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Spiritualism is a religion that began in the United States and flourished from the 1840s to the 1920s—especially, though by no means exclusively—in English-language countries. By 1897, it is said to have had more than eight million followers in the United States and Europe. The religion's distinguishing feature is the belief that the spirits of the dead can be contacted by "mediums," and can therefore provide living people with information about the afterlife.

Developing for a half century without canonical texts or formal organization, the religion attained a cohesion through widely distributed periodicals, tours by trance lecturers, camp meetings, and the missionary activities of accomplished mediums. Many of the most prominent Spiritualists were women, and most members supported radical causes like abolition and women's suffrage. By the 1880s the credibility of the movement had weakened, due to widely publicized fraud, and formal organization began to appear.

Origins

Spiritualism first appeared in the 1840s in the "Burned-over District" of upstate New York, where earlier religious movements such as Millerism (Seventh-Day Adventism) and Mormonism had emerged during the Second Great Awakening.

This region of New York State was an environment in which many thought that direct communication with God or angels was possible, and that God would not behave harshly—for example, that God would not condemn unbaptised infants to an eternity in Hell.

Swedenborg and Mesmer

In this environment, the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) and the teachings of Franz Mesmer (1734-1815) provided an example for those seeking direct personal knowledge of the afterlife. Swedenborg, who claimed to communicate with spirits while in trance states, described in his voluminous writings the structure of the spirit world. Two features of his view particularly resonated with the early spiritualists: first, that there is not a single hell and a single heaven, but rather a series of spheres through which a spirit progresses as it develops; second, that spirits mediate between God and humans, so that contact with the divine is through the spirits of deceased humans.

Mesmer did not contribute religious beliefs, but he brought a technique, later known as hypnotism, that it was claimed could induce trances and cause subjects to report contact with supernatural beings. There was a great deal of professional showmanship inherent to demonstrations of Mesmerism, and the practitioners who lectured in mid-19th-century North America sought to entertain their audiences as well as to demonstrate methods for personal contact with the divine.

Perhaps the best known of those who combined Swedenborg and Mesmer in a peculiarly North American synthesis was Andrew Jackson Davis, who called his system the Harmonial Philosophy. Davis was a practicing hypnotist, faith healer and clairvoyant from Poughkeepsie, New York. His 1847 book, The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind, dictated to a friend while in a trance state, eventually became the nearest thing to a canonical work in a Spiritualist movement whose extreme individualism precluded the development of a single coherent worldview.

Reform-movement links

Spiritualists often set March 31, 1848, as the beginning of their movement. On that date, Kate and Margaret Fox, of Hydesville, New York, reported that they had made contact with the spirit of a murdered peddler. What made this an extraordinary event was that the spirit communicated through audible rapping noises, rather than simply appearing to a person. The evidence of the senses appealed to practically minded people in the U.S., and the Fox sisters became a sensation.

Amy and Isaac Post, Hicksite Quakers from Rochester, New York, had long been acquainted with the Fox family, and took the two girls into their home in the late spring of 1848. Immediately convinced of the genuineness of the sisters' communications, they became early converts and introduced them to their circle of radical Quaker friends.

It therefore came about that many of the early participants in Spiritualism were radical Quakers and others involved in the reforming movement of the mid-nineteenth century. These reformers were uncomfortable with established churches, because they did little to fight slavery and even less to advance the cause of women's rights.

Women were particularly attracted to the movement, because it gave them important roles as mediums and trance lecturers. In fact, Spiritualism provided one of the first forums in which U.S. women could address mixed public audiences.

The most popular trance lecturer prior to the U.S. Civil War was Cora L. V. Scott (1840–1923). Young and beautiful, her appearance on stage fascinated men. Her audiences were struck by the contrast between her physical girlishness and the eloquence with which she spoke of spiritual matters, and found in that contrast support for the notion that spirits were speaking through her. Cora married four times, and on each occasion adopted her husband's last name. During her period of greatest activity, she was known as Cora Hatch.

Another famous woman spiritualist was Achsa W. Sprague, who was born November 17, 1827, in Plymouth Notch, Vermont. At the age of 20, she became ill with rheumatic fever and credited her eventual recovery to intercession by spirits. An extremely popular trance lecturer, she traveled about the United States until her death in 1861. Sprague was an abolitionist and an advocate of women's rights.

