In this month's post, Dr Valeria Cavalli examines the theme of spiritualism in Irish writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's novel All in the Dark (1866), and what the author's warnings about the dangers of spiritualism tell us about Victorian attitudes to women and madness.
The dangerous habit of practising séances
When William Maubray is called to his dear aunt
Dinah’s deathbed, he hopes that he will get there in time to say goodbye. He is
certainly surprised, then, to find her in quite good shape, if not for her firm
conviction that she is going to die before midnight. Dr. Drake explains to the
puzzled young man that his aunt suffers from nothing more serious than the
ailments of a woman of her age, but that she has recently fallen victim of
self-deception. The eccentric old woman has in fact taken up the dangerous habit of practising séances, and the risk is that she will drive herself mad if she
insists in taking seriously the ominous revelations of her spirit friend.
Written in the peak years of Spiritualism, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s All
in the Dark brings forth a way more terrifying reality than being
haunted by ghosts, that is, being locked away in a lunatic asylum on the basis
of one’s unorthodox creed.
Emerging in America in the late 1840s, Spiritualism
spread almost immediately to Europe, finding fertile terrain in the state of
religious uncertainty which was troubling part of the population, regardless of
class, age, or gender. When scientific discoveries brought the credibility of
the Bible into question, believers began to feel uneasy with the way
Christianity explained the supernatural, and began to look for comfort in the
occult. In fact, the occult could account for the supernatural according to the
laws of nature: whatever forces were inexplicably ruling the Universe or man,
they were completely natural, and their present state, if still unknown to
science, was open to investigation. However, scientists and members of the
Church together raised their voices in opposition to the movement from its very
first appearance, and criticism poured from the pages of periodicals and
newspapers.
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Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.
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Spiritualism and female transgression
As Alex Owen has pointed out in her Darkened Room (1989), many
medical men regarded the movement with distaste and suspicion in part because
of the increasing role it offered to women. In those years, the ideal woman
was the submissive wife and mother, “the angel in the house” in charge of the
domestic sphere. In giving women the authority and the right to exercise their
innate spiritual powers, Spiritualism infringed on the culturally imposed
limits of respectable womanhood. In the darkened room, not only did women
become the principal actors of the séance, they also transgressed gender norms,
by assuming male roles or highly sexualised trance personae. The subversiveness
of the movement alarmed and alerted the medical profession, which was in charge
of policing any deviations from the social order imposed by Victorian
patriarchy. The emerging medical branches of psychiatry and gynaecology
effectively teamed up to prove that women’s health depended on female biology.
Since women’s role was primarily that of generator, physical and intellectual
activities would compromise the balance of nerve force necessary for the
functioning of the reproductive organs, thus causing mental instability. Most
cases of insanity due to sexual illness tended to result in monomanias, among
which Spiritualism was counted, and doctors began to consider any kind of
suspension of everyday consciousness suspicious and to associate mediumistic
trance, with its uncontrollable convulsions and frequent use of inappropriate
language, with the pathological symptoms of hysteria.
'Queer fancies'
In All in the Dark, Dinah Perfect is depicted as a strong-willed,
authoritative, and eccentric woman. Her faithful servant explains that Dinah
has always been very extravagant, with her odd dispositions concerning her
corpse and coffin:
She was very
particular, […] and would have her way; […] she had her coffin in the house
this seven years – nigh eight a’most – upright in the little press by the left
of the bed, in her room – the cupboard like in the wall. Dearie me! ’twas an
odd fancy, […] and she’d dust it, and take it out, she would wi’ the door
locked, her and me, once a month. She had a deal o’them queer fancies, she
had. [II, pp.168-9]
'She is in a highly hysterical state'
It is no surprise, then, that when the novelty of table-rapping reaches the Old
World, it appeals mightily to a housebound, bored, middle-class spinster like
Dinah, who is looking for excitement and escapism from the monotony of everyday
life, and from the increasing fear of ageing and dying. However, Dinah’s
credulity is quickly associated with hysteria. Echoing Dr William Carpenter’s
theory on unconscious cerebration, the non-believing, sceptical (and alcoholic)
Dr Drake describes the dangerous effects that Spiritualism could have on Dinah’s
mind, by convincing her of the reality of her delusions to the point that her
body comes to provoke the effects that she expects to happen. Dr Drake is
afraid that Dinah will ‘frighten herself out of her wits’, and explains to
William that Spiritualism can affect the nerves [I, p. 60]:
Why, you know what hysteria is. Well, she is in a highly hysterical
state. She’s a woman who resists; it would be safer, you see, if she gave way
and cried a bit now and then, when nature prompts, but she won’t, except under
awful high pressure, and then it might be serious; those things sometimes run
oft’ into fits. [I, pp. 38-9]
Wrongful confinement
At a time when the advances in the realm of the
mind became increasingly associated with scandals related to wrongful
confinement, Le Fanu questions the power held by Victorian psychiatry over
extravagant and independent women. Dinah Perfect is certainly a bizarre
character, with her many fancies and her addiction to table-turning. However,
her oddities do not seem sufficient to diagnose her as incipiently insane. Dinah
is an elderly woman troubled by the frightening thought of upcoming death. Her
anxiety and hysterical crises echo the spiritual uncertainty that afflicted the
author’s sister and wife, like many other Victorians. Moreover, her uneasy
shifting between her family’s orthodox Christianity and the occult is
reminiscent of Le Fanu’s own crisis of faith, which led him to find comfort in
the doctrine of the Scandinavian mystic Emanuel Swedenborg.
