Mediums and Stars:
Mediumship, Show Business, and Celebrity in Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism
As Colleen McDannell so aptly put it in her groundbreaking study on Christianity’s material culture, our understanding of religious beliefs is usually informed by “a dichotomy that has been established between the sacred and the profane, spirit and matter, piety and commerce that constrains our ability to understand how religion works in the real world.”1 This dichotomy seems to have largely influenced most literature on spiritualism: as Daniel Herman noted, in fact, most scholars have addressed spiritualism with “an almost grim seriousness that obscures its playfulness and its willingness to explore the profane as well as the sacred.”2 Since both religion and science are “serious” matters, some scholarship seems to imply evoking this playfulness would mean undervaluing the cultural and historical significance of the spiritualist movement.
Recently, however, works such as Alex Owen’s The Darkened Room and Robert S. Cox Body and Soul have started to recognize a degree of playfulness in the spiritualist experience.3 Drawing from this line of thinking, this chapter is based upon the consideration that attending a spiritualist séance could be considered, also and perhaps especially by believers, an activity as entertaining as a magic show. In this regard, frameworks developed in the fields of film and media studies, such as stardom and entertainment theory, may provide a useful contribution to the historical and critical analysis of the spiritualist movement.
In film studies, a “star” has been defined as a worker acknowledged as separate and superior both by co-workers and by the movie-going public. Stars are regarded by
their fans as exceptional, majestic characters, to whom sometimes even pseudo-supernatural powers are granted. Indeed, scholars such as Chris Rojek,4 Steve Nolan,5 and David Chidester6 have argued a similarity exists between cinematic stardom and the formation of religious and magical beliefs about the powers of spiritual leaders, healers, and sorcerers. Steve Nolan, in particular, claimed that both film and liturgy invite their constituent subjects to identify with another. For instance, as audiences tend to build a relationship of identification with the main character of a film, Christian believers in a liturgical environment might identify with the priest.7
Most of this literature has focused on the relationship between religious leaders and believers in order to improve our understanding of the relationship between a stars and her audience. In contrast with this line of research, this chapter is built upon the converse assumption: that theories on stardom can be used to interpret and understand the role played by celebrity mediums, those who succeeded to become widely known even beyond the boundaries of the spiritualist movement.8 Through a plentiful of examples from the history of spiritualism, the paradigm of stardom theory will be applied to the case studies of some among the most celebrated mediums of the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
The central argument of this chapter, then, is that spiritualism was not immune to dynamics of pre-cinematic stardom. The most popular mediums in the nineteenth and early twentieth century were true celebrities, capable of arousing the curiosity of spiritualists and non-spiritualists alike. They sat at their séance table with some of the most prominent personalities of the time. As the star system contributed to the international rise of the film industry, being instrumental in cinema’s reaching of
increasingly large masses of people and establishing a solid industrial structure, celebrity mediums contributed to the cohesion of the spiritualist communities by spreading the fame of the movement and by furnishing a common ground of recognized personalities. It is sufficient to open one of the most widely read histories of the spiritualist movement to ascertain that this history is largely composed by a gallery of eminent personalities – most of whom were, quite predictably, spirit mediums.9
What I want to suggest is, in other words, that “star” mediums are to a large extent accountable for the popularity of spiritualism in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Frequently, in fact, it was the appeal exercised on the popular press by famous mediums, such as Eusapia Palladino,10 that allowed spiritualism to “break the news,” acquiring the attention of a public that went beyond the boundaries of believers in spiritualism. For this reason, I believe, regarding mediumship as a career that included issues of celebrity and stardom can drive to a better understanding of how the spiritualist movement kept attracting the attention of the public and the popular press for so many decades after its foundation in 1848.
The chapter is divided into four sections. The first one introduces theories developed within stardom studies in order to interpret the essential dynamics of celebrity at play within the spiritualist movement. In this section, particular attention is also given to the analogy between mediumship and theatrical performance. The following sections focus on the examination of three case studies of mediums whose careers can be conveniently framed in a stardom studies paradigm. In particular, the recurring decadences and redemptions of the Fox sisters will be compared to the myth of the “falling stars” in modern show business; the theatrical career of the Davenport brothers
will be used to show the relevance of agents and managers in spiritualism; and the astounding career of medium Daniel Douglas Home to address issues of exceptionality and charisma. The way these celebrity mediums achieved their stunning popularity gives us a convincing demonstration, I believe, that mechanisms at play in show business were also relevant in the development of beliefs in spirit séances.