Yet another prominent spiritualist and trance medium prior to the Civil War was Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825–1875), an African-American "Free Man of Color," who also played a part in the Abolition movement. Nevertheless, many abolitionists and reformers held themselves aloof from the movement; among the skeptics was the eloquent ex-slave, Frederick Douglass.

Believers and skeptics

In the years following the sensation that greeted the Fox sisters, demonstrations of mediumship (séances and automatic writing, for example) proved to be a profitable venture, and soon became popular forms of entertainment and spiritual catharsis. The Foxes were to earn a living this way and others would follow their lead. Showmanship became an increasingly important part of Spiritualism, and the visible, audible, and tangible evidence of spirits escalated as mediums competed for paying audiences. Fraud was certainly widespread, as independent investigating commissions repeatedly established, most notably the 1887 report of the Seybert Commission.

Prominent investigators who exposed cases of fraud came from a variety of backgrounds, including professional researchers such as Frank Podmore of the Society for Psychical Research or Harry Price of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, and professional conjurers such as John Nevil Maskelyne. Maskelyne exposed the Davenport Brothers by appearing in the audience during their shows and explaining how the trick was done. During the 1920s, professional magician Harry Houdini undertook a well-publicised crusade against fraudulent mediums. Throughout his endeavors, Houdini remained adamant that he did not oppose Spiritualism itself, but rather the practice of deliberate fraud and trickery for monetary gain that was carried out.

Despite widespread fraud, the appeal of Spiritualism was strong, and prominent in the ranks of its adherents were those grieving the death of a loved one. One well known case is that of Mary Todd Lincoln who, grieving the loss of her son, organised séances in the White House which were attended by her husband, President Abraham Lincoln. The surge of interest in Spiritualism during and after the American Civil War and World War I was a direct response to the massive casualties. In addition, the movement appealed to reformers, who fortuitously found that the spirits favored such causes du jour as equal rights. Finally, the movement appealed to some who had a materialist orientation and rejected organized religion. The influential socialist and atheist Robert Owen embraced religion following his experiences in Spiritualist circles. Many scientific men who investigated the phenomenon also became converts; these included the chemist William Crookes, the evolutionary biologist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), the journalist and pacifist William T. Stead (1849-1912), and the physician and author Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930).

Unorganized movement

The movement quickly spread throughout the world; though only in the United Kingdom did it become as widespread as in the United States. In Britain, by 1853, invitations to tea among the prosperous and fashionable often included table-turning, a type of séance in which spirits would communicate with people seated around a table by tilting and rotating the table. A particularly important convert was the French pedagogist Allan Kardec (1804-1869), who made the first attempt to systematise the movement's practices and ideas into a consistent philosophical system. Kardec's books, written in the last 15 years of his life, became the textual basis of Kardecist spiritism, a doctrine and movement often called simply spiritism, which became widespread in Latin countries. In Brazil, Kardec's ideas are embraced by many followers today. In Puerto Rico, Kardec's books were widely read by the upper classes, and eventually gave birth to a movement known as Mesa Blanca (White Table).

Spiritualism was mainly a middle- and upper-class movement, and especially popular with women. U.S. spiritualists would meet in private homes for séances, at lecture halls for trance lectures, at state or national conventions, and at summer camps attended by thousands. Among the most significant of the camp meetings were Camp Etna, in Etna, Maine; Onset Bay Grove, in Onset, Massachusetts; Lily Dale, in western New York State; Camp Chesterfield, in Indiana; the Wonewoc Spiritualist Camp, in Wonewoc, Wisconsin; and Lake Pleasant, in Montague, Massachusetts. In founding camp meetings, the spiritualists appropriated a form developed in the early nineteenth century by Protestant denominations in the U.S. Spiritualist camp meetings were located most densely in New England and California, but were also established across the upper Midwest. Cassadaga, Florida, is the most notable spiritualist camp meeting in the southern states.

The movement was extremely individualistic, with each person relying on her own experiences and reading to discern the nature of the afterlife. Organisation was therefore slow to appear, and when it did it was resisted by mediums and trance lecturers. Most members were content to attend Christian churches, and particularly Universalist churches harbored many Spiritualists.

As the movement began to fade, partly through the bad publicity of fraud accusations and partly through the appeal of religious movements such as Christian Science, the Spiritualist Church was organised. This church can claim to be the main vestige of the movement left today in the United States.

