Métempsycose as attraction on the fairground: the migration of a ghost

Métempsycose shows were popular in fairgrounds in France and Belgium in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, staging mutating ghosts and the supposed migration of the soul as optical illusion. The attraction stands in a tradition of episcopic projection, with mirroring techniques and seamless dissolving views. In this article, we aim to demonstrate the the peculiarity of métempsycose by detailing its technique and genealogy and by unveiling its relationship with famous illusionists who experimented with the magic lantern, including John Henry Pepper, Henri Robin and Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin. The lantern proved vital to the illusion, as it operated as a hidden technology. By rehabilitating métempsycose as a late ‘phantasmagoria’, with a distinctive iconographic narration and specific position in different cultural-historical contexts, this article uncovers how a growing taste for virtual environments with a realistic sense of texture, color and volume was established in a long tradition of obscure apparitions.

Publication year:2019

BOF-keylabel:yes

Authors from:Higher Education

Accessibility:Open