This is, I think, the first influence of Victorian spiritualism seen in DeMorgan’s tiles.
This is, I think, the first influence of Victorian spiritualism seen in DeMorgan’s tiles. The Owl and Moon panel was done while he was at Merton Abbey, a few years before he met and married Evelyn Pickering. William’s mother, a spiritualist and social reformer, was Evelyn mentor. Evelyn became very interested in spiritualism and the paranormal, and it is often assumed that it was her influence that led him into spirituaism. However, William’s parents had themselves written From Matter to Spirit: The Results of Ten Years Experience in Spirit Manifestation in 1863. DeMorgan was born in 1839, meaning the spirit manifestations, as it were, largely colored his teen years at the very least. Evelyn and Williamd did explore automatic writing on their own and coauthored a book on their experiences in The Results of an Experiment. -- source link