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Seance Room

From the windows of my library, I look out upon the night sky. I seek some comfort in the stary void. It does not come. As the candle burns low, I feel the presence of the spirits, I take up a pen and I begin to write. They call it 'automatic' writting. I see only the letters, in the morning light, written in my mother's hand. Sometimes she writes in English, other times in German, but most often in the queer mixture of the two languages she often used.

Spiritualism became popular as a movement in the 1850's, beginning with the work of the Fox sisters in the United States in 1848. The key idea behind spiritualism was that it allowed communication with the spirits of the dead.

One of the most famous spiritualists, D.D. Home, came from America to London in 1855. Home performed his seances in full light, a fact that distinguished him from other spiritualists practicing at the time. Reports of Home's seances included the shaking of the room, a levitation of the table, spirits who spoke through Home, and the occasional materialization of hands, arms, or legs. On some occasions Home was reported to have levitated himself. Home also became popular because he never charged fees for his performances. He relied on the support of patrons and hosts

For Spiritualists, death was not considered a finality but a transition. Communication with the spirits of the deceased eased the pain caused by the loss of a loved one. A typical spiritualist funeral was designed to appear optimistic in spite of death. "Mourners" wore white instead of the traditional black. The deceased was laid in a white coffin surrounded by white flowers. Death was to be viewed as a change in life rather than the end of it.

The spiritualist movement even pervaded the upper ranks of Victorian England's government. W.E. Gladstone, the Prime Minister of England in 1884, was quoted as saying that psychical research was "the most important work being done in the world today" The Earl of Balfour became president of the newly formed Society for Psychical Research in 1882. Aurthur Conan Doyal, Mary and Abrahan Lincolin in America were notable Spiritualists of the time. Even Queen Victoria used a medium to contact Prince Albert after his death. In 1853 Charles Dickens is said to have attended an exhibition of slate writing, where a spirit supposedly communicated in writing through a medium.

Like mesmerism and phrenology before it, spiritualism became a part of Victorian life. These "sciences" were cutting-edge answers to the problems brought about by the Industrial Revolution.

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