I know what you are thinking, "She hasn't posted in a week when she said she would!" Well I had a little bit of writer's block and I decided to present an entire book at once instead of in small chapters. So I make it up to you all with an incredible book full of information. I just read a book by Alex Owen entitled The Darkened Room: Women, Power, and Spiritualism in Late Victorian England. If you have never read this book and are very interested in spiritualism tied in with aspects of femininity, then you really need to read this book. From the introduction, through the chapters, all the way to the epilogue this book is filled with information and interesting views/notions.
The book starts out by explaining the role of women at the time. They mostly had little power and "no separate legal identity" when married in which "the husband became the legal representative of his wife and assumed legal possession and control of her property" (pg.3). With the introduction of spiritualism, women were seen to be the most natural and suitable candidates for meduimship. Women, according the Owen, were viewed as the more nurturing, gentle beings "whilst embodying the highest moral and domestic virtues" (pg.8). This common thought gave women "an active professional and spiritual role [that was] largely denied...elsewhere" (pg.6).
"And it is no accident that spiritualism, a movement which privileged women and took them seriously, attracted so many female believers during a period of gender disjunction and disparity between aspiration and reality." (pg.4).
With the spread of spiritualism, Owen mentions several mediums and spiritualists and their beginnings of connecting with spirits. She mentions a raising medium named Florence Cook who would usually connect with a spirit called Katie King. Cook became well known and well liked, mostly through her seances. She would ask her sitters to laugh and sing so that the spirit would become animated and be able to communicate. Owen says, that "this humorous, playful note was a constant aspect of Florence Cook's seances, and one which made them popular entertainment" (pg. 46). This fun and exciting type of seance would be a great enticement for others to be interested in spiritualism and view more for entertainment values rather than a questionable, religious act. Other women would find their own way to stardom and hence making spiritualism more popular.
Women with this new sense of empowerment could now get away with outlandish things like doing or saying what would usually be considered inappropriate or just out right insanity. Many women would allow themselves to be possessed by spirits so that they could speak and move using the spiritualist medium's body and whatever the spirit would do would later be unable to recall by the medium. So anything that would normally be inappropriate for the medium to do, would be excused because it was not her who was in control. Some mediums would try to actually manifest spirit entities, who would go around the sitters, speaking and touching them. Toward the end of the book, Owen says that some entities were a little more "friendly" than others. Some things that the spirits would do were very teasing and sexual; some would even kiss the sitters. This type of manifestation was very risque and borderline pornographic to some; visuals of these usually female spirits would show off their "bare feet, arms, and throat [which] gave the suggestion of alluring nakedness" (pg.227). All throughout these entities were very "alluring", "the spirit form hinted, tempted, but finally disclosed nothing" (pg. 227). It is said that these entities were manifestations of psychic works and were considered "safely beyond the realm of flesh-and-blood sexuality" (pg. 221).
Owen talks about a lot of change for the classes of female society. She says that middle class women were the ones to first become interested in spiritualism and became some of the first mediums. Later, the higher class and working class would show interest and get involve themselves. Working as a medium resulted not only in notoriety, but even a class change for some. Mediums were often paid with money or gifts and would have a chance to mingle with the higher class society, even some of respectable titles (like dukes and even Queen Victoria!). Florence Cook was one of these mediums that changed her class status. She was originally a working class woman and would be considered middle class with her work as a medium and the pay she would get. A great example of class change that Owen presents resides with the Theobald Family. Owen actually dedicates a whole chapter to the family and the phenomena that they experienced. The Theobald family was very interested in spiritualism and had a very residing mediums within their kin. The family would conduct their own seances, convinced they were all had spiritual abilities. When they notice that one of their servants was showing signs of medium abilities, they slowly brought her into their circle and even made her a close friend of the family. The family let her share a room with the daughter and would even pay her things. This woman went from being a servant to almost a member of the family because of spiritualism.
The possibility of fraud was higher in some cases than others. Owen makes an interesting point when discussing private seances versus public seances on how more suspicious customers or critics would evaluate mediums. Most of the public seances were conducted by working and middle class women. Most women in these classes were interested in the business side of mediumships instead of the actual experience. These women would be more open to fraud just to receive more money or publicity. Higher class women, on the other hand, were more likely to hold private seances for family or friends. The higher class would not be interested in showing off their abilities and had no great need for more money. Besides, it would seem rather odd if a more noble lady would actually embarrass herself by acting out fraud.
This thought of fraud would become greater with the involvement of science and medicine. In the spiritualist world, those capable of natural healing were "respected as one of the highest expressions of psychic power" (pg.107). Believers would hire these healers, wanting to have a natural and more spiritualistic cure rather than medicine and possible painful procedure. The actual people in medicine practice, considered these healers (and all other spiritualists) as frauds. With the growing field of those in lunacy study, some doctors found "a belief in spiritualism as symptomatic of a diseased mind" (pg. 139). Some doctors went as far as saying that mediums were simply "hysterical women" going into fits (pg. 147). Owen dedicates a chapter in the book on Louisa Lowe and her story as medium who was sent to an asylum and about her fight to get out.
In all, this is a fantastic book; even if you are just simply interested in occults, women's right, spiritualism, or the Victorian era, you need to read this book. The fact that most of the information and examples reflect in England, this does tie into my research on Spiritualism in Europe and gives possible highlights as to how it could have spread to other countries. I hope you enjoyed this post and I will be posting again soon. Thank you.
Owen, Alex. The Darkened Room: Women, Power, and Spiritualism in Late Victorian England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2004. Pgs. xi-242.
