Julian Ochorowicz
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Julian Ochorowicz ("Yool-yahn Oh-hor-oh-veech," 1850-1917) was a Polish philosopher, psychologist and publicist, and one of the most popular advocates of Polish Positivism.
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[edit] Life
Ochorowicz studied natural sciences at Warsaw University. After receiving his doctorate at Leipzig University (1871), he lectured in psychology at Lwów University. From 1907 he was co-director of the Institut General Psychologique in Paris.
He was a pioneer of empirical research in psychology, and conducted studies into occultism, spiritualism, hypnosis and telepathy. His most popular works included Wstęp i pogląd ogólny na filozofię pozytywną (An Introduction to and Overview of Positive Philosophy, 1872) and Jak należy badać duszę? (How Should One Study the Soul?, 1869).
Ochorowicz also penned the poem, "Naprzód" ("Forward," 1873), regarded as the Polish Positivists' manifesto.
[edit] Friend of Bolesław Prus
Ochorowicz was a Warsaw University schoolmate of Bolesław Prus, who portrayed him in his 1889 novel, The Doll, as the scientist "Ochocki." Ochorowicz evidently also inspired Prus to write his sole historical novel, Pharaoh (1895). Ochorowicz provided him books in Egyptology that he had brought back from Paris; and in 1893 he introduced Prus to the Italian Spiritualist, Eusapia Palladino, whom Ochorowicz had brought from her mediumistic tour in St. Petersburg, Russia, to appear in Warsaw. (Pharaoh contains several prominent Spiritualist-inspired scenes.)
Ochorowicz hosted Palladino in Warsaw from November 1893 to January 1894. He concluded against the spirit hypothesis and for the conviction that the phenomena demonstrated by Palladino were due to a "fluidic action" and were performed at the expense of the medium's own powers and those of the persons present at the séances.
Ochorowicz studied, as well, the mediumship of Stanisława Tomczyk in 1908-9 at Wisła, Poland.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Encyklopedia Polski, Kraków, Wydawnictwo Ryszard Kluszczyński, 1996, p. 453.
- Krystyna Tokarzówna and Stanisław Fita, Bolesław Prus,1847-1912: Kalendarz życia i twórczości (Bolesław Prus: Calendar of Life and Works), edited by Zygmunt Szweykowski, Warsaw, Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1969, pp. 445-53 et passim.
[edit] External links
- "Eusapia Palladino" cites observations of Palladino's séances, made by Julian Ochorowicz (who is referred to as "Julien Ochorowitz").
- "Julien Ochorowitz"
