What do the occult sciences, séances 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. The Iranian Metaphysicals examines these experiments and their transformations over the past century. Drawing on years of ethnographic and archival research, Alireza Doostdar shows that metaphysical experimentation lies at the center of some of the most influential intellectual and religious movements in modern Iran. These forms of exploration have not only produced a plurality of rational orientations toward metaphysical phenomena but have also fundamentally shaped what is understood as orthodox Shi'i Islam, including the forms of Islamic rationality at the heart of projects for building and sustaining an Islamic Republic. Delving into frequently neglected aspects of Iranian spirituality, politics, and intellectual inquiry, The Iranian Metaphysicals challenges widely held assumptions about Islam, rationality, and the relationship between science and religion.

Note on Transliteration ixAcknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
PART 1 RAMMAL
1 Crossing the Line 29
2 Popular Nonsense 38
3 Legal Censure 46
4 Do Jinn Exist? 52
5 Virtuous Caution 58
6 A Scholar-Rammal 65
7 The Hesitant Officer 70
8 Metaphysical Pleasures 78
9 The Fantastic 87
10 Rammali Refashioned 93
Suppress, Accommodate, Sublimate 101
PART 2 SCIENTIST
11 Quantum Understanding 105
12 Empirical Spirits 112
13 Scientific Virtues 123
14 Wings of Imagination 136
15 Cosmic Mystics 145
16 Specters of Doubt 155
17 Becoming Witness 159
18 Authority in Experience 166
Experiments in Synthesis 171
PART 3 FRIEND OF GOD
19 A Protector Lost 175
20 Whips for the Wayfarers 181
21 Discretion and Publicity 191
22 The Politics of Veneration 199
23 Metaphysics of Vision 209
24 Technospiritual Reflexivity 217
Hagiographies Unbound 229
Conclusion 231
Note on the Cover Image 237
Notes 239
References 265
Index 287