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Posted 04-03-2022: How Did Spiritualism Get Started?
Posted 04-03-2022: Eight Historical People Who Believe in Communication With the Dead
Date Posted: 04-03-2022
How did "Spiritualism" get started?
Modern Spiritualism dates from 1848 when the Fox sisters of Hydesville New York produced knocking sounds that were alleged to be spirit messages from a spirit.
Soon after John D. Fox, his wife, and six children moved into their new home they began to hear mysterious rapping noises. Two daughters, Maggie and Kate, gradually became brave enough to clap their hands and snap their fingers in an effort to elicit these knocking sounds. A series of raps responded to their initiative.
Soon a simple code of communication was set up between the Fox sisters and the invisible spirit who apparently resided in their home. With time Maggie and Kate learned that the spirit who made these rapping noises was that of a murdered peddler whose remains were buried in the cellar of their home.
News of the Fox sisters' sensational communication with the spirit world travelled rapidly. They had, it seemed, stumbled upon dramatic proof of life after death. Within months they were national celebrities.
Robert C. Fuller, Spiritual, but Not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America, 2002
The story of the Fox sisters led to an explosion in spiritualist activity in the USA.
Tests carried out in 1851 suggested that the girls were deliberately producing the knockings themselves, with no participation by spirits. This exposure did not slow down the growth in spiritualism, nor damage the reputation of the sisters. However in 1888 the Fox girls revealed that they had faked the whole thing.
There is no such thing as a spirit manifestation. That I have been mainly instrumental in perpetrating the fraud of spiritualism upon a too-confiding public many of you already know. It is the greatest sorrow of my life . . . When I began this deception, I was too young to know right from wrong.
Margaret Fox (1888), quoted in Joseph F. Rinn, Searchlight on Psychical Research, 1954
Margaret later said that the confession itself was a deception and returned to the promotion of Spiritualism.
The movement rapidly became very fashionable with both men and women and across all social classes and acquired the name Spiritualism in the 1850s. Some writers argue that Spiritualism was one of the first religions to become widespread through the actions of mass media.
Spiritualism was socially different from other religions of the time, particularly in the significant role played by women and lay people:
Apart from a quorum of Universalists and a few Unitarians, its leadership was almost entirely lay, often women in a time when their sex had very slim opportunities to exercise spiritual leadership in most established denominations.
It was largely a proletarian religious movement in significant alliance with that class's new literacy and sense of a power to make itself heard and, moreover, to remake the world. Early Spiritualism therefore perceived itself as a voice of the 'progressive' movements of the time.
Robert Ellwood, How New is the New Age, in Perspectives on the New Age, ed James R. Lewis, J. Gordon Melton, 1992
A wide variety of spirit manifestations could be found in the cities and spiritualistic activities became a common form of 'inspirational' entertainment.
By the 1860s and 1870s, one could sit for spirit photographs, attend spirit lectures on a range of progressive social and religious issues, and take part in carefully orchestrated seances at which ghosts materialized, voices spoke through levitating trumpets, messages wrote themselves on sealed slates, and mediums' bodies emitted disconcerting quantities of a strange, filmy substance known as ectoplasm.
Helen Sword, Ghostwriting Modernism, 2002
Some persons embraced Spiritualism's philosophical aspects, others found its emotional components appealing, and still others turned to it in crisis for a sense of stability. Women flourished as leaders within its anti-official organization. Publicists expertly promoted it, exploiting its sensationalist aspects. And many people attended séances simply for entertainment, for a kick.
John Corrigan, Business of the Heart, 2002
Spiritualism was popular, not just because it could entertain and provide comfort to the believer, but also because it seemed to combine the empirical methods and discoveries of science, such as the invisible force of electricity, with the religious idea of the afterlife.
One of the most influential mediums was Daniel Dunglas Home, who produced some of the most vibrant spirit manifestations (on one occasion he is said to have levitated out of a bedroom window seventy feet above street level and back in again through the living room window ).
Home survived attempts to show that he was a fraud (although there are some reports of him being caught out ). He polarized Victorian opinion; some regarded him as the real deal, while others thought him 'utterly contemptible'
In the attempt to provide a natural explanation for Home's phenomena, two groups of experts were appealed to – stage conjurors and scientists – yet it seems clear that the former were unable to explain the phenomena, while scientists who tested Home concluded his phenomena were real.
