The fascination with spiritism and psychic phenomena reached its peak in Britain in the late 19th century. At that time, a large number of people shared the fascination, founded organisations to devote themselves systematically to the subject, and supported a spiritistic press that served to publicise the activities of spiritism circles throughout the country.

In the late Victorian era, a large number of people admitted to communicating with spirits. Victorian spiritism, which emerged in the late 19th century, attracted people from different social classes, including Queen Victoria. It is worth noting that Victorian spiritism was especially attractive to women because they were considered more spiritual than men. A female medium was often considered a better communicator than a male medium because she was thought to have a better disposition for spiritual perfection. Interestingly, spiritists were concerned about women's problems and demanded that their rights be recognised.

It is no coincidence that spiritism, a movement that privileged women and took them seriously, attracted so many female followers at a time of gender segregation and a discrepancy between aspiration and reality. Spiritual culture offered possibilities for attention, opportunities and status that were denied elsewhere. In certain circumstances, it could also be a means of circumventing the rigid class and gender norms of the nineteenth century. More importantly, it did so without directly challenging the status quo. Spiritism had the potential, if not always consciously, for subversion.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert attended spiritism séances as early as 1846. On 15 July of that year, the clairvoyant Georgiana Eagle demonstrated her powers to the Queen at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. In 1861, the year Prince Albert died of typhoid fever, a thirteen-year-old boy from Leicester, Robert James Lees, attending a family spiritism séance, relayed a message from Albert to the Queen, addressing her by the nickname known only to her and her late husband. Lees was invited to hold seances at Windsor Castle, at which Albert was invoked. After his death, Queen Victoria is said to have sent messages to her last surviving daughter, Princess Louise, through the medium Leslie Flint.

From left to right: Prince Albert, Robert James Lees, Windsor Castle, Leslie Flint

In the 1860s, spiritism became part of the Victorian subculture with its mediums, magazines, pamphlets, tracts, treatises, societies, private and public séances, including table-pounding, table-turning, automatic writing, levitation and other forms of communication with spirits.

In 1863, James Burns founded the Progressive Library and Spiritualist Institution in Southampton Row, Holborn, London. Spiritualist periodicals of the late Victorian era included the British Spiritualist Telegraph, the Spiritualist, Human Nature, Medium and Daybreak, Two Worlds and Light. With the rise of the spiritism press, several spiritist societies were founded in Britain, including the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain (1872), the British National Association of Spiritualists (1873), the National Federation of Spiritualists (1890) and the National Union of Spiritualists (1901). London had the largest number of spiritism societies: Charing Cross Spirit-Power Circle (1857), Christian Spiritual Enquirers in Clerkenwell, the East London Association of Spiritualists, the Marylebone Spiritualist Association and others.

One of the most famous Victorian mediums was Florence Cook (1856-1904), who during her spiritism séances materialised Katie King, the daughter of a spirit of the spirit world named John King, who was a 17th century buccaneer during his lifetime. Florence Cook was successful in table-turning, automatic writing and levitation. On one occasion, when she was in a trance, she floated above the heads of those present and her clothes fell to the floor, further captivating the audience. Like Katie King, she also flirted with the audience, touching and kissing them. She was invited to many prestigious Victorian salons. Her séances were covered in spiritism magazines.