The Ghost Hunters - Deborah Blum [175]
20: table talking: Entire books are devoted to table talking and its place in Victorian spiritualism; see, for instance, Ronald Pearsall, The Table Rappers (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1972).
20: A letter in the Times of London: Michael Faraday’s letter to the Times was printed on June 30, 1853. He expanded that letter into the article “Professor Faraday on Table-Moving,” Atheneneum, July 2, 1853, 801—3.
22: the impossible, unearthly Daniel Dunglas Home: Home is one of the best-known (and written about) mediums of the nineteenth century. Here and elsewhere in the book where I discuss his story, I relied particularly on Podmore, Mediums of the Nineteenth Century, 2:205-44; Inglis, Natural and Supernatural, 225-39; and William Barrett, On the Threshold of the Unseen (New York: E. F. Dutton, 1917), which describes Home as “the most remarkable psychic ever investigated” (57). The descriptions of the religious overtones with which Home infused his sessions and the general quality of his seances come from Conan Doyle, History of Spiritualism, 1:187-207; and Hereward Carrington, A Primer of Psychical Research (London: Rider, 1932). The attitude of Robert Browning toward D. D. Home is thoroughly discussed in Dingwall, Some Human Oddities, 191—228, with a strong implication that Browning was as disgusted by rumors of Home’s homosexuality as by any possibility that he cheated as a medium.
23: Ira and William Davenport: The Davenport Brothers are a staple of books on early spiritualist history. I particularly liked the snide description of the Harvard investigation in Conan Doyle, History of Spiritualism, 1:211-29; and the cynical overview of the brothers’ career in Harry Houdini, A Magician among the Spirits (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1924).
25: “How often has ‘Science’ killed off”: William James’s discussion of “spook philosophy” comes from “Confidences of a Psychical Researcher,” first printed in the American Magazine in Oct. 1909. It is widely reprinted; for purposes of citation, I used Murphy and Ballou, William James and Psychical Research, 312.
26: “bloody howl of the Civil War”: The discussion of James’s family during the Civil War and the long-term effect on personal relationships and attitudes, even toward war, are beautifully told in Menand, The Metaphysical Club, 73-77 and 146-48.
27: “Now, don’t, sir! Don’t expose me!”: “Mr. Sludge the Medium,” in Robert Browning, Dramatis Personae (London: Chapman & Hall, 1864).
28: “such things are so indeed”: Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s letter to her sister is printed in Dingwall, Some Human Oddities, 128.
28: “a nauseating example”: Ira Davenport’s account of their problems in England, as well as an assessment of their career and the tricks involved in Houdini, Magician among the Spirits. 29: “an ingenious wire dummy”: Other tricks in this selection are catalogued in Isaac Funk, The Widow’s Mite and Other Psychic Phenomena (New York: Funk & Wagnall’s, 1905); John Nevil Maskelyne, Modern Spiritualism (London: Frederick Warne, 1875); and David Abbott, Behind the Scenes with the Medium (Chicago: New Open Court, 1908).
30: “Stranger than Fiction”: This story appeared in the August 1860 issue of the Cornhill Magazine and was written by an Irish journalist named Robert Bell.
30: “you would hold a different opinion”: Thackeray’s defense of spiritualism is cited in Inglis, Natural and Supernatural, 231.
2. A Spirit of Unbelief
33: famous (or infamous) book On the Origin of Species: As a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, in the early 1980s, I took a history of science class, Darwin and the History of Biology, which stands in my memory as one of the best and most influential classes I ever attended. In it, we read three progressive editions of On the Origin of Species, through which we tracked Darwin’s efforts to wrestle with and respond to the flood of attacks—both personal