Why was there so much interest in attempting to communicate with the spirit world during the second half of the nineteenth century?

Over time the act of the séance attracted many scientific minds eager to investigate it, although questions remained unanswered and new ones were created when the Society for Psychical Research conducted investigations into séances, but the likes of Wallace and Francis Galton were keen advocates.  The most famous medium was the enigmatic American, Daniel Douglas Home, who in 1854 left his motherland with the intention of “alleviating the indurate and materialistic tone of the English mind”, as a desire within the realm of English spiritualists for their mediums to imitate the excitement of American séances was constant.

Home’s method soon became famous within London society and he was so respected that he often held séances with European royalty. As previously mentioned, the interest of scientists to investigate the phenomena of the séance was intriguing as scientists risked their reputation on it and as William Thomas Greenwell in his editorial “Spiritualism: A satanic cult” (1870) suggests, this reluctance placated the rise in spiritualism.

An example of reputation being jeopardised by examining the séance is provided by the account of chemist and physicist William Crookes FRS who in June 1871, submitted a report to the co-secretaries of the Royal Society, in which he investigated the work of “nine or ten persons who possess psychic powers in various degrees”  concluding that he had witnessed paranormal activity, the Royal Society rejected the report defining the results as biased due to possible errors in the experiments, despite Crooke’s assurances that he had taken every necessary precaution in facilitating a fair and thorough investigation. As a consequence, one scientist in a journal unfairly lambasted Crooke, questioning his ability as a scientist and also Crooke’s appointment into the Royal Society, despite Crooke receiving unanimous approval in his appointment.

The British scientist Sir David Brewster also conducted an investigation, this time concentrating solely on Daniel Douglas Home’s séance and found nothing of interest, concluding his report by stating it “could all be produced by human hands and feet” although this was in contradiction to the opinion of socialites, including Elizabeth Barret Browning, who called the performance “wonderful and conclusive”.

Despite the controversy scientific investigations had created over séances, many spiritualists were actually accepting of them.  As they firmly believed that by raising awareness of methods within séances that science would vindicate the act provided the medium was genuine and not one of the many thousands of fakes. Home himself called for increased awareness of purposeful influences that could manipulate a séance. In his book, “Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism” (1877)   Home criticised the “self-delusion” with which a majority of spiritualists had neglected to control the trickery in a séance room. Although the fairness in which Home did this is highly questionable given that he himself had told his customers to ignore any undue activity in the séance room whilst at the same time he performed in darkness.

Aside from the declining influence of the church and the popularity of the séance, other enormous aspects contributing to the rise of spiritualism include its universal application. Virtually anybody could take part, and women in particular flourished within the spiritualist environment. This is evident from reading the work of Alex Owen who is able to illustrate the extent of the impact made by women on the movement.

The reason for this impact, as Owen argues, is due to the beneficial facets of a female character. By utilising the pre-determined traits of their personality, which included the traditional Victorian adage of women being the homemaker, women were able to demonstrate their ability in various roles, most frequently though as a medium. Positions that many believed females excelled at and were better than males due the traditional view of women’s angelic and gentle nature. This spiritualist conception of femininity though was both liberating and restricting as whilst women were able to achieve positions of status within the movement, the implication of their role as homemaker was restrictive within wider Victorian society  as the biblical notion of women being subservient to men was prevalent within it, even in spiritualist households it was considered that men should have the power with women only possessing limited influence.  

Under the wider context of women’s influence in spiritualism, the name of Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky is at the fore. She had a desire to reform the spiritualist movement as she was fed up of its obsession with phenomena and so co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875, based in New York. Due to Blavatsky’s influence, Theosophy replaced Egyptology as the exotic study of choice for Western occultists. Centred on oriental mysticism, Blavatsky preached that Tibetan monks could demonstrate the order of the Universe with the position of humanity within it. This was immensely popular with the Western populace at a time when the biblical notion of creationism was largely abandoned and the popular belief in a God was waning. Theosophy it was felt could provide spiritual meaning and prove the soul’s existence in the afterlife without necessarily believing in a deity.  It was also felt that this new form of spiritualism could finally bridge the gap between religion and science due to its spiritualist connotations and claims to be a science via its association with prominent scientists including Society for Psychical Research members Lord Rayleigh, Joseph John Thomson, both of whom were physicians.

The Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882 by the famous 19th century philosopher Henry Sedgwick after becoming dissatisfied with the way science was manipulating Victorian society. He was a keen scientific mind, but he reviewed former great civilisations such as the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians and pondered the way in which for all the greatness they achieved, the role of religion in providing moral guidance was important.  Like Alfred Russel Wallace, Sedgwick was fearful of a future with no morals to abide to. It should be pointed out that Sedgwick was not enthralled with séance and wrote to his sister complaining of how it was “nothing but an experience in the lower forms of human nature”.  Nevertheless, the desire to prove there was a spiritual existence that was in accordance with fundamental Christian teachings was imperative to Sedgwick’s motives for his assistance in the creation of the Society.  It is interesting that the Society contained members of differing views on occultism, some weren’t actually believers at all, but this led to much argument between the non-believers and occultists. Many of whom were scientists.

Indeed, it was from science in which much of the criticism for spiritualism can be found.  The published pamphlet “Spiritualism and common sense” (1868) by R.T.H. demonstrates the concern many had. Stating that, spiritualism lacks any proof at all, despite the claims of its advocates of being able to “transcend the limit of human knowledge”.  

