From Matter to Spirit

Sophia Elizabeth De Morgan gives an account of the spiritualist practices she observed during a decade of research, providing insights into nineteenth-century ideas about the occult. In addition to chapters on death and ghosts, she also examines the role of mediums who acted as guides to the spirit world.

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Sophia Elizabeth De Morgan (1809–1892) was the wife of the mathematician and logician Augustus De Morgan and mother of the celebrated ceramicist William De Morgan. In this book, published in 1863, De Morgan, writing as 'CD' – with a preface by her husband signed as 'AB' – acknowledges that alleged spirit manifestations have faced much criticism and scepticism, but argues that it was a little-understood phenomenon that merited further investigation. She spent a decade on this research, and focused on the role of the mediums, people who were believed to communicate with the spirit world. She was aided in this by the arrival of a medium who lived with the De Morgan family for six years. Her chapters also examine in depth the process of dying and ideas about the afterlife. A first-hand account of the nineteenth-century spiritualist world, this book provides a fascinating glimpse into Britain's changing religious landscape.