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Spiritualism, Science and the Su?€Rnatural in Rnid-Vi Cto Ri an Britain

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Spiritualism, Science and the Su?€Rnatural in Rnid-Vi Cto Ri an Britain C HAPTE R I Spiritualism,science and thesu?€rnatural in rnid-Victo ri an Britain RichardlVoahes INTRODUCTION In December 186r, a few months after he published the first instalment of his supernaturalmasterpiece, A StrangeStory, the distinguishednovelist 'to Edward Bulwer L;'tton told his friend John Forsterthat h. *irhed make philosophersinquire into [spirit manifestations]as I think Bacon,Newton, and D"ty would haveinquired. There must be a naruralcause for them - if they are not purely irnposture.Even if that natural causebe the admission of a spirit world around us, which is the extremepoint. But if so, it is a most impartial revelationin Nature." Lytton thus expressedthe dilemma of many people in mid-Victorian Britain who had experiencedthe manifestationsof Spiritualism,undoubt- edlyone of the most controversialaspects ofVictorian culture,and one that wasreaching new heightsof popularity in the r86os.His remark implicitly representsthe Victorian associationof Spiritualismwith the sup.r*",.rr"i, but alsoproblematises that associationby identifting the Victori"n quesr for order behind phenomenapurporting ro come from - 'naturalisation the oth., *oild the of the supernatural'as it wascalled by one earlyhistorian of Victorian psychicalresearch.' \7hile some firmly b.ii.,r.d that manifes- tationswere opposedto every known natural law and were by definition supernatural,others upheld the possibilitythat such manifestations 'natural might derivefrom causes',whether thesewere well-known mental -.oh- anisms,new forcesassociated with the body, or intelligencesfrom the spirit world. Historiansand literary scholarshave long puzzled,overthe resurgenceof interest in the supernaturalin the Victorian^period.This period h", been calledrh: of science',a period of incr."sing belief "g. that the cosmoswas governedby immutable natural laws rather th"r, capricious supernatural agenciesor divine whim, and when supernaturalbeliefs were in.r."singly dismissed assuperstition.3 The .orrrtr,r.tion of empirically ground.d l"ws 1a L) 21 RICHARD NOAKES and was wid,el;vregarded as one of the highest.goalsof scientificendeavour - of celestial those ,rrorr,rrri.ntsof ord.eringphyr["l ph.nomena the laws to which all sci- mechanics- were upheld by Vi.torian scientists as the ideal were widely entific enterprises,irotrld aspire.Moreover, since natural laws practi- regardedas accountsof the natural world, scientific ",rthoritative generally tioners, whose empirical evidenceunderpinned such laws, were seenas the supremeauthorities on the naturalworld' believed As this .rr"y will show,Victorian investigatorsof Spiritualism to natural laws that the err"ti. phenomenaof the sdancecould be reduced However, and that their .r,.rprises could therebygain scientificcredibiliry. ques- this was a diffic.rlt go^l to achievesince many critics of Spiritualism that tioned the very polribiliry of a naturalisticapproach to phenomena t sciencesin were ostensiblyb.yond nature,and activelydefined the natural had oppositionto Spiritualism.For many Victorian scientists,Spiritualism the rapid to be banished from the natural enquiry becauseit threatened the scientific progressof the sciencesand the int.li..t,r"1 edifice on which CTty Foster, proF.rrion basedits claimsfor profcssionalauthoriry.a George Lorrdon physicsprofesso, evangelistfor.the new culturesof laboratory " "rrJ to building physicsteaching, spoke for many *ho had devotedtheir lives in 1894,he the intellectual and archite.,.rr"i spacesof the scienceswhen, 'is of askedthe psychicalresearcher Oli r.t Lodge not the whole progress that these things do not 'happen?'.tphysicsb"r.d on the assumption [Spiritualistic] In articlesin masscirculation periodicals, textbooks, in public popu- lecturesand. in classroomteaching, Victorian profcssionalisersand larisersof scienceenforced" th. .orrtrast betweenscience and Spiritualism, enquiry' and helpedrepresent Spiritualism as beyond the domain of natural Recent ,.hol"rship L", rightly argued that since the Victorian period over the witnessedsuch fiercescientifi., inr.llectual and theologicaldebates boundariesberween science and Spiritualism,science and pseudo-sc_ience, we cannor take such bound"ri., fo, granted.in our historical analyses'6 most Theseboundaries are the explanandumnot the explanans.One of the is it draws attention to the important benefits of this scholarship that shows .o-pl.xirF of the debatesour ofwhich theseboundaries emerged and over Spiritualismwere not, astraditional historiography that controversies 'science' 'pseudo-science', suggesrs,struggles between proponents of and b.it"figh6 b.rrilen ind.ividuals*ho disagreedon what counted asthe proper scientificapproach to the spirit world' The .r.