Other mediums

William Stainton Moses (1839-1892) was an Anglican clergyman who, in the period from 1872 to 1883, filled 24 notebooks with automatic writing, much of which was said to describe conditions in the spirit world.

London-born Emma Hardinge Britten (1823-1899) moved to the United States in 1855 and was active in spiritualist circles as a trance lecturer and organiser. She is best known as a chronicler of the movement's spread, especially in her 1884 Nineteenth Century Miracles: Spirits and their Work in Every Country of the Earth.

Eusapia Palladino (1854-1918) was an Italian Spiritualist medium from the slums of Naples who made a career touring Italy, France, Germany, Britain, the United States, Russia and Poland. Her stratagems were unmasked on several occasions, though some investigators credited her mediumistic abilities.

One believer was the Polish psychologist Julian Ochorowicz, who in 1893 brought her from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Warsaw, Poland. He introduced her to the novelist Bolesław Prus, who participated in her séances and incorporated Spiritualist elements into his historical novel Pharaoh.

Ochorowicz studied as well, 15 years later, a home-grown Polish medium, Stanisława Tomczyk.

Characteristic beliefs

Spiritualists believe in the possibility of communicating with spirits. A secondary belief is that spirits themselves are capable of growth and perfection, progressing through successively higher spheres or planes. The afterlife is therefore not a static place, but one in which spirits continue to evolve. The two beliefs: that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits are metaphysically closer to God, lead to a third belief, that spirits are capable of providing useful knowledge about moral and ethical issues, as well as about the nature of God and the afterlife. Thus many members will speak of their spirit guides — specific spirits, often contacted, who are relied upon for worldly and spiritual guidance.

As spiritualism emerged in a Christian environment it has features in common with Christianity: an essentially Christian moral system, a perceived belief in the Judeo-Christian God, and liturgical practices such as Sunday services and the singing of hymns. The primary reason for these similarities is that spiritualists believe that some spirits are "low" or mischievous, and delight in leading humans astray. Therefore, beginning with Swedenborg, believers have been cautioned to hesitate before following the advice of spirits, and have usually developed their beliefs within a Christian framework.

Nevertheless, on significant points Christianity and Spiritualism are quite different. Spiritualists do not believe that the acts of this life lead to the assignment of each soul into an eternity of either Heaven or Hell; rather, they view the afterlife as containing many hierarchically arrayed "spheres," through which each spirit can successfully progress. Spiritualists also differ from Christians in that the Judeo-Christian Bible is not the primary source from which they derive knowledge of God and the afterlife: for them, their own personal contacts with spirits provide that source.

Religions other than Christianity have also influenced spiritualism. Animist faiths, with a tradition of shamanism and spirit contact, are obviously similar, and in the first decades of the movement many mediums claimed contact with Native American spirit guides, in an apparent acknowledgment of these similarities. Unlike animists, however, spiritualists tend to speak only of the spirits of dead humans, and do not espouse a belief in spirits of animals, trees, springs, or other natural features.

Within Islam, certain traditions, most notably Sufism, consider communication with spirits of the dead to be possible. Additionally, the concept of Tawassul recognises the existence of good spirits on a higher plane of existence closer to God, and thus able to intercede on behalf of humanity.

Hinduism, though an extremely heterogeneous belief system, shares a belief with spiritualism in the continued existence of the soul after death. But Hindus differ in that they typically believe in reincarnation, and normally hold that all features of a person's personality are extinguished at death. Spiritualists, however, maintain that the spirit retains the personality it possessed during its (single) human existence.

Kardecist spiritism, the branch of Spiritualism developed by Allan Kardec and found in mostly Latin countries, has always emphasised reincarnation. According to Arthur Conan Doyle, most British Spiritualists of the early 20th century were indifferent to the doctrine of reincarnation, very few supported it, while a significant minority were vehemently opposed, since it had never been mentioned by spirits contacted in séances. Thus, according to Doyle, it is the empirical bent of Anglophone Spiritualism —its effort to develop religious views from actual observation of phenomena— that kept spiritualists of this period from embracing reincarnation.

