The Pennsylvania State University Press. - 235 p.

Colleagues and students, knowing that the subject of my research is the history of spiritualism, from time to time ask me to conduct a seance. Of course, their requests are joking-they doubt the possibility of communicating with spirits, but they are not averse to having fun. When they want to make a friendly joke, they make imaginary spirits the main characters of their stories: they take an ordinary object, for example, an image of a spirit, call it "spirit", and then the story about it is woven into some ordinary narrative in such a way as if communicating with spirits was a perfect routine. So the spiritualistic session is positioned today in everyday communication as a place for playing, and not for prayer, invariably causing a stormy and positive reaction from the audience.

Simon Natal, a lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University (England), focuses on the relationship between religion, gaming and business. Is it possible in the same day?

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a moment to believe, play and earn money? Natal consistently defends the positive answer to this question throughout the book and suggests that spiritualism should be considered as a specific material religion: "my main thesis is that the entertaining and entertaining nature of seances did not oppose their religious character, but co-existed with it" and "the perspective of material religion suggests that commerce and entertainment should be considered as a specific material religion." faith should be seen as two sides of the same coin, not as conflicting sides" (p. 12, 15).

Natal's book consists of six chapters. In the first chapter, Natal examines public seances as a kind of public show, using examples of the lives of the Fox sisters and the Davenport brothers (the former are generally recognized as the founders of spiritualism in the United States, the latter are well - known magicians), the relationship between theatrical play and spiritualistic representation, and, in particular, emphasizing the professional nature of mediums ' activities. In his opinion, the trance situation of the medium (spiritualists believed that the medium is a mechanical conductor of the words and will of spirits) created a special atmosphere of religious experience, in which there was room for doubt and a playful attitude to what is happening at the seance.

In the second chapter, Natal suggests treating private seances as "a kind of domestic pastime" in which "small groups of people went on exciting journeys into the realm of the supernatural" (p. 50). The objects used during the spiritualistic session, Natal calls "toys", pointing out that the popular" tool "for communicating with spirits - Ouija board-was positioned on the market of goods as a family entertainment:" the sessions turned the house into the main theater for rational game (rational game), which successfully attracted the most alive attention to the hosts and guests who were sitting together at the spiritualist table" (p. 61). The appearance of spirits coming out from behind a curtain at a seance, as if from behind a theater curtain, was, first of all, a performance, often involving a clever disguise of the medium in someone else's dress and playing the role, often in the form of a performance. -

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a character of the opposite sex. Natal seeks to level out the differences between public and private seances, showing that both types were open to the general public and advertised in the spiritualist services market through the spiritualist press.

In the third chapter, Natal explains how the media has helped draw attention to spiritualism by consistently cultivating the idea of "doubting" the causes of seance phenomena (using examples from Fox Sisters impresario Elijah Capron and New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley). Natal emphasizes that the movement received additional symbolic capital from periodic revelations of mediums: "the consequences of skepticism about spiritualism were not only negative, but also positive: skepticism contributed to the spread of spiritualism in the public sphere" (p. 78). Natal states that "mediums were happy to invite those who were willing to explore - from a skeptical perspective - the mystery of spiritual communication" (p. 80).

The fourth chapter is devoted to mediums, whose activities Natal considers in the context of the" star " culture (celebrity culture) of the second half of the XIX century. Natal shows how a media cult was formed around the figure of the medium, created by the joint efforts of the spiritualist press and impresarios (using the example of Eusapia Palladino and her impresario Ercole Chiaia and Huiord Carrington). Natal talks about three specific features of the "star" culture of spiritualists. First, it dealt with the "gender issue" (p. 103), which was actively discussed in the movement for women's rights and brought the spiritualistic theme into the mainstream of a broad public debate. Second, it is a question of" how much star status was recognized or denied " (p. 114) by the mediums themselves. Natal argues that the denial of the commercial component became the main marketing strategy of mediums: "in order to become a hero of the market, the medium had to deny its existence" (p. 104). Third, it is the "relationship with the world of science" (p. 105), which could give the activity of a medium a significant symbolic capital if scientists recognize the reality of what is happening in it.

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in the presence of phenomena. Natal concludes that, over time, mediums themselves "became commodities" (p. 105).

In the fifth chapter, mainly on the example of the English weekly newspaper Medium and Daybreak (ed. James Burns, 1867-1895) the author shows how spiritualists sought to increase sales of spiritualistic literature. Natal notes that the editors of spiritualistic magazines positioned them as "home reading" for a wide range of readers. The task of attracting more subscribers was to be solved by specific genres of spiritualistic literature - biographies of mediums and artistic texts written on behalf of a particular spirit (Natal specifically analyzes the text of the Scottish medium David Duged "Hafed, Prince of Persia"). It also discusses the various ways in which spiritualists created their works, and emphasizes their relationship with the history of technology development, primarily with the telegraph.

