Performing the Spirit: Theatre, the Occult, and the Ceremony of Isis

Abstract

Looking at two distinctly different approaches to the occult and performance, this article demonstrates that a range of late-Victorians turned to theatrical performance as an avenue to mystical communication. The editors of Borderland: A Psychical Quarterly, W. T. Stead and Ada Goodrich Freer, focused on performance in large part for strategic purposes intended to assist in the popularization of spiritualism and other psychical phenomena. Meanwhile, Moina and Samuel ‘MacGregor’ Mathers, central members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, developed their Ceremony of Isis not only for marketing purposes, but also to engage performance as a mode of human transmigration and a powerfully allusive embodiment of key values of pagan occultism.

Keywords

• occult
• paganism
• performance
• spiritualism
• theatre