Séance with the Neapolitan medium Eusapia Palladino

The photo shows a séance with the Neapolitan medium Eusapia Palladino and appears to demonstratea table ‘levitating’. The vogue for communicating with spirits through so-called ‘table tipping’ had arrived in Europe from the USA as early as the mid-19th century but the trend was reignited in the spiritualist séances around the turn of the 20th century, which took the form of something between a theatrical spectacle and a physics experiment. In a trance-like state, during sessions which were often elaborately prepared, mediums – often female – summoned apparitions and occurrences which could not (yet) be explained by the laws of physics.