psychical

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ψυχικός (psukhikós) + -al.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈsʌɪkɪk(ə)l/

Adjective

psychical (not comparable)

  1. Performed by or pertaining to the mind or spirit; mental, psychic. [from 17th c.]
    • 1890, Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Vintage 2007, p. 53:
      Who could say where the fleshly impulse ceased, or the psychical impulse began?
    • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture I:
      Even more perhaps than other kinds of genius, religious leaders have been subject to abnormal psychical visitations. Invariably they have been creatures of exalted emotional sensibility. [pg 007] Often they have led a discordant inner life, and had melancholy during a part of their career. They have known no measure, been liable to obsessions and fixed ideas; and frequently they have fallen into trances, heard voices, seen visions, and presented all sorts of peculiarities which are ordinarily classed as pathological. Often, moreover, these pathological features in their career have helped to give them their religious authority and influence.
  2. (theology) Pertaining to the animal nature of man, as opposed to the spirit. [from 18th c.]
  3. Outside the realm of the physical; supernatural, psychic. [from 19th c.]

Translations

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