Rufina Noeggerath was born in Brussels on 10 October 1821.

She was married to a physician and hypnotist, and he is supposed to have initiated her into the knowledge of animal magnetism and magnetic somnambulism. After her husband's death in 1852, she tried to communicate with him, which led her to spiritist work at the end of the Second Empire (the historical period between 1852 and 1870). In addition to this motivation, she was interested in demonstrating survival after death, following a scientific approach.

As a medium, she founded his own spiritist group, which met every Wednesday and in which the great personalities of art and literature in France at the time, or the closest followers of spiritism, took an active part. Her main aim was to help all those who wanted to deepen their passion for the spiritist sciences. Her moral qualities, her natural kindness and her inexhaustible charity earned her the nickname of Bonne Maman (Good Mother).

In 1897, at the age of 76, she published his main spiritist work (La Survie), with a foreword by Camille Flammarion.

Rufina Noeggerath died in 1908, aged 87. Her grave is in the Père Lachaise in Paris (France).