The fashion for spiritualism: how spirits were summoned in the salons of America and tsarist Russia
'30.01.2021'
Source: Featured
In the second half of the XNUMXth century, St. Petersburg salons were at the height of fashion. In some they played music and talked about literature. Others were hotly debating politics and losing fortunes at the card tables. Third, they shared gossip and portrayed love. But soon all the salons en masse became infected with a new overseas entertainment - spiritualism, writes Featured.
Spiritualism in America and Europe
For the first time the nature of spiritualism was touched upon in 1760 by the Englishman George Littleton in his book "Contacts with the Other Side". But the practice really became popular in the USA and Great Britain only in the middle of the XNUMXth century. The White House itself fell to the onslaught of this mysterious ritual. Then President Abraham Lincoln and US First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln held séances after their son's death.
The Fox sisters from New York, USA were recognized as the first mediums. They heard strange knocks in their house, the source of which was incomprehensible to anyone in the household. One of the girls, Kat, expressed a theory that some intelligent, but incorporeal entity is trying to communicate with them. The girls communicated with the "entity" in a special way that resembled Morse code: one hit is "no", and two hits are "yes." From the "conversation" the sisters learned that this was the soul of a murdered traveling merchant. Soon everyone in the district was talking about girls, and then all over the country.
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Other specialists in contact with spirits began to appear in the United States. Competition forced them to leave America in search of adherents, admirers and patrons.
First France, then Italy, and finally Russia surrendered to the Spiritualists without a fight. The Romanov family was one of the first in Russia to fall under the influence of fashion.
How Alexander II evoked his father's spirit
The first admirer of spiritualism in the imperial family was Alexandra Iosifovna, the wife of the Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich.
In 1853, the maid of honor of the wife of the heir to Maria Alexandrovna, Anna Tyutcheva, wrote with irritation in her diary about the seances as a fun "after tea": every evening before going to bed, the Tsarevich's entourage "interrogated" tables and hats.
After his coronation in 1856, Alexander II was preparing a large-scale reform - the abolition of serfdom - and felt an urgent need to talk with the spirit of the late father. It was then that the famous European medium David Hume was invited to Russia.
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In total, the "table-turner Hume" performed three sessions. They were attended by members of the imperial family and some close associates from high society.
After the first session, Anna Tyutcheva wrote: “The table has risen to the height of a half-arch above the floor. The Empress Mother felt a hand touch the flounces of her dress, grabbed her hand and removed her wedding ring. Then this hand grabbed, shook and pinched everyone present, except for the Empress, whom she systematically bypassed. She took the bell from the hands of the sovereign, carried it through the air and gave it to the Prince of Württemberg.
In both the first and second seances, the spirits of Emperor Nicholas I and the little Grand Duchess Alexandra allegedly appeared. They also appeared in the second session. Both answered the questions of Tsar Alexander II by knocking the letters of the alphabet. He himself wrote down the answers on paper, but they were "worthless and empty."
Anna Tyutcheva was not allowed to the third session, but the Empress's pallor and nervousness after him deeply shocked the maid of honor. From the words of the empress, she wrote:
“The table suddenly rose, spun around and knocked, knocking out the beat of the anthem“ God Save the Tsar! ”. The thumping of the spirit was heard: three times for "yes," once for "no," five times for the letters of the alphabet. All those present, even the skeptics Gorchakov and Vladimir Bobrinsky, felt the touch of mysterious hands and saw how they quickly ran under the tablecloth. The Emperor says that he saw the fingers of his hand, transparent and luminous. Lieven claims that their touch is a cross between material touch and a slight electric shock. "
The spirits did not tell the emperor anything sensible, and his interest in David Hume dried up. But the rumor that the sovereign himself was calling out to the spirits had already spread throughout the country. There was no turning back - spiritualism went to the people.
After a few years, entertainment, which was perceived as fun for bored nobles, became general hysteria.
Ouija instead of balls and opera
Russian society in relation to fashionable spiritualism split into three camps: someone perceived it as amusing self-indulgence, someone took it seriously, someone condemned it. All who expected that spiritualism was only a temporary phenomenon were mistaken. Stoneworking in Russia has been relevant for almost 60 years. As well as politics and dinner parties.
The tentacles of spiritualism have penetrated almost every home, where they are bored of talking about poetry and dancing a square dance. Not only the advanced upper class, but also representatives of the bourgeoisie and even the philistine, got carried away by the new entertainment. However, they tried not to spread about holding evenings with the participation of mediums. On the one hand, this practice was condemned by the Orthodox Church, and on the other hand, seances were still considered vulgar.
The mystical surroundings were important to the spiritualists. They prepared for contacts with spirits as carefully as for a social event. For table-turning, they gathered in the salon by all means at night, removed all the icons. Several people participated in the action, one of them was supposed to be a medium - an extremely sensitive person playing the role of a mediator between the worlds. Ladies and gentlemen sat down at the table, held hands and called out to the spirit. Even more interest from the public appeared when they were about to summon a demon. The appearance of evil spirits during table-turning was recognized even by scientists - though those who themselves were fond of spiritualism. Among them are Gustav Fechner and Alexander Butlerov.
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The wealthy landowner Alexander Aksakov and Professor Yegor Wagner became the main adherents of spiritualism in Russia. They organized a thematic circle in St. Petersburg. Its participants studied mediumistic phenomena and arranged "sessions". In 1871, they invited the medium David Hume to Russia, who had previously conducted seances for Tsar Alexander II. And now the legendary Scottish perfume specialist conquered the Russian intelligentsia with his "work".
“All that I was able to see during this time was quite enough to convince me of the objective and real existence of mediumistic phenomena and the absence of any kind of charlatanism on the part of Hume,” wrote Alexander Butlerov.
Campaign against mediums
In 1874, members of the circle of spiritualists Alexander Aksakov ordered the American medium Bradif on a tour to St. Petersburg. His performances caused a fierce controversy in society and in the press. For example, Bradiff sat behind a curtain with the lights off, and the outlines of glowing female hands appeared on the fabric. He was called a charlatan, a deceiver and a man who plays with the feelings of people whose relatives have died. A whole campaign against mediums began.
Scientist Dmitry Mendeleev spoke out against the spiritual madness in Russia. In 1875, a commission of "mediumistic phenomena" was created at St. Petersburg University. It includes 12 prominent physicists and chemists. Loud disclosures of mediums began - both famous and not so.
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By that time, every second adventurer declared the "gift of seeing". They were maids and midwives, milkmen, grocers and women of easy virtue. It was not only Dmitry Mendeleev's commission that declassified the scams of pseudo-mediums. Among the charlatans outraged by the arrogance was the American Harry Houdini, a professional magician, whose name thundered all over the world. He arrived in St. Petersburg and at the house of the editor of the magazine "Nature and People" Wilhelm Casimir Bittner exposed one trick after another, astonishing the audience with the simplicity of the explanation. Harry Houdini demonstrated 17 techniques that were invisible to people, with the help of which he made "mediumistic sounds."
The last powerful wave of spiritualistic mania covered Russian society at the beginning of the 1906th century. In 97, a major congress of spiritualists was held in Moscow, in which 30 delegates took part. At this time, the circulation of the journal "Spiritualist" reached an astronomical figure for those times of 000 copies, and the number of spiritualist circles - 160.
Over time, many followers of spiritualism became disillusioned with mediums, and the passion for table-turning began to gradually weaken until it faded away.