1. Mediumship and Celebrity
In his classical essay on biographies in popular magazines, first published in 1942, Leo Lowenthal observed that since the beginning of the twentieth century the status of celebrity had markedly moved from “the serious and important professions”11 of politics and business to figures from the realm of leisure, such as sport and media entertainment. “The idols of the masses,” Lowenthal claimed, “are not, as they were in the past, the leading names in the battle of production, but the headlines of the movies, the ball parks, and the night clubs.”12 To this list of new “idols,” we might also add spiritualist mediums such as Eusapia Palladino, who at the beginning of the twentieth century succeeded to gather the attention not only of spiritualist circles, but also of the popular press, in cultural and linguistic environment as different as Italy, France, England, Poland, Russia, and the United States.13
As I have argued elsewhere,14 spiritualist mediumship was in the nineteenth and early twentieth century not only a matter of religious and superstitious beliefs, but also a of entertainment and leisure. Spiritualist mediums, in fact, performed séances not only in private environments, but also on the theatrical stage. Scholars such as Sarah Goldingay15 and Peter Lamont16 have noted that mediumship can be compared to theatrical acting and
magic shows. This element corroborates the analogy between celebrity mediums and stars, since cinema, as claimed by Dyer,17 derived the star system directly from the American vaudeville, which was one of the most important context in which stage magic and popular theater proliferated around 1900.18
Frequently, spiritualists explicitly acknowledged that performances of mediums could include some acting, to give more “colour” to the manifestations of spirits. The spiritualist John Wetherbee, for instance, admitted that “I have seen, of course, attempts to cheat by at least supplementing their powers by more or less imposition; not always meaning to do anything wrong, but, perhaps, to give more for the fee received than the spirits can do through them”.19 Some mediums, after all, had entered into spiritualism directly from the show department.20
Like acting, mediumship was considered a profession by spiritualists. Since the foundation of the movement, it was an economical activity in its own sake: the first mediums of history, the Fox sisters, publicly demonstrated their mediumship in Rochester's Corinthian Hall as early as November 14, 1849, charging seventy-five cents for admission. Following their example, mediums usually charged a fee to attend their séances, or relied on patronage. Polemics around the professionalism of mediums were frequent, but committed spiritualists rarely regarded these economical turnouts as an evidence of dishonesty. In 1878, a spiritualist claimed that paying mediums “is as praiseworthy as to employ the time and 'gifts' of a lawyer, doctor, baker, or any other tradesman who has goods for sale, mental or material,” and that refusing to pay was “equivalent to pocket-picking.” As in every field of human activity, in fact, “the question
of work and fees comes under the heading of ‘supply’ and ‘demand,’ and will be regulated accordingly.”21
Mediumship was understood not only as a natural gift, but also as a skill that, similarly to acting and other artistic activities, could be improved by regular training. Biographic accounts depicted mediumship as a gradual learning process, that required abnegation and experience. Advances in the development of mediumship could last an entire life: the medium Joseph Armitage, for instance, reported that, after having discovered his mediumship, he deepened his knowledge of spiritualism, which led to him developing the ability of trance-speaking. Later, he discovered he was a healing medium, too, when he tried to help a person that had his arm crushed in a wheel.22 As a spiritualist put it, “the gift of mediumship requires developing by constant sitting, in the same way that a musical or an artistic talent requires to be cultivated; and a person can therefore no more become at once a ‘full-blown’ medium than he could expect to be a proficient instrumentalist without previous practice.”23
The relationship with acting is not the only aspect to suggest a comparison between stardom and mediumship. Richard Dyer has shown that the public image of film stars is built upon a combination of their private lives and their fictional character(s) or, in other words, of the spectacular with the everyday.24 In contrast with the mere characters of a play, stars have an existence that endures beyond their appearance on the screen or on the stage, and that decisively contributes to their public image. Private life is central to the construction of the emotional link between a celebrity and her fans, and interacts in complex ways with the fictional character played on the screen: an actor
famous for his irregular way of life, for instance, could be particularly apt to play the role of a man who redeems his previous errors by committing a heroic gesture of generosity.
