History of a concept. “Everything is sensitive! And everything about your being is powerful.”exclaimed the writer Gérard de Nerval (1808-1855) in his collection The Chimeras. One hundred and seventy years later, Italian director Alice Rohrwacher places herself at the center of her film’s narrative The Chimera (2024) what she defines as “the wreck of a romantic hero” : a magnetizer guiding a group of grave robbers in Italy in the 1980s. Same title, same subject, but the relationship with these invisible telluric forces has evolved, moving from dream poets and esoteric salons to a cinematographic production.
A trajectory that illustrates the growing interest around the notion of “invisible worlds”. In its traditional definition, the“invisible” – borrowed from late Latin invisibilis – East “the domain of what cannot be seen or clearly perceived, of what escapes sensory knowledge” (Dictionary of the French Academy). This notion is similar to Plato’s allegory of the cave: according to him, there exists behind the apparent materiality of the world another reality, to which human beings do not have access.
In fact, the desire to reveal the invisible, to connect with it, structures almost all belief systems. “Certain realities witnessed by the faithful, such as the divine and spirits, go beyond the order of the visible and of being.underlines the philosopher Mohamed Amer Meziane, author ofAt the edge of the worlds (Views of the mind, 2023). There are not only worlds, but also what lies at their edges: overworlds – like gods or angels – and intermediate realities, like dream places.
“Several rationalities”
Long scorned in the name of rationalism, these beliefs in the existence of invisible worlds are being brought back to the table by sociologists, anthropologists and philosophers who intend to take them seriously. “Far from rejecting rationalism in the name of the invisible, I defend the idea that there are several rationalities. Reason is not only the technoscience that is dominant today: another model of rationality is possible.”defends Mohamed Amer Meziane.
Practices supposed to allow contact with these invisible worlds have existed since the dawn of time: invocations, prayers, rites, witchcraft, magnetism, astrology, mediumship… The invention of photography in the 19th centurye century, also bears witness to this desire to make the invisible visible: doctors try to capture a material trace of their patients’ dreams, while paranormal enthusiasts intend to highlight the presence of ghosts, relates the anthropologist Grégory Delaplace in his latest essay, The Voice of Ghosts (Seuil, 268 pages, 22 euros).
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