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SPIRITUALISM

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Originally appearing in Volume V25, Page 708 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SPIRITUALISM , a See also:

term used by philosophical writers to denote the opposite of See also:materialism, and also used in a narrower sense to describe the belief that the spiritual See also:world manifests itself by producing in the See also:physical world effects inexplicable by the known See also:laws of nature. It is in the latter sense that it is here discussed. The belief in such occasional manifestations has probably existed as See also:long as the belief in the existence of See also:spirits apart from human bodies (see See also:ANIMISM; MAGIC, &c.), and a See also:complete examination into it would involve a discussion of the religions of all ages and nations. In 1848, however, a See also:peculiar See also:form of it, believed to be based on abundant experimental See also:evidence, arose in See also:America and spread there with See also:great rapidity, and thence over the civilized world. To this See also:movement, which has been called " See also:modern spiritualism," the See also:present See also:article is confined. The movement began in a single See also:family. In 1848 a Mr and Mrs J. D. See also:Fox and their two daughters, at Hydesville (See also:Wayne See also:county), New See also:York, were much disturbed by unexplained knockings. At length Kate Fox (b. 1839) discovered that the cause of the sounds was intelligent and would make raps as requested, and, communication being established, the rapper professed to be the spirit of a murdered pedlar. An investigation into the See also:matter was thought to show that none of the Fox family was concerned in producing the rappings; but the evidence that they were not concerned is insufficient, although similar noises had been noticed occasionally in the See also:house before they lived there.

It was, how-ever, at See also:

Rochester, where Kate and her See also:sister See also:Margaret (1836-1893) went to live with a married sister (Mrs See also:Fish) that modern spiritualism assumed its present form, and that communication was, as it was believed, established with lost relatives and deceased eminent men.. The presence of certain " mediums " was required to form the See also:link between the worlds of the living and of the dead, and Kate Fox and her sister were the first mediums. Spiritualists do not as yet claim to know what See also:special qualities in mediums enable spirits thus to make use of them. The earliest communications were carried on by means of " raps," or, as See also:Sir See also:William See also:Crookes calls them, " percussive sounds." It was agreed that one See also:rap should mean " no " and three " yes," while more complicated messages were—and are—obtained in other ways, such as calling over or pointing to letters of the See also:alphabet, when raps occur at the required letters. The See also:idea of communicating with the departed was naturally attractive even to the merely curious, still more to those who were See also:mourning for lost See also:friends, and most of all to those who believed that this was the commencement of a new See also:revelation. The first two causes have attracted many inquirers; but it is the last that has chiefly given to modern spiritualism its religious aspect. Many came to See also:witness the new wonder, and the excitement and See also:interest spread rapidly. It should be noted that expectations favourable to the new idea had already been created by the interest in mesmerism and the phenomena of hypnotic See also:trance (see See also:HYPNOTISM), widely diffused at this See also:time both in America and See also:Europe. It was believed that See also:information about other worlds and from higher intelligences could be obtained from persons in the See also:sleep-waking See also:state. See also:Andrew See also:Jackson See also:Davis (q.v.) was in America the most prominent example of such persons; his See also:work, The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations (New York, 1849), was alleged to have been dictated in " clairvoyant " trance, and before 1848 his followers were expecting a new religious revelation. Many reputed "clairvoyants" See also:developed into mediums (q.v.). The " spiritualistic " movement spread like an epidemic.