Often, the depiction of famous mediums followed a similar pattern, with the medium being described as a combination of her trance performance at the séance table and her everyday identity: two faces of the same person that were clearly separated, but at the same time mutually reinforced. Rather than being the subject of attention only during the development of their trance states, mediums were considered and praised by spiritualists and non-spiritualist alike also for their private life and personality. Aspects of a medium’s personal history were central to her success within spiritualist circles and beyond. The Italian Eusapia Palladino, arguably the most celebrated medium worldwide at the beginning of the twentieth century, was famous not only for the extraordinary character of her spiritualist manifestations, but also for her humble origins and simple manners, that were incessantly underlined to stress the fact that she was too naïve to be a trickster.25 Another aspect of a medium’s personality that was frequently stressed was her sensitivity. Palladino, for one, was described as a woman extremely easy to be frightened and impressed. She was somnambulist, extremely vulnerable to hypnosis, and incessantly demonstrated a stunning sensitivity to the characteristics of the environment and to the emotional state of the persons she encountered.26
Quite often, the poverty of social origins, given as evidence of a medium’s innocence and inability to perform tricks, turned mediumship into a story of social and economical redemption – a pattern that is to be found in the career of many early film stars, such as Rodolfo Valentino.27 The spiritualist John Wetherbee, for instance, discovered one day that the Irish nurse who was living in his house possessed “that
constitutional quality that some people have, that in their presence and sometimes without contact, as was the case with this young woman, inanimate tables and other objects become animate, and intelligently move, it would seem, by the said objects' own volition.” Since then, the nurse conducted spirit séances in his house, giving to the family “two years of very valuable experience.”28 Underlining the naivety of his domestic medium, Wetherbee pointed to the fact that at the moment he discovered her powers “she did not, in her ignorance, know what Spiritualism meant.”29 She was Irish and catholic, “a widow of about twenty,- ignorant, careless, and lively.”30 With Wetherbee's account in mind, it is perhaps easier to understand why, as Eve M. Lynch has argued, nineteenth-century ghost stories of the gothic genre often depict an alliance between the supernatural and the domestic servant.31 In fact, mediums had most frequently a lower cultural and social background than their protectors – a circumstance that spiritualists stressed as reinforcing the credibility of their “automatism.” The medium J. J. Morse, for instance, designated by journalist William Thomas Stead the “Bishop of Spiritualism”,32 had been a pot-boy in a public house before his mediumship was discovered. The difference between his waking and entranced state was also a matter of culture: he was as ignorant and uneducated while awake, as he was erudite and well educated in trance.
2. Falling Stars: The Case of the Fox Sisters
The relationship between private life and trance state played a particularly relevant role in the mediumistic career of Kate and Margaret Fox. The two sisters, who “discovered” spirit rappings in the late 1840s at the age of twelve and fifteen years, are recognized by most spiritualist sources as the first mediums of history. But the Hydesville rappings, as
the phenomena they developed came to be known after the name of their hometown in the New York State, was only the beginning of their decade-long career as spiritualist mediums. 33
Although being essentially heroic and extraordinary, the star is often a tragic figure, suspended between heroism and disastrous decadence. As Reni Celeste put it, the relationship star-fan often focuses on scandals, diseases, divorces, and addictions, “anything that will bring closer the realism or vulnerability of the body of the star.34 In this context, media contributes to the construction of the star by walking “the fine line between exposure and concealment to generate and maintain fascination and fandom.” 35 In stardom studies, celebrities experiencing dramatic downfalls are usually called “falling stars”.36
The career of the Fox sisters followed very much this path. Through repeated admissions of trickery, troubled sentimental lives, and a pathological addition to alcohol, they attracted again and again the attention of the spiritualist press. Their story of recurring exposures and counter-exposures, that was widely reported in the spiritualist press, culminated in their confession in 1888 that their mysterious spirit raps were actually produced by a voluntary movement of their toes. Shortly after, Reuben Briggs Davenport published a book titled The Death-Blow to Spiritualism in the hope that “the world will now form its ultimate conclusion upon this flagrant and audacious system of humbuggery.”37 Although this book included a printed confession by the two mediums, the Fox sisters later returned to spiritualist mediumship, refusing to confirm the authenticity of their confession.38
