The Gorgas House Museum’s “Calling the Spirits In: Spiritualism in America” exhibit opened Thursday and will conclude on Oct. 28. The exhibit displays spiritualism’s history, the tools of the trade in post Civil War America and Gorgas’ own hauntings.
Spiritualism took root in the South coinciding with Christianity after the Civil War. Individuals who practiced believed the dead could communicate with the living, with many grieving families drawn to the movement as a way to receive closure, according to the exhibit.
“This ideal, while still rooted in Christianity, allowed people to say goodbye to their family members and get a little bit of closure,” said Cooper Smith, a sophomore aerospace engineering major.
Families in this era would use different tools to communicate with their deceased loved ones. A common household tool, the typewriter, was used as an old-fashioned Estes Method. The Estes Method is an unbiased paranormal investigation technique using sensory deprivation and a sweeping radio device.
“The medium would totally blind themselves, like blindfolds, and plug their ears and stuff, and they put their hands on the keyboard and just let the spirit type through them … those typewriters in there definitely have a weird energy associated with them,” Smith said.
Alongside spiritualism’s rise was post-mortem photography. Many families would stage their loved ones and take pictures with them, becoming another practice of closure for grieving families.
“Instead of doing the old practices, like they were big into taking their loved ones’ hair when they died, and keeping it as a memento, and creating pieces of art with the hair,” Smith said. “Instead, they just propped up their recently dead as if they were alive and took photos with them, which is also pretty morbid.”
The Gorgas House Museum has its own mysterious hauntings. The Gorgas family is said to still inhabit the house according to Allison Snelling, a master’s student in anthropology. There have been first and second-hand accounts of seeing a full body apparition of Amelia Gorgas, who was a postmistress, librarian and hospital patron at The University of Alabama.
“I just saw her walking down the stairs right here. I was sitting exactly where we were sitting when I saw her, and she was in her iconic backdress,” Snelling said. “So you go upstairs in the parlor. There’s a photo of her. It’s exactly that backdress that she was wearing.”
The “Spiritualism in America” exhibit is open to both new and returning audiences, offering an engaging tour of the South’s past with spiritualism. The exhibit runs until Oct. 28 and is free to faculty, staff and students.
“I would say just like if you’re very big in spiritual movement or you’re very interested in the paranormal, this is like the perfect snippet for you,” Snelling said. “As well as a person who doesn’t know about it or might be a skeptic.”
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