In the final sixth chapter, the author shows that spiritualistic photographs functioned as consumer goods in the spiritualist market. The author briefly discusses the origins of the practice of spirit photography, which is rooted in the technology of phantasmagoria of the XVIII century, created with the help of the "magic lantern" (on the example of the work of Etienne Gaspard Robertson). Natal shows how spiritualistic photographs gave rise to a tradition of their forgeries exclusively for the entertainment of the general public, which, in turn, served as the basis for the genre of "trick cinema" of the early XX century (for example, " Summoning Spirits "(1899)," Spiritualist Photographer " (1903) by Georges Melies, etc.). he concludes that "the image of the spirit created by the effects of double superimposition and multiple exposure fluctuated between fictional and religious contexts, without getting a precise definition and allowing the viewer to have access to both the world of faith and the world of entertainment" (pp. 168-169).

Natal's book, apparently, for the first time in the well-known historiography of the study of spiritualism, comprehensively and in detail examines various aspects of the media, performative and marketing components of spiritualism as a cultural phenomenon of the second half of the XIX century. Behind-

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Natal's attempt to overcome the conceptual opposition between "commercial" and "religious" activities, which is rooted in Christian religious ideology, is noteworthy. The author's desire to include spiritualism in the history of the development of modern media culture should be positively evaluated, showing it as a precursor of modern cinema. It is also interesting to position spiritualists and magicians as groups that are located within the continuum of media and have resorted to the same means of commercial propaganda.

Natal believes that modern products of the entertainment industry can generate a specific experience for its consumer, which is no different from the experience obtained during a spiritualistic session. The specificity of the experience lies in the fact that at the moment of experiencing it, the individual can doubt the nature of the phenomena occurring before his eyes: he can simultaneously believe that what is happening is nothing more than a clever trick, and at the same time allow the possibility of its reality. Apparently, a similar experience can be experienced by the viewer when watching a modern pseudo-documentary film in the horror genre (for example, "The Blair Witch", 1999), hinting at the possible reality of what was shot on a home movie camera: "the study shows a deep affinity between the position of the viewer of such films and the position of the participant in a spiritual session, and as well as other performances and practices related to supernatural beliefs " (p. 172). In other words, the more realistic what is happening on the screen, the more it contributes to the achievement of an experience that balances on the edge of "faith" and "art".

The statements of spiritualists, magicians, and scientists-representatives of the characteristic nineteenth-century discourses about the occult - about the reality/illusory content of this experience become important (for example, for constructing a "star" status), but secondary interpretations of this experience. Trying to conceptualize the "experience" shared by all participants of the spiritualistic session, Natal inevitably reduces it to the main "performative" discourse within which his book is written. The "spiritualist experience" turns out to be, first of all, the experience of "playing", and moreover, it reproaches the modern historiography of the world.-

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The problem is that it is "not fully aware of the inner playfulness of the religious experience of spiritualists" (p. 116). At the same time, Natal goes further, insisting that spiritualism is a religion in which "religious" and "game" elements are combined: "the mixing (intermingling) of elements of the show and the requirements of authenticity, performance and religious experience does not seem contradictory within spiritualistic sessions: on the contrary, this mixing is the basis of spiritualistic experience"(p. 22).

The rationale for this thesis, to which Natal periodically returns throughout the book, does not seem convincing to me. First of all, the experience that Natal is talking about is generated not only by the products of media culture. When discussing this review, students gave me an example - a child who is both afraid and laughs at the "horned goat" that comes "for the little guys", as if the two fingers that you shake at the child are really goat horns. The particular "experience" that Natal points out is "spiritualistic" only by the fact that some people have experienced it in seances. There is nothing specifically "spiritualistic"about this experience, if you look at it from a psychological point of view. It is true that some people have a need for such an experience, which allows them to challenge traditional authorities in a playful way, primarily scientific and religious, and the seance was attractive precisely because it served as a good place to implement it.

Secondly, Natal admits that the experience of spiritualists is in principle similar to that of spectators of conjurers ' performances. At the same time, he downplays the fact that spiritualists themselves constantly condemned the "game" attitude to seances. Natal vaguely defines the ideological boundaries between the social groups of magicians and spiritualists in order to subordinate the statements of their representatives to the theory that "faith and entertainment are not alternatives, but can coexist in a cultural form that arouses curiosity and surprise among both believers and non-believers" (p. 171).

Third, Natal correctly suggests that religiosity does not imply a denial of humor, and even very much so.

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a religious person may, in some everyday contexts, laugh at some "mundane" aspects of his subjects of faith. Spiritualists were willing to discuss the revelations of careless mediums, laugh at the credulity of other spiritualists, and have fun with spirits at seances. However, this does not mean that they were ready to laugh directly at the very objects of their faith, which was purposefully done by journalists, magicians and other representatives of the media industry.

So, the main problem of Natal's research is the unjustified generalization of "spiritualistic experience", which, in his opinion, was filled with"game". Perhaps this inflection is caused by the fact that most of the materials used by him are of English and American origin, and it is obvious that spiritualism was "commercialized" to a greater extent in the United States than in European countries (and even more so in the Russian Empire). In addition, Natal does not use primary archival sources, relying exclusively on published texts (first of all, the writings of spiritualists themselves and spiritualistic periodicals), which, although justified by the specific angle of his research, naturally leads to methodological exaggerations.