The Fox sisters’ libertine way of life and their addiction to alcohol were also a subject of gossip. Given their status of founders of the movements, their private behaviour was often considered a suitable topic for public debate. In June 1885, for instance, London spiritualist magazine The Medium and Daybreak greeted with this words the departure of Kate Fox, the younger sister, from England to America:
“The love which we all bore her would not permit of an open acknowledgement of faults; but it must be said that Mrs. Fox-Jencken was found extremely difficult to manage. Even her best and most devoted friends got exhausted in their patience and assiduity on her behalf. How painful it is to write this we alone can know. It is not said to reproach: the love of truth and of the unhappy sufferer compels it. Whether hereditary or acquired, the influence of alcohol had assumed far too much control, and the paroxysm increased in frequency and intensity. […] Such cases enforce the consideration that public mediumship, as now carried on, is utterly bad, alike for the Cause and the mediums. […] All mediums should seek an independent position, based on industrial considerations, and thus be free to sit or refuse, as their enlightened impulses may direct. The sit-for-all-comers course is the rapidly-declining scale, that end in all that is deplorable.”39
The attention given to the unquiet behaviour of the Fox sisters reveals how mechanisms of publicity similar to those described by Celeste and by other authors that have analyzed the phenomenon of “falling stars” was at play, in a certain extent, also within the boundary of the spiritualist movement.
3. The Medium and the Manager: The Davenport Brothers
As Turner, Bonner and Marshall have convincingly demonstrated, there would probably be no star without their managers.40 Agents, scouts, impresario managers have been a staple of the show business industry since at least the end of the nineteenth century, sharing responsibility in the rise of virtually every celebrity of theater, vaudeville, and cinema. But managers, despite being often masked under the definition of “assistants,” accompanied the ascent of many celebrity spiritualist mediums, too. The already mentioned Eusapia Palladino, for one, was assisted by Ercole Chiaia, who promoted her mediumship not only within the boundaries of the spiritualist movement, but also through contacts and interviews with journalists of the popular press. Chiaia was responsible for the challenge posited by Palladino to the world-famous Italian sociologist Cesare Lombroso, who accepted in 1891 to sit at the séance table with her, and subsequently converted to spiritualism. This unexpected conversion, orchestrated by Chiaia through a campaign in both the spiritualist and the popular press, opened the way for the international fortune of the Italian medium in the following twenty-five years.41
A particularly valuable example of how mediums benefited from the services of managers can be found in the career of the Davenport brothers, two American mediums that merged, probable more than any other in the nineteenth century, spiritualist mediumship and theatrical show business. Born in Buffalo, United States, Ira Erastus and William Henry Davenport had developed mediumship, according to their benevolent biographer,42 even before the craze for spirit séances started in the town of Hydesville, just one hundred miles for Buffalo, in 1848. Assisted by their father, they soon began to
give séances in Buffalo and in the neighbouring towns. Their séances were public events, performed before a paying public. Fixing a price was, they claimed, “a means of excluding an idle and perhaps mischievous crowd that would otherwise have claimed admission.”43
When the Davenport brothers started touring, in a show-business fashion, the theatrical stages of Northern America and United Kingdom, they were accompanied not only by their father, but also by other persons who acted as agents and assistants. Among those were figures involved in the world of theatre, such as Harry Kellar, who later became one of the leading American magicians. At least one of their managers, a Mr. Palmer, also managed stage conjurors.44
Very much like stage magicians, the Davenports actively stimulated the participation of their audiences. Spectators attending their shows were encouraged to step on the stage, in order to actively question the authenticity of the spirit manifestations. As cultural historian James W. Cook convincingly demonstrated, much of nineteenth-century spectacular features, including those promoted by show-business entrepreneur P. T. Barnum, exploited a similar mechanism, by which the public was stimulated to form a personal opinion about the reliability of the attractions. Barnum increased the public's curiosity with a sophisticated use of the press, sending to newspapers evidence either in favour or against the authenticity of his attractions, in order to stimulate rumours and debates.45 A similar debate took place also in the case of the Davenport brothers. The debunking of their mediumship performed by magicians such as Maskelyne and Cook in London, as well as the following defence made by committed spiritualists,46 probably increased the Davenports’ box-office success.47 Like Barnum, the Davenports’ assistants
might even have encouraged the debate around the reality or fakery of their powers, that certainly contributed to the curiosity of the public and to the success of their spiritualist shows.
