Tag: Seance

Digital Clairvoyance: Lessons Learned by Text Mining the “Dr Slade Number” from 1876

Digitizing the Victorians, Other

The American medium Henry Slade was a nineteenth-century sensation. At the height of his career in the early 1870s he was considered one of the most extraordinary psychics of his generation. His main performance featured a type of supernormal communication where written messages, said to be from spirits existing beyond the veil, appeared on supposedly blank slates. It was a hugely popular act, and Slade toured all over North America and Europe demonstrating his incredible mediumship to broad and eager

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The Curious Case of Mr. and Mrs. Holmes

Other

Sherlock Holmes is not often associated with the supernatural, having “confined [his] investigations to this world” when Dr. Mortimer presented Sherlock with his most overtly supernatural case, in The Hound of the Baskervilles. Sherlock was logical, factual, and believed that human nature and the natural world, not the paranormal, could explain anything unexplainable. Despite this, Sherlock’s origins have closer ties to the supernatural than it might first appear. Sherlock’s creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, was a known spiritualist and a dedicated

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The Global and the Local: NAVSA/BAVS/AVSA Conference Report

Victorians Beyond the Academy

By Barbara Franchi,  University of Kent The city of Venice is a labyrinth where the most different cultures and civilizations have met for centuries. So, no location could be better for the first NAVSA/BAVS/AVSA supernumerary conference. During June 3-6, 2013, Victorianists from every corner of the globe gathered on the Island of San Servolo for this unique opportunity to exchange and discuss ideas around the Global and the Local in the 19th century and beyond. With over one hundred participants

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