A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture

minded, loves to roam in the woods or unfrequented places, has visions and sings in his sleep.” 53
The tendency toward illness and erratic behavior commonly attributed to the shaman often
recalls (or more accurately, foretells) the neurasthenia and hysteria so closely associated with
nineteenth century ideals of femininity. It was the very (in)capacities assigned by the Victorian
cult of true womanhood—somatic weakness, passivity, painful levels of sensitivity— that made
the woman of the nineteenth century an ideal medium. In turn, mediumship provided a venue in
which women put those ostensibly domestic capacities to public use.
The non-traditional religious sphere in general has historically allowed women freedom
of movement and the potential for socially recognized power. I qualify religious with “nontraditional”
for the obvious reason that traditional Judeo-Christian religious structures, with their
established hierarchies, strongly favor male leadership—most often to the extent that female
leadership is expressly forbidden. Outside these established hierarchies it is often the case that
religious leadership is primarily a function of charisma, a quality just as readily held by a woman
as by a man. In the context of the nineteenth century, American culture provided an especially
favorable ground for the establishment of female power in the religious sphere. The histories of
Shakerism, Spiritualism, Christian Science, Revivalism and New Thought all attest to this.
Wessinger notes that
The ideology of true womanhood, which said that woman’s place was in the home, began
to be used to justify women’s activity and society. Women began to pray, testify, and
even preach before “promiscuous” gatherings of men and women, and women actively
strove to convert friends, children and husbands. Women took seriously their mission as
their culture’s guardians of morality and began to extend that mission into the outer
world. 54
It is notable that Shakerism, one of the clearest American precursors to Spiritualism, was
more religious in nature than the “scientific” precedents of the Anglo and European contexts
discussed previously. One of the central dynamics that recurs throughout this and the ensuing
53 Mircea Eliade, “Shaman,” in Man, Myth and Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural, ed. Richard
Cavendish (New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 1970) 2546-2547.
54 Wessinger, 10.
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