A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture

full of mischief as any child in the flesh… Bright face was a person to count on. She caught
insincerity the moment it entered my séance-room…I am informed that the tests she plied to
some of those doubters, rather raked into their questionable pasts, and made them uneasy.” 120
“Pat loves to talk to everybody in the séance-room, and to be talked to. He is
sociable…Retaining all of his Irish wit, he says many humorous things, and this humor helps
people ‘loosen up’.” 121 “Pink Rose is not with us ever to jest. She is serious, thoughtful.” 122
Mrs. Cook went on to describe the rest of her spirit band, each in terms as personal and as human
as those just described. The displaced utopian imaginary, like the utopian imaginary more
generally generates visions of the future. The future projected by Spiritualism sent its adherents
back an image of themselves that was wholly recognizable. Contours of individual personality
remained, as did the familiar needs of food, clothing and shelter. As we move more toward the
present we shall find that these projected futures become more and more alien and frightening—
scenarios in which our future selves become increasingly unrecognizable, ultimately frustrating
the desire for integration and lending themselves instead to a return to the Real.
FROM SPIRITUALISM TO THEOSOPHY: THE RISE OF THE ASCENDED
MASTER
Spiritualism speaks to the desire for mastery by directing its attentions to what might be
considered the central “imperfection” incumbent in the human form - mortality. The assertion of
the existence of a clearly verifiable afterlife—one in which individual integrity is maintained—
is no less than an assertion of immortality. Immortality, in turn, is an obvious limit case for
120 Cook, 38.
121 Cook, 41.
122 Cook, 48.
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