* hirtoriography of the occult sciencesalso challenges the useof natural and supern"i,rr"l asunproblematic categories for analysingdisputes overSpiritualison, and prompi, .r, to understandhow boundariesberween Spirirwalism,science anc/ the supernAturalin mid-Victorian Britain zi natural and supernaturalemerged from disputesover spirit manifestations. Recentliterature on the supernatural,however, tesdfies to the continuing usefulnessand persuasivenessof classifiringSpiritualism as'supernatural'.7 While such a classificationrespecrs rhe categoriesused by historical char- acters,it is not sensitiveto the provisional,contradictory or other usesto 'supernatural' which wasput in Victorian Britain. Neither doesit represent the compi." natural irrt.ipretations of Spiritualisticmanifestations.s This essayattemprs ro recoverio*. of this complexiry of mid-Victorian con- troversiesover Spiritualism- the period of the most intenseand revealing of all such controversies.The following sectioncharts the problematic cul- ruresand claims associatedwith Victorian Spiritualism,and examinesthe ways in which Spiritualistssought to achievescientific credibiliry for their enquiriesby promulgating the argument that manifestationswould even- tually be found to be resultsof natural laws.This was exactlythe position taken by the mosr ourspokenVictorian opponentsof Spiritualism - phys- iologists,psychologists and medical practitioners- and my exarnination of their competing naturalistic explanationsof Spiritualistic phenomena showsthat the more intensedisputes over Spiritualism sprang from only subtledifferences of interpretation.I developthis approachin the third sec- tion, which Lrsesthe clarh., between rwo of th. most eminent Victorian scientific investigatorsof Spiritualism - \Tilliam Crookes and \Tilliam Benjamin Carpenter - to show that conflicts over the naturalistic prove- nanceof manifestationswere alsoconflicts overwhat constituted a proPer scientific authority on Spiritualism. In theseclashes, judgements on the interpretation of Spiritualisticmanifcstations were bound up with judge- menrson the appropriatenessand reliabiliryof the training, experienceand expertisethat informed this interpretation.Although the long-term impact of thesecontroversies on Victorian Spiritualism,the supernaturaland sci- encefalls outside the scopeof this essay,I concludeby suggestinghow the approachesdeveloped here can generatenew insightsinto old questionsof the ultimate trajectory of Victorian Spiritualism. THE CULTURAL AND THE NATURAL IN VICTO RIAN SPIRITUALISM 'matter-of-fact In 18ij the lllustrated.London lVewsregretted that the June 'plunged peopleof the nineteenth century' were all at once into the bot- tomlessdeep of Spiritualism'.It continued: Railroads,steam, and electriciry,and the indubitablewonders which they have wrought,have nor provedpowerful enough to supersedeand destroythat strong S 26 RI CHARD N OAKE implanted in the human mind' innate love of the supernatural rvhich seems are turning tables, and obsti- Thousands of people in Europe and.America mechanical means are in any way nately ,.f.rrirrg io t.[.,r. that phyri."l and as well as the heads that wear connected. in the process.Hats, too, are turned, them. and Thousand.sof peopleseemed to be exploring.thetable-turning lpit- from America and the itualistic pheno-.n" that had arrived^inEngland by recentoutbreaks continent in late tg5z.In a country akeady*."kened 'epid.emic'of table-turning of Spiritualism had of mortal diseases,the "rt{ 'nor the educatedand the seized.on only the ignorant and the vul gtr, but refined,'like a'grtppeof th. .holera-morbus'.e Spiritualism The lllustrarcdLond.on lVews was not alone in comparing enlightenedage' to a recrudescenceof the supernaturalin an apparently was associ- Throughout the mid- to laie-Victorian period, Spiritualism supernaturalpht- ated with a wide range of ancient and contemporary sorcery,appariti?tt nomena, including cf,ristian miracles,witchc ruft and second sight. Nei- of the living and d.ead,haunted houses,fairies and Spiritualism to a ther was the lllustrarcd.London lYewsalone in likening its victorian h.y- d.iseaseor somethingsimilarly despised,and throughout the work of Satan,a sordid commer- d^y, spiritualism was condemnedas 'filth' 'business', and cial an'epid.emicdelusion, a'wretched suPerstition, hostile remarkswere humbug.roTh. ,r.h.-ence and frequen_cywith which Britain' By leveleJat Spiritualism reflect its plpulariry in mid-Victorian ro many,lamentable the r86osSpiritualism had becom.".orspicuous and, life, with its mediums, specialistnewspapers, f"r, of Victorian cultural public s6ances'"Its rapid pamphlets, trearises,societies and private Td much to widespreaci spread had manifol,Ccauses but ii ..rt"inly owed and the immortal- an4 long-established,preoccuparions about th. "ft.rlife
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