"Compared to the soul-destroying banality of most séance texts, the Marine Terrace corpus is a literary masterpiece, the unconscious product of a
naturally dramatic mind" (Graham Robb, Victor Hugo: A Biography, 1997). From Aug., 1853 to Dec., 1855, while in
political exile at Marine Terrace, his home on the Channel island of Jersey, the author of Les Misérables participated in numerous "table-tapping" séances. At least 115 "spirits" communicated with him, his family, and fellow political exiles. The group of alleged discarnate
entities included the illustrious dead such as Shakespeare, Plato and Galileo; legendary animals like Balaam’s Ass and the Lion of Androcles; entities who claimed never to have never been alive, like the Shadow of the Sepulcher and Death; a series of abstract concepts with names like ‘India,’ ‘Metempsychosis,’ and ‘Ocean’--and aliens from the planets Mercury and Jupiter. The first translation into English ever of the most important of the transcripts of these séances, with an introduction by Martin Ebon setting Hugo''s channeling experiences in their historical context. Were the séance
texts only "the unconscious product of a naturally dramatic mind"? Readers will decide for themselves.
More reviews about the Conversations With Eternity: The Forgotten Masterpiece of Victor Hugo