Mediums in Spain: the story of the women who brought esotericism to the stage

As a sign of European and American fashions, Spanish newspapers soon began to insert advertising of the new show This accompanied the powerful emergence of sleepwalkers, mediums, visionaries, and psychics of all kinds who crowded the entertainment world. At the same time, it dangerously raised the idea of fraud, invention, easy money through deception, and the innocence of the most credulous in the face of the impostors of the new esoteric science . An interesting hodgepodge that even today, in the popular imagination, confuses spiritualists and mediums with sleight of hand, magic, and the colorful spectacle.

Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia were the major Iberian capitals that welcomed this new class of professionals, professionals who, for the first time, showed women in the central place of the staging , and as absolute protagonists, not as auxiliaries or decoration within the spectacle, but as the central architect of the representation.

In La Correspondencia de España (Spanish Correspondence) in January 1860, the activities carried out in Valencia by the dentist, Mr. Bousquets, are highlighted. He was dedicated to extracting teeth using hypnosis, which he describes as "anesthesia." He describes it as a method invented by Doctors Azam and Broca of Paris : several individuals underwent the operation, which was carried out successfully, among a portion of people who had come to witness the procedure. At one point, the doctor extracted twelve teeth, without the patients experiencing the extraordinary pain that these operations entail.

But in the face of this success, months later, in May, La España highlighted "the dangers of Hypnotism ", and explained that according to several French medical journals, some hypnotists had to stop their activity: referring to a certain lady who had to be woken up quickly, due to the seriousness of the mysterious revelations she was making while hypnotized, and another lady who found herself in grave danger of losing her life.

Even today, mediums are often confused with sleight of hand, magic, or colorful shows.

The chronicle did not offer further details.

The front pages of El Globo (January 15, 1883) offered the curious several photographs of " The Phenomena of Hypnotism ," which were detailed for their readers. This was a topic of interest to them, since in 1884 we find several articles on the subject, quite lively regarding the cures achieved through hypnotism.

By the end of 1881, we already find several sleepwalking shows taking place in Barcelona in the press. A grand performance was announced at the Tivoli Theatre "of sleight of hand, sleepwalking, marvelous fountains, and a giant photograph by Mr. Neubours." A year later, in April, sessions of "Magnetism and Sleepwalking" were held at the Romea Theatre, and again in January 1884, at the Teatro Principal , "the celebrated Dr. Nicolás and his charming daughter , Miss Elena, performed works of magnetism and sleepwalking unknown to the Barcelona public." That same year, in August, a woman, Miss Ariel, appeared at the popular Circo Ecuestre , "performing various works of sleepwalking and magnetism, which earned her repeated applause from the large audience."

In April 1885, again at the Tivoli, a varied performance of magnetism and sleepwalking was announced, to benefit "the static Emma", by the Zanadell company. But something did not go well for one of the magnetizers, since in La Época de Madrid (September 11, 1886) the incident is comically detailed: At the Ribas Theater in Barcelona there was a major scandal on Sunday. A certain Mr. Donati, who called himself a professor of hypnotism, fascination, and magnetism, had pompously announced himself on the posters. The audience that had come understood from the first moment that Donati was a charlatan and con man who knew nothing, and the disapproval and laughter began. Indignation rose to a fever pitch when the professor, seeing the cloud gathering, came forward onto the stage and said in a familiar tone: "Gentlemen, I'm fasting , and it's very late. I'm calling the show over, and I'll continue tomorrow!"

[And the editor continues] Had the authorities not intervened and guarded him for two hours, the joke would have cost Donati dearly, and he was taken, with great caution, to the civil government, where he spent the night and part of the following day. That is to say, every season, for several consecutive years, mediumship and somnambulism delight the public, and there are already several women who perform alone, without the need for a magnetizer. The independence of men to enter a trance is becoming consolidated in those years; moreover, we observe the same phenomenon in urban spiritualist groups. Women are transformed from a passive vehicle, channeling voices from beyond the grave, into active mediums who control their trances at will.

"They are transformed from a passive vehicle, channeling voices from beyond the grave, into active mediums who control their trances at will."

These public spectacles also took the form of private consultations, far removed from the militant circles of experimental spiritualism , and became an easy way for unscrupulous individuals, or simply for swashbuckling hustlers, to make money . Several consultations focused on healing through the mediums' vision , who also provided placebos in the form of pills, infusions, or magnetized magnets, opened on the streets of major Spanish cities. They were also advertised in the press.

In 1886, we find one of the first proposals in the press. Francisca presents herself, not as a Miss or a Mademoiselle , but with a popular name, and she also claims that "without magnetism or sleepwalking, I forecast, divine, and give news, predicting the future," following the method (she doesn't say which one) of "the highly respected Mlle. Lenordman of Paris ." Quite a guarantee, indeed. The price: two reales. Furthermore, Francisca serves clients in an apartment at 21 Egipciacas Street, in the heart of the Rabal neighborhood. But she warns: "No gentleman will be admitted unless accompanied by his wife." Explicitly, the prophetess distances herself from prostitution or the flirtations of the most daring.

And the editors of La Vanguardia emphasize that this new profession is very popular in Barcelona and is highly profitable, as there are many unsuspecting people interested in the arts of divination.

