Servants of the Supernatural

The Night Side of the Victorian Mind

By: Antonio Melechi

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Paperback | 15 January 2009 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
320 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
19.8 x 12.8 x 1.9

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Born of the so-called Victorian "pseudo science" of mesmerism, the seance enjoyed a late 19th-century golden age that ministered to the Victorian obsession with science, religious doubt, and entertainment. Mediums, psychics, and somnambulists were investigated by amateur sleuths and by scientists like Faraday and Darwin; their performances imitated and exposed by magicians, denounced by clerics, satirized hilariously in the press. Yet the popularity of spiritualism and the seance endured?and does so to this day. A revelatory exploration of the darker side of Victorian science, this narrative-driven history is full of literary and scientific anecdote and evocative depiction of 19th-century England.

Industry Reviews

Servants of the Supernatural takes us on a joyously weird circuit of the Victorian obsession with the supernatural... Riotously enjoyable. * Judith Flanders *
Fascinating... brings to life the wonderfully flamboyant cheats and frauds of the 19th century medium trade... His tale stands beautifully as a reminder to choose one's beliefs carefully * Deborah Blum, author of Ghost Hunters *
Lustrous... the heyday of the Victorian seance in all its table-trembling, tambourine-tapping glory. * Word Magazine *
[An] engrossing account of seances, mesmerism and mediums. * Scotland on Sunday *
The story of the Victorian obsession with seances, spirit writing, communing with the dead and all the showmanship that went with it...Melechi tells it well and wittily. * Express *

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