Episode 52: The Foremothers of Paranormal Research with Allison Jornlin

Detail from: “Madwomen, Spiritualists and Ghost Writers” 2021 Mixed media collage by Barbara Fisher.

In the upper right corner is one of the two known existing illustrations of Catherine Crowe: a caricature of her at her writing desk. It looks similar to work published in the satirical magazine Punch, but I suspect it is from the articles posted in the Mesmerist publication, Zoist. Notice that the desk is a coffin, she has a skull as a candle holder and the black cat that is now perched on the rooftop of a house, was included under the coffin desk. All of these, of course are the trappings of witchcraft. I found this image here—the author of the blog post doesn’t know where it is from.

Ever wonder how the word, “poltergeist” came into the English language from German?

If you have, in today’s episode, you’re going to find out!

Allison Jornlin, author, researcher, youtuber and the founder of American Ghost Walks joins Kendra and Barbara to talk about some of the mostly forgotten foremothers of paranormal research and investigation. She delves into the history of the early days of scientific investigation of the paranormal with delicious zeal and particularly focuses on the case of author and ghost hunter, Catherine Crowe.

Catherine Crowe was a fascinating woman who refused to be constrained by the social mores of the Victorian era in which she lived. She left her husband and became a successful author of fiction, blazing trails as she went. She read some books in German relating to ghosts and the supernatural and translated one of them into English and then went on to write the book, The Night Side of Nature in 1847. This book, which described first hand accounts of all sorts of ghosts and paranormal activity, introduced the words, “poltergeist” and “doppleganger” into the English language, and was an instant success, going rapidly through several reprints. It is still in print today and is well worth reading. You can order copies on Amazon, or you can read it for free at Project Gutenberg.

I don’t want to tell Catherine’s entire story here—listen to Allison tell it—she does an amazing job of it. And she also talks about Eleanor Sidgwick, who along with her husband, founded the Society for Psychical Research—the first scientific group to set out and investigate extraordinary human experiences with ghosts, psychic phenomena, psychokinesis, near death experiences, crisis apparitions and so on. Ms. Sidgwick was the statistician of the group, and brought mathematical rigor to the group’s work. The SPR is still active today.

You can find Allison’s videos on paranormal women’s history on her Youtube channel Paranormal Women.

More links below—-

More on why Catherine Crowe is largely forgotten today.
The Adventures of Susan Hopley—Catherine Crowe’s detective novel which predates Edgar Allen Poe’s“The Murders at the Rue Morgue.” While Poe’s work is widely accepted as the first detective story, Crowe’s was published first and was highly praised and widely read. It also features a female protagonist.
The article from 2021 that Allison cites where the author continues to pass on without question the rumors about Catherine Crowe that lead to her obscurity.
The author of the article, Jan Bondeson’s email address: bondesonj@cardiff.ac.uk