The Victorians loved science! They were figuring out the laws of the universe, inventing new technologies, and making medicine more advanced. But here’s something surprising: many of them were also really into ghosts!
Back then, there was a big movement called spiritualism. People believed they could talk to the dead at séances, which were gatherings where a medium (a person said to have special powers) would connect with spirits.
This might seem strange to us today, but it made sense to Victorians for a few reasons:
- Science was new and exciting: People were discovering unseen forces like electricity and magnetism. Maybe ghosts were just another kind of unseen energy?
- Science hadn’t explained everything yet: Unlike today, science hadn’t figured out everything about life and death. Spiritualism offered answers to questions science couldn’t answer yet.
- Grief and loss: Losing a loved one is hard, and spiritualism offered a way to connect with them again.
Even famous scientists like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes) believed in ghosts! They thought science could be used to study spiritualism and prove the existence of the afterlife.
Here are some other interesting things to know:
- Séances were like magic shows: Mediums would dim the lights, use tricks, and create a spooky atmosphere. Some were phonies, but others may have just believed they had real powers.
- Photography and ghosts: Since cameras could capture unseen things, some thought they could take pictures of spirits. (These were often fakes.)
- The decline of spiritualism: As science progressed and people became more skeptical, spiritualism became less popular. By the 20th century, it was on the fringes of society.
So, while science and ghosts might seem like opposites today, they had a surprising connection in Victorian times. It’s a reminder that science is always changing, and our understanding of the world is constantly evolving.