4. Exceptional Characters: Daniel Dunglas Home
Cinematic and other show-business stars are, most and foremost, “remarkable persons.”48 Real or presumed, the exceptional character of a star is one of the aspects that signs her success and justifies the sometimes pathological attachment of their fans. Indeed, it is perhaps this aura of exceptionality, as Chris Rojek has suggested, the reason why magic is often associated with stardom, and powers of healing and second sight are frequently attributed to celebrities.49
Mediums were also described as extraordinary persons. Their powers was depicted not only as a channelling that allowed sitters to have access to the spirit world, but also as a supernatural gift that could become manifest in extremely spectacular fashions. Medium George A. Redman’s autobiography, for instance, was full of adventurous and heroic episodes. One time, before he left New York for a journey to Buffalo, Redman was compelled by his spirit guardian to walk down Broadway toward Battery Park. Upon reaching Cortland Street, he was suddenly turned into a store where he was made to take a box lying on the counter and then take a twenty dollar bill from his pocket and hand it to the attendant. Later, when Redman discovered the box contained a Colt revolver, he received instructions from his father’s spirit to load the weapon in order to save his life. “Here,” thought Redman “is a pretty specimen of a spiritual teacher: on one side of my breast I am carrying sentiments of peace, progress, happiness, and good
will; on the other a loaded revolver.”50 On a night soon after, he had the opportunity to use it when he was assaulted by two bandits on his way home:
“At this moment I felt a stunning sensation as if struck by some heavy instrument, and fell staggering against a door nearby. I now perceived my hand jerk suddenly, and though partially stupefied, I had sufficient perception to see the ruffians backing from me with their hands before their faces; then dodging into a by-way, they disappeared. By this time I knew all; my arm was still raised, and in my hand the revolver. […] On retiring to bed that night, I felt I should rest ever after secure from harm, and truly appreciated the guardianship of him, who was happy to call me child”.51
On another occasion, Redman could again thank his mediumistic powers for surviving a tragic and thrilling train accident.52
The American medium Daniel Dunglas Home is perhaps the best example for discussing the role of exceptionality in the career of celebrity mediums. According to his informed biographer, Peter Lamont, Home “performed so many extraordinary features, for so many witnesses and in such a wide range of circumstances, that he became one of the most famous men of his time.”53 His “astonishing career” convinced Arthur Conan Doyle to depict him as “the greatest [medium] in a physical sense that the world has ever seen”.54 His elegance and pleasant manner, as much as his powers, were celebrated in the numerous countries where he sat at the séance table, which included the United States,
England, and France. These charismatic characters certainly played a role in stimulating the interest around his mediumship.
Home started to produce the mediumistic feature that made him famous, levitation, in 1851.55 The production of this new phenomenon was a veritable turning point in his career: already in 1853, at the age of twenty, he performed séances with personalities of the caliber of Washington Irving and William Makepeace Thackeray.56 John Warne Monroe, in his history of the French spiritist movement, reported a colorful account of the triumphant reception of Home's 1857 tour in France. A journalist of Le
Siècle so described Home's spectacular manifestations, that seemed to overcome any
other spiritualist phenomena previously observed in France: “tables tilt without being touched, and the objects on them remain immobile, contradicting all the laws of physics. The walls tremble, the furniture stamps its feet, candelabra float, unknown voices cry from nowhere – all the phantasmagoria of the invisible populate the real world.”57
In 1877, toward the end of his career, Home published a book, Lights and
Shadows of Spiritualism, a best seller within spiritualist literature, in which he ridiculed
the performances of many bother mediums as bad trickery, and exalted the authenticity and wonder of the manifestations he had been able to produce.58 As it often happens with celebrities, his ego seemed to have been at least as strong as his spirit manifestations and his scenic presence.
