Beyond Sanity. Women in 19th Century Spiritualism Between Pathologization and Liberation

Sa？etak This paper aims to explore the changing role of female mediumship within Spiritualism and its predeceasing movements from the early 19th century up to the late Victorian era. In the course of this exploration, the development of Spiritualist thought, its accounts of the beyond and the various means of establishing contact will be traced from Mesmerism and Somnambulism up to table-turning and Bourgeois Séances. In all of those different stages of development, female mediums have played a central role. The assumption that women are more accessible for spirit communication or even possession derived from classical patriarchal discourses that rendered women as weaker of will, more amenable to influence, more emotionally sensitive and generally passive. Continuities and discontinuities of such stereotypical notions of femininity will be traced throughout the different phases of Spiritualist practices. The analysis of the ambivalent position of 19th century female mediumship between pathologization and liberation not only reveals certain dominant patriarchal discourses on femininity as well as their subversion but also interesting insights concerning the shifting perceptions of the beyond and its interconnectedness to the earthly realm within this historical context