| OLOF EDLUND Antiquarian Bookseller STOCKHOLM |  |
| OLOF EDLUND Antiquarian Bookseller STOCKHOLM | |
| $ 125 |
| First edition. Contributions by C. Gyllenswärd, B. Jacobowsky, and Louis Backman. Includes glossary (p. X), and bibliography (p. XII-XVI). Meddelanden från det Psykologiska Laboratoriet i Uppsala, 2. Tidskriften Psykes monografiserie, 2:1-4. Sydney Alrutz [1868-1925], in 1901 Sweden's first university lecturer of experimental psychology, established a laboratory at the University of Uppsala, his dominating interest was hypnotism and psychical research, in 1917 he finished his magnum opus, in which he claimes to have proved experimentally the existence of a nervous effluence. "Another instrument was designed by Sydney Alrutz, of the University of Uppsala, Sweden. He called it a volometer or "will board." It comprised a small board resting on knife-edged pegs. The longer and heavier end was supported by means of a string attached to a letter scale and held the board in horizontal position. In this position the scale registered a pressure of five ounces. If the short end was depressed, the long end rose and the letter scale showed a decrease of weight. The task put before the subjects of Alrutz's experiment was to fix their attention on the long end and will its depression. In a number of cases, 40-100 grams of pressure was thus obtained. Among those who attempted the experiment were many members of the Sixth Psychological Congress at Geneva in August, 1909. Theodore Flournoy wrote after his own test: "I was able to prove conclusively, after three trials, and under conditions precluding all possibility of fraud or illusion, that the will of these ladies, concentrated upon a certain material object, with a desire to produce a movement in it, ended by producing this movement as if by means of a fluid or an invisible force obeying their mental command." While these results were impressive, the experiment was flawed by severe methodological vagueness. The experiment demonstrated an unusual effect, but said nothing about the agency involved in causing the change. It could just as easily been an experiment to demonstrate "mesmeric fluid" or ectoplasmic emanations. The intrusion of concepts of "will" have been discarded by parapsychologists in the twentieth century"(answers.com). |
| * Ingemar Nilsson, Alrutz och nervstrålningens problem (in: Lychnos ...årsbok 1977-8, p. 10-53. |