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ABSTRACT: As the transpersonal movement develops, it comes to understand more about its precursors and its own intellectual history. Current scholarship has renewed interest in a major forebear, the British psychological investigator F. W. H. Myers (1843-1901), who can be credited with the first comprehensive theory of the unconscious mind. Myers's transpersonal perspective is evident in his rigorously empirical methodology; his assertion of the reality of the spiritual and the inadequacies of materialism; his expansive concept and map of the psyche, as encompassing a spectrum of states of consciousness; his view of the unconscious as a vehicle of transcendent experience and higher potential, reaching beyond the self; and his belief in the evolution of consciousness. Though his work received little attention in the century after his death, recent writings have prompted a rediscovery of his pioneering ideas.
If life after death is not a grand illusion, the soul of Frederic William Henry Myers has cause to celebrate. After a century of neglect, the prolific British psychological investigator, dismissed by successors for his preoccupation with mediumistic phenomena and with demonstrating an afterlife, is once again getting his due, his reputation regaining an earthly immortality, whether or not his spirit is enjoying a heavenly one. The transpersonal orientation in psychology has forged an intellectual milieu in which Myers's investigations seem courageous, some of his innovative theories ingenious, some of his insights prescient. This article will chart the recent rise in his reputation, delineate aspects of his relevance to contemporary transpersonal thought, and argue that he deserves recognition as a major precursor of the transpersonal movement. It should serve to present Myers's essential psychological ideas to a general readership interested in transpersonal studies, and to mark a place for him in the history of the field.
At the time of his death in 1901, F. W. H. Myers commanded high esteem from across the still fledgling profession of psychology. A classicist by training, he had collaborated with some of the best-known psychological investigators of his day. He was lionized by prominent colleagues for his wide-ranging knowledge, prodigious memory, mastery of scientific and psychological literature, exacting investigation, and intrepid exploration of less accessible realms of the mind (see Crabtree, 1993, p. 327, and Gauld, 1968, p. 276)....