Mars and the Paranormal

The late nineteenth century saw modern Martian studies and psychical research emerge together, blending literary imagination with spiritualist practices. Astronomers Percival Lowell and Camille Flammarion were drawn into this association, with Flammarion more deeply committed. The Swiss medium Hélène Smith, who claimed to have traveled to Mars and learned its language, exemplifies this link between Mars and the paranormal. Telepathy and astral projection also appear in science fiction narratives such as Wells's The War of the Worlds, Burroughs's A Princess of Mars, Stapledon's Last and First Men, and Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet. Lesser-known works by Henry Gaston, Flammarion, George DuMaurier, and others further reveal the persistent interweaving of science or pseudoscience with romance in fiction about Mars.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The parallel emergence of modern Martian studies and psychical research in the later nineteenth century led to a strange fusion of the literary imagination and spiritualist practices. Both Percival Lowell and Camille Flammarion were drawn into this association, the latter far more committedly than the former. The turn-of-the-century case of the Swiss medium Hélène Smith, who claimed to have traveled to Mars and learned the Martian language, is a celebrated instance of the link between Mars and the paranormal, but the phenomena of telepathy and astral projection also make their way into such sf narratives as Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898), Burroughs’s A Princess of Mars (1912), Stapledon’s Last and First Men (1930), and Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet (1938). The extent and significance of the role of the paranormal in early sf can be most fully grasped in less well known narratives by Henry Gaston, Flammarion, George DuMaurier, Louis Pope Gratacap, Mark Wicks, Sara Weiss, J.L. Kennon, and J.W. Gilbert. Collectively, these narratives reveal the persistence of the problematic issue of the interweaving of science (or pseudoscience) and romance in the fashioning of fiction about Mars.