Phantasmagoria (), alternatively fantasmagorie and/or fantasmagoria, was a form of horror theatre that (among other techniques) used one or more magic lanterns to project frightening images – such as skeletons, demons, and ghosts – typically using rear projection onto a semi-transparent screen to keep the lantern out of sight. Mobile or portable projectors were used, allowing the projected image to move and change size on the screen, while multiple projecting devices allowed for quick switching of different images. In many shows, the use of spooky decoration, total darkness, (auto-)suggestive verbal presentation, and sound effects were also key elements. Some shows added a variety of sensory stimulation, including smells, smoke and electric shocks. Elements like required fasting, fatigue (late shows), and drugs have been mentioned as methods of making sure spectators would be more convinced by what they saw. The shows started under the guise of actual séances in Germany in the late 18th century and gained popularity through most of Europe (including Britain) throughout the 19th century.
The word "phantasmagoria" has also been commonly used to indicate changing successions or combinations of fantastic, bizarre, or imagined imagery.
Etymology From French phantasmagorie, from Ancient Greek φάντασμα (phántasma, “ghost”) + possibly either αγορά (agorá, “assembly, gathering”) + the suffix -ia, or ἀγορεύω (agoreúō, “to speak publicly”).
Paul Philidor (also known simply as "Phylidor") announced his show of ghost apparitions and evocation of the shadows of famous people as Phantasmagorie in the Parisian periodical Affiches, annonces et avis divers of December 16, 1792. About two weeks earlier the term had been the title of a letter by a certain "A.L.M.", published in Magazin Encyclopédique. The letter also promoted Phylidor's show. Phylidor had previously advertised his show as Phantasmorasi in Vienna in March 1790.Phylidor Phantasmorasi handbill. 1792-03
The English variation Phantasmagoria was introduced as the title of M. De Philipsthal's show of optical illusions and mechanical pieces of art in London in 1801.Paul de Philipsthal Phantasmagoria 1801 handbill De Philipsthal and Philidor are believed to have been the same person.
History
Prelude (before 1750)
Some ancient sightings of gods and spirits are thought to have been conjured up by means of (concave) mirrors, camera obscura, or magic lantern projections. By the 16th century, necromantic ceremonies and the conjuring of ghostly apparitions by charlatan "magicians" and "witches" seemed commonplace.
In the 1589 version of Magia Naturalis, Giambattista della Porta described how to scare people with a projected image. A picture of anything that would terrify the beholder should be placed in front of a camera obscura hole, with several torches around it. The image should be projected onto a sheet hanging in the middle of the nascent dark chamber, where spectators would not notice the sheet but only see the projected image hanging in the air.
In his 1613 book Opticorum Libri Sex, Belgian Jesuit mathematician, physicist and architect François d'Aguilon described how some charlatans cheated people out of their money by claiming they knew necromancy and would raise the specters of the devil from hell and show these to the audience inside a dark room. The image of an assistant with a devil's mask was projected through a lens into the dark room, scaring the uneducated spectators.
The earliest pictures known to have been projected with lanterns were images of Death, hell, or monsters:
Giovanni Fontana's 1420 drawing showed a lantern projecting a winged female demon. Athanasius Kircher warned in his 1646 edition of Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae that impious people could abuse his stenographic mirror projection system by painting a picture of the devil on the mirror and projecting it into a dark place to force people to carry out wicked deeds. His pupil Gaspar Schott later turned this into the idea that it could be easily used to keep godless people from committing many sins, if a picture of the devil was painted on the mirror and thrown onto a dark place. In 1659 Dutch inventor Christiaan Huygens drew several phases of Death removing his skull from his neck and putting it back again, sketches meant to be projected with "convex lenses and a lamp". This lamp later became known as the magic lantern, and the sketches form the oldest known extant documentation of this invention. One of Christiaan Huygens' contacts wrote to him in 1660: "The good Kircher is always performing tricks with the magnet at the gallery of the Collegium Romanum; if he would know about the invention of the Lantern he would surely frighten the cardinals with specters." Thomas Rasmussen Walgensten's 1664 lantern show prompted Pierre Petit to call the device "laterne de peur" (lantern of fear). In 1670 Walgensten projected an image of Death at the court of King Frederick III of Denmark. In 1668, Robert Hooke wrote about a type of magic lantern installation: "It produces effects not only very delightful, but to such as know not the contrivance very wonderful; so that spectators not well versed in optics, that should see the various apparitions and disappearances, the motions, changes and actions that may this way be represented, would readily believe them to be supernatural and miraculous." In the 1671 second edition of Kircher's Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae., the magic lantern was illustrated with projections of Death and a person in purgatory or hellfire. Kircher did suggest in his book that an audience would be more astonished by the sudden appearance of images if the lantern would be hidden in a separate room, so the audience would be ignorant of the cause of their appearance. According to legend Kircher secretly used the lantern at night to project the image of Death on windows of apostates to scare them back into church, but this is probably based on Gaspar Schott's suggestion (see above). In 1672, French physician and numismatist Charles Patin was very impressed with the lantern show that "Monsieur Grundler" (Griendel) performed for him in Nuremberg: "He even stirs the shadows at his pleasure, without the aid of the underworld. (...) My esteem for his knowledge could not prevent my fright, I believed there never was a greater magician than him in the world. I experienced paradise, I experienced hell, I experienced specters. I have some constancy, but I would have willingly given one half to save the other." After these apparitions Griendel showed other subjects in this performance, including birds, a palace, a country-wedding and mythical scenes. Patin's elaborate description of an early lantern show seems to be the oldest to contain more than frightening pictures.