Peter Lamont, Spiritualism and a mid-Victorian Crisis of Evidence, The Historical Journal, 2004
The movement gained further credibility with the support of distinguished people, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes) the scientist Sir Oliver Lodge and the journalist Hannen Swaffer.
The conclusion, then, of my long search after truth, is that in spite of occasional fraud, which Spiritualists deplore, and in spite of wild imaginings, which they discourage, there remains a great solid core in this movement which is infinitely nearer to positive proof than any other religious development with which I am acquainted.
Arthur Conan Doyle, The New Revelation, 1918
Spiritualism was not necessarily seen as a separate religious movement, but as a way of providing evidence to support religious beliefs in both life after death and the existence of the soul.
Since scientists during this period were providing fewer supernatural and more natural explanations for the universe, spiritualist manifestations provided religious people with evidence that there was more to the world than scientists had discovered.
The first Spiritualist church in the UK opened in 1853 in Keighly in Yorkshire, and the first spiritualist newspaper, The Yorkshire Spiritual Telegraph, was published in the same town two years later. The first national Spiritualist meeting in the UK was held in 1890.
In 1882 the Society for Psychical Research was founded to examine apparently paranormal phenomena using rigorous and unbiased scientific methods of investigation.
The Roman Catholic Church condemned Spiritualism in 1898, and the Anglican Communion passed the following resolution at the 1920 Lambeth Conference:
The Conference, while recognising that the results of investigation have encouraged many people to find a spiritual meaning and purpose in human life and led them to believe in survival after death, sees grave dangers in the tendency to make a religion of spiritualism...
Spiritualism nonetheless thrived:
In the late 1920s and early 1930s there were around one quarter of a million practising Spiritualists and some two thousand Spiritualist societies in the UK in addition to flourishing microcultures of platform mediumship and 'home circles'
Steven J. Sutcliffe, Children of the New Age, 2002, p35
The Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951 made it illegal for people to pretend to act as spiritualistic mediums for money or other reward. This act was repealed in April 2008, and fraudulent mediums are now covered by consumer protection legislation, namely The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.
The physical basis of all psychic belief is that the soul is a complete duplicate of the body, resembling it in the smallest particular, although constructed in some far more tenuous material. In ordinary conditions these two bodies are intermingled so that the identity of the finer one is entirely obscured. At death, however, and under certain conditions in the course of life, the two divide and can be seen separately.
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Vital Message, 1919
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Date Posted: 04-03-2022
Eight Historical People Who Believed in Communication With the Dead
Though a few 18th-century European thinkers toyed with the concept of a potential connection between science and the supernatural, the new religious movement known as modern Spiritualism got its start in upstate New York in 1848. That’s when two sisters, Margaret and Kate Fox, became locally, and later internationally, famous after claiming they could get in touch with people beyond the grave. For some, the work of mediums like the Fox sisters was purely entertainment. But for others, it became a religion, and is still practiced as one in a few remaining communities today.
Spiritualism’s popularity waxed and waned throughout the remainder of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, predictably surging following massive losses of life, like the Civil War, World War I and the 1918 Flu Pandemic. And although the Spiritualist movement never completely faded out, it didn’t hold the same appeal after World War II. But for close to 100 years, Spiritualism attracted people from every part of society—including celebrities.
Here’s a look at eight famous figures who, at some point in their lives, believed it was possible to communicate with the dead.
1. Thomas Edison
When Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, the first record he created was of his own voice reciting the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Then, in 1920, he announced plans to capture a different type of voice: one that belonged to those no longer living. Specifically, a “spirit phone” capable of talking to the dead, says Marc Hartzman, historian and author of Chasing Ghosts: A Tour of Our Fascination with Spirits and the Supernatural.
“Aside from the life-changing feat of breaking through the veil, I believe his interest in Spiritualism was simply to demonstrate that science, not mediums and Ouija boards, was the way to do it,” Hartzman says. In fact, in 1920, Edison told American Magazine that “the methods and apparatus commonly used and discussed are just a lot of unscientific nonsense.”
Some believe Edison’s supposed belief in communicating with the dead was a joke, or a chance to make headlines and capitalize on Spiritualism’s popularity, according to Hartzman, who adds that it certainly is possible. But at the same time, Edison did have an unusual hypothesis regarding what happens after humans die.
“The inventor spoke of his belief in the idea of life units,” Hartzman explains. “In a nutshell, a hundred trillion of them make up a human being and keep us functioning. When we die, the life units move onto someone else.”
