The Belief in Spiritualism

It’s hard to talk about my current WIP without spoilers! I think it’s safe to say that some of the book is about spiritualism in the nineteenth century. I’ve touched on spiritualism before in the Loving Husband Series, specifically with Olivia, who, of course, is one of the most powerful witches in the world. Just saying. This new WIP is a different kettle of fish. It’s a darker story and I’m going for Gothic vibes here. Although spiritualism doesn’t play a large role in the story, it does prove to be important. I’ve found the research into spiritualism fascinating, and I thought I’d share some of what I’ve learned.

Who Were the Spiritualists?

Spiritualists believed that people could communicate with their loved ones after death, and that belief brought about an industry of mediums who claimed to speak to the dead. The spiritualists plied their trade at a séance, where they would gather together several people hoping to connect to their loved ones who had passed on. When people attended a séance they often walked into a darkened room lit only by the glow of gaslight. They sat in silence at a round table, hands clasped, as they hoped for a message from the other side.

The Séance Craze

The nineteenth century was marked by a fascination with death and the supernatural. It was a time of high mortality rates, especially among children, and people would engage in year-long mourning for closest relatives while wearing black. Post-mortem photography, taking pictures with a deceased family member, was a popular way of creating keepsakes of those who had passed on. Queen Victoria wore black for her beloved husband Prince Albert for the rest of her life, and she attempted to communicate with him from the Great Beyond.

The Fox Sisters

The spiritualist movement began in New York in 1848 when the Fox Sisters, Maggie and Kate, claimed they could communicate with spirits through mysterious rapping sounds. The sisters found a following among those who wanted to speak with loved ones on the other side.

The spiritualist movement quickly crossed the Atlantic and found a receptive audience in England. By the 1860s, spiritualism was a phenomenon. Séances offered comfort to those who had lost loved ones, and mediums promised that death was not the end but merely a veil that could be parted.

Mediums: Connections With the Spirit World

Mediums were believed to act as conduits between the living and the dead. They were often women, which was unusual at a time when women had little power in society. Séances might feature automatic writing (where mediums wrote messages “dictated” by spirits), the sound of spirit trumpets, ectoplasm (a kind of spiritual goo), and full-body materializations that some people believed were ghosts. Some mediums worked in darkness or dim light to help spirits manifest. Others entered trances or used an early form of the Ouija board to receive messages from those on the other side. Tapping on tables was supposed to be a response from spirits.

Spiritualism was part of the mainstream culture during the nineteenth century. People on both sides of the pond believed in an afterlife populated by spirits who could guide the living toward moral and spiritual improvement. Séances were sometimes seen as religious experiences, combining ideas of the soul with a belief in personal communication with the dead. In time, many mediums were exposed as charlatans, but spiritualism endures and we can still see echoes of it in our society today.

Spiritualism is Still With Us

The nineteenth-century séance reflects the timeless human longing to reach across the void for one final word with those we love. mediums tapped into a powerful cultural current that still captivates us today, and the desire to connect with those we have lost is as strong as ever. Perhaps that’s why I keep touching on spiritualism in different stories from different angles.

References

“Enchanted Spaces: The Séance, Affect, and Geographies of Religion” by Julian Halloway

“Spiritualism and a Mid-Victorian Crisis of Evidence” by Peter Lamont

“To Hold Communion With Nature and the Spirit-World: New England’s Spiritualist Camp Meetings, 1865-1910” by William D. Moore