Table of Contents

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part 1: Configurations of Séances

1 The Medium on the Stage: Theatricality and Performance in the Spirit Séance

2 Parlor Games: Play and Social Life in the Haunted House

Part 2: How to Sell a Spirit

3 Breaking the News: Controversy, Sensation, and the Popular Press

4 Mediums and Stars: Religion, Consumerism, and Celebrity Culture

Part 3: Spirit and Matter

5 Stranger than Fiction: Print Media, Automatic Writing, and Popular Culture

6 The Marvels of Superimposition: Spirit Photography and Spiritualism’s Visual Culture

Afterward

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Simone Natale is Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies at Loughborough University, UK.

Reviews

“This is an ambitious, overdue book, steeped in the period’s popular culture, and offering a fresh, insightful perspective on a topic familiar to its scholars.”—Susan Zieger Media History

“Natale’s study offers a helpful corrective to approaches that ignore the entertainment value of spiritualism.”—Pericles Lewis Los Angeles Review of Books

“An erudite, original examination of Victorian spiritualism and the rise of modern media. . . . This entertaining study fills a gap in the slighted investigation of spiritualism’s rise as a religious and cultural phenomenon. Highly recommended.”—D. B. Wilmeth Choice

“The key achievement of Natale’s book is his thorough documentation of the ways the spiritualist movement was, in spite of its framing as a ‘scientific religion,’ indistinguishable from other kinds of performance, and a vigorous participant in mechanisms of the growing entertainment industry.”—James P. Stanley Public Books

“An engaging and enlightening history of Spiritualism’s growth from a unique perspective.”—Sharon DeBartolo Carmack PsyPioneer Journal

“Approaching Victorian supernaturalism as popular spectacle, Natale makes a compelling argument that nineteenth-century spiritualism made a significant contribution to what would become the dominant religion of the twentieth century: the entertainment industry. Rather than seeing the spiritualists and their energetic followers as gullible or deluded, Natale explores the more fascinating possibility that medium, circle, and audience helped redefine the possibilities of domestic leisure and public performance.”—Jeffrey Sconce,Northwestern University

“We all know that the supernatural is entertaining. Just turn on your television set or go to the movies. But this entertaining? Supernatural Entertainments is one of the most original books I have read in a long time. Simone Natale’s embrace of the history of technology, celebrity studies, material culture, popular culture, photography, and film studies to plumb the immediate historical background of the modern supernatural also makes it astonishingly capacious and interdisciplinary. Get ready for a ride. Or a show.”—Jeffrey J. Kripal,author of Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal

“Supernatural Entertainments will undoubtedly inspire new studies of Victorian Spiritualism and occultism to further probe the nature and consequences of otherworldly amusements.”—Christine Ferguson Victorian Studies

“[This book] is a strong contribution to a burgeoning field of haunted technology and uncanny media history, has fantastic illustrations, and is always highly readable.”—Roger Luckhurst Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft

“An important addition to the growing body of rigorous scholarship on international spiritualism. Natale’s argument, however, is fairly unexpected, even unique, inasmuch as it convincingly focuses on spiritualism as a form of show business.”—Matthew Solomon Film Quarterly