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Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism became most known as a social religious movement 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 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 providing useful insight regarding moral and ethical issues, as well as about the nature of God. Some spiritualists will speak of a concept which they refer to as "spirit guides"—specific spirits, often contacted, who are relied upon for spiritual guidance. Emanuel Swedenborg has some claim to be the father of Spiritualism. Spiritism, a branch of spiritualism developed by Allan Kardec and today practiced mostly in Continental Europe and Latin America, especially in Brazil, emphasizes reincarnation.
A séance or seance is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word séance comes from the French word for "session", from the Old French seoir, "to sit". In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, speak of "une séance de cinéma". In English, however, the word came to be used specifically for a meeting of people who are gathered to receive messages from ghosts or to listen to a spirit medium discourse with or relay messages from spirits. In modern English usage, participants need not be seated while engaged in a séance.
Levitation or transvection, in the paranormal or religious context, is the claimed ability to raise a human body or other object into the air by mystical means.
Daniel Dunglas Home was a Scottish physical medium with the reported ability to levitate to a variety of heights, speak with the dead, and to produce rapping and knocks in houses at will. His biographer Peter Lamont opines that he was one of the most famous men of his era. Harry Houdini described him as "one of the most conspicuous and lauded of his type and generation" and "the forerunner of the mediums whose forte is fleecing by presuming on the credulity of the public." Home conducted hundreds of séances, which were attended by many eminent Victorians. There have been eyewitness accounts by séance sitters describing conjuring methods and fraud that Home may have employed.
A spiritualist church is a church affiliated with the informal spiritualist movement which began in the United States in the 1840s. Spiritualist churches are now found around the world, but are most common in English-speaking countries, while in Latin America, Central America, Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa, where a form of spiritualism called spiritism is more popular, meetings are held in spiritist centres, most of which are non-profit organizations rather than ecclesiastical bodies.
Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spirit channelling, including séance tables, trance, and ouija.
Eusapia Palladino was an Italian Spiritualist physical medium. She claimed extraordinary powers such as the ability to levitate tables, communicate with the dead through her spirit guide John King, and to produce other supernatural phenomena.
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Ectoplasm is a term used in spiritualism to denote a substance or spiritual energy "exteriorized" by physical mediums. It was coined in 1894 by psychical researcher Charles Richet. Although the term is widespread in popular culture, there is no scientific evidence that ectoplasm exists and many purported examples were exposed as hoaxes fashioned from cheesecloth, gauze or other natural substances.
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Eva Carrière, also known as Eva C, was a fraudulent materialization medium in the early 20th century known for making fake ectoplasm from chewed paper and cut-out faces from magazines and newspapers.
Hereward Carrington was a well-known British-born American investigator of psychic phenomena and author. His subjects included several of the most high-profile cases of apparent psychic ability of his times, and he wrote over 100 books on subjects including the paranormal and psychical research, conjuring and stage magic, and alternative medicine. Carrington promoted fruitarianism and held pseudoscientific views about dieting.
Gladys Osborne Leonard was a British trance medium, renowned for her work with the Society for Psychical Research. Although psychical researchers such as Oliver Lodge were convinced she had communicated with spirits, skeptical researchers were convinced that Leonard's trance control was a case of dissociative identity disorder.
Trevor Henry Hall (1910–1991) was a British author, surveyor, and sceptic of paranormal phenomena. Hall made controversial claims regarding early members of the Society for Psychical Research. His books caused a heated controversy within the parapsychology community.
George Valiantine (1874–1947) was an American direct voice medium that was exposed as a fraud.
Kathleen Goligher was an Irish spiritualist medium. Goligher was endorsed by engineer William Jackson Crawford who wrote three books about her mediumship, but was exposed as a fraud by physicist Edmund Edward Fournier d'Albe in 1921.
Alan Gauld is a British parapsychologist, psychologist and spiritualist writer best known for his research on the history of hypnotism and mediumship.
Archibald Campbell Holms most well known as A. Campbell Holms was a Scottish shipbuilding expert and spiritualist.
References
- ↑ Biography for Ruth Brandon
- ↑ An Interview with Ruth Brandon by Louis E. Bourgeois
- ↑ Marlene Tromp. Altered States: Sex, Nation, Drugs, And Self-transformation in Victorian Spiritualism . State University of New York Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-0791467398
- ↑ Martin Gardner. (1988). The New Age: Notes of a Fringe Watcher. Prometheus Books. p. 175. ISBN 978-0879754327
- ↑ Ruth Brandon. Scientists and the Supernormal. New Scientist 16 June 1983
- ↑ Brian Inglis. Supernormal. New Scientist. 30 June 1983
- ↑ Ruth Brandon. Prestidigitations. New Scientist. 14 July 1983
- ↑ Ruth Brandon at Harper Collins Publishers
- ↑ Ruth Brandon at Grove Atlantic
- ↑ Ruth Brandon (2008): Other people's daughters. The Life and Times of the Governess. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
- ↑ Brandon, Ruth (1984). The Spiritualists: The Passion for the Occult in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Prometheus Books. ISBN 9780879752699.
