Some of these apparitions took the form of hands or faces, but the pinnacle of this art was the full body manifestation. Now the sitters didn’t just hear the spirits, they could actually see them. One of Hume’s effects was the production of spirit hands that glowed in the dark, ushering in the next great phase of the Victorian séance - materialisation. He left England, married a wealthy Russian and retired from mediumship.ĭaniel Dunglas Home. Despite this he didn’t lose all his supporters, but finances were tight and his health was poor. The court reversed the arrangement and he was obliged to return the money.
In 1868 however he was taken to court by an elderly widow, whom he had persuaded to adopt him as her son and make over her entire fortune to him. Hume rapidly shot to fame, and received generous gifts and free accommodation. It should be noted that his séances were not conducted in full light and reports of his deeds were often contradictory. He was reputed not only to have risen up into the air, but also to have floated horizontally out of an upstairs window and back into the room through another. Hume was a clairvoyant and trance medium, but his great speciality was levitation. The sensational arrived in 1855 in the form of 22 year old Daniel Dunglas Home, who had been conducting séances in the USA since 1851. Interest eventually waned for the want of something more sensational. Where tables actually rose into the air it was suspected that they had been given a little lift with artfully concealed wires. Physicist Michael Faraday subjected this animated furniture to rigorous testing, and attributed their lifelike motion to unconscious movements of the sitters. The next novelty to arrive was table tipping, which provided more drama as tables appeared to take on lives of their own, trembling and tilting. Mediums were engaged for parties where spirits communicated by rapping and knocking, and guests consulted them on matters of personal importance. Spiritualism came to the UK in the early 1850s. Although they had their detractors, the fame of the Fox sisters led to a proliferation of imitators, as more and more people suddenly discovered that they had mediumistic powers. The word spread, and soon they were launched on a lucrative career, giving séances before large audiences.
As they later confessed, they used an apple tied to a string to make bumping noises and cracked their toe joints to convince listeners that they were in touch with spirits. Kate and Margaret Fox, sisters aged 12 and 15 lived in Hydesville New York. In 1848 however, what probably started as a game played by two bored girls sparked a new surge of interest in spiritualism. Nineteenth-century illustration of Cock Lane, Courtesy of Wikipedia.
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