Le Fanu's wife Susanna (née Bennett), and his sister Catherine. All three experienced a crisis of faith at some point in their lives. The images of Susanna and Catherine appear in W. J. McCormack’s biography of Le Fanu.
'That foolish spirit-rapping'
Having
experienced first hand the anxiety of spiritual doubt, Le Fanu is far from
labelling Dinah mad, even though he does not sympathise with Spiritualism. In
fact, all throughout the novel, Dinah sounds reasonable and practical, advising
her ward on the importance of a good match in marriage, and her nephew on the more
advantageous prospect of the Church rather than the Bar as a profession. Even
on spiritual matters, the Rector confirms that, ‘I found her views […] all very
sound; indeed, if it had not been for that foolish spirit-rapping, which led
her away – that is, confused her – I don’t think there was anything in her
opinions to which exception could have been taken’ [II, pp. 171-2]. On all
subjects but Spiritualism, Dinah is perfectly sound. However, her fancy for
table-turning would, for orthodox Victorian psychiatry, be a strong enough
proof of her insanity, as the real case of Louisa Nottidge had shown.
Louisa Nottidge
Like Dinah Perfect, Louisa Nottidge was a wealthy middle-aged spinster who had
also spent money ‘very wildly’ upon the word of a Spiritualist [I, p. 8]. In
1846, Nottidge decided to leave her mother’s home to follow the influential
millenarian prophet Henry Prince. Prince was the founder of a small community
in Somerset called the Agapemone (the Abode of Love), where he taught about
free love and preached of everlasting life to a group of devotees who had
agreed to donate all their wealth to the congregation. Three of the five
Nottidge sisters had already joined the prophet (who had thus gained some
£18,000), so that when Louisa communicated her decision to her mother, the
latter had to act quickly in order not to lose another daughter, and her
considerable fortune, to an unscrupulous charlatan. Mrs Nottidge had Louisa
abducted and confined to the majestic Moorcroft House private asylum at
Hillingdon, in Middlesex, on the grounds of theomania. Louisa spent seventeen
months at the Hillingdon, and was released only because the Commissioners in
Lunacy were summoned upon concerns about her failing health. After her
liberation, Louisa joined the millenarian community, transferred all her
possessions to Henry Prince, and took legal action against her wrongful
confinement.
A fraudulent committal
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Moorcroft
House private asylum at Hillington.
This picture is taken from Sarah Wise’s Inconvenient People. |
The case was heard in court in 1849 before
the Lord Chief Baron, the Right Hon. Sir Frederick Pollock, while the attention
it received in the press provoked responses from alienists John Conolly and
Forbes Benignus Winslow,
and Lord Ashley, Chairman of the Commissioners in Lunacy. The Lord Chief
Baron accepted Louisa Nottidge’s plea and ordered a compensation for the
damages received. The suit made clear that Louisa’s admission to the Hillingdon
had not been fraudulently obtained, since two doctors certified her insane on
the grounds that she had ‘estranged herself from her mother’s house […] to
follow a person of the name of Prince, whom she believed to be Almighty God,
and herself immortal’. However, as Joshua John Schwieso has pointed out,
although the two doctors had been summoned by the family physician on the basis
of their ‘experience in cases of insanity’, their biographies suggest that
neither of them was an expert in the field. Despite all this, the final
verdict was reached because the Commission in Lunacy, in the person of Mr
Mylne, failed to convince the Lord Chief Baron of the necessity of keeping Miss
Nottidge confined, as shown in the following report which appeared in The
Times in 1849:
The Lord Chief Baron: Mr Mylne, was this
lady in such a state of mind as to be dangerous to herself or to others?
Mr Mylne: Not so as I was
aware of; not so far as I knew.
The Lord Chief Baron: If she were not
so, then how was it that you kept her in this asylum for seventeen months?
Mr Mylne: My lord, it was no
part of my duty to keep her there. I was only to liberate her if I saw good and
sufficient reason for adopting that course.
The Lord Chief Baron: It is my opinion
that you ought to liberate every person who is not dangerous to himself or to
others. If the notion has got abroad that any person may be confined in a
lunatic asylum or a madhouse who has any absurd or even mad opinion upon any
religious subject, and is safe and harmless upon every other topic, I
altogether and entirely differ with such an opinion; and I desire to impress
that opinion with as much force as I can in the hearing of one of the
commissioners. […]You say unsound mind, Mr Mylne. Had she any
unsoundness of mind upon any other subject under heaven except as to
entertaining these peculiar religious notions?