2. Mae West
After experiencing severe abdominal pains while performing in Chicago in 1929, writer, activist and star of the vaudeville stage and silver screen Mae West, then age 36, believed that her relief finally came at the hands of a Spiritualist healer named Sri Deva Ram Suku. A collection of West’s papers from 1928 through 1984 housed in Harvard University’s Schlesinger Library contains clippings, correspondence and pamphlets related to her involvement with Spiritualism, including Thomas John “Jack” Kelly, a well-known medium who became West’s spiritual advisor and friend.
The archive also features papers documenting West’s multiple trips to Lily Dale, a Spiritualist camp outside Buffalo, New York where she would visit Kelly for readings and healing. This included a stay in the summer of 1955, when West was on hand for the July 3 dedication of a new healing temple in the community.
3. Queen Victoria
Though modern Spiritualism had been around since the 1840s, it gained substantial traction in the United Kingdom once Queen Victoria became interested in the practice. Distraught over the 1861 death of her husband, Prince Albert, Victoria entered her “mourning period,” which lasted until the end of her life in 1901, and involved wearing all-black as well as mourning jewelry, which contained photos of Albert and locks of his hair. It also included attempts to get in touch with Albert in the afterlife.
Not long after Albert’s death, a 13-year-old medium named Robert James Lees claimed that the prince had gotten in touch during one of his séances saying that he had a message for the queen. Upon hearing this, Victoria arranged a séance with Lees, during which he referred to information no one else would know; most notably, a pet name he had for her, according to Hartzman.
“The teen performed numerous séances for the Queen at Buckingham Palace before turning over his mediumistic duties to another medium,” he explains. “Victoria continued holding séances at the palace and was known to seek her dead husband’s advice in political matters.”
4. Arthur Conan Doyle
Although Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is best known today as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries he was also one of the best-known Spiritualists. “The credulous writer believed firmly in the powers of many mediums, and was even convinced in the existence of fairies after a couple of teenage girls faked some photos,” Hartzman says.
It all started when Doyle joined a séance in 1880. Though he was initially a skeptic, he gradually became convinced that it was possible to communicate with the dead. In an 1887 letter to the weekly Spiritualist periodical "Light", Doyle wrote that “it was absolutely certain that intelligence could exist apart from the body,” and that “after weighing the evidence, I could no more doubt the existence of the phenomena than I could doubt the existence of lions in Africa.”
“His interest grew much stronger after he believed he heard a personal message from his son,” Hartzman explains. Holmes’ son Kingsley died from pneumonia contracted after being seriously wounded in the 1916 Battle of the Somme. Doyle ended up touring Europe and America to preach the wonders of Spiritualism and the afterlife.
Doyle’s fervent beliefs eventually strained his friendship with famed escape artist and illusionist Harry Houdini, who saw Spiritualism as a con, and spent years debunking the alleged communication that occurred during séances, and exposing mediums as frauds. According to Hartzman, their relationship took a substantial hit after Lady Doyle claimed to have received a long-winded message from Houdini’s mother, and Houdini refused to believe it.
“Despite Houdini’s efforts to expose frauds, Doyle’s beliefs never wavered,” Hartzman says. “In fact, he even claimed a spirit named Pheneas—who was thousands of years old—was in regular contact with him and his wife and advised them on such things as travel and real estate.”
5. Mary Todd Lincoln
Though Mary Todd Lincoln famously attempted to get in touch with her husband, President Abraham Lincoln, following his 1865 assasination, her involvement with Spiritualism began three years earlier, when their son Willie died from typhoid fever at the age of 11. Mary Todd initially attended seances as a way to cope with her grief, but found them to be so comforting that she started hosting her own.
But what may seem odd today was quite common at the time, says Lucile Scott, journalist and author of An American Covenant: A Story of Women, Mysticism and the Making of Modern America. “Mary Todd Lincoln joined the vast wave of Americans turning to Spiritualism during the Civil War, as the ghosts of fallen soldiers and both literal and spiritual ruin proliferated across the country,” she says.“In the late 1850s, approximately 10 percent of the American free adult populace allied itself with Spiritualism in some form or fashion, a trend that continued into the 1860s.”
However, the movement’s popularity and widespread acceptance wouldn’t last, and soon faced backlash, including from the medical establishment. “Doctors coined the term ‘mediomania,’ linking insanity to Spiritualism, and then redefined insanity’s symptoms as the most common side effects of entrancement—rigidity, seizure, ecstasy,” Scott explains.
