The Place of Spiritualism and Ancient Africa in American Psychology

Abstract

As we approach the 21st century, the institutions of American psychology question their continued alliance with the framework of natural or exact sciences-such as physics, chemistry, and geologyin the theorization, research, and practice of psychology (Basalla, 1988; Coon, 1992; Leahy, 1992; Merchant, 1989; Smith, 1992). Major schools of American psychology had at different periods thrust themselves out as an empirical or a scientific body beginning with the science of consciousness and mental psychology in 1879 followed by the technology of behaviorism in 1913; this was subdued 40 years later by the science of information-processing psychology and cognitive technology, which to this day dominates American psychology. One distinct element shared by these scientific movements and revolutions in psychology is antispiritualism. Within the past 10 decades, the boundary between psychology as a science for the understanding of nature and psychology as the science for the control of human nature remains troublesome (Smith, 1992). Many psychologists continue to view psychology as a mechanism for human control and abhor the issue of spiritualism in modem psychology. It is essential to recognize, as noted by McGuire (1973), that psychologists in their