Servants of the Supernatural: The Night Side of the Victorian Mind

(Paperback)

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Description

A compelling history of the golden era of the Victorian seance that tells the tale of the mediums and psychics, their followers, and the sleuths who set out to expose them Born of the so-called Victorian 'pseudo science' of mesmerism, the seance enjoyed a late 19th century golden age that ministered to the Victorian obsession with science, religious doubt, and entertainment. Mediums, psychics and somnambulists were investigated by amateur sleuths and by scientists like Faraday and Darwin; their performances imitated and exposed by magicians, denounced by clerics, satirised in the press. Yet the popularity of spiritualism and the seance endured - and does so to this day.

Reviews

Servants of the Supernatural takes us on a joyously weird circuit of the Victorian obsession with the supernatural... Riotously enjoyable. * Judith Flanders *
Fascinating... brings to life the wonderfully flamboyant cheats and frauds of the 19th century medium trade... His tale stands beautifully as a reminder to choose one's beliefs carefully * Deborah Blum, author of Ghost Hunters *
Lustrous... the heyday of the Victorian sance in all its table-trembling, tambourine-tapping glory. * Word Magazine *
[An] engrossing account of sances, mesmerism and mediums. * Scotland on Sunday *
The story of the Victorian obsession with sances, spirit writing, communing with the dead and all the showmanship that went with it...Melechi tells it well and wittily. * Express *

Author Bio

Antonio Melechi is a Visiting Fellow at the University of York and the author of Fugitive Minds.