Spiritualism (19th century)

Spiritualism (19th century)
Name	Spiritualism
Period	19th century
Regions	United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Canada
Notable figures	Fox sisters, Andrew Jackson Davis, Emanuel Swedenborg, Arthur Conan Doyle, Helena Blavatsky
Movements	Theosophy, Christian Science, Spiritualist Church, Society for Psychical Research

Spiritualism (19th century) Spiritualism in the 19th century was a religious and cultural movement asserting communication with the departed through mediums, attracting practitioners across the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, and Canada. It intersected with contemporary figures and institutions such as the Fox sisters, Andrew Jackson Davis, the Society for Psychical Research, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Helena Blavatsky, shaping debates in Victorian society, American reform movements, and European intellectual circles.

Origins and beliefs

Spiritualism drew on antecedents including Emanuel Swedenborg, Johann Georg Gichtel, Franz Anton Mesmer, Allan Kardec, Emma Hardinge Britten, and Andrew Jackson Davis, while interacting with movements like Methodist Episcopal Church, Quakerism, Unitarians, Shakers, and Mormonism. Early events such as the 1848 Hydesville phenomena involved the Fox sisters, which catalyzed public interest alongside publications like The Spiritual Telegraph, The Banner of Light, The Medium and Daybreak, and works by William Stainton Moses. Doctrinally, Spiritualism incorporated concepts from Christian Science, Theosophy, Transcendentalism, Romanticism, and the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, promoting beliefs in survival of consciousness, spirit agency, moral progression, and progressive revelation evident in texts by Emanuel Swedenborg and codifications by Allan Kardec.

Key figures and mediums

Prominent personalities included medium-figures such as the Fox sisters, D. D. Home, Florence Cook, Catherine Crowe, Ada Goodrich Freer, and Madame Blavatsky; investigators and advocates like Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Hare, William Crookes, Alfred Russel Wallace, Thomas Edison, Sir William Barrett, Frank Podmore, and Sir Oliver Lodge; and American activists and lecturers such as Margaret Fox, LeRoy Sunderland, Lydia A. Chapin Taft, Levi Bartlett, Horace Greeley, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Sojourner Truth. Institutional leaders included founders and organizers of Theosophical Society, Society for Psychical Research, National Spiritualist Association of Churches, Spiritualist Church of Boston, Boston Society for Psychical Research, and publishers such as James Burns and James H. Hyslop. Other figures encompassed critics and exposers like Harry Houdini, Frank Podmore, Richard Hodgson, Joseph McCabe, Hereward Carrington, Charles Richet, Pierre-Simon Ballanche, and Émile Zola.

Practices and séances

Typical séance procedures involved trance speaking, trance writing, slate writing, spirit photography, spirit rapping, table-turning, automatic writing, materialization, and apport phenomena practiced by mediums such as D. D. Home, Florence Cook, Eusapia Palladino, Helen Duncan, and Kathleen Goligher. Séances occurred in parlors, halls, and dedicated churches like the Spiritualist Church of Boston, with instruments and practices investigated by members of Society for Psychical Research, American Society for Psychical Research, Institut Métapsychique International, and laboratories linked to figures such as William Crookes and Charles Richet. The movement spawned commercial and cultural artifacts including spirit photography studios (linked to William H. Mumler), printing houses like The Spiritualist, periodicals such as Psychological Review, and theatrical crossovers involving Florence Cook and magicians like John Nevil Maskelyne and Harry Kellar.

Scientific investigations and critiques

Scientific engagement came from researchers and skeptics like William Crookes, Alfred Russel Wallace, Oliver Lodge, Charles Richet, J. J. Thomson, Sir William F. Barrett, Richard Hodgson, Frank Podmore, Harry Houdini, and William F. Barrett. Organizations such as the Society for Psychical Research, American Society for Psychical Research, Institut Métapsychique International, Cambridge Spiritualist Association, and university laboratories at University of Cambridge and University College London pursued experiments in mediumship, teleplasty, and survival claims. Critiques emphasized fraud exposed by investigators including Martin Gardner, Harry Houdini, John Nevil Maskelyne, Charles Richet (later skeptical), Richard Hodgson, John Duncan, and Hereward Carrington, while legal and forensic interest invoked cases examined by jurists like Lord Chief Justice Coleridge and publications in Nature and The Lancet.

Social, cultural, and religious impact

Spiritualism influenced social reformers and cultural figures including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Abolitionist movement leaders, Julia Ward Howe, Horace Greeley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Walt Whitman. It intersected with organizations such as Women's Christian Temperance Union, National Woman Suffrage Association, Labour movement groups, and educational circles in cities like New York City, Boston, London, Paris, Manchester, and Edinburgh. Spiritualist art, music, and literature appeared in salons and periodicals associated with Theosophical Society, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, A. E. Waite, Aleister Crowley, Gustave Moreau, Eugène delacroix, and playwrights and poets who engaged with séances and spirit themes. The movement affected funerary practices, bereavement culture, and popular science debates visible in public lectures, court trials, and exhibitions such as world's fairs attended by figures like Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell.

Decline, legacy, and revival movements

By the early 20th century Spiritualism declined in mainstream prominence after fraud exposures by Harry Houdini, critical reports from the Society for Psychical Research, cultural shifts following World War I, and the deaths of leading mediums and advocates. Its legacy persisted in new religious movements and organizations including Christian Science, Theosophical Society, New Thought, Spiritism (Allan Kardec), Spiritualist Church movement, Parapsychology, and modern New Age currents influenced by figures such as Helena Blavatsky and Arthur Conan Doyle. Revivals and continuities appear in contemporary groups, archives, museums, and academic studies maintained by institutions like University of Edinburgh, University of Oxford, Rhodes House, and digital collections, while the historical record engages scholars in disciplines across historiography, religious studies, and cultural history.

Category:Spiritualism