If you remember anything from high school science, you may remember something of Marie Curie. She was a pioneer in chemistry and physics, and the only person ever to be awarded Nobel Prizes in both. Her research on radioactivity led her to the discovery of polonium and radium, and helped make possible technologies used in cancer treatment, nuclear energy, and nuclear weapons. But while readers may know this synopsis of her life, much less familiar is her abiding fascination with the paranormal — or that in 1907 this paragon of scientific rationality attended a séance with Eusapia Palladino, a psychic rumored to make objects move with her mind.
In The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences, Williams College religion professor Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm opens with this anecdote, noting that it doesn’t quite jibe with “the single most familiar story in the history of science,” one we tell ourselves in the modern, secular world: the story of disenchantment. Josephson-Storm summarizes it as follows:
… at a particular moment the darkness of superstition, myth, or religion began to give way to modern light, exchanging traditional unreason for technology and rationality. When told in a soaring tone, this is a tale of triumph; and when recounted in a different and descending emotional register, it can sound like the inauguration of our tragic alienation from an idealized past.
Whichever your take, the narrative abides: Modernity, thus understood, is an age of rationalism, science, and technology that eventually (and inevitably) overcame the mysterious wonders of magic, religion, and superstition. But this story, Josephson-Storm argues, is a myth. Why else, he suggests, would an esteemed scientist like Curie be cavorting with the likes of Palladino?
Notifications