Spiritualism also differs from occult movements, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn or the contemporary Wiccan covens, in that spirits are not contacted in order to obtain magical powers (with the single exception of obtaining power for healing). For example, Madame Blavatsky (1831-1891) of the Theosophical Society only practiced mediumship in order to contact powerful spirits capable of conferring esoteric knowledge. Blavatsky apparently did not believe that these spirits were deceased humans, and in fact held beliefs in reincarnation that were quite different from the views of most spiritualists.

After the 1920s

After the 1920s, Spiritualism evolved in three different directions. The first of these continued the tradition of individual practitioners, organised in circles centered on a medium and clients, without any hierarchy or dogma. Already by the late 19th century spiritualism had become increasingly syncretic, a natural development in a movement without central authority or dogma. Today, among these unorganised circles, spiritualism is not readily distinguishable from the similarly syncretic New Age movement. These spiritualists are quite heterogeneous in their beliefs regarding issues such as reincarnation or the existence of God. Some appropriate New Age and Neo-Pagan beliefs, whilst others call themselves 'Christian Spiritualists', continuing with the tradition of cautiously incorporating spiritualist experiences into their Christian faith.

The second direction taken has been to adopt formal organisation, patterned after Christian denominations, with established creeds and liturgies, and training requirements for mediums. In the United States the Spiritualist churches are primarily affiliated with the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, and in the U.K. with the Spiritualists' National Union, founded in 1901. Formal education in spiritualist practice emerged in 1920, continuing today with the Arthur Findlay College at Stansted Hall. Diversity of belief among organised spiritualists has led to a few schisms, the most notable occurring in the U.K. in 1957 between those who held the movement to be a religion sui generis (of its own with unique characteristics), and a minority who held it to be a denomination within Christianity. The practice of organised Spiritualism today resembles that of any other religion, having discarded most showmanship, particularly those elements resembling the conjurer's art. There is thus a much greater emphasis on "mental" mediumship and an almost complete avoidance of the miraculous "materializing" mediumship that so fascinated early believers such as Arthur Conan Doyle.

The third direction taken has been a continuation of its empirical orientation to religious phenomena. Already as early as 1882, with the founding of the Society for Psychical Research, secular organisations emerged to investigate spiritualist claims. Today many persons with this empirical approach avoid the label of "spiritualism," preferring the term "survivalism." Survivalists eschew religion, and base their belief in the afterlife on phenomena susceptible to at least rudimentary scientific investigation, such as mediumship, near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, electronic voice phenomena, and reincarnation research. Many Survivalists see themselves as the intellectual heirs of the spiritualist movement.

See also

• Spiritism
• New Thought
• Spiritualism in fiction
• Lily Dale Assembly
• Necromancy
• Telekinesis
• Michel Eugène Chevreul
• Harry Price
• Harry Houdini
• Thomson Jay Hudson
• James Randi

References

1. Times, New York (29/11/1897). "THREE FORMS OF THOUGHT; M.M. Mangassarian Addresses the Society for Ethical Culture at Carnegie Music Hall". The New York Times: 200. In the absence of Prof. Felix Adler, who lectured in Philadelphia, M.M. Mangassarian, lecturer of the Society for Ethical Culture of Chicago, occupied the platform at Carnegie Music Hall yesterday, and spoke on "Theosophy, Spiritualism, and Christian Science" to a large audience ... Coming, then, to Spiritualism, the speaker said that there were 8,000,000 followers of that creed in this country and Europe. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |year= (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
2. Carroll, Bret E. (1997). Spiritualism in Antebellum America. (Religion in North America.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 248. ISBN 0-25333-315-6.
3. ^ Braude 2001
4. ^ Carroll 1997
5. The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind, Andrew Jackson Davis, 1847.
6. ^ Carroll 1997; Braude 2001
7. Deveney and Rosemont 1996
8. Telegrams from the Dead (a PBS television documentary).
9. Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University of Pennsylvania, The Seybert Commission, 1887. 2004-04-01.
10. Houdini Tribute: Spiritualism
11. Telegrams from the Dead (a PBS television documentary).
12. Doyle 1926
13. The Scientific Aspect of the Supernatural, Alfred Russel Wallace, 1866.
14. Stead on Spiritualism at The William T. Stead Resource Site
15. Arthur Conan Doyle, The History of Spiritualism Vol I, Arthur Conan Doyle, 1926.
16. Britten 1884
17. Hess 1987; Carroll 1997; Braude 2001
18. Guthrie, Lucas and Monroe, 2000; Moore, 1997; Carroll, 1997; Braude, 2001.
19. Tokarzówna and Fita 1969, pp. 440, 443, 445–53, 521.
20. Fodor 1934
21. Noor Muhammad Kalachvi 1999: Irfan
22. Doyle 1926: volume 2, 171-181
23. Creed of the Spiritualists' National Union
24. Guthrie, Lucas, and Monroe 2000
25. Archive of important Spiritualist articles maintained by contemporary Survivalists

