Victorian spiritualism was a movement built on the notion that the dead could be communicated with via the work of mediums. The movement was unusual for its time, in that it was led by women, its meetings were majoritively attended by women, and in many cases women conducted these meetings alone, out from under the watchful eye of their male counterparts.
I do feel I need to define that this article is specifically about the rise of the spiritualist mediums movement, and is not about a modern tongue terms "spiritualism" in general. Those are very different things, as ever - language evolves and takes us with it! This article also does not debate or deny the existence of mediumship, spiritualists or the feats they were able to perform. That is a very well-done and tired debate that I do not have the space or inclination to get into :) Instead, this article is a quick overview of the beginnings of Victorian Spiritualism and its links to early feminism.
Origins: The spiritualist movement first began in America in the late 1840s with the fame of two sisters who claimed to be able to communicate with a spirit which rapped on tables to answer questions. These women, known as the Fox sisters, became the first famous mediums in America, after they claimed to be able to communicate with a dead murder victim. In 1852, another American medium, Maria Hayden, came to England and introduced Spiritualism to an English audience, where it soon became immensely popular.[1] During the 1850s and the following decades, there was a boom seen in the Spiritualist movement in England, from a few mediums trickling over from America in the early 1850s, to a massive amount of people practising many of its activities, such as table rapping and full-blown seances, in households and halls all over the country by the end of the century. This led too to the rise in scientific exploration of the supernatural, with the Cambridge ghost club being founded in 1851, this becoming the London Ghost club in 1882 which was the same year that the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was founded by many of the same people.[2]
Background: For the average Victorian woman, life was often somewhat restricted by the social norms of the patriarchal society about her. This was especially true in the middle and upper classes. It was unusual for a woman to have any real power in her own life, or a voice outside of the home. [3]. A Victorian woman was expected to behave, to be polite and mild of temper, and to attend to the wishes of the men around her. Very few Victorian women owned property or businesses, nor did they run groups and societies other than charity work. (although some did - a side note, in my PhD research, I have come across several female asylum owners!) How much this stereotype was actually adhered to is debatable, but there is no doubt that the middle to upper class Victorian woman was one without very much agency in her own life.
Spiritualism in England: Spiritualism then, being brought over from America by female mediums, with tales such as those of the Fox sisters gave an opportunity for English woman to stand outside of her normal restrictive boundaries to step into a role which gave her a level of authority unusual for the time[4]. The rise of the spiritualist movement led to hundreds of ladies taking up mediumship all
over England, and thousands flocking to witness them. This was both a public spectacle, and a private one, with many people practising privately at home[5]. Georgina Byrne states in her research into the cultural implications of spiritualism, that outside of personal accounts and letters it is difficult to really examine private seances and spiritualist endeavours as these are generally not so well discussed or reported in media such as newspapers.[6] What is apparent though, is that there were many such seances and Janet Oppenheim discusses how it was more likely to be these private “Drawing room seances” which allowed the movement to really take hold in England.[7]
The rise of the sciences too played their part in the popularity of spiritualism and here it is possible to examine how the gender roles might have been affected, as in general for the era, the sciences were seen very much as a man’s domain. Spiritualism fit well into the new scientific way of thinking, as it gave the hint of an afterlife which was perhaps more scientifically testable than that of religion.[8] It might be for these reasons, then, that despite that spiritualism allowed women to indulge in what were considered normally unacceptable feminine behaviours, the female mediums were given more freedom because what they were doing was interesting to the men studying the newly blooming fields of sciences. For the female mediums, there was also the opportunity to discuss such matters as science and religion, doing so through the guise of speaking for the spirits.[9] Again, this allows for the women to have more authority, in being able to discuss matters where normally they would not be expected to.
