The Iranian MetaphysicalsExplorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny\nAuthor(s): Alireza Doostdar\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Princeton University Press, United States\nImprint: Princeton University Press\nISBN-13: 9780691163789, 978-0691163789\nSynopsis\nWhat do the occult sciences, sances with the souls of the dead, and appeals to saintly powers have to do with rationality? Since the late nineteenth century, modernizing intellectuals, religious leaders, and statesmen in Iran have attempted to curtail many such practices as \""superstitious,\"" instead encouraging the development of rational religious sensibilities and dispositions. However, far from diminishing the diverse methods through which Iranians engage with the immaterial realm, these rationalizing processes have multiplied the possibilities for metaphysical experimentation. \n\nThe Iranian Metaphysicals examines these experiments and their transformations over the past century. Drawing on years of ethnographic and arc.