A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture

the corrupting influence of the world beyond the home—or even by the sexual contact
implied in marriage—teenage girls were believed to make good mediums because their
own characters were not powerful enough to interfere with an external intelligence’s use
of their bodies. 96
A Guide to Mediumship suggested that prospective mediums should exhibit a “peculiar
sensitiveness” and a “sympathetic passivity of mind.” A “positive state of mind is to be
avoided.” 97 The Reverend E.W. Sprague contended in Spirit Mediumship: Its Various Phases
that “sensitive and mediumistic people do strange things at times and they themselves are
sometimes puzzled to understand why they do them.” 98
The picture of the medium that emerges
from Spiritualist texts is that of the classic nineteenth century woman, more specifically that of
the female neurasthenic: weak, passive, subject to fits of hysteria and depression, highly
impressionable. Thus, as Braude argues, “Spiritualism made the delicate constitution and
nervous excitability commonly attributed to femininity a qualification for religious leadership.” 99
Mediumship took the weak and passive qualities attributed to women and placed them in
a public context. It provided an entrée to women for positions of religious leadership and for the
public expression of opinion. While many séances took place in a domestic setting, the advent of
trance speaking created a venue for public speech by women. 100
Trance speakers were the first
substantial group of women to speak consistently in public. The fact that the trance speaker was
controlled by a spirit helped to place her outside social and religious strictures against women
speaking in public thus creating an opportunity for public address that was otherwise denied. For
you see, it was not the woman that was speaking but rather the spirit. This displacement of
responsibility lent itself to a variety of uses by female mediums.
96 Braude, 56-57.
97 Aber, 5, 8.
98 Reverend E.W. Sprague, “Spirit Mediumship: Its Various Phases. How Developed, and Safely Practiced. A
Compendium of Psychic Science. For Séances, Circles and Individual Use. The Medium’s Companion and Guide,”
in Spiritualism I: Spiritualist Thought, ed. Gary L. Ward (New York: Garland Press, 1990) 28.
99 Braude, 57.
100 See Mary Ryan, Women in Public: Between Banners and Ballots, 1825-1880 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1992).
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