spiritualism

—spiritualistic, adj. —spiritualistically, adv.

/spir"i chooh euh liz'euhm/, n.

1. the belief or doctrine that the spirits of the dead, surviving after the mortal life, can and do communicate with the living, esp. through a person (a medium) particularly susceptible to their influence.

2. the practices or phenomena associated with this belief.

3. the belief that all reality is spiritual.

4. Metaphys. any of various doctrines maintaining that the ultimate reality is spirit or mind.

5. spiritual quality or tendency.

6. insistence on the spiritual side of things, as in philosophy or religion.

[1825-35; SPIRITUAL + -ISM]

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Belief that the souls of the dead can make contact with the living, usually through a medium or during abnormal mental states such as trances.

The basis of spiritualism is the conviction that spirit is the essence of life and that it lives on after the body dies. A medium is a person sensitive to vibrations from the spirit world, who may hold meetings known as séances in order to seek messages from spirits. A "control" is a spirit that gives messages to the human medium, who in turn gives them to other people. Spirits are also thought to manifest themselves through such means as rapping or levitating objects. Some spiritualists claim powers of paranormal healing. Scientific study of spiritualist phenomena has been the focus of the Society for Psychical Research, founded in Britain in 1882. See also theosophy.

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▪ philosophy

      in philosophy, a characteristic of any system of thought that affirms the existence of immaterial reality imperceptible to the senses. So defined, spiritualism embraces a vast array of highly diversified philosophical views. Most patently, it applies to any philosophy accepting the notion of an infinite, personal God, the immortality of the soul, or the immateriality of the intellect and will. Less obviously, it includes belief in such ideas as finite cosmic forces or a universal mind, provided that they transcend the limits of gross Materialistic interpretation. Spiritualism as such says nothing about matter, the nature of a supreme being or a universal force, or the precise nature of spiritual reality itself.

      In ancient Greece Pindar (flourished 5th century BC) expounded in his odes the substance of a spiritualistic Orphic mysticism by attributing a divine origin to the soul, which resides temporarily as a guest in the home of the body and then returns to its source for reward or punishment after death. Plato's view of the soul also marks him as a spiritualist, and Aristotle was a spiritualist for distinguishing the active from the passive intellect and for conceiving of God as pure actuality (knowledge knowing itself). René Descartes, often acclaimed as the father of modern philosophy, viewed the soul as the unique source of activity, distinct from, but operating within, a body. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, a versatile German Rationalist, postulated a spiritualistic world of psychic monads. The Idealists F.H. Bradley, Josiah Royce, and William Ernest Hocking saw individuals as mere aspects of a universal mind. For Giovanni Gentile, propounder of a philosophy of actualism in Italy, the pure activity of self-consciousness is the sole reality. The steadfast belief in a personal God maintained by Henri Bergson, a French intuitionist, was joined to his belief in a spiritual cosmic force (élan vital). Modern Personalism gives priority to persons and personality in explaining the universe. The French philosophers Louis Lavelle and René Le Senne, specifically known as spiritualists, launched the publication Philosophie de l'esprit (“Philosophy of the Spirit”) in 1934 to ensure that spirit was given proper attention in modern philosophy. Though this journal professed no philosophical preference, it has given special attention to personality and to forms of intuitionism.

      Dualism and monism, theism and atheism, pantheism, Idealism, and many other philosophical positions are thus said to be compatible with spiritualism as long as they allow for a reality independent from and superior to matter.

▪ religion

Introduction

      in religion, a movement based on the belief that departed souls can interact with the living. Spiritualists sought to make contact with the dead, usually through the assistance of a medium, a person believed to have the ability to contact spirits directly. Some mediums worked while in a trancelike state, and some claimed to be the catalyst for various paranormal physical phenomena (including the materializing or moving of objects) through which the spirits announced their presence.