Male Mediums: The spiritualist publication entitled The Two Worlds printed in most editions a list of
“Mediums and Speakers” from across England. This list was maintained by self-referral and gave the name and address of contact. The magazine does stress that the list accuracy was maintained by the mediums themselves so there might be omissions, but still it gives an interesting insight into the prevalence of mediums willing to offer their services. In July 1887, 19 of the listed 101 mediums were unmarried women (as identified by the prefix “Miss”), 31 were married women working alone, 5 were both “Mr and Mrs” at the same premises and 46 were male. [10] This then shows that a great deal of women were taking part in mediumship, but also that a good proportion of the self-reported mediums were male. A year later in 1888, the figures were similar but with a rise in the proportion of males, with 18 unmarried ladies, 34 married ladies 4 couples and 56 men registered. What is also seen though, is that whereas female mediums operated at home, within their groups, the male mediums took the idea and altered it, making societies for scientific study and so on. In 1851, a group from Cambridge formed to investigate the supernatural. In their circular, they discuss how they hoped to “Earnestly investigate” the nature of supernatural phenomena, and offer a classification table with articles such as “Appearance of Angels” and “Spectral Appearances” of various kinds.[11] This group was known as the Cambridge Ghost Club, and founders were all male, indeed it was not until 1927 that women were permitted to join.[12] This trend seems to appear throughout the 1860s and 1870s, an article in the spiritualist in 1871 states:
“The necessity of forming a psychological society to investigate spiritualphenomena, for the purpose of bringing the manifestations now socommon into the realm of law and order. As will be seen by thecorrespondence on another page, several highly intelligent gentlemendesire that such a society should be formed.”.[13]
Again, this shows the gender stereotype of the time, with the "gentlemen" being the ones to desire this scientific research. It can also be seen from examining the lists of members from smaller clubs, that these types of gatherings and clubs tended to be male-led. However, this was changing. In 1874, for example, in the July issue of The Spiritualist, there is a small advertisement for the Liverpool Psychological Society, who although not a spiritualist society do advertise as being in pursuit of the truth through means of psychology, and development of both mental and spiritual powers. The listed office bearer shows that several of the office bearers for 1874 were female. [14]
In conclusion then, it would appear that the spiritualist rise in England during the 1850s was fuelled by the women of the movement. They seemed to spread the word via peer groups and circles of acquaintances. The women who advertised themselves as mediums were predominantly married women, although the male population in the movement seemed to be growing. Despite a large amount of evidence which examines the public face of mediumship, there were also a large number of women practising the art at home, for reasons of self-enrichment, or even just for the fun of it. The fact that the women were the main instigators of the movement does challenge the gender roles of the time, as they were able to act in ways previously denied to them. This was due to the safety of the spiritual influence over them, which set them apart from the restrictions of normal society.
[1] Candice Gregory, "A Willing Suspension of Disbelief", Loloya University, 1989 <http://people.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1989-0/gregory.htm> [Accessed 19 April 2018].
[2] Georgina A Byrne, Modern Spiritualism and The Church of England, 1850-1939 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2010), pp. 54
[3] Marlene Tromp, ‘Spirited Sexuality: Sex, Marriage and Victorian Spiritualism’, Victorian Literature and Culture (2003), pp. 67
4] Alex Owen, The Darkened Room (London: University of Chicago Press, 1989), pp. 199-205
[5] Georgina A Byrne, Modern Spiritualism and The Church of England, 1850-1939 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2010), pp. 50-52
[6] Georgina A Byrne, pp. 52
[7] Janet Oppenheim, The Other World, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 8-12.
[8] William H. Swatos, "Spiritualism as A Religion Of Science", Social Compass, 37.4 (1990), 471-482. pp. 475
[9] Marlene Tromp, ‘Spirited Sexuality: Sex, Marriage and Victorian Spiritualism’, Victorian Literature and Culture (2003), pp. 67-81
[10] Robert Dale Owen, Footfalls on The Boundary of Another World (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1860), pp. 513-515.
[11] The Two Worlds, "Mediums and Speakers", 1887, p. 110.
12] Peter Underwood, The Ghost Club: A History, 1st edn (London: Limbury Press, 2010), p. 12.
[13] The Spiritualist, "A Psychological Society", 1871, pp. 1-2.
[14] The Spiritualist, "The Liverpool Psychological Society", 1874, p. 1.