" Spirit circles " were soon formed in many families. There is very little evidence to show that mediumship II arose anywhere spontaneously,' but those who sat with the Foxes were often found to become mediums themselves and then in their turn developed mediumship in others. The See also:

mere See also:reading of accounts of seances developed the peculiar susceptibility in some persons, while others, who became mediums ultimately, did so only after prolonged and patient waiting. There seems to have been little See also:practical interest in spiritual-ism in See also:England till 1852, when its first development took the form of a See also:mania for table-turning (q.v.). This seems to have prevailed all over Europe in 1853. In England it was greatly stimulated by the visit of Mrs See also:Hayden, a professional See also:medium from See also:Boston, in the See also:winter of 1852-1853. See also:Daniel Dunglas See also:Home, the next medium of importance who appeared in See also:London, came over from America in 1855; and for many years almost all the See also:chief mediums for physical phenomena known in England came from the See also:United States. It was at See also:Keighley in See also:Yorkshire—where also the first See also:English periodical, the Yorkshire Spiritual See also:Telegraph, was published in 1855 and onwards—that spiritual-ism as a religious movement first made any See also:mark in England; but this movement, though it spread rather widely, cannot be said to have attained at any time very vigorous proportions. It had taken more hold in its See also:original home in the United States of America, and thence it has spread in some degree to most See also:Christian countries. Nowhere, however, has there been much religious organization in connexion with it, and the force of the movement seems to have declined rather than increased. In the present article it is impossible to give an exhaustive See also:catalogue of the phenomena and modes of communication of modern spiritualism.' The greater See also:part of the phenomena may be divided into two classes. To the first belong what may be called the physical phenomena (q.v.) of spiritualism—those, namely, which, if correctly observed and due neither to conscious or unconscious trickery nor to See also:hallucination or illusion on the part of the observers, exhibit a force acting in the physical world hitherto unknown to See also:science.

The earliest of these phenomena were the raps already spoken of and other sounds occurring without apparent physical cause, and the similarly mysterious movements of See also:

furniture and other See also:objects; and these were shortly followed by the ringing of bells and playing of musical See also:instruments. Later followed the See also:appearance of See also:lights; quasi-human voices; musical sounds, produced, it is said, without instruments; the " materialization " or presence in material form of what seemed to be human hands and faces, and ultimately of complete figures, alleged to be not those of any See also:person present, and some-times claimed by witnesses as deceased relatives; " psychography," or " See also:direct See also:writing and See also:drawing," asserted to be done without human intervention; " spirit-See also:photography," or the appearance on photographic plates of human and other forms when no counterpart was visible before the See also:camera to any but specially endowed seers; 3 unfastening of cords and bonds; See also:elongation of the medium's See also:body; handling of red-hot coals; and the apparent passage of solids through solids without disintegration. The second class of phenomena, which we may See also:call the automatic, consists in table-tilting and turning with contact; writing, drawing, &c., through the medium's See also:hand; convulsive movements and involuntary dancing; entrancement, trance-speaking, and See also:personation by the medium of deceased persons attributed to temporary " See also:possession " (q.v.); seeing spirits and visions and See also:hearing phantom voices. This class bears See also:affinity to some of the phenomena of hypnotism and of certain See also:nervous 1 It is possible that the family of Dr See also:Phelps were unaware of the " Rochester knockings " when the disturbances began in his house at See also:Stratford, See also:Connecticut, in 185o (see Capron's Modern Spiritualism, its Facts, &c.); but these disturbances, as recorded, have no closer resemblance to the See also:ordinary occurrences at a spiritualistic seance than those which took See also:place at Tedworth in 1661 (see See also:Glanvill's Sadducismus Triumphatus) and at Slawensik in 18o6 (see See also:Kerner's Seherin von Prevorst), and others too numerous to mention. 2 See the articles on PSYCHICAL See also:RESEARCH; MAGIC; See also:CONJURING; See also:AUTOMATISM; See also:DIVINATION ; CRYSTAL GAZING ; HYPNOTISM ; See also:APPARITIONS; HALLUCINATIONS; See also:HAUNTINGS, &C. ' There have been several professional photographers (all detected in See also:fraud sooner or later) who made it their business to take photo-complaints, to certain epidemics of the middles ages," and to phenomena that have occurred at some religious revivals. In a third class must be placed the cure of disease by healing mediums. This belongs to medical See also:psychology, and cannot well be studied apart from hypnotic treatment of disease, from the now well-recognized See also:power of See also:suggestion (q.v.), from " faith See also:cures," " mind cures," " Christian Science " and cures connected with other forms of religious belief (see FAITH-HEALING). Phenomena falling into the automatic class are much the most See also:common. The investigation of See also:Carpenter on unconscious cerebration and of See also:Faraday on unconscious See also:muscular See also:action 5 showed See also:early in the movement that it was not necessary to look outside the medium's own See also:personality for the explanation of even intelligent communications unconsciously conveyed through table-tilting, automatic writing and trance-speaking--provided the matter communicated .was not beyond the range of the medium's own knowledge or See also:powers. And the whole subject of the action of the subconscious personality—the " subliminal self "—has since been more fully worked out by psychologists and notably by F. W.