Conclusion
Throughout this chapter, I have used stardom and entertainment theory as an analytical framework the role played by mediums’ celebrity in nineteenth-century and
early-twentieth-century spiritualism. Nevertheless, my purpose is not to propose a rigid comparison. A structural difference between cinematic stardom and the forms of celebrity to be found within the spiritualist movements, in fact, certainly exists. For instance, the almost pathological attachment between certain fans and their “star” could hardly be compared to the relationship between a famous spiritualist medium and believers in spiritualism.59 Rather than calling for a strict comparison between stardom and mediumship, then, this chapter aims at employing literature in film studies to better understand the dynamics upon which nineteenth-century spiritualism interacted with the rising realm of modern show business. Although mediums were neither ordinary actors nor cinematic stars, some of them certainly used, consciously or not, strategies that are similar to those that accompanied the rise of the star system at the beginning of the twentieth century. Recognizing it might provide a relevant contribution to the understanding of the phenomenon – or, the profession – of mediumship.
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7 Nolan, Film, Lacan and the Subject of Religion: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Religious Film Analysis, 61. 8 On stardom, see, among others, Richard Dyer, Stars, New ed. (London: British Film Institute, 1998); P. David
Marshall, The Celebrity Culture Reader (London: Routledge, 2006).
9 Take, for instance, Arthur Conan Doyle, The History of Spiritualism (London: Cassell, 1926).
10 See Christine Blondel, "Eusapia Palladino : La méthode experimentale et la «Diva des savants»," in Des savants face
à l'occulte, 1870-1940, ed. Bernardette Bensaude-Vincent and Christine Blondel (Paris: La Découverte, 2002).
11 Leo Lowenthal, "The Triumph of Mass Idols," in The Celebrity Culture Reader, ed. P. David Marshall (New York:
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12 Ibid., 130.
13 On Eusapia Palladino, see, among others: Cesare Lombroso, "Sui fenomeni spiritici e la loro interpretazione," La
Lettura: Rivista mensile del Corriere della Sera VI, no. 11 (1906). Luigi Barzini, Nel mondo dei misteri con Eusapia Palladino (Milano: Longanesi, 1984); Massimo Biondi, Tavoli e medium: Storia dello spiritismo in Italia (Roma:
Gremese Editore, 1988); Hereward Carrington, Eusapia Palladino and Her Phenomena (New York: B.W. Dodge & co., 1909).
14 Simone Natale, "The Medium on the Stage: Trance and Performance in Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism," Early
Popular Visual Culture 9 (forthcoming in 2011).
15 Sarah Goldingay, "To Perform Possession and to Be Possessed in Performance: The Actor, the Medium and an
'Other'," in Spirit Possession and Trance : New Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Bettina E. Schmidt and Lucy Huskinson (London: Continuum, 2010).
16 Peter Lamont, "Magician as Conjuror: A Frame Analysis of Victorian Mediums," Early Popular Visual Culture 4, no.
1 (2006).
17 Dyer, Stars, 42.
18 On turn-of-the-century stage magic and its relationship to spiritualism, see, among others: Simon During, Modern
Enchantments: The Cultural Power of Secular Magic (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002); Matthew
Solomon, Disappearing Tricks: Silent Film, Houdini, and the New Magic of the Twentieth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010).
19 John Wetherbee, Shadows: Being a Familiar Presentation of Thoughts and Experiences in Spiritual Matters, with
Illustrative Narrations (Boston: Colby & Rich, 1885), 207.
20 Janet Oppenheim, The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850-1914 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1985), 7; Owen, The Darkened Room: Women, Power and Spiritualism in Late Victorian
England, 54-55.
21 J. Coates, "Professional Mediumship," The Medium and Daybreak 9, no. 433 (1878).
22 Joseph Armitage, "An Autobiographical Sketch," The Medium and Daybreak 16, no. 783 (1885): 229; Wetherbee,
Shadows: Being a Familiar Presentation of Thoughts and Experiences in Spiritual Matters, with Illustrative Narrations.
