Second Sight and Prophecy Conference

This interdisciplinary conference welcomes participants from a range of academic disciplines including history, folklore, anthropology, divinity and sociology whose research interests cover a wide range of topics exploring varying methods used by different cultures (both now and in the past) to look into the future and the rationale for so doing. The future has always held a fascination for humankind especially in times of tribulation and this is worthy of academic discussion in light of the changes affecting so many of us in our current global context. The role in culture of seers and prophets, by whatever name they are known, and the use of rituals, drugs and sacred sites will be examined.

This interdisciplinary conference welcomes participants from a range of academic disciplines including history, folklore, anthropology, divinity and sociology whose research interests cover a wide range of topics exploring varying methods used by different cultures (both now and in the past) to look into the future and the rationale for so doing. The future has always held a fascination for humankind especially in times of tribulation and this is worthy of academic discussion in light of the changes affecting so many of us in our current global context. The role in culture of seers and prophets, by whatever name they are known, and the use of rituals, drugs and sacred sites will be examined.

Keynote Speaker

Michael Hunter is Emeritus Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the principal editor of the Works, Correspondence and Workdiaries of Robert Boyle (1999-2001) and author of Boyle: Between God and Science (2009) as well as many other books on the intellectual history of early modern England. His compilation, The Occult Laboratory: Magic, Science and Second Sight in Late Seventeenth-century Scotland (2001), presented a scholarly edition of the key early texts concerning second sight with a commentary. More recently, he has been working on changing attitudes towards ostensibly ‘supernatural’ phenomena in the eighteenth century.

Download the conference programme and the abstracts and biographies.

Speaker

Michael Hunter

Hosted by

Elphinstone Institute

Venue

MacRobert Building