H. See also:

Myers.' No one conversant with the facts now doubts that what looks like possession or See also:inspiration by an See also:external intelligence may generally be accounted for by subconscious mentation, so that in all cases where no material effects are produced except such as can be attributed to the muscular action of the medium, the evidence for a supernormal See also:interpretation must depend on the content of the communication. Spiritualists maintain that true information is received, which is provably unknown to the medium or other persons present, or which at least is expressed in a See also:mar..ner obviously beyond their powers; and they attribute this to extra-corporeal intelligences. Others, while not going so far as this, admit that the content of the communications does occasionally exceed the medium's knowledge and affords evidence of telepathic communication (see See also:TELEPATHY) between living persons. Probably most per-sons who have studied the subject would now be inclined to go this length; and there is some evidence, notably in connexion with the trances of an See also:American medium, Mrs See also:Piper,' which has convinced some See also:good observers that the See also:hypothesis of occasional communication from deceased persons must be seriously entertained.' Recently the Society of Psychical Research has obtained from various persons automatic script affording important new material for investigation and which prima facie supports the spiritualistic hypothesis. Whether or not further study of the scripts of these writers confirms this hypothesis, it cannot fail to throw See also:light on the nature of the intelligence involved. The scripts contain some matter unknown to the writers and in particular show interconnexions with each other not to be accounted for by knowledge normally possessed by the writers.' At no See also:period of the spiritualistic movement has the class of physical phenomena been accepted altogether without See also:criticism. Most spiritualists know that much fraud in connexion with them has been discovered—frequently by spiritualists themselves—and that the conditions favourable to obtaining them are often such as favour fraud. It is with a full knowledge of these difficulties in the way of investigation that they maintain that unmistakably genuine phenomena are of See also:constant occurrence. Many volumes containing accounts of such phenomena have been printed, and See also:appeal is often made to the See also:mass of evidence so accumulated. " No physical science can See also:array a tithe of the mass of evidence by which psychism " (i.e. what is usually called spiritualism) " is supported," says See also:Serjeant See also:Cox.10 But the graphs which should contain, besides the normal sitter, representations of deceased friends. For an See also:account of these see Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vii.

268. See See also:

Hecker, Epidemics of the See also:Middle Ages (1859). See also:Athenaeum (See also:July 2, 1853); see also on this subject See also:Chevreul, De la baguette divinatoire, &c. (1854). 6 Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily See also:Death (2 vols., 1903). See Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vi. 436; viii. 1; xiii. 284; xxrv. 351. See F. W.

H. Myers, op. cit. See Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, xx., xxi. 166; xxii. 19; See also:

xxiv. 2-328. 1° Mechanism of See also:Man: What am I? (1879), H. 313. See also:majority of these accounts have scarcely any scientific value. Spiritualists have, as a See also:rule, sought to convince not by testimony but by ocular demonstration. Yet, if there is not a mass of scientific evidence, there are a number of witnesses—among them distinguished men of science and others of undoubted intelligence —who have convinced themselves by observation that phenomena occur which cannot be explained by known causes; and this fact must carry See also:weight, even without careful records, when the witnesses are otherwise known to be competent and trustworthy observers.

