Émile Boirac

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Émile Boirac (26 August 1851 – 20 September 1917) was a French philosopher, parapsychologist, promoter of Esperanto and writer.

Émile Boirac in 1917

Biography

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Boirac was born in Guelma, Algeria. He became president of the University of Grenoble in 1898, and in 1902 president of Dijon University. A notable advocate for the universal language, Esperanto, he presided over its 1st Universal Congress (Boulogne-Sur-Mer, France, 7 August to 12 August 1905) and directed the Academy of Esperanto.

He was one of the first to use the term "déjà vu", where it appeared in a letter to the editor of Revue philosophique in 1876,[1] and subsequently in Boirac's book L'Avenir des Sciences Psychiques, where he also proposed the term "metagnomy" ("knowledge of things situated beyond those we can normally know") as a more precise description for what was, then, commonly known as clairvoyance.[2]

He was one of a group that conducted experiments on the Italian medium Eusapia Palladino.[3] He also investigated animal magnetism, and various hypnotic phenomena such as the induction of sleep, "transposition of senses", "magnetic rapport", "exteriorisation of sensitiveness", "exteriorisation of motor nerve force" etc.[4]

Boirac died in Dijon in 1917.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Revue philosophique", 1, 1876 p. 430-431. See, also, Alan S. Brown, "Deja Vu Experience: Essays in Cognitive Psychology" (2004) p. 11.
  2. ^ Boirac, The psychology of the future, p. 233.
  3. ^ M. Brady Brower. Unruly Spirits: The Science of Psychic Phenomena in Modern France (University of Illinois Press, 2010) p. 63.
  4. ^ Boirac, "La psychologie inconnue", 1917.

Bibliography

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Books on parapsychology:

Books on Philosophy and education:

Esperanto books:

  • Translation to esperanto of Leibniz's Monodalogy (1902)
  • Ŝlosileto kvarlingva (1903)
  • Perdita kaj retrovita (1905)
  • Qu'est-ce que l'espéranto? (1906)
  • Le Congrès espérantiste de Genève (1906)
  • Pri la homa radiado (1906)
  • Translation to esperanto of Molière's Don Juan (1909)
  • Translation to esperanto of Henry van Dyke's The Other Wise Man, de (1909)
  • Plena Vortaro E-E-a (1909)
  • Le problème de la langue internationale (1911)
  • Vortaro de la Oficialaj Radikoj (1911)
  • Fundamentaj principoj de la vortaro esperanta (1911)
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