23 Fritz, Where Are the Dead? Or, Spiritualism Explained (Manchester: A. Ireland, 1873), 42. 24 Dyer, Stars, 35.
25 Luigi Barzini, Nel mondo dei misteri con Eusapia Palladino (Milano: Longanesi, 1984); Massimo 26 Pier Francesco Arullani, Sulla medianità di Eusapia Palladino (Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier, 1907), 13. 27 Silvio Alovisio and Giulia Carluccio, eds., Intorno a Rodolfo Valentino: Materiali Italiani 1923-1933 (Torino:
Kaplan,2009).
28 Wetherbee, Shadows: Being a Familiar Presentation of Thoughts and Experiences in Spiritual Matters, with
Illustrative Narrations, 98.
29 Ibid., 122. 30 Ibid., 129.
31 Eve M. Lynch, "Spectral Politics: The Victorian Ghost Story and the Domestic Servant," in The Victorian
Supernatural, ed. Nicola Bown, Carolyn Burdett, and Pamela Thurschwell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2004).
32 Edith Katherine Harper, Stead, the Man: Personal Reminiscences (London: Rider, 1914), 61.
33 See Ernest Isaacs, "The Fox Sisters and American Spiritualism," in The Occult in America: New Historical
many others, Dyer, Stars; Kylo-Patrick R. Hart, ed. Film and Television Stardom (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Pub.,2008).
37 Reuben Briggs Davenport, The Death Blow to Spiritualism: Being the True Story of the Fox Sisters, as Revealed by
Authority of Margaret Fox and Catherine Fox Jencken (New York: G.W. Dillingham, 1888), 13.
38 Anon., "The Fox Sisters," Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 4(1889).
39 ———, "Departure of Mrs. Fox Jencken to America," The Medium and Daybreak 16, no. 794 (1885).
40 Graeme Turner, Frances Bonner, and P. David Marshall, "Producing Celebrity," in The Celebrity Culture Reader, ed.
P. David Marshall (New York: Routledge, 2006).
41 See Massimo Biondi, Tavoli e medium: Storia dello spiritismo in Italia (Roma: Gremese Editore, 1988), 182. 42 Thomas Low Nichols, A Biography of the Brothers Davenport (London: Saunders, Otley, and Co., 1864), 12. 43 Ibid., 32.
44 Lamont, "Magician as Conjuror: A Frame Analysis of Victorian Mediums," 23.
45 James W. Cook, The Arts of Deception: Playing with Fraud in the Age of Barnum (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 2001).
46 George Sexton, Spirit Mediums and Conjurers: An Oration Delivered in the Cavendish Rooms, London, on Sunday
Evening, June 15th, 1873 (London: J. Burns, 1873), 6.
47 Herr Dobler, Exposé of the Davenport Brothers (Belfast: D.& J. Allen, 1869); John Nevil Maskelyne, Modern
Spiritualism: A Short Account of Its Rise and Progress, with Some Exposures of So-Called Spirit Media (London: F.
Warne, 1876).
48 Francesco Alberoni, "L'élite Irresponsable: Théorie Et Recherche Sociologique Sur Le Divismo," Ikon 12, no. 40-41
(1962).
49 Rojek, "Celebrity and Religion," 390.
50 George A. Redman, Mystic Hours: Or, Spiritual Experiences (New York: C. Partridge, 1859), 246. 51 Ibid., 247-48.
52 Ibid., 278-80.
53 Peter Lamont, The First Psychic: The Peculiar Mystery of a Notorious Victorian Wizard (London: Little, Brown,
2005), xiii.
54Doyle, The History of Spiritualism, 1: 87.
55 Daniel Douglas Home, Incidents in My Life (London: F. Pitman, 1864), 36.
56 Lamont, The First Psychic: The Peculiar Mystery of a Notorious Victorian Wizard, 34.
57 Quoted in John Warne Monroe, Laboratories of Faith: Mesmerism, Spiritism, and Occultism in Modern France
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008), 86.
58Daniel Dunglas Home, Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism (New York: G.W. Carleton & Co., 1877).
59 Although a degree of sentimental and sexual attachment was often at play in this context, too. See, in particular,
Patricia Cline Cohen, "Sex and Sexuality: The Public, the Private, and the Spirit Worlds," Journal of the Early Republic 24, no. 2 (2004); Marlene Tromp, "Spirited Sexuality: Sex, Marriage, and Victorian Spiritualism," Victorian Literature