As noted before, scientists who were involved with spiritualism often left them open to accusations of scientific heresy. The example of Crookes has been given but there were also others, including the electrical engineer Cromwell Fleetwood Varley FRS, who was a spiritualist but had alluded to spiritualism in his distinguished work “Proceedings of the Royal Society” (1871) which provided the structure for later Victorian scientists to investigate works into psychical phenomena in the 1890s. His work though was heavily criticised at the time of its publishing and only became popular after the discovery of X-Rays by Germany’s Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen.As Richard Noakes suggests, the connection between Victorian electrical engineering, physical sciences and spiritualism was a lot closer than the majority of Victorian scientists at the time thought and this is why it was possible for Varley to consider spiritualism as an extension of science. Contrary to popular opinion at the time, he wanted to utilise his mastery of telegraphy to prove that what was deemed paranormal by spiritualists was actually a manifestation of nature.  Varley though was dismissed in his entry for the Dictionary of national biography as being a “rather credulous investigator of spiritualistic phenomena”.

In April 1869, spiritualism was subjected to its first “scientific” inquiry, when Daniel Home and other mediums of good social standing were investigated by the London Dialectical Society. Home was obliging and provided investigators with plenty of opportunity for a fair and thorough investigation. The committee concluded that “nothing occurred at any of the meetings which could be attributed to supernatural courses”. 

Yet when Cromwell Varley told a committee of the Society that he had plenty of evidence for the supernatural he was asked by the committee why there had been no great scientific knowledge that had been passed on to mediums by the spirits, Varley replied that there were “one hundred known mediums in the whole kingdom,” and that many were redundant in their understanding of natural philosophy.  In its conclusion, the committee decided that “a force capable of moving heavy bodies without material contact, and which force is in some manner dependent” existed. This finding however was heavily criticised by opponents of spiritualism, with the popular argument being that there was clear proof of fraud being employed by some investigated mediums and that too much emphasis had been placed on opinions of members who recorded extraordinary facts garnered from witnesses who had given evidence, instead of experimental evidence. The mainstream media concluded that the findings by the committee were “a mass of monstrous rubbish”.

Other opponents of spiritualism include T.H. Huxley and Charles Darwin, when Huxley investigated a séance in January 1874, he concluded that he was unimpressed with what he had witnessed and wrote to Darwin about how unimpressive a spectacle it was. This was of utmost relief for Darwin as he was concerned that his son, George, and cousin Francis Galton were firm believers in séance phenomena. Darwin’s reluctance to accept spiritualism is also evident in his concern that Alfred Russel Wallace had embraced spiritualism and in doing so had appeared to abandon science, despite Wallace’s persistence in endorsing the evolutionist theory.  

Apart from the scientific community’s criticism of spiritualism, other factors too caused it to ultimately fail. As Pearsall contests, had spiritualism formulated one single ideology then it is likely it would’ve created a far bigger impact as a religion than it actually did. Instead, there were regular splits in the movement and the various splinter groups had a wide range of spiritualist newspapers and periodicals. Some of which undertook social movements but the main purpose of spiritualism was largely forgotten - this being a possible afterlife - in favour of personal promotion as evident by the amount of self-congratulatory columns in spiritualist newspapers.

Although due to its religions principles spiritualism was largely accepted by religion, it was still attacked by some short-sighted clergymen and Pearsall contests that had spiritualism been as arrogant as the Church in the face of harsh criticism then it would have received more credence than it actually did. Instead, it was only deemed as only being another “nonconformist” movement that posed an empty threat to the Church of England. 

In conclusion, despite the strenuous attempts made by prominent spiritualists to transform their movement into a religion, it ultimately failed. As a result, the attraction of communicating with the spirit world was only a pastime that provided comfort to many. Yet this was only a fashionable pastime and as is typical of fashion, attempts to communicate with the spirit world diminished when new forms of entertainment presented themselves, for example various spectator sports such as football started to grip the nation as a favourite distraction at the turn of the century. Despite this, the impact of spiritualism on the social scene of the Western world was profound, it was conducive to the publishing of famous fictional illustrations like Dracula (1897) and above all, it was a vehicle for various other socially conscious movements such as socialism and greater rights for women to come to the fore of English society.

Why was there so much interest in attempting to communicate with the spirit world during the second half of the nineteenth century? (Bibliography)

Primary Sources

Books:

Briggs Davenport, Reuben. “The Deathblow to Spiritualism: Being the true story of the Fox Sisters, as revealed by authority of Margaret Fox Kane and Catherine Fox Jencken“. (New York, G. W. Dillingham Co. Publishers, 1888)

Editorials:

Greenwell, William Thomas. Spiritualism: a satanic agency. (London, Charing Cross Publishing Company LTD, 1870)        

R.T.H.  Spiritualism and Common Sense (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1868)

Secondary Sources

Books:

Owen, Alex. The Place of Enchantment (Chicago, Illinois. Chicago University Press, 2004)

Pearsall, Ronald. The Table Rappers, Victorians and the Occult. (Gloucestershire, The History Press, 2004)

Blum, Deborah. Ghost Hunters, William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death.  (London, Penguin Books Ltd, 2007) 

. Servants of the Supernatural (London, William Heinemann. 2008)

Owen, Alex.  The Darkened Room (Chicago, Illinois, Chicago University Press, 2004)

Editorials:

Cooter, Roger. “The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science: Phrenology and the Organisation of Consent in Nineteenth Century Britain” (Cambridge, Cambridge University

Press, 1985)

Holloway, Julian (2006) 'Enchanted Spaces: The Séance, Affect, and Geographies of Religion', Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 96: 1, 182 — 187.

Lamont, Peter. Spiritualism and a Mid-Victorian Crisis of Evidence, Cambridge University Press, The Historical Journal, Vol. 47, No. 4 (Dec., 2004),

Noakes, Richard.  Cromwell Varley FRS, Electrical Discharge and Victorian Spiritualism, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Jan. 22, 2007), pp. 5-21 (The Royal Society, London)

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