t   e Reincarnation research Researchers Carol Bowman   Erlendur Haraldsson   Satwant Pasricha   Godwin Samararatne   Ian Stevenson   Jim B. Tucker Books Children's Past Lives   European Cases of the Reincarnation Type Life After Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon—Survival of Bodily Death Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives   Old Souls: The Scientific Evidence For Past Lives Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects   Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect

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Categories:

1843 births
• 1901 deaths
• People educated at Cheltenham College
• Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
• English poets
• English essayists
• Parapsychologists
• Psychical researchers

 

 

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