Phantasmagoria explores ideas of spirit and soul since the
Enlightenment; it traces metaphors that have traditionally conveyed the
presence of immaterial forces, and reveals how such pagan and Christian
imagery about ethereal beings is embedded in a logic of the imagination,
clothing spirits in the languages of air, clouds, light and shadow,
glass, and ether itself. Moving from Wax to Film, the book discusses key
questions of imagination and cognition, and probes the perceived
distinctions between fantasy and deception; it uncovers a host of spirit
forms - angels, ghosts, fairies, revenants, and zombies - that are
still actively present in contemporary culture. It reveals how their
transformations over time illuminate changing idea about the self.
Phantasmagoria also tells the accompanying story about the means used to
communicate such ideas, and relates how the new technologies of the
Victorian era were applied to figuring the invisible and the impalpable,
and how magic lanterns (the phantasmagoria shows themselves), radio,
photography and then moving pictures spread ideas about spirit forces.
As the story unfolds, the book features many eminent scientists and
philosophers who applied their considerable energies to the question of
other worlds and other states of mind: they staged trance seances in
which mediums produced spirit phenomena, including ectoplasm.
Phantasmagoria shows how this often surprising story connects with some
of the important scientific discoveries of a fertile age, in psychology
and physics, and continues to influence contemporary experience.
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