Punch,  47 (1864), 186.

Mother Medium

Anon

Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Subjects:

Spiritualism, Communication, Charlatanry, Gender


    Written from the perspective of a female medium of limited literary ability, this poem describes her attempts to communicate with 'sperrits'. She asks the spirits to 'sinnify their presence in the usal way by raps' and then explains to a gentleman how to use 'the halfabet' to decode the raps. She then enquires whether there are any messages from the ladies and gentlemen to the spirits, and vice versa, and asks the 'Sperrit' to 'rap the party' when she sees the appropriate person. She reassures her 'party' that 'there ain't no himposition', that 'sperrit 'ands is what you feels' and that she has 'got no tame monkey what runs up my Crinoline'.



© Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical Project, Universities of Leeds and Sheffield, 2005 - 2020

Printed from Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical: An Electronic Index, v. 4.0, The Digital Humanities Institute <http://www.sciper.org> [accessed ]