3 - Crime, Psychology and ‘Being a Medium’ in Spain in the Early Twentieth Century

Summary

This chapter considers the ways in which various criminal anthropologists and lawyers, some of them of the stature of Rafael Salillas, Tomás Maestre and Constancio Bernaldo de Quirós, were involved in or interested in what at the time was known as ‘metapsychic research’. By this term was meant research intended to examine in a scientific manner, and particularly from the perspective of psychology, ‘psychic’ phenomena prompted into being by the supposed extraordinary and/or unconscious activities of certain individuals (such as mediums). It is possible that in Spain this interest in the metapsychic derived from the admiration of Spanish intellectuals for the work of the Italian anthropologist Cesare Lombroso, considered to be the father of modern criminology, and also known for his defence of the study of ‘spiritualism’. As far as Lombroso was concerned, there was no fundamental conflict between monism and anthropological materialism on the one hand and, on the other, belief in matter that was fluid in form, and visible and at times palpable.

This is not simply a question of early twentieth-century Spanish criminologists, inspired by Lombroso, thinking about how one might engage in the scientific study of metapsychic or paranormal phenomena. A brief look at the press of the period reveals the open debate, not to mention overt social anxiety, about the possibility that certain crimes might be committed by ‘spirits’ or, for example, about the possibility of ‘distance killing’, as in the cases referred to by Bernaldo de Quirós as ‘magic murders’ or ‘deaths by telepathy’ (1910: 80–81). ‘Distance killings’ were cited as possible causes or explanations of crime; other notions included hypnosis, suggestion and black magic. Debate in this area was not confined to popular publications or novels, as might be suggested by the newspaper articles and novels of Emilio Carrere, but also took place in the scientific arena. We can even find in this period suggestive ideas such as that of a ‘Spiritualist criminology’, defined by the Lombrosian anthropologist Fernando Ortiz, whose writings would have been well known in Spain, and particularly by Rafael Salillas and academic lawyers in the University of Madrid.