Mr Mylne: Miss Nottidge did
not exhibit any symptoms of insanity of any other subject, my lord, that I
observed.
Not only did the Lord Chief Baron support an
individual’s freedom to hold religious opinions (as long as they remained
harmless to both the person and other parties), he, most importantly, stated
that he ‘very much doubted whether, if in this case the plaintiff had been a
man, or living under the protection of a husband, the defendants would have
dared to have taken the steps they had’.
This case made evident how women, and particularly
single women, were in danger of wrongful incarceration, since their unorthodox
religious views (Louisa’s own mother affirmed that ‘she worships a false god’)
could be easily exploited for financial gain.[ix] In fact, in the case of
Louisa Nottidge, what her family were trying to save was the £5,728 7s 7d that
she had bequeathed to the prophet. After her death in 1858, which occurred
while she was still residing at the Agapemone, the Nottidges brought Henry
Prince to court and succeeded in obtaining the return of Louisa’s property on
the grounds of the prophet’s unwarranted influence upon the
deceased. Thus, in the early 1860s, the case of Louisa Nottidge received
new attention in the press, both in England and in Ireland, and was associated
with the increasing number of cases of wrongful confinement which were causing
much sensation, both in real life and in fiction.
Spiritualism and madness
In All in the Dark, Dinah, unlike
Nottidge, is surrounded by relatives and friends who love her for who she is
rather than for her fortune, and who will miss her dearly after her death.
However, in discursively associating Spiritualism with madness, Le Fanu is
reminding the reader of the existing danger that even an incompetent doctor
like Drake, with no specific knowledge or experience of insanity, could
actually provide enough evidence to have a woman like Dinah confined on the
grounds of her unorthodox beliefs. Furthermore, he is also presenting a
reflection on the double standard with which Victorian psychiatry was dealing
with its patients. After Dinah dies, her sceptical nephew William also becomes
‘addicted to the supernatural’ and begins to believe that he is haunted by the
spirit of his dead aunt [I, p. 58]. He suffers from nervous strain and
hallucinations, and also admits that ‘I think I’m growing as mad as
[…] poor Aunt Dinah’ [I, p. 216, my italics]. However, no judgement is made
about the possibility of his being a case of incipient insanity. William’s
temporary condition is attributed to the weight of financial and sentimental
concerns which, combined with the strong tea he likes to drink (a recurring
theme in Le Fanu’s fiction), the heavy tobacco he likes to smoke, and the supernatural
stories he likes to read, provokes nightmares and somnambulistic states.
Financial problems, disappointment in love, bereavement, and hereditary
disposition were all considered by Victorian psychiatry to be factors in the
detection of mental insanity. The fact that such connections are ignored in
William’s case seems to validate the words of the Lord Chief Baron, who doubted
whether the same precautions would have been taken if the plaintiff had been a
man.
In All in
the Dark, Le Fanu touches on the topical association of alternative
spiritualities with insanity. Drawing upon his personal experience as well as
his professional familiarity, in his work for the national and international
press, with contemporary debates on these topics, Le Fanu investigates the
power game played by Victorian psychiatry over difficult citizens, women in
particular. Although the novel shows Le Fanu’s contempt of Spiritualism, it
nevertheless dismisses the accusations of madness levelled at the believer,
thus becoming a warning to women readers.
Dr ValeriaCavalli recently completed a PhD in the School of English, Trinity College
Dublin entitled 'They said she was mad: insanity in the fiction of Joseph
Sheridan Le Fanu' (2014). She may be contacted at cavalliv "at" tcd
"dot" ie. Details of an upcoming conference in Dublin on J.S. Le Fanu
(15-16 October 2014) may be found here.
Further reading
- J. S. Le Fanu, All in the Dark, 2 Vols (London: Richard Bentley, 1866), Vol. 2, pp. 168-9.
- For a historical
context on Spiritualism and Victorian medicine, see Alex Owen, The Darkened Room: Women, Power, and Spiritualism in Late Victorian England
(Chicago, Ill.; London: University of Chicago Press, 2004), Ch. 6.
- On Louisa Nottidge,
see Sarah Wise, Inconvenient People;
Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England (London: The
Bodley Head, 2012), Ch. 4; Owen, pp. 151-54; and Joshua John Schwieso,
‘‘Religious Fanaticism’ and Wrongful Confinement in Victorian England: the
Affair of Louisa Nottidge’, Social History of Medicine (1996), pp. 159-74.
At a time when the issues of migration and mental health are seldom out of the news, the Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland (CHOMI) has worked with the Centre for the History of Medicine at the University of Warwick (CHM) and Talking Birds theatre company to develop a new theatre production which explores why the mid-nineteenth century saw a prevalence of mental disorders among Irish migrants.The new piece is called 'A Malady of Migration' and is based on research being carried out by Professor Hilary Marland of Warwick and Dr Catherine Cox of University College Dublin, in a project called Madness, Migration and the Irish in Lancashire, c.1850-1921, funded by the Wellcome Trust. They are supported by postgraduate students and others, who will conduct supplementary research and take supporting roles in the drama.