About the author:

Dolors Marin Silvestre is a historian and researcher specializing in the history of contemporary European social movements. She holds a PhD in History from the University of Barcelona and a Diploma in Sociology from ICESB. She has worked as a documentary filmmaker and curator of exhibitions and films, and is a secondary school teacher. She has published several research papers on anarchism and feminism in Spain and has held internships and lectured at various research centers and universities in Europe and America. Visionaries, freethinkers, and spiritualists. Pioneering Women of Social Struggles (1830-1931) offers a journey through more than a century of female resistance in the context of industrial Spain.

The theaters merely displayed what was going on underground in the city streets. Spiritualist societies carried out their experiments and practices, and their activities were well known in a relatively smaller society than today's, without our extensive means of communication. The soirees in working-class neighborhoods , held twice a week in the society's premises or in private homes, were an open secret, as the press announced the development of these practices with the aim of broadening their social base through propaganda, distributed free of charge, or through public lectures and street protests.

As a sample, we highlight some of the events held in Barcelona featuring the most popular figures of Spiritualism from the last two decades of the 19th century. Most of them feature Amalia Domingo Soler, the movement's most prominent figure and undoubtedly one of the world's most prolific writers.

Domingo would share the platform with her fellow members of spiritualist societies, but also with agnostic or avowedly atheist republicans, in what were known as confrontation sessions. A modest dressmaker would share the stage with lawyers, deputies, citizen councilors, anarchist , federalist, or socialist labor activists, journalists, and a long etcetera . The advance of women to occupy a public place was underway. Domingo penetrated forbidden spaces, with courage, determination, and with her resolutely Andalusian voice, with her poems and her anticlerical speeches.

An example of what women desire from a changing society , from the society they are building from the margins, from the periphery to the center, with increasing authority. The merit of Amalia Domingo and her companions is that they have gradually normalized the presence of women in public events and debates on religion, science, republicanism, anticlericalism, and women's education . This transgression is carried out week after week in city theaters and in the newspapers that chronicle the public sessions.

Also in the city's evenings and nights. They are women who cross the nighttime city alone , at times when, according to tradition, they should be at home. And from spiritualist groups, they move on to workers' societies, normalizing their presence and their voice.

They are women who cross the night city alone, when they should be at home, according to tradition.

Little by little, the names of feminist activists permeate the city, the public imagination, and appear in the satirical press or in literature , which cruelly and mercilessly demonizes them for their courage, associating their names with frustration, ugliness, ignorance, and a long etcetera by those who condemn them for leaving the traditional place, for not resigning themselves to silence, to being humiliated daily, for not obeying.

The most serious aspect was that the events organized by the spiritualist societies were anything but marginal. In those years, they were held in the city center, demonstrating their desire for expansion and normalization in their opposition to traditional Catholicism. The spiritualists of the 19th century truly presented themselves as a danger and a serious competitor, one that the Church would soon respond to with great force.

In 1885 (May 11), La Vanguardia published an account of an evening event held at the Institute for the Promotion of National Work, where the phenomena of somnambulism, magnetism, and hypnotism were discussed, led by the Barcelona Society of Friends of Education. In 1887 (June 13), the same newspaper featured a lecture in Paris by Mr. Mesmer on " Sleepwalking from a Medical-Legal Point of View." In November of the same year, an experiment conducted at the Chartté Clinical Hospital in Paris by Dr. Luys on "remote medicinal substances applied to individuals in a state of hypnosis" was reported. The editor asserted that experiments "currently constitute the greatest concern in the world of medicine." In other words, we now find a relationship between medicine and hypnosis, based on magnetism, which is beginning to be taken seriously.

Dr. Das stuck metal punches and needles into his patients' arms and legs.

The trend of experiments carried out by magnetists and hypnotists on the bodies of the sick, or what became known as hysterics , reached such extremes that in some countries like Switzerland they were banned, as the doctors acted like true sadists or psychopaths on the battered bodies of the hypnotized or on the candid volunteers who presented themselves to be put to sleep. Thus, in Madrid, the Italian magnetist who called himself "Doctor Das" was highly controversial. According to the newspapers, Dr. Das would stick metal awls and needles into his patients' arms and legs, or discharge powerful electric currents into them, to the admiration of the wealthy public in Madrid's salons.

In the final years of the 19th century, we still find several news items in the press. In La Época de Madrid (July 21, 1894), under the title "Hypnotism," Charcot's experiments in Paris are highlighted and it is stated that hypnotism causes more concern among French scientists than cholera. Hypnotic suggestion is described, on the front page, by the editor as a derivation of popular magnetism or artificial sleep , and he explains that:

The spiritualist school, which seemed to have been ridiculed and completely forgotten, is resurrecting with such force (…) that in America it is back in vogue, in England it is appearing in the most important magazines, and in Italy, Professor Lombroso, the anthropologist, seems inclined to believe in spirits (…) and a prestigious newspaper in Rome writes: “A spiritualist fluid is spreading again, from America to Germany throughout the world, and revolving tables and mesmerism are beginning to disturb the human spirit once again.” But what now "astonishes the wise and the ignorant alike are not literary phantasmagoria and visions; they are facts, undeniable facts, because they have been realized under the authority of the teaching profession and science. The editor cites the fashion for spiritualist literature in Balzac, Dumas, Edgar Poe, Anne Radcliffe, Farina, Fogazzaro, Checchi, and of course, Gautier. The editor describes the experiments at La Salpêtrière, and concludes his long exposition by stating: "I am, unfortunately, one of the skeptics" with respect to spiritualism, "but the truth is that, as we believe less, there are more things that remain unexplained."