257 - Music and Sound in Victorian Seances with Olivia Cacchione - Big Seance

 

Dr. Olivia Cacchione, a musicologist, sat with Patrick in the parlor to discuss her current work and study of music and sound in Victorian seances. Olivia also shared about years of uncomfortable out-of-body experiences and hearing voices that led to her being diagnosed with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Plus skepticism, haunted listening, enchantment, possibility vs. disbelief, Victorians and the accordion, the channeled music of Rosemary Brown, and asking the question, “How does music haunt us?” Visit BigSeance.com/257 for more info.

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In this episode:

Intro :00

Dr. Olivia Cacchione studies the sounds of ghosts and hauntings throughout history. She’s a musicologist who earned her PhD at Northwestern University and received a Mellon Fellowship to conduct her extensive archival research across England and America. She is currently working on a book that highlights the role of music and sound in Victorian seances. Olivia’s dissertation examined the cultural history of hearing, questioning how music haunts us, with an emphasis on the lived experience of the Victorian-era spiritualist séance. She covered Daniel Dunglas Home's accordion, the Davenport Brothers' musical cabinet, and lesser known mediums like Jennie Lord, who practically invented the musical seance. And Olivia wants you to know that she has a cat who is proudly named Madame Blavatsky. You can learn more about Olivia Cacchione and her work by visiting welcometotheseance.com. :45

What is a musicologist? 2:02

From harp performance to a PhD in musicology. 3:44

Patrick once again nerds out about the theremin. 6:12

More on where this interest in Victorian Spiritualism came from, and the pushback from her colleagues regarding her chosen area of study. 7:32

Hearing Voices. “When I was 15, I began ‘hearing things.’ It took me ten years to receive a diagnosis of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy.” 10:51

Olivia’s voices and out-of-body experiences. Are they paranormal? Or are they just symptoms of her diagnosis? 15:24

Enchantment. 16:45

“[The episodes were] very dark and quite scary, actually.” 18:05

Possibility vs Disbelief. 19:03

Victorian Spiritualists and Seances. For Victorians, it was really dark at night! 21:49

Haunted Listening. 27:56

Patrick reminisces about experiences years ago with his “rapper” from doing EVP research and experiments. 29:28

“How does music haunt us? What does it mean to be haunted, mesmerized, enchanted, or spellbound by a work?” 32:24

Check out Jerry Goldsmith’s score for the 1985 film, The Explorers. 35:40

“[Victorians] simply had a different relationship with music.” 39:09

Music as a trigger. 41:11

Victorians and the accordion. 42:47

Residual music from the Bird Cage Theatre. 43:57

A Musical Seance featuring Rosemary Brown, who claimed to channel music from the great composers. 46:01

Alfred Russel Wallace. 48:28

“Before I was diagnosed, I absolutely thought, ’Maybe I’m psychic.’ I wanted to lean in that direction with it.” 50:07

“People hear what I’m studying and they immediately want to tell me their own ghost stories. And you realize just how many people have ghost stories, and I love hearing them