Mrs Guppy Takes a Flight: A Scandal of Victorian Spiritualism - Softcover

Even those who have researched the nineteenth century Spiritualist scene will probably know little about the mediumship of Mrs Guppy other than she was noted for her apports (objects which appeared mysteriously in the séance room), and most famously her three mile spirit-powered aerial transit on 23 June 1871 over the roofs of London from her home in Highbury, landing unceremoniously in the middle of a séance in progress in Lamb s Conduit Street, Bloomsbury, her account book in one hand and a wet pen in the other. That journey is alluded to in Molly Whittington-Egan s title and on the cover, but as she amply demonstrates, there was more to Mrs Guppy than that. Determining what that more was is not an easy task. Mrs Guppy s life has hitherto been obfuscated by the mythologised version of her origins she promoted, one which has too often been taken at face value by later commentators. What has helped to disentangle the fabrications she disseminated, and makes this portrait so valuable, is the power of the electronic search which facilitated a comparison of Mrs Guppy s version against the facts. The result is a straight no-frills biography aiding enormously in tracing her life. What Whittington-Egan has discovered is that Mrs Guppy wove a bogus family history to improve her social standing. Like many in her position, she reinvented herself in order to break through rigid class constraints. Mediumship was one way in which working-class women could better themselves socially, and Mrs Guppy did this with aplomb, moving in circles far removed from her modest origins. Her talents can be gauged by her avoidance of the outright exposures that plagued her confreres, and by the significant influence she wielded on Alfred Russel Wallace, for whom, in Whittington-Egan s words, she was the enchantress , but who was blind to her legerdemain and gross conjury . As well as tracing the trajectory of Mrs Guppy s career, Whittington-Egan is good on the social aspects of being a regular attendee at séances and becoming part of the community of believers. Mediumship was not just about wanting to make contact with the departed, it was also about a social network that gave its members a particular identity and offered mutual support, as well as the chance for a chat over tea and cakes. Mrs Guppy had good connections in the movement and Whittington-Egan follows many of the threads that connected Mrs Guppy to her fellow workers for Spirit which could express themselves in both close friendships and hostile rivalries. Her mediumship enabled her to marry twice, Samuel Guppy and William Volckman, both Spiritualists and prosperous in business. But times changed, she outlived her husbands, and a son, and when she died in Brighton of senile decay in December 1917 her occupation as a medium had long been over, her fame evaporated. Whittington-Egan s view is that Mrs Guppy was (putting it loosely) a humbug, and it difficult to demur. Despite this dispassionate verdict it is a warm and affectionate portrait, even clearing Mrs Guppy of the most egregious charge made against her, that she had arranged in a fit of jealousy to have vitriol thrown in the face of Katie King at a Florence Cook séance, thereby ruining Miss Cook s looks (this plot rests on the assumption that Cook and Katie were the same). This book is an important study for anyone with an interest in Victorian Spiritualism as it clears away much misinformation while avoiding the excesses of cultural theory, and presents Mrs Guppy in, as it were, the round. More, it helps to bring alive the sense of adventure as well as solemn pursuit after truth that characterised the early days of Spiritualism, before psychical researchers came along and in their determination to control the mediums made it deadly serious and dull.' --http://www.spr.ac.uk/publication/mrs-guppy-takes-flight-scandal-victorian-spiritualism

Many moons ago, in the high Victorian era, Mrs. Guppy, the famous medium, was enjoying a sparkling success. Over the rooftops of Bloomsbury she sailed, was infused through lathe and plaster, and clambered on to tables in the darkness, magicking down showers of apports. Night after night, once the lights were extinguished, and the damped fires had died in the grates, the seance could begin in plush and mahogany drawing-rooms. The O of her mouth in speaking trances was a portal to the spirit world. Her lidded eyes were flickering sensors. The floating paper trumpets were channels to catch the direct voices of the departed. Curtained cabinets were entrances to the unknown land. There, in the thrilling, breathing gloom, decked out in merging black gown, portly, not ethereal, Mrs Guppy, silently, deftly, tripped her own fantastic dance in little, pointy, soft, boots. Definitely invisible, for none ever spotted her, and very nearly noiseless - once, she set a chandelier a-tinkling - she glided behind the bowed heads of her awestruck sitters, and dispensed upon the table a cornucopia of gifts and symbols, apports, from the spirits; animal, vegetable and mineral. Wings swooped and birds burbled; doves were released. Lights darted and twinkled. Auditory effects, tactile feelings, stroking, prickling, oriental smells, made temporary schizophrenics of solid citizens. She was a sensation. Sadly, though, she was a fake medium, or a cheat, as they called it then, deliberately and in full consciousness employing techniques and devices in order to deceive others that she was in contact with the dead. She was lucky, or exceptionally talented: no lurking sceptic ever managed to expose her, to put up the light prematurely, snatch off a veil, or disclose a mask or waxen body part, as was happening to her rivals. In her palmy days, at the beginnings of the British craze for spiritualism she was a maker of miracles, and her name is still remembered. Her private life, obscured to those who believed in her, was curious, and based on fundamental lies. This is her story, finally brilliantly exposed and researched by criminologist Molly Whittington-Egan. It is the story of a brilliant lifelong conwoman and prestidigitateur.