Why did so many Victorians try to speak with the dead?

[Eldorado]

It’s a good time to be dead—at least, if you want to keep in touch with the living.

Almost a third of Americans say they have communicated with someone who has died, and they collectively spend more than two billion dollars a year for psychic services on platforms old and new.

Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, television: whatever the medium, there’s a medium. Like clairvoyants in centuries past, those of today also fill auditoriums, lecture halls, and retreats.

Full article at the New Yorker: Link

[the13bats]

I believe its different things to different people those who believe in it that is, like religions.

Faith can be a very strong thing far stronger than any need for proof for some people.

Sadly, nothing has ever been proven.

[+ouija ouija]

The simple answer is that in Victoria's time, it was widely accepted that contacting the dead and seeing them was possible.

[XenoFish]

Boredom, probably. 

[acute]

8 hours ago, Eldorado said:

Why did so many Victorians try to speak with the dead?

They were lonely, and telephones hadn't really taken off yet. 

[papageorge1]

I think Spiritualism is a great thing both in Victorian times and today. We are all fascinated by the idea of spirits we can't see and life after death.

I am one to believe they make real contact. Shame about the minority of frauds out there but they can't take away from the real deals.

Edited June 1, 2021 by papageorge1

[janesix]

Because there are weird fads in every age. Humans get bored easily.

[Grey Area]

Spiritualism in Victorian times was the equivalent of today’s text and telephone scams.  They preyed on the vulnerable to make a quick buck.

[Poncho_Peanatus]

maybe the need arise from the pain of losing somebody?

[godnodog]

In 100 200 years what will future humans be asking about some nonsense that we do today?

[WereScrib]

This is probably going to sound a bit wordy but:

There's a direct correlation to a lack of religious community and spiritualism practices. The Victorian era saw a dramatic change in how people approached daily life, where work became long days with long hours rather than something you did as it was needed for as long as it was needed, (peasants for instance, most days, only worked a few hours, and only had long days and modern 'overtime' during harvests and planting.)

The middle classes, or bourgeois as they were known experienced a revitalized interest in the supernatural with strict social mores, but similar, lessened church attendance and participation. A lot of it was social-presentation and churches throughout the era were terrified at the complete lack of religiosity or adherence to rituals among them. they shifted more and more into, 'well I'm smart, I'm wealthy. I'm like those poors but I worked my way through being smart to become something more' and especially in the USA, lacked the strict class barriers.

Meanwhile the upper class participated in it for similar reasons--they had even less to do than they did prior. They no longer really ran states, but had wealth, power and estates and loads of free time.

But that middle class also was notably shocked and horrified by a series of major violent wars. We may not remember it now but Capitalism was widely regarded as 'naturally creating equality and peace' and was described as a economic philosophy of not excess, but of self-sacrifice and prudishness and was heavily pushed by Calvinist doctrine and the incredible uptick in violent and cataclysmic wars during the growth of Capitalism. Manifesting most dramatically in the American Civil War. Bringing about uncertainty about God (especially due to Calvinist-influenced Reform beliefs) there was a hunger for alternative religious experiences. The quakers especially helped push this movement as they wished massive reform to right the wrongs of the English speaking world. Prisons where instead of short sentences/humiliation, the criminals would face long, solitary confinement to 'reflect on wrongdoings', and a lustful search for spiritual phenomena that led rapidly to practice of mediumship.

Simply put, Protestantism was moving away from big churches due to Quaker influence and a lack of confidence in the church putting a stop to war, to small home-congregations of the bored, affluent and educated looking for non-form but rather self-created ritual experiences and anxiety about the amount of dead led to the explosion of spiritualism. It never pushed really into non-English speaking nations and met a brick wall in Catholic or Orthodox countries and was generally regarded with confusion by Eastern religions. (despite it in many cases supposedly being based on their practices.)

TL;DR: Spiritualism is the 19th century equivalent of celebrities becoming (insert niche religion here) A lust for community/understanding but lacking a social or cultural place to really find that sort of thing naturally.

Edited June 7, 2021 by WereScrib

[Golden Duck]

Quote

...By the old Campaspe River, where the breezes shake the grass,
There's a row of little gravestones that the stockmen never pass,
For they bear a crude inscription saying, `Stranger, drop a tear,
For the Cuff and Collar players and the Geebung boys lie here.'
And on misty moonlit evenings, while the dingoes howl around,
You can see their shadows flitting down that phantom polo ground;
You can hear the loud collisions as the flying players meet,
And the rattle of the mallets, and the rush of ponies' feet,
Till the terrified spectator rides like blazes to the pub —
He's been haunted by the spectres of the Geebung Polo Club.

The Geebung Polo Club - AB Paterson

The Campaspe River is in Victoria

Edited June 7, 2021 by Golden Duck

[+Hammerclaw]

They were alive then.

[OrdinaryClay]

17 hours ago, Hammerclaw said:

They were alive then.

This pretty much makes sense. Every generation, every human, wonders and frets about the existence of the afterlife.

[the13bats]

On 6/1/2021 at 1:03 PM, Grey Area said:

Spiritualism in Victorian times was the equivalent of today’s text and telephone scams.  They preyed on the vulnerable to make a quick buck.

Yeah and those type charlatans havent slowed down any be it a card or palm reading for 10 bucks or a bigger paycheck like the warrens demanded, 

People have always and will always both fear death or more so the idea of no afterlife and grieve losses

People who lack consciences have no issues making a buck off it, i saw it first hand many times.

[dream jo]

Because some of them but spiritually Gifted and mediums but emptiers but then was not allowed problems because of people thinking of evil but it's not PayPal like myself my mum was born with this gift why because God give us this gift because we are good people just read one say it they did not say it and run say it but there's a lot of people have no open minded

[Silver]

On 6/1/2021 at 5:49 PM, papageorge1 said:

I think Spiritualism is a great thing both in Victorian times and today. We are all fascinated by the idea of spirits we can't see and life after death.

I am one to believe they make real contact. Shame about the minority of frauds out there but they can't take away from the real deals.

That reminds of the saying that it's the 90% of Estate Agents that make the 10% look bad.

[papageorge1]

2 hours ago, ted hughes said:

That reminds of the saying that it's the 90% of Estate Agents that make the 10% look bad.

On mediums today I would go 90% just being honest to the best of their abilities.