Among proposed normal explanations of these phenomena that of hallucination (q.v.), including illusion as to what is seen almost amounting to hallucination, deserves careful See also:

consideration. Sensory hallucination of several persons together who are not in a hypnotic state is, however, a rare phenomena outside the seance See also:room and must not therefore be lightly assumed within it; nor is it in most cases a plausible explanation where there is See also:general agreement not only of all the witnesses but of more than one sense as to what is perceived, as distinguished from what is inferred. Nevertheless something of the See also:kind seems occasionally to have happened, especially at some of the seances with Home.' What may broadly be called " conjuring " is a much more probable explanation of most of the recorded phenomena; and in the vast majority of cases the witnesses do not seem to have duly appreciated the possibilities of conjuring, and have consequently neither taken sufficient precautions to exclude it nor allowed for the accidental circumstances which may on any particular occasion favour special tricks or illusions. The experiments of S. J. Davey and R. See also:Hodgson should be studied in this connexion.' At a spiritualistic seance the medium has the See also:privilege of failing whenever he pleases and there is seldom any settled See also:programme—circumstances very favourable to deception. As it was put by Mr Stainton See also:Moses, a leading spiritualist and himself a medium, who wrote under the nom de plume' of " M.A. (Oxen.)": " In 99 out of every zoo cases See also:people do not get what they want or expect. Test after test, cunningly devised, on which the investigator has set his mind, is put aside, and another substituted."3 In other words, the evidence is rarely strictly experimental, and this not only gives facilities for fraud, but makes it necessary to allow a large margin for accidents, mistakes and mal-observation. It may be urged that if none of the phenomena is genuine we have to assume a large amount of apparently aimless trickery in non-professional mediums. But it must be See also:borne in mind that the most excellent moral See also:character in the medium is no guaranteee against trickery, unless it can be proved that he was in no abnormal See also:mental See also:condition when the phenomena occurred; and extraordinary deceptions are known to have been carried on by hysterical patients and others with no apparent See also:motive.

One of the possibilities to be allowed for is that of exceptional muscular endowment or anatomical peculiarity in the medium. For instance, it is not very uncommon to find persons who can make loud sounds by partially dislocating and restoring the toe, See also:

knee, or other See also:joints, and come experiments made with the Fox girls in 1851 supported the view that they made raps by this method. Besides the general arguments for supposing that the physical phenomena of spiritualism may be due to conjuring, there are two special reasons which gain in force as time goes on. (1) Almost every medium who has been prominently before the public has at some time or other been detected in fraud, or what cannot be distinguished from fraud except on some violently improbable hypothesis; and (2) although it is easy to devise experiments of various kinds which, by eliminating the See also:necessity for continuous observation on the part of the investigator, would place certain phenomena above the suspicion of conjur- ' See, e.g., See also:Report on Spiritualism of the See also:Committee of the London Dialectical Society (1871), pp. 207, 367-369. See also Guldenstubbe, De la realite See also:des esprits (1857), p. 66; also See also:Maxwell, See also:Les Phenomenes psychiques (1903). ' See Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, iv. 371; viii. 253. Human Nature, for 1876, p. 267.See also:ing, there is no good evidence that such experiments have ever succeeded.

Nevertheless there does exist evidence for the genuineness of the physical phenomena which deserves consideration. See also:

Count Agenor de Gasparin, in his Tables tournantes (See also:Paris, 1854), gives an account of what seem to have been careful experiments, though they are hardly described in sufficient detail to enable, us to form an See also:independent See also:judgment. They convinced him that by some unknown force tables could be got to move without contact. The experiments were conducted with his own family and friends without professional mediums, and in some of them he was assisted by M. Thury, See also:professor of physics at See also:Geneva, who was also convinced of the operation of an unknown force.' The minutes of the sub-committee No. 1 of the committee of the Dialectical Society (op. cit., pp. 373–391) report that tables moved without contact, whilst all the persons present knelt on chairs (the hacks of which were turned to the table) with their hands on the backs. The report, however, would be of greater value if the names of the medium and of the working members of the committee were given—we only know that of Serjeant Cox—and if they had written independent accounts of what they witnessed. Sir William Crookes has published accounts of striking experiments and observations with D. D. Home, which have See also:left him convinced of the genuineness of the wide range of physical phenomena which occurred through Home's mediums See also:ship.' Of considerable interest again are the experiences of Mr Stainton Moses between 187o and 1880, of which the best account has been compiled from contemporary records by F. W.

