Spiritualism opposes reasoning with the force of its conviction, its facts, its miracles, its supernatural. It is the religion of the 19th century, w… - Cecilia Gatto Trocchi

Eusapia Palladino's popularity went into crisis in Cambridge, where during a séance the medium was caught moving an object with her hand that should have levitated by occult force. Accused of fraud, she defended herself by declaring that she had only acted because she was driven by an unconscious and irresistible impulse.

While Positivism was founding the social sciences (proclaiming the death of theology) and Marxism was instigating the proletariat to leave institutional religion branded as the ‘opium of the people’, thousands and thousands of people were attempting to communicate with the spiritual worlds through mediums and seers.

Italy, the unchallenged fiefdom of Catholicism until World War II, has gradually seen the emergence of a new religious landscape in which non-Catholic Christian sects occupy a considerable place.