But Mary Todd, by this time mourning both her son and husband, continued to attempt to communicate with the deceased members of her family. This, along with what was deemed “improper” and “unladylike” displays of grief after the president’s assassination, made Mary Todd the object of public ridicule.
“In 1872, both the Boston Herald and the New York Times mocked Mary for attending a séance to contact her late husband’s spirit,” Scott says. “Then, in 1875, Mary’s son Robert had her briefly committed to a sanatarium for her Spiritualist practices.”
But what may seem odd today was quite common at the time, says Lucile Scott, journalist and author of An American Covenant: A Story of Women, Mysticism and the Making of Modern America. “Mary Todd Lincoln joined the vast wave of Americans turning to Spiritualism during the Civil War, as the ghosts of fallen soldiers and both literal and spiritual ruin proliferated across the country,” she says.“In the late 1850s, approximately 10 percent of the American free adult populace allied itself with Spiritualism in some form or fashion, a trend that continued into the 1860s.”
However, the movement’s popularity and widespread acceptance wouldn’t last, and soon faced backlash, including from the medical establishment. “Doctors coined the term ‘mediomania,’ linking insanity to Spiritualism, and then redefined insanity’s symptoms as the most common side effects of entrancement—rigidity, seizure, ecstasy,” Scott explains.
But Mary Todd, by this time mourning both her son and husband, continued to attempt to communicate with the deceased members of her family. This, along with what was deemed “improper” and “unladylike” displays of grief after the president’s assassination, made Mary Todd the object of public ridicule.
“In 1872, both the Boston Herald and the New York Times mocked Mary for attending a séance to contact her late husband’s spirit,” Scott says. “Then, in 1875, Mary’s son Robert had her briefly committed to a sanatarium for her Spiritualist practices.”
6. Victoria Woodhull
Perhaps best known for her 1872 run for the presidency of the United States as the first woman to do so, Victoria Woodhull spent her lifetime blazing trails across multiple disciplines. From an early age, it’s thought she believed that she received special guidance and protection from spirits of the deceased, which empowered her to take actions unusual for a woman at the time.
In addition to her candidacy for president, Woodhull was also the first woman to own a Wall Street investment firm, found her own newspaper, and speak before Congress demanding that women be granted the right to vote. And while her run for political office didn’t end with her moving into the White House, Woodhull was elected president of the American Association of Spiritualists in 1871, calling it “the chief honor” of her life.
7. Dan Akyroyd
In addition to being a member of the original cast of Saturday Night Live when the show premiered in 1975, Dan Akyroyd is closely associated with his starring role in the Ghostbusters movie franchise. In fact, not only did he co-write the script, but the idea for the 1984 film was his own. And Akroyd didn’t have to look far for inspiration: His great-grandfather, Sam Aykroyd, was part of a Spiritualist community in Canada, where he regularly hosted seances in the family’s farmhouse throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
In 2009, Peter Aykroyd (Dan’s father and Sam’s grandson) published a book called A History of Ghosts, which documents the general history of Spiritualism, as well as the Aykroyd family’s role in the community. Discussing Spiritualism in a May 2020 interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Dan Aykroyd noted: “We believe -- and I guess it's my religion -- that you can speak from the other side, [and] that the consciousness survives.”
8. Hilma af Klimt
Although early-20th-century artists like Vasily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian are largely credited with sparking the phenomenon of abstract Western art, a Swedish painter named Hilma af Klimt began creating similar bold, colorful and geometric pieces even earlier. Other than art, af Klimt had another major interest in her life: Spiritualism. According to Scott, it is thought that she first showed Spiritualist inclinations in 1879, at the age of 17, which was shortly before embarking on a career as an artist.
“In 1896, Hilma began to hold regular seances with four other women who called themselves The Five,” Scott explains. “As part of their communications with the other side, the women began to produce automatic drawings channeled from the spirits.” While Hilma more formally aligned herself with other Spiritualist movements, she continued to paint her spiritually derived subjects until her death in 1944.
Some of af Klimt’s best-known works are part of a series called The Paintings for the Temple, that Scott says “sought to represent the transcendent pulsing realms we cannot observe with our senses.” She began painting the series in 1906, after spirits got in touch with her and the rest of The Five urging her to take on the project, and she completed it in 1915.
“The spirits told her that the paintings would one day be housed in a temple, which Hilma envisioned as consisting of multiple levels connected by a spiral path,” Scott notes. “Just over 100 years after she finished the series, her work was featured in New York’s Guggenheim Museum, a temple to the arts with just such a design.”
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