Spiritualism in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans: The Life and Times of Henry Louis Rey by Melissa Daggett (review)

In creating this study, Melissa Daggett has used a valuable primary resource, the séance registers of Henry Louis Rey's Spiritualist Cercle Harmonique in nineteenth-century New Orleans and the accompanying notes and commentaries of René Grandjean. The registers consist of thirty-five volumes recording spirit communications received at séances conducted by Rey and his fellow mediums between 1858 and 1877. They were preserved by Rey's good friend and fellow Spiritualist François Dubuclet, who became the father in-law of René Grandjean. In the 1920s, as a result of conversations with Dubuclet, Grandjean began making detailed marginal notes on Rey's séance registers and kept additional notes on historical background provided by Dubuclet. These resources are now housed at the University of New Orleans Earl K. Long Library. The séance registers are handwritten in Rey's graceful cursive in French and occasionally in English, but Grandjean's notes, some of which are scribbled on scraps of paper, are nearly impossible to read. Daggett has undertaken the challenging task of translating these notes and has greatly enriched our knowledge of the life and turbulent times of Henry Louis Rey and the Creole Spiritualists in nineteenth-century New Orleans.

Henry Louis Rey (1831–1894) was a Creole of color, member of the freeborn, educated, professional, property-owning, mixed-race population that constituted a middle tier between white citizens and enslaved blacks in New Orleans. In 1852 he was visited by the spirit of his deceased father and began to participate in Spiritualist séances. He was soon recognized as a gifted medium and began keeping a record of his spirit communications in 1858 (44). Rey's involvement with Spiritualism was interrupted by the Civil War (1861–65). After a term of service in the Confederate Native Guards, Rey and his comrades switched allegiance to the Union Army. Disappointed by the racism he encountered in both organizations, he returned to New Orleans.

Rey's Cercle Harmonique was founded in 1867, first meeting in the quarters of the famous Afro-Creole healing medium known as Valmour and later at Rey's own home. Spiritualism was considered an alternative to established Christianity. The séance registers contain messages from deceased French Romantic writers, Enlightenment philosophers, other Spiritualist mediums, relatives, friends, and business contacts of the membership, and a few Native American spirit guides. Despite the prevailing anticlerical attitude of the group, the spirits of former priests of St. Louis Cathedral—Father Antonio de Sedella and Father Aloysius Moni—conveyed advice (109). Messages from Creole political figures or martyrs to the cause of racial equality often counseled participants not to dwell upon injustices of the past because a glorious future was imminent. White oppressors apologized for their atrocities. Family members said they were in a happier place. As people of color became discouraged by the failure of Reconstruction, the Cercle Harmonique disbanded in 1875 and Rey continued recording his personal spirit communications until 1877. "The zealous calls for political action and the euphoria over an anticipated change in the racial structure in Louisiana were replaced with melancholy communications that urged Rey to be patient and to be content with the present. Quiet resignation reigned" (135).

Daggett has skillfully interwoven Henry Louis Rey's dual roles as a Spiritualist medium and a Radical Republican engaged in the struggle for the civil rights of black people. The Creoles of color were at first buoyed by the advances made during Reconstruction, believing that the time for equality had finally come. Their hopes were dashed as white supremacists regained control, sometimes by violent means, and New Orleans became increasingly divided by race. The former free people of color lost their privileged middle position and were consigned to the same inferior status as freed slaves.

The author devotes a chapter to the development of modern American Spiritualism beginning...