Nineteenth-Century Gothic Spiritualisms: Looking Under the Table
In 1892, the satirical magazine Moonshine published “The Commission on Ghosts,” a mock-article recounting the “first sitting” of the Society for General Psychology’s Royal Commission on spirits. Those present are “The Chairman, the Editor of Light, Mrs. Annie Besant, Miss Florence Marryat, Mr. W. Eglinton, Mr. Dawson Rogers, Mr. C. N. Williamson, and Mr. W. T. Stead” (315). Each member was a public supporter/purveyor of spiritualist belief at the fin de siècle.