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1 results

  • Chapter 6 - Sounds of the Séance

  • from Part III
  • Melissa Dickson, University of Queensland
  • Book:
    Acoustics in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Science
    Published online:
    13 December 2024
    Print publication:
    19 December 2024, pp 129-148

  • Summary

    Opening with an account of the emergence of spiritualist practice in nineteenth-century America and Britain, Chapter 6 analyses the range of sonic phenomena – from raps and taps to more elaborate musical manifestations – which were frequently used to register the supposed presence of spiritual phenomena in séances. To date, cultural histories of attempted communications with the dead have tended to focus on the technological appropriations or extra-sensory abilities which were believed necessary to access the spirit realm, while overlooking the profound social, emotional, bodily, and sensory experiences associated with the intimate space of the Victorian séance. This chapter, in contrast, is dedicated to the human, rather than the technological, connections forged by the séance, and the profound desire on the part of many séance attendees to obviate the need for spiritual telegraphy altogether by once more realising the actual physical and intellectual intimacy that technology could only simulate.