The „THE OTHER CONSCIOUSNESS” IN SERBIAN CULTURE AND LITERATURE OF 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURIES

Abstract

Under the term “the other consciousness” we subsume different, but historically related, new ideas of consciousness that emerged after the 18th vogue of Mesmerism. Spiritist mediumship, psychic research, medical theories about hypnosis and hysteria and psychological research of the same phenomena and articulation of the idea of the unconsciousness, all had impact on the intellectual history of the period and on the literature as is well known, from Romanticism on. This currents exercised influence in Serbian culture of the period, in the form of debates against spiritism, about hypnosis (by doctors trained at Salpêtriêre and by philosopher Lj. Nedić who studied with Wunt and witnessed Hansen’s demonstrations) or about telepathy. Poets and fiction writers even more were inspired by “other consciousness” concept in some of these forms. It appears as а strong but under-researched literary source. Romanticism (in the theme of cosmism), popular fiction, desintegration of realism, protomodernism, formation of fantastic fiction – they all heavily drеw on ideas of mediumship, “magnetic gnosis” (Hanegraaff), hypnotism. More than being a source, this theme enabled articulation of new poetics, new imagery and shifts in literary history, which calls for recongition of its literary importance.