Bibliography

• Brandon, Ruth (1983). The Spiritualists: The Passion for the Occult in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
• Braude, Ann (2001). Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women's Rights in Nineteenth-Century America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-21502-1.
• Britten, Emma Hardinge (1884). Nineteenth Century Miracles: Spirits and their Work in Every Country of the Earth. New York: William Britten. ISBN 0766162907.
• Brown, Slater (1970). The Heyday of Spiritualism. New York: Hawthorn Books.
• Buescher, John B. (2003). The Other Side of Salvation: Spiritualism and the Nineteenth-Century Religious Experience. Boston: Skinner House Books. ISBN 1-55896-448-7.
• Carroll, Bret E. (1997). Spiritualism in Antebellum America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-33315-6.
• Davenport, Reuben Briggs (1888). The Death-Blow to Spiritualism. New York: G.W. Dillingham.
• Deveney, John Patrick (1996). Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-Century Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-3120-7. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Doyle, Arthur Conan (1926). The History of Spiritualism, volume 1. New York: G.H. Doran. ISBN 1-4101-0243-2.
• Doyle, Arthur Conan (1926). The History of Spiritualism, volume 2. New York: G.H. Doran. ISBN 1-4101-0243-2.
• Fodor, Nandor (1934). An Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
• Guthrie, John J. Jr. (2000). Cassadaga: the South’s Oldest Spiritualist Community. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-1743-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Hess, David (1987). "Spiritism and Science in Brazil". Ph.D thesis, Dept. of Anthropology, Cornell University. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Lindgren, Carl Edwin (1994). "Spiritualism: Innocent Beliefs to Scientific Curiosity". Journal of Religion and Psychical Research. 17 (1): 8–15. ISSN 1731:2148. {{cite journal}}: Check |issn= value (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Lindgren, Carl Edwin (1994). "Scientific investigation and Religious Uncertainty 1880-1900". Journal of Religion and Psychical Research. 17 (2): 83–91. ISSN 1731:2148. {{cite journal}}: Check |issn= value (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Moore, William D. (1997). "'To Hold Communion with Nature and the Spirit-World:' New England's Spiritualist Camp Meetings, 1865-1910". In Annmarie Adams and Sally MacMurray (editors) (ed.). Exploring Everyday Landscapes: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, VII. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 0-8704-9983-1. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)
• Podmore, Frank, Mediums of the 19th Century, 2 vols., University Books, 1963.
• Salter, William H., Zoar; or the Evidence of Psychical Research Concerning Survival, Sidgwick, 1961.
• Telegrams from the Dead (a PBS television documentary in the "American Experience" series, first aired October 19, 1994).
• Tokarzówna, Krystyna (1969). Bolesław Prus, 1847-1912: Kalendarz życia i twórczości (Bolesław Prus, 1847-1912: a Calendar of Life and Work). Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Weisberg, Barbara (2004). Talking to the Dead. San Francisco: Harper.
• Wicker, Christine (2004). Lily Dale: the True Story of the Town that talks to the Dead. San Francisco: Harper.

External links

• International Spiritist Council
• Spiritualist E-Texts
• Religious Movements: Spiritualism
• The Catholic Encyclopedia: Spiritism
• Google mirror of the Open Directory Project: Spiritualism
• Collection of Spiritualist E-Texts
• John B. Buescher's website on the history of Spiritualism
• Poet and Egyptologist Gerald Massey on 'Why I Became a Spiritualist'
• Florence Cook and Katie King. The story of a Spiritualist medium
• Spiritualism and Electromagnetism at MathPages
• Spiritualist Seance Photography and Spiritualist Museum
• Andrew Lang, Fetishism and Spiritualism, The Making of Religion, (Chapter VIII), Longmans, Green, and C°, London, New York and Bombay, 1900, pp. 147-159.

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