History

      Various forms of communicating with discarnate spirits of the recently deceased have been observed in communities around the world, but the purpose of such communication and the understanding of the nature of spirit existence varies considerably. Modern spiritualists point to the ancient accounts of spirit contact in the Bible: the visit of Saul, the king of Israel, to the so-called witch of Endor (Endor, Witch of), in the course of which the late prophet Samuel appeared (I Samuel 28), and the story of the Transfiguration, in which Moses and Elijah appeared to three of Jesus (Jesus Christ)' Apostles (Matthew 17, Mark 9). Some phenomena associated with mediums were found among those regarded in the Middle Ages as possessed by devils—e.g., levitation and speaking in languages unknown to the speaker. Similar phenomena were reported in the witch trials of the early modern period, particularly the appearance of spirits in quasi-material form and the obtaining of knowledge through spirits.

      Modern spiritualism traces its beginnings to a series of apparently supernatural events at a farmhouse in Hydesville, N.Y., in 1848. The owner and his family, as well as the previous occupants of the house, had been disturbed by unexplained raps at night. After a severe disturbance, the owner's youngest daughter, Kate Fox, was said to have successfully challenged the supposed spirit to repeat in raps the number of times she flipped her fingers. Once communication had apparently been established, a code was agreed upon by which the raps given could answer questions, and the spirit was said to have identified himself as a man who had been murdered in the house.

      The practice of having sittings for communication with spirits spread rapidly from that time, and in the 1860s it was particularly popular in England and France. Kate Fox (afterward Mrs. Fox-Jencken) and one of her sisters, Maggie Fox, devoted much of their later lives to acting as mediums in the United States and England. Many other mediums gave similar sittings, and the attempt to communicate with spirits by table turning (in which participants place their hands on a table and wait for it to vibrate or rotate) became a popular pastime in Victorian drawing rooms.

      The unconventional new movement naturally provoked opposition. There were not only verbal condemnations but occasional mob violence. Church leaders associated spiritualism with witchcraft. Some churches regarded the practices of the spiritualists as part of the forbidden activity of necromancy (communication with the dead in order to learn the future). A decree of the Holy Office of the Roman Catholic (Roman Catholicism) Church in 1898 condemned spiritualistic practices, though it approved of legitimate scientific investigation of related phenomena. Both Protestant and Catholic bodies released a steady stream of anti-spiritualist literature.

      Although inherently religious, during its first generation the movement avoided organizing as a church. Spiritualist associations began to appear in some areas of the United States in the first decades after the Civil War (American Civil War) and finally formed a nationwide organization, the National Spiritualist Association (later the National Spiritualist Association of Churches), in 1893.

      Spiritualism also inspired the rise of the discipline of psychic research to examine the claims made by mediums and their supporters. A variety of techniques were developed to study not only basic psychic experiences ( telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition) but the more complex phenomenon of spirit contact. By the end of the 19th century, significant efforts were being made to verify the phenomena of mediumship, especially the occasional materialization of spirit entities. Many who participated in psychic research hoped for positive results and occasionally concluded that they had proved the existence of clairvoyance or established the reality of spirit contact. Among the most prominent supporters of spiritualist claims was the chemist Sir William Crookes (Crookes, Sir William) (1832–1919), a president of the Royal Society (the national scientific organization of Great Britain), who investigated and pronounced genuine the materialization phenomena produced by medium Florence Cook.

 Those who placed their hopes in physical phenomena, however, were destined for disappointment. One by one, the mediums were discovered to be engaged in fraud, sometimes employing the techniques of stage magicians in their attempts to convince people of their clairvoyant powers. Professional magicians such as Harry Houdini (Houdini, Harry) joined efforts to expose the fraudulent practices of mediums, and in the 20th century the magicians Milbourne Christopher and James Randi became known as much for their efforts to debunk fake mediumship as for their stage work. The exposure of widespread fraud within the spiritualist movement severely damaged its reputation and pushed it to the fringes of society in the United States.

