Gloam

A melancholy fashion and circle among younger scholars, junior professionals, reform clubs and artists, favouring mourning dress, reliquary rings, dream notebooks and bell-toned music. Gloam rooms read pre-Reclamation poetry, collect rural charms, discuss spirit folklore and sometimes hold supervised seances.

A loose movement of fashion and sentiment (black or charcoal dress, old silver, mourning lace, a taste for ruins), with local forms. In Canterbury it is antiquarian and draws young copyists, clerks and minor clergy; at Dover it has become practical dress and wreck songs. A younger fashion and set of student societies in mourning black and old silver, reading pre-Reclamation poetry, spirit stories and reform pamphlets; liberal in tendency rather than doctrine.

Ties

• Ash and Ivy is its best-known band

At the table

Political enough to attract suspicion without being a party; common among people interested in the Afflicted or gentler dealings with spirits. A small fringe mistakes aesthetic sympathy for occult competence, and the Church distinguishes foolish taste from actionable practice. Gloam clubs can offer introductions into circles closed to uniformed authority. A Gloam gathering may invite comment without being an offence. Some meetings include table-turning or amateur attempts at village charms; three disciplinary cases have crossed into actual spirit practice.