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About Spiritualism....

Spiritualism is a movement beginning in the 19th century in America and Europe 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 of Spiritualism
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, 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’ 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.

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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 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 William Crookes (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 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. 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, as with the spiritualists, the dead. While the New Age movement disappeared in the 1990s, channeling continued to enjoy a large appeal.
 

In France author and educator Allan Kardec developed and codified spiritualism into a distinct offshoot called Spiritism that later become prominent in Brazil. Kardec was intrigued by the burgeoning spiritualism movement and, in his 1857 The Spirits’ Book (originally in French), he compiled the results of a series of philosophical questions he had posed to spiritualist mediums throughout Europe. Based on that research, and in later books as well, he developed a philosophical system that incorporated the idea of reincarnation. Although it later declined in France, Spiritism has been so successful in Brazil that Kardec has been pictured on Brazilian stamps. The movement has its own set of rituals that includes healing practices, centers where followers congregate, and an ethical code. In 2020, 3 percent of Brazilians, about 6 million people, were Spiritists, although some estimates are as high as 20 million. It is cited as the third most popular religion in Brazil.


Spiritualist 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, speak independently of the
medium, leave pictures on photographic plates, and materialize objects, including themselves.


Although some 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.
 

J. Gordon Melton
Citation Information
Article Title: Spiritualism
Website Name: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published: 09 August 2024
URL: https://www.britannica.comhttps://www.britannica.com/topic/spiritualism-religion
Access Date: August 16, 2024

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