      Spiritualism fared better in Britain, especially in the 1950s after the repeal of the witchcraft laws, which had been used against mediums quite apart from any charges of fakery. It had its greatest success in France and Brazil, where it was known as spiritism and incorporated the idea of reincarnation. So successful has the movement been in Brazil that the French founder of spiritism, Allan Kardec, has been pictured on Brazilian stamps.

      The practice of mediumship enjoyed a rebirth in the 1970s as a significant activity within the New Age movement, which looked to the coming of an idealistic culture in the 21st century. New Age “channelers” claimed to contact a variety of disembodied entities, from Ascended Masters (spiritual beings who are believed to guide human destiny) to extraterrestrials and, like the spiritualists, the dead. While the New Age movement disappeared in the 1990s, channeling continued to enjoy a large appeal.

Belief and practice

      Spiritualist belief developed during the early decades of the movement. A core belief of spiritualism is that individuals survive the deaths of their bodies by ascending into a spirit existence. A person's condition after death is directly related to the moral quality of his human existence. Communion with the spiritual world is both possible and desirable, and spiritual healing is the natural result of such communication. The spiritualists understand God as infinite intelligence.

      Historically, spiritualism was organized in small groups that conducted séances, or meetings for spirit communication. Larger gatherings were held for public demonstrations of spirit contact and psychic phenomena. These gatherings evolved into the Sunday church services that became common in spiritualist churches in the 20th century. Many associations also sponsored camps where believers could congregate in a leisurely atmosphere, have private sessions with mediums, and attend daily séances.

      Initially, spiritualist gatherings were concerned with demonstrating and investigating mental phenomena such as clairvoyance, telepathy, and the reception of messages from spirits. The messages that mediums claimed to receive were examined in order to build theoretical constructs for explaining how spirit contact could occur. Very early in the movement, however, séances featuring more spectacular physical phenomena were conducted, and mediums arose who specialized in such displays. Spirits were said to have the power to levitate objects, to speak independently of the medium, to leave pictures on photographic plates, and to materialize objects, including themselves.

      Also basic to spiritualist practice is “spirit healing.” Among the precursors of spiritualism was the Magnetist movement, which had grown out of the magnetic healing theories of Franz Anton Mesmer (Mesmer, Franz Anton). The Magnetists had specialized in spiritual healing and the public demonstration of magnetic phenomena (which included hypnotism). Spiritualism absorbed many of the assumptions of the Magnetist movement but maintained that healings were the result of spirit influence rather than magnetic power.

      Although spiritualist practices have been motivated by mere curiosity and fascination with the supernatural, they have also been driven by more serious concerns about the fate of the human soul. For those who have lost their faith in traditional Christianity, spiritualists have offered a new religion based not on an ancient tradition but on facts that apparently can be observed by anyone. Those for whom materialistic ways of thinking have precluded belief in a life after death have been given a new hope of immortality. Those suffering from grief after the death of loved ones have been offered the possibility of communicating with them. The strong involvement of emotion in both the acceptance and the rejection of spiritualism has made it difficult to appraise impartially the evidence for and against it.

John Gordon Melton

Additional Reading

Slater Brown, The Heyday of Spiritualism (1970); and Howard Kerr, Mediums, Spirit Rappers, and Roaring Radicals: Spiritualism in American Literature, 1850–1900 (1972), examine the origin and early history of spiritualism. Alex Owen, The Darkened Room: Women, Power, and Spiritualism in Late Nineteenth Century England (1989; also published as The Darkened Room: Women, Power, and Spiritualism in Late Victorian England), considers the role of women in the movement. The rise of psychic research and its interaction with spiritualism is considered in Alan Gauld, The Founders of Psychical Research (1968); and R. Laurence Moore, In Search of White Crows: Spiritualism, Parapsychology, and American Culture (1977). Spiritualist fraud is explored in Milbourne Christopher, Mediums, Mystics & the Occult (1975); and M. Lamar Keene and Allen Spraggett, The Psychic Mafia (1976), the latter an exposé written by a former successful fake medium.John Gordon Melton

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