Spirits in the Material World

In this entertaining and engaging lecture, Paul Bell guides us through the early history of Spiritualism, with special emphasis on London, and on the working class women empowered by the movement. The traditional history of Spiritualism states that it was born in the United States in 1848 with the Fox sisters; but in London ten years earlier, the Okey sisters had already peeled back the veil and communed with the dead in trance. As mediums, working class women in London and elsewhere entered the homes of the middle and upper classes and enraptured them, making for uncomfortable and fascinating negotiations of class, gender, and sometimes, even, sex.

Paul Bell has long been involved in the world of the supernatural and the occult, with a special interest in the Victorian era. Under the stage name 'Paul Voodini' he has recreated the experience of the Victorian séance in a theatrical environment, as well as leading 'ghost hunts' in some of England's most haunted locations.