Ectoplasmic Touch, Margery Crandon, and Science in the Séance Room

Season 1, Episode 2

  • Will Conant, ‘Untitled’ (Ectoplasmic Hand Emerging from Margery’s Navel) (1925)
  • The Belvedere Torso (1st century BC)
  • William Hunter, ‘Table 6’ in ‘The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus Exhibited in Tables’ (1774)
  • Baron von Schrenck Notzing, ‘Flashlight Photograph [of Eva Carrière]’ (1911) in ‘Phenomena of Materialisation’ (1913)
  • Will Conant, ‘Untitled’ (Ectoplasmic Hand Emerging from Margery’s Navel and Resting on Eric Dingwall’s Hand) (1925)
  • [Photographer unknown], ‘Untitled’ (Margery in a Trance During a Séance) (c. 1925)
  • Carolee Schneemann, ‘Interior Scroll’ (1975), Tate
  • [Photographer unknown], ‘Untitled’ (Margery Under Control: Neck Secured with Steel Wire) (c. 1925)
  • Annie Louisa Swynnerton, ‘Cupid and Psyche’ (1890), Gallery Oldham
  • [Photographer unknown], ‘Untitled’ (Walter Putting Ectoplasmic Sample into Test Tubes) (1924)
  • [Photographer unknown], ‘Untitled’ (Walter’s Hand Emerges from Margery and is Fingerprinted in Wax) (1925)

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Emma and Christy look at archival photographs from the séances of Mina ‘Margery’ Crandon (around 1925) and talk slimy protrusions, sex, scientific photography, the testing of mediums, and the science of spiritualism.

IMAGES DISCUSSED:
Will Conant, Untitled (Ectoplasmic Hand Emerging from Margery’s Navel) (1925)
The Belvedere Torso (1st century BC)
William Hunter, ‘Table 6’ in The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus Exhibited in Tables (1774)
Baron von Schrenck Notzing, ‘Flashlight Photograph [of Eva Carrière]’ (1911) in Phenomena of Materialisation (1913)
Will Conant, Untitled (Ectoplasmic Hand Emerging from Margery’s Navel and Resting on Eric Dingwall’s Hand) (1925)
[Photographer unknown], Untitled (Margery in a Trance During a Séance) (c. 1925)
Carolee Schneemann, Interior Scroll (1975)
[Photographer unknown], Untitled (Margery Under Control: Neck Secured with Steel Wire) (c. 1925)
Annie Louisa Swynnerton, Cupid and Psyche (1890)
[Photographer unknown], Untitled (Walter Putting Ectoplasmic Sample into Test Tubes) (1924)
[Photographer unknown], Untitled (Walter’s Hand Emerges from Margery and is Fingerprinted in Wax) (1925)

(The archival photographs of Margery belong to the Harry Price Archives at Senate House Library, and the Society for Psychical Research, London.)

REFERENCES:
‘The Media of Mediumship’
Richard Noakes, Physics and Psychics: The Occult and the Sciences in Modern Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019)
Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 1980)
Margaret Olin, Touching Photographs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012)
Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity (New York: Zone Books, 2007)
Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception, trans. A. M. Sheridan (London: Tavistock Publications, 1973)
Jennifer Tucker, Nature Exposed: Photography as Eyewitness in Victorian Science (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005)
Peter Lamont, ‘Spiritualism and a Mid-Victorian Crisis of Evidence’, The Historical Journal, 47.4 (2004), 897–920

‘Drawing Blood’ was made possible with funding from the Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network.
Follow our Twitter @drawingblood_
Audio postproduction by Sias Merkling
‘Drawing Blood’ cover art © Emma Merkling
All audio and content © Emma Merkling and Christy Slobogin
Intro music: ‘There Will Be Blood’ by Kim Petras, © BunHead Records 2019. We’re still trying to get hold of permissions for this song – Kim Petras text us back!!