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The medium on the stage: Trance and performance in nineteenth-century spiritualism
Open accessAbstract
While historians of spiritualism have been eager to focus on its political and social implications, less attention has been given to the fact that spirit communication was also a matter of visual spectacle. This article aims to analyse spiritualist séances as a form of spectacular entertainment. Relying on a wide array of spiritualist sources, it argues that séances were meant not only as moments of religious and scientific inquiry, but also as a brilliant amusement where theatrical effects embellished an exciting shared experience. The intermingling of religion and entertainment can thus be seen as one of the defining characteristics of the spiritualist experience. After sketching the history of the presence of spiritualist mediums on the stage and discussing the involvement of professionalism in mediumship, the article will then focus on the trance as a specific performance strategy. It will examine how the trance combined issues of automatism, theatricality and absorption, and contributed to the coexistence in spirit séances of spectacular features and claims of authenticity.
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Nineteenth-century spiritualism was a matter not only of religious and superstitious beliefs, but also of entertainment and spectacle: mediums often performed on the theatrical stage, before a paying public, and even private séances had a high degree of dramatization.
“As I have shown elsewhere, nineteenth-century spiritualism was a matter not only of religious and superstitious beliefs, but also of entertainment and spectacle: mediums often performed on the theatrical stage, before a paying public, and even private séances had a high degree of dramatization (Natale 2011).”
From A short history of superimposition: From spirit photography to early cinema (2012) · cites this paper as Natale 2011
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A short history of superimposition: From spirit photography to early cinema
Natale, S. (2012) · Early Popular Visual Culture · doi:10.1080/17460654.2012.664745 · Cited by 46
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Natale, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Turin (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Natale, Simone
- ORCID
- Natale, Simone
- Venue
- Early Popular Visual Culture
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2011-08
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 239-255
- ISSN
- 1746-0654 (ISSN-L)
- 1746-0662
- OpenAlex
- W1964298771
- Cited by
- 12
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 1 · 2015: 4 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 7.89
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- Early Popular Visual Culture (publishedVersion)
- Institutional Research Information System University of Turin (University of Turin) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Loughborough University Institutional Repository (Loughborough University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Loughborough University Research Repository (Loughborough University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Religious studies › Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Visual Arts and Performing Arts › Arts and Performance Studies
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Music › Theater, Performance, and Music History
- Keywords
- spiritualism, spirit mediums, trance, séances, spectacle, performance, 19th century, automatism, theatricality, absorption, authenticity, popular visual culture
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