While surviving slides and descriptions of lantern shows from the following decades included numerous subjects, scary pictures remained popular.
Late 18th century The last decades of the 18th century saw the rise of the age of Romanticism and the Gothic novel. There was an obsession with intense emotions (including fear), the irrational, the bizarre, and the supernatural. The popular interest in such topics explained the rise and, more specifically, the success of phantasmagoria for the productions to come.
The magic lantern was a good medium with which to project fantasies as its imagery was not as tangible as in other media. Since demons were believed to be incorporeal, the magic lantern could produce very fitting representations.
When magicians started to use the magic lantern in shows, some special effects were thought up. French physician, inventor and manufacturer of conjuring apparatus and scientific instruments Edmé-Gilles Guyot described several techniques in his 1770 book Nouvelles récréations physiques et mathématiques, including the projection of ghosts on smoke.
Johann Georg Schrepfer
In the early 1770s in Leipzig, Germany, coffeehouse owner, charlatan, necromancer, and leader of an independent Freemason lodge Johann Georg Schrepfer (or Schröpfer) performed ghost-raising séances and necromantic experiments for his Freemason lodge. For typical necromantic activity, he demanded his followers remain seated at a table or else face terrible dangers.
He made use of a mixture of Masonic, Catholic, and Kabbalistic symbolism, including skulls, a chalk circle on the floor, holy water, incense, and crucifixes. The spirits he raised were said to be clearly visible, hovering in the air, vaporous, and sometimes screaming terribly. The highlight of his career was a séance for the court in the Dresden palace early in the summer of 1774. This event was impressive enough to still be described more than a century later in Germany and Britain.
Apparitions reportedly raised by Schrepfer over the years included Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, the beheaded Danish "traitors" Johann Friedrich Struensee and Enevold Brandt with their heads in their hands, and the Knights Templars' last Grand Master Jacques de Molay. During a séance in Dresden, Schrepfer ordered De Molay's spirit to take a letter to a companion in Frankfurt. De Molay obeyed and returned half an hour later with an answer signed in Frankfurt by the companion. Another spirit appeared engulfed in flames begging Schrepfer not to torture him so.
In the early morning of October 8, 1774, Schrepfer reportedly committed suicide with a pistol in a park with five friends present. According to legend he was a victim of delusions about his necromantic abilities and convinced he could resurrect himself afterwards. However, there are several indications that he may actually have been murdered.Otto Werner Förster: Tod eines Geistersehers. Johann Georg Schrepfer. Eine vertuschte sächsische Staatsaffäre, 1774. Taurus Verlag Leipzig, 2011
Most spectators of Schrepfer's séances were convinced that the apparitions they saw were real. No clear evidence of deceit seems to ever have been found, but critics have described several suspicions. The techniques that Schrepfer reportedly used for his elaborate effects included actors performing as ghosts, ventriloquism, hidden speaking tubes, glass harmonica sounds, aromatic smoke, camera obscura projections and/or magic lantern projections on smoke, concave mirror projections, and staged thunder.
Schrepfer had been friends with pharmacist and Freemason Johann Heinrich Linck the Younger and regularly held lodge meetings at Linck's garden house. Linck could have been helping Schrepfer with drugs and chemicals and also knew about the workings of optical and acoustic devices. Linck owned a magic lantern which was decorated with a crucifix and a skull with wings.
Soon after Schrepfer's death, there was a boom of publications attacking or defending his supposed abilities to raise ghosts, expanding Schrepfer's fame across Europe. Several publications included explanations of techniques he might have used to conjure apparitions, which inspired several people to recreate Schrepfer's séances. Christlieb Benedikt Funk, Professor of Physics at the Leipzig University, was possibly the first to publicly recreate such ghost-raising demonstrations; however, he was ordered to stop by the university's authorities.
Physicist Phylidor