Spiritual Women

Some notes from Chapter Four.

Hey, lovely human 👋🏻

Guess who’s been down a rabbit hole? 🐇🐰

You guessed right …

Location: England. Time: 1850s.

Because, ya see, back then, it seemed like everyone was doing it. Wherever you went, it was going on. Lords and ladies were doing it. Ordinary people were doing it. Late at night and with the curtains drawn, people were coming together to do it.  

You know what I mean, yeah?

Of course, you do …

I’m talking about hosting a séance! (Not *that,* you perv 😉).

Anyway, the 1850s was the beginning of a new age: the era of modern Spiritualism, AKA the belief that humans could communicate with the dead. Now, I use the word “modern” because people have communicated with the dead for a long time. Like, probably since the beginning of human history. But Victorian Spiritualism had a vibe of its own, and I’m writing all about it at the moment.

The thing is, despite having second-class status throughout the 19th century, women were front and centre in the Spiritualist movement. This was partly because of the contemporary view that women were inherently more receptive to all things spiritual than men. So, women tended to work more frequently as mediums (people who communicate directly with the dead). That’s not to say that men didn’t work as mediums (they did), but women dominated this movement and just generally carried authority in a way that I haven’t seen before.

The Fox Sisters

The reason that historians date modern Spiritualism to the 1850s - or 1852, to be precise - is because of an American woman called Maria B. Hayden who toured England that year, performing séances across the country. Hayden, and that generation of American mediums, were inspired by three teenaged sisters - Margaretta, Kate and Leah Fox - who famously contacted a dead peddlar in their New York home in 1848. If you don’t know the story of the Fox sisters, then go here because it’s well worth a read. But in today’s post, I want to take you down a different path.

“The Mysterious Lady”

As we’ve already noted, people were trying to contact the dead long before the Fox Sisters or Maria B. Hayden stepped foot on English shores. Pursuing this idea is how I found out about Georgiana Eagle. I don’t think anyone would know about Georgiana if it wasn’t for a very fancy pocket watch that was gifted to her by none other than Queen Victoria. Georgiana was only 14 at the time – not bad, eh?

So, how did she end up receiving such a gift? Well, it turns out that she performed an act of “meritorious and extraordinary clairvoyance” in July of 1846 for the queen and Prince Albert at Osborn House on the Isle of Wight. The details are sketchy but there is evidence that Victoria hired clairvoyants and mediums on many occasions, particularly after Albert’s death in 1861.

Georgiana’s pocket watch is affectionately known as ‘Vicky’s Ticker.’

Anyway, back to Georgiana. Born in 1834, her dad was a self-proclaimed wizard and illusionist called Barnardo Eagle. He toured the country performing in fairs, taverns and halls. By the time she was seven, Georgiana was already part of her dad’s routine and had even developed her own ‘second sight’ act. (Fun fact – she’s listed on the 1841 census as a clairvoyant, which I have never seen before!) Throughout the 1840s and 1850s, there are hundreds of adverts in newspapers for Georgiana’s act. I particularly like this one from 1844. I have no idea what “occultomacy” is, but it sounds f****g awesome and like something we all need in our lives:

In 1858, a couple of life-changing events happened to Georgiana. The first was the death of her dad (he died mid-performance!) while the second was a marriage to a guy called Charles Card. Neither of these events impacted her performances. She continued to tour England, receiving praise wherever she went. I found her referenced as “the best clairvoyant in Europe” and the “first somnambule of the era.” She also experimented with her stage name, sometimes calling herself “Madame Gilliard” or “Madame Gilliard Card.”

With all this talk of performances, what exactly did she do on stage? This is a description from one of her early performances, alongside her dad:

“The part of the performances which excited the greatest sensations of wonder was that in which he introduced his daughter, Miss Georgiana Eagle, a beautiful and interesting girl, about sixteen years of age, whom he declared to be a clairvoyant … Mr Eagle, with a few passes, threw her into an apparently mesmeric coma; and, having bandaged her eyes, received the most astoundingly correct replies to questions put through him by the audience. Rings, watches, brooches, coins, chains, kerchiefs, &c, were described by her with the same accuracy as though they were before her eyes.”

Georgiana died of “senile decay” in 1911. As for her royal pocket watch, it was gifted to a medium called Etta Wriedt who famously used its energy to channel the voice of Queen Victoria during a séance in 1911. On Wriedt’s death, the pocket watch was donated to the College of Psychic Studies in London, but, in 1962, it MYSTERIOUSLY VANISHED. OOH. It did eventually turn up again – in Manchester, of all places, nestled inside the belongings of a recently deceased jeweller.

I’ll leave you with this poster of Georgiana, which I think is her only surviving image:

Until next time,

Kaye x