Bad Mediums Bad Mediums What You Gonna Do What You Gonna Do When They Come For You (Pun Intendend)

Spiritualism and Crime by Blewett Lee

This week I read about Spiritualism and Crime by Blewett Lee. It is important to note that this article was written in 1922. The thoughts and ideas presented in this article need to be taken in regards to the decade in which it was written.

D.D. Home "The Man Who Could Fly"

The article starts out with an interesting quote to define Spiritualism as a form of insanity

           “ mischievous nonsense, well calculated, on the one hand to delude the vain, the weak, the foolish, and the superstitious; and, on the other, to assist the projects of the needy and of the adventurer.” –Vice Chancellor Giffard (pg. 439).

Lee makes sure that readers know that the article is solely interested in how the beliefs in spiritualism affect the law. Several times throughout the article the author makes note that it is hard to say spiritualism phenomena doesn’t occur because it is seen in the literature, especially sacred literature. The law cannot also lawfully assumer every spiritualistic phenomenon is a delusion yet assures the reader that there are several cases in which fraudulence can occur. Fraudulent automatic writing in which the writer produces whatever they want and claims it to be automatic, sham trances, and materialization just to name a few.

Lee makes reference to Belshazzar’s feast in Daniel 5:5 as a resource of a genuine case of spiritualistic happenings. I myself and not religious and had to do some research on what Belshazzar’s feast was about I found http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel+5&version=KJV . I located the verse that implied spiritualistic influences in the form of materialization of a man’s hand.



Belshazzar's Feast by Vasily Surikov

 

 

“5 In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the pilaster of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.”

If you wish feel free to see the verse in its context by clicking on the link.

 

The article does not come right out and say that mediums are all frauds and that they are not any genuine ones out there. In the article it mentions that many mediums could very well possess actual abilities but occasionally produce fraud because the sitters attending the séance want results. Instant gratification at its worst. It would be a denial of human liberty to NOT allow a genuine medium to practice? But the never-ending paradox of genuine or not is always around. To force a medium to prove their selves would be a conviction in advance because if they are truly genuine and can communicate with spirits that does not mean that spirits will come on demand.

The article does make reference to several court cases that involved spiritualists, mediums and the like. One of these cases was Nurse v. State in which a man was accused of swindling because he communicated with spirits to find buried money for his clients, on his advice they reburied it and it later showed up missing. Nurse was not convicted. The court ruled that “since the money was actually found as the defendant represented it would be, there could be no conviction for swindling.” (pg. 443).  Other cases ended up in a similar manner. If a medium delivered a message in good faith she/he was not quality of any fraud. Other mediums close to her could strengthen a mediums case.

Lee calls for the sensible route for the law to take is for it to not deny a spiritualistic experience is possible but to call for proof. The article ends in a manner that I think is remarkable. Lee makes note that in regards to the law the communications should be looked at as if they were delivered by a real person since the spirit in all actuality is a real person. If the spirit does unlawful things then it, as a person, can be punished by law. On page 449 it states that “if by any chance some of the acts or communications should really come from dead men, that makes no difference from a legal point of view; they would be human actions just the same.” An interesting thought to ponder on.

 

 

 

* The article makes reference to a very famous male medium D.D. Home. I have included a link to an unscholarly websites that gives some background http://www.prairieghosts.com/ddhome.html. D.D. Home's is mentioned in this article because he did not charge for his services and therefore could not be charge for fraudulence by making his customers pay. D.D. Home's will show up again in my research.

D.D. Home

 

 

 

 

* http://www.jstor.org/stable/1112490

 

The Spiritualist Medium: A Study of Female Professionalism in Victorian America

The Spiritualist Medium: A Study of Female Professionalism in Victorian America

By: R. Laurence Moore

 

This week for my research I decided to continue on with my jstore articles that I had mentioned finding in my first blog post. The one that I decided to read for this week I actually found quiet recently after evolving my key word search to allow for more resources. My blog post this week is going to expand on the article and add some insight into how it applies to my research question: What role did séances and mediums play in Early American Spiritualism?

