Hélène Smith : Occultism and the Discovery of the Unconscious

This text retraces the story of spiritual medium Hélène Smith, a woman who came to inspire some of the greatest scientists and artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Bringing to light archival documents, correspondences, and publications on the medium, Claudie Massicotte illuminates Smith's important contributions to evolving definitions of the subject during a period viewed by many as one of disenchantment. In retracing the medium's story, she explores the role of gender and occultism in modern understandings of the embodied self and its relation to the spiritual.