Spiritualism and Its Believers: An Introduction
As mentioned in the introduction, spiritualism as it was understood in Victorian England began as a religious movement in the United States in the early decades of the nineteenth-century. While variations in spiritualist doctrines are not lacking, the essential tenant of the continued existence of the soul in a spirit form after physical death remained constant across the Atlantic and across the century. Spiritualists contended that not only did spirits exist, they could also assume a material form in order to interact with the living. By moving objects (often instruments) or by making objects appear (commonly flowers), spirits demonstrated their existence to the medium and her audience. By rapping in a set sequence (interpreted by the medium) or by tipping a parlor table the spirits could respond to questions. In other cases (such as in the example of the famous spirit ‘King John’) the spirit could actually speak through the medium. Believers of spiritualism did not question the honesty of the medium in these displays. Of course, in hindsight we modern readers can read such accounts and understand how fraudulent these behaviors were - more on this topic later.
Spiritualists in England were eager to spread their beliefs and to put those beliefs to any test: their willingness and openness to experimentation cannot be underestimated. Critics often claimed that empiricism clashed with and disproved spiritualism, whereas the spiritualists featured in this section adamantly maintained that their beliefs were not outside of empiricism, but rather an extension of it. Spiritualist beliefs could be proved by empirical means, and spiritualism could also open the mind to greater possibilities of existence itself. Life was no longer confined to a physical form (a striking belief in an age where life was defined for so many according to their physical gendered and racial forms). These possibilities of knowing new ways of existence were also now available to a class of men and women who could not access the empirical training newspaper critics boasted of.
The texts in this chapter define and defend the key points of spiritualism. More specifically, they address how empiricism and Christianity can harmoniously coexist with spiritualist beliefs. I categorize these texts as “believer” texts because their authors were considered by the spiritualist community and the reading public at large to be leading, zealous spiritualists. Whether these authors actually believed their own words is another story. Take Miss Houghton for instance: one of the most famous mediums and spirit photographers in England, Houghton wrote multiple works on her séance career in a voice of seemingly genuine belief. Looking at her spirit photographs though, it is clear that they are staged (though she professes them to be authentic). Houghton simultaneously professed spiritualists belief and abused them by passing (and selling) staged photographs as proof of spiritual existence. And yet she is placed in this chapter because she was perceived as one of the most important and influential ‘believers’ of the nineteenth century.