After the Fox sisters’ initiation of American Spiritualism in 1848, séances became part of the turn-of-the-century domestic routine. [1] Through this ritual, psychic mediums, who were most often female, reshaped the Victorian interior with typical homewares – gramophones, tables, trumpets, or bells – to connect between two worlds. [2] Mediums also built “spirit cabinets” – a type of curtained compartment with an armchair, a table for the medium, and a red light for the spirits. In the performance of the séance, the cabinet became an extension of the medium’s body, an architectural prosthetic for the delivery of spirits. A successful séance culminated in the medium releasing a viscous substance: the ectoplasm. Ectoplasm divided turn-of-the-century sitters; some saw it as evidence of the communication between worlds, others deemed it a pathology – allegedly linked to the medium’s womb. [3]

To prove their authenticity, mediums hosted test séances in their domestic parlors, turning cabinets into rigid surveillance devices. The 1924 Scientific American investigation into the medium Mina “Margery” Crandon at Harvard University illustrates this transition. [4] For the initial investigation, none other than Harry Houdini designed the Margie Box: a wooden cabinet with openings for the medium’s head and extremities. After this failed to discredit the medium, the test committee secured Margery’s hands and ankles with stiff wire, and placed her inside a high-tech booth: a plate-glass cabinet with its floor hinged at the back in order to be lifted and inspected. They placed a table in front of her and at her right, a megaphone. In the middle of the room, three wooden chairs formed a circle for the inspectors. There was a Victrola, an Edison Dictaphone, and an illuminated watch. The room formed a picture: a woman inside an embryonic glasshouse surrounded by spiritualist domestic appliances. Luminous flashes, levitating objects, and electric wires composed a hyper-technological complex centered on the medium.