H. Myers in two papers published in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research.' More recently several men of science, including Sir See also:

Oliver See also:Lodge in England, Professor See also:Charles Richet in See also:France, and Professors See also:Schiaparelli and Morselli in See also:Italy, have convinced themselves of the supernormal character (though not of any spiritualistic explanation) of certain physical phenomena that have occurred in the presence of a Neapolitan medium, Eusapia Palladino, though it is known that she frequently practises deception.? M. See also:Joseph Maxwell, of See also:Bordeaux, has published accounts 8 of raps and movements of objects without contact, witnessed with private and other mediums, which he appears to have observed with care, though he does not describe the conditions sufficiently for others to form any independent judgment about them. The interest in spiritualism, apart from scientific curiosity and mere love of the marvellous, is partly due to the belief that trustworthy information and See also:advice about mundane matters can be obtained through mediums—to the same impulse in fact which has in all ages attracted inquirers to See also:fortune-tellers. The more thoughtful spiritualists, however, are chiefly interested in the assurance of See also:life and progress after death, and the moral and religious teaching, which they obtain through automatic writing and trance-speaking. It was discovered very early in the movement that the accuracy of these communications could not always be relied on; but it is maintained by spiritualists that by the intelligent exercise of the See also:reason it is possible to See also:judge whether the communicating intelligence is trustworthy, especially after prolonged acquaintance with particular intelligences, or where proofs are given of identity with persons known to have been trustworthy on See also:earth. Such intelligences are See also:nut supposed to be infallible, but to have the knowledge of spirit life superadded to their earthly experience. Still the agreement between communications so received has not been sufficiently 4 See Thury, Les Tables tournantes considerees au point du vue de la question de physique generale qui s'y rattache (Geneva, 1855). Quart. Journ. of Science (July and Oct. 1871; republished with other papers by Crookes, under the See also:title of Researches on the Phenomena of Spiritualism (1874-1876).

See also his" Notes of Seances with D.D.Home," Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vi. 98. 6 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, ix. 245; xi. 24. 7 See E. Morselli, Psicologia e spiritismo (See also:

Turin, 19o8); cf. also Bulletin de l'institut general psychologique (Nov.--Dec., 1908), and Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, See also:xxiii. 306. e Maxwell, Les Phenomenes psychiques (1st ed., Paris, 1903). There is also an English See also:translation entitled See also:Meta psychical Phenomena (London, 190.5). - great for anything like a universal spiritualistic creed to have been SPITHEAD, a strait of the English Channel, between the arrived at. In France the See also:doctrine of successive reincarnations with intervals of spirit life promulgated by See also:Allan Kardec (L.

H. D. Rivail) forms a prominent See also:

element of spiritualistic belief. This view has, however, made but little way in England and America, where the opinions of the great majority of spiritualists vary from orthodox See also:Christianity to See also:Unitarianism of an extreme kind. Probably it would be impossible to unite spiritualists in any creed, which„ besides the generally accepted belief in See also:God and See also:immortality, should postulate more than the progress of the spirit after death, and the power of some of the dead to communicate with the living by means of mediums. Spiritualism has been accused of a tendency to produce in-sanity, but spiritualistic sittings carried on by private persons do not appear to be harmful provided those who find in them-selves " mediumistic " powers do not lose their self-See also:control and exercise these powers when they do not See also:desire to do so, or against their better judgment. Public sittings are See also:apt to be means of obtaining See also:money by false pretences, and the great See also:scandal of spiritualism is undoubtedly the encouragement it gives to the immoral See also:trade of fraudulent mediumship.

End of Article: SPIRITUALISM

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