Finally, although it is possible to raise the question of the essence of "spiritualistic experience" itself, there is, in my opinion, no convincing method for identifying this essence (the only method available is the analysis of the meanings of statements about religious experience - leads to contradictory conclusions).

A few remarks should also be made regarding Natal's interpretation of the seance as a place of receiving a spiritualistic experience. Of course, one can consider "private sessions as a kind of well - organized board game that followed certain rules and contributed not only to the spiritual life, but also - and perhaps even more so-to the entertainment of the participants" (p. 53). However, a significant role in the spiritualistic movement was played by so-called "family" sessions, during which there was relatively little fun (although spirits liked to play tricks there, especially if there was no so-called "spiritual control" of the sessions) and many serious conversations with deceased relatives. The prank of spirits at seances was considered evidence

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their lack of development, which the spiritualists had to contend with through prayer and exhortation. Such sessions were difficult for outsiders to enter, and the sessions themselves were therapy for the loss of someone from a close relative. The presence of the" family "format of spiritualistic sessions shows that Natal's conclusion about their "game" nature has significant limitations.

To illustrate her claims, Natal mostly uses sessions that actively exploited the visual aspect of "spiritual phenomena" (for example, the appearance of lights, the movement of objects). However, many of the sessions were based on magnetic practice, during which no specific physical phenomena could occur, but only a conversation between the somnambulist and the magnetizer using automatic writing. Natal wants to emphasize that spiritualists wanted publicity - this is indeed true in the sense that they wanted to spread their own " good news." However, the very idea of a circle with a certain requirement of affective communication between its participants suggested a certain degree of closeness. Privacy in itself can certainly be attractive to the public, but it cannot ensure commercial success for an enterprise that requires a broad customer base to implement.

Natal emphasizes that spiritualists welcomed skeptics to their sessions, but, for example, Nikolai Petrovich Wagner, a famous Russian spiritualist of the late 19th century, believed that skepticism as a certain psychological attitude not only interferes with the phenomena of spirits, but in some cases can harm the skeptic himself. Many times in the texts of the spiritualists I know, the need is mentioned to include in the circle exclusively trusted persons, those who are already "believers", who are inclined to accept the "message" from the spirits who come to the circle. Natal writes that "curiosity was the only quality that was required for a participant to join a circle studying spiritualistic phenomena" (p. 80), but spiritualists I know constantly talk about the "great work" of spiritualism, for which curiosity alone is not enough. It is true that the spiritualist circle was a place where religious education took place.-

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The description of the conversion of unbelieving materialists under the influence of the phenomena they saw is a common motif of spiritualistic literature. However, this does not mean that spiritualists welcomed "skeptics" at seances, since their appearance brought disharmony to the circle and prevented the appearance of spirits.

Natal suggests considering the seance as a special "cultural form" in the context of cultural history. This approach comes into conflict with the classical modernist religious studies discourse, which is based on the epistemological distinction between faith and unbelief. For Natal, the session serves as a place in which very different actions and experiences are possible, and the "religious" attitude is just one of the possible attitudes of participants to what is happening before their eyes.

In the context of his chosen perspective of cultural history, the religious scholar cannot understand why all the people who attended the seances are called " spiritualists "and why the conversation is about a common"spiritualistic experience" for all participants. By my definition, "spiritualists" in the strict sense of the word can only be called those who believed in the reality of the phenomena that occurred at the seances, explained their nature by the actions of invisible entities, and took part in the life of the spiritualist community. Anyone who does not meet these minimum conditions cannot be called a " spiritualist." Just like the audience of pseudo-documentaries in the "horror" genre can't be put in the same category as those who believe in the reality of witches, aliens, and a flying macaroni monster.

Natal uses the word "spiritualists" in two ways: first, it indicates the main object of his research (people who called themselves spiritualists), and secondly, it indicates all people who took part in spiritualistic seances, for example, skeptics, materialists, scientists, magicians, exposers, young people,etc. looking for entertainment, etc. The subject of Natal's research is the experience of participants in a spiritual session, first of all, in its performative aspect, and, therefore, it correlates with the word "spiritualists" in the second meaning. Thus, while exploring the "spectator experience" of the session participants, Natal continues to operate with religious studies concepts that receive special attention.

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his work has unnecessarily broad meanings. Not everyone who attends a seance is a spiritualist, while in Natal it turns out that it is the place that determines the object of his research, and not the specific attitude of a person to the place.

In this regard, it would be consistent to analyze the session as a special cultural form to consider its interpretation by participants who hold different views. For some, an invitation to a seance did not mean communication with spirits at all, but, for example, "another evening in the pleasant company of young people." If Natal sees the words "seance "and" spiritualism " as just labels that can actually hide magicians and materialists, then these words lose their meaning.

These shortcomings mostly concern the author's methodology, which unnecessarily expands the subject of his research. In my opinion, Natal's book once again highlighted the hidden conflict between the classical history of religion and cultural history, each of which has its own unique and justified perspective. Despite all the comments, Natal's book is an interesting study that allows us to take a fresh look at spiritualism as a cultural phenomenon of the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries.

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