Cora Maynard
Mrs. Abraham Lincoln's Favorite Medium
 

The majority of The Spiritualist Medium: A Study of Female Professionalism in Victorian America focused upon what made females more prevalent in the profession of medium. First off medium-ship was one of the only career opportunities open to women in the nineteenth century. Inadvertently, the women who chose a career as a medium played upon societally defined characteristics of women during that time. The article cited some “key” character defining features of a medium as being “weak in will and reason (male trait), strong in intuition and nervousness (female trait), impressionable, and passive.” (pg.202) all of which were associated with the feminine persona.

Women accepted the lot appointed them as women in society and as mediums as they accepted suffering, sickness, and self-sacrifice that was associated with women at the time. Being a medium played along with this societal role in that women who became mediums were typically sick and bed ridden themselves. Female mediums played upon their frail nature. By all accounts vigorous and healthy people did not become mediums. “Cold hands and a light complexion, accompanied by a long record of sickness and physical suffering, gave the best possible signs of budding mediumship.” (pg. 215).



Emma Hardinge

Feminism, according to Moore, was evident in female mediums in a variety of ways including the fact that women took their womanhood seriously and this affected her inability to accept responsibility for her vocational choice. Instead of taking responsibility the women would blame her course of action on the spirits that controlled her. Throughout several texts it can be seen that a great number of women were frightened by their powers and reluctant to demonstrate them.

Emma Hardinge (pictured at right) was so frightened by her gifts that she ran from the room and tumbled down the stairs. This did not injure her severally and she went onto be a very influential medium even being called upon by the Lincoln and the Joint Congressional Committee on Reconstruction asking for her advice on “questions that involved a practical knowledge of finance, history, political economy, jurisprudence, and the science of government.” (pg. 209)  

Miss Ellen D. Starkweather almost meet a similar fate but was saved by a mysterious table that slide across the room to block her exit.

The article also defined two different types of mediums. The two main mediums roles that people took were either “trance” mediums or private “test mediums”. Females almost always went on as trance mediums. At that time women who took the stage stood in defiance of St. Paul’s admonition against women preaching in public. Speaking in trance was good theater and was also a way for women to be blunt. Acting as trance mediums allowed women to speak openly in public about issues otherwise off limits to them. Again the spirits were to blame for this since they were speaking through the medium….or were they???!?!?!?!

Contrary to popular belief mediums ship was not a way to get rich. From time to time a wealthy benefactor would act as a patron to mediums. Some wealthy benefactors included Cornelius Vanderbilt (pictured at left), Charles Partridge, Henry Seybert, Henry J. Newton, and David Underhill.

The average medium, male or female, typically got $5 for an evening’s work away from home in the last half of the nineteenth century. Private home sittings brought $1 and hour. Income as one can image was irregular and dependent upon the clientele. Travel expenses had to be considered in the paycheck as well. Warren Chase, (pictured at bottom) a well-known spiritualist, lectured for over 40 years and reported a typical earning of $425 for a sum of 121 lectures.

A great deal of the article focused upon the hardships that befell mediums as well. Mediums were more often than not treated more as an object then as a person. Séance goers often “treated a private medium as unimportant, intermediary, to be praised if things went well, but only for her strange gifts rather than for her trained skill.” (pg. 214). Sometimes the medium was even bound and gagged to prevent fraudulent actions.

The spirits that possessed the women could also have negative effects on them if they were benevolent. These hazards were played upon by critics as a means to say that women were asking for it. These hardships were a “good reason for women to stay at home and perfect the arts of domestic science.” (pg. 215).

Exploitation was another danger that female mediums encountered. Exploitation for many started at a very young age. Several female mediums fathers pushed them into the light. There were cases of fathers who became so obsessed with the spirits and turned the whole family’s attention away from other things. Laura Ellis’s father advertised her presentations of spirit wonders at the age of thirteen. She was repeatedly bound and gagged by audiences along the East Coast, yet she somehow managed to get spirits to play musical instruments which had been laid beside her in a darkened room.

The Spiritualist Medium was a very intriguing article that played upon the mindset of a lot of people living during the heyday of Spiritualism. It gave some insights into the darker side of being a medium and what key things it took to become one. I am interested to see if any of my research will shed some light on more famous male mediums. We will see.  

 

 

I have attached a video that shows showcases some Victorian photos connected with Spiritualism for you entertainment. Take a look some of them are really intriguing.

 

Ectoplasm: is a term coined by Charles Richet to denote a substance or spiritual energy "exteriorized" by physical mediums. Ectoplasm is said to be associated with the formation of spirits.