Concept
Spiritualism (movement)
Overview
Spiritualism is a social religious movement popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, according to which an individual's awareness persists after death and may be contacted by the living. The afterlife, or the "spirit world", is seen by spiritualists not as a static place, but as one in which spirits continue to interact and evolve. These two beliefs—that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits are more advanced than humans—lead spiritualists to the belief that spirits are capable of advising the living on moral and ethical issues and the nature of God. Some spiritualists follow "spirit guides"—specific spirits relied upon for spiritual direction.
Emanuel Swedenborg has some claim to be the father of spiritualism. The movement developed and reached its largest following from the 1840s to the 1920s, especially in English-speaking countries. It flourished for a half century without canonical texts or formal organization, attaining cohesion through periodicals, tours by trance lecturers, camp meetings, and the missionary activities of accomplished mediums. Many prominent spiritualists were women, and like most spiritualists, supported causes such as the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage. By the late 1880s the credibility of the informal movement had weakened due to accusations of fraud perpetrated by mediums, and formal spiritualist organizations began to appear. Spiritualism is currently practiced primarily through various denominational spiritualist churches in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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The error arises from certain tendencies which are in themselves legitimate, but which have been carried too far; and Positivism satisfies these tendencies in their due measure. Hitherto the evil has remained unchecked, except by the theologico-metaphysical spirit, which, by giving rise to what is called Spiritualism, has rendered a very valuable service. But useful as it has been, it could not arrest the active…
Auguste Comte, A General View of Positivism Or, Summary exposition of the System of Thought and Life
States what Spiritualism is; names Spiritualism several times.
To treat abstract principles as finalities, before which our intellects may come to rest in a state of admiring contemplation, is the great rationalist failing. Spiritualism, as often held, may be simply a state of admiration for one kind, and of dislike for another kind, of abstraction. I remember a worthy spiritualist professor who always referred to materialism as the 'mud-philosophy,' and deemed it thereby…
William James, Pragmatism
Names Spiritualism several times.
This is what the spiritualists keep saying; and since we do, as a matter of fact, have the 'compounded' idea, and do know _a_ and _b_ together, they adopt a farther hypothesis to explain that fact. The separate ideas exist, they say, but _affect_ a third entity, the soul.
William James, The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1
Names Spiritualism several times; opens on Spiritualism.
Philosophers who discussed Spiritualism (movement)
Related ideas
- Afterlife
- Anglicanism
- Women's rights
- Individualism
- Spirit (animating force)
- Women's suffrage
- Kardecist spiritism
- Materialism
- Mormonism
- Natural selection
- Emanuel Swedenborg
- Mediumship
- Paris
- Pantheism
- Reincarnation
- Sherlock Holmes
- Slavery
- Society for Psychical Research
- Positivism
- Syncretism
- PBS
- Thomas Edison
- The New York Times
- Abraham Lincoln
Place in the tradition
Part of Animism.