Spiritualism first appeared in the 1840s in the "
Burned-over District" of
upstate New York, where earlier religious movements such as
Millerism and
Mormonism had emerged during the
Second Great Awakening. However, Millerism and Mormonism did not associate themselves with spiritualism. This region of New York State was an environment in which many thought direct communication with God or angels was possible, and that God would not behave harshly—for example, that God would not condemn
unbaptised infants to an eternity in Hell. Mesmer did not contribute religious beliefs, but he brought a technique, later known as
hypnotism, that it was claimed could induce trances and cause subjects to report contact with supernatural beings. There was a great deal of professional showmanship inherent to demonstrations of
Mesmerism, and the practitioners who lectured in mid-19th-century North America sought to entertain their audiences as well as to demonstrate methods for personal contact with the divine. Another social reform movement with significant spiritualist involvement was the effort to improve the conditions of Native Americans. Kathryn Troy writes in a study of Indian ghosts in seances: Undoubtedly, on some level spiritualists recognized the Indian spectres that appeared at seances as a symbol of the sins and subsequent guilt of the United States in its dealings with Native Americans. Spiritualists were literally haunted by the presence of Indians. But for many that guilt was not assuaged: rather, in order to confront the haunting and rectify it, they were galvanized into action. The political activism of spiritualists on behalf of Indians was thus the result of combining white guilt and fear of divine judgment with a new sense of purpose and responsibility.
Believers and skeptics In the years following the sensation that greeted the Fox sisters, demonstrations of mediumship (séances and
automatic writing, for example) proved to be a profitable venture, and soon became popular forms of entertainment and spiritual catharsis. The Fox sisters earned a living this way, and others followed their lead. fraud was widespread, and some of these cases were prosecuted in court. Despite numerous instances of chicanery, the appeal of spiritualism was strong. Prominent in the ranks of its adherents were those grieving the death of a loved one. Many families during the time of the American Civil War had seen their men go off and never return, and images of the battlefield, produced through the new medium of photography, demonstrated that their loved ones had not only died in overwhelmingly huge numbers, but horribly as well. One well known case is that of
Mary Todd Lincoln, who, grieving the loss of her son, organized séances in the
White House which were attended by her husband, President
Abraham Lincoln. In addition, the movement appealed to reformers, who fortuitously found that the spirits favoured such causes
du jour as abolition of slavery, and equal rights for women. Other prominent adherents included journalist and pacifist
William T. Stead (1849–1912) and physician and author
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930). The
Paris séances of
Eusapia Palladino were attended by an enthusiastic
Pierre Curie and a dubious
Marie Curie.
Thomas Edison wanted to develop a "spirit phone", an ethereal device that would summon to the living the voices of the dead and record them for posterity. The claims of spiritualists and others as to the reality of spirits were investigated by the
Society for Psychical Research, founded in London in 1882. The society set up a Committee on Haunted Houses. Prominent investigators who exposed cases of fraud came from a variety of backgrounds, including professional researchers such as
Frank Podmore of the
Society for Psychical Research and Harry Price of the
National Laboratory of Psychical Research, and professional
conjurers such as
John Nevil Maskelyne. Maskelyne exposed the
Davenport brothers by appearing in the audience during their shows and explaining how the trick was done. exposed the tricks of "mediums" The psychical researcher
Hereward Carrington exposed fraudulent mediums' tricks, such as those used in slate-writing,
table-turning, trumpet mediumship, materializations, sealed-letter reading, and
spirit photography. The skeptic
Joseph McCabe, in his book
Is Spiritualism Based on Fraud? (1920), documented many fraudulent mediums and their tricks.
Magicians and writers on magic have a long history of exposing the fraudulent methods of mediumship. During the 1920s, professional magician
Harry Houdini undertook a well-publicised campaign to expose fraudulent mediums; he was adamant that "Up to the present time everything that I have investigated has been the result of deluded brains." Other magician or magic-author debunkers of spiritualist mediumship have included
Chung Ling Soo,
Henry Evans,
Julien Proskauer,
Fulton Oursler,
Joseph Dunninger, and
Joseph Rinn. In February 1921,
Thomas Lynn Bradford, in an experiment designed to ascertain the existence of an afterlife, committed suicide in his apartment by blowing out the pilot light on his heater and turning on the gas. After that date, no further communication from him was received by an associate whom he had recruited for the purpose.
Unorganized movement Chicago women discuss spiritualism (1906) The movement quickly spread throughout the world; though only in the United Kingdom did it become as widespread as in the United States. In Britain, by 1853, invitations to tea among the prosperous and fashionable often included table-turning, a type of séance in which spirits were said to communicate with people seated around a table by tilting and rotating the table. By 1897, spiritualism was said to have more than eight million followers in the United States and Europe, mostly drawn from the
middle and
upper classes. Spiritualism was primarily a middle- and upper-class movement, and it was especially popular among women. American spiritualists would meet in private homes for séances, at lecture halls for trance lectures, at state or national conventions, and at summer camps attended by thousands. Among the most significant of the camp meetings were Camp Etna, in
Etna, Maine; Onset Bay Grove, in
Onset, Massachusetts;
Lily Dale, in western New York State;
Camp Chesterfield, in Indiana; the
Wonewoc Spiritualist Camp, in
Wonewoc, Wisconsin; and
Lake Pleasant, in
Montague, Massachusetts. In founding
camp meetings, the spiritualists appropriated a form developed by U.S. Protestant denominations in the early nineteenth century. Spiritualist camp meetings were located most densely in New England, but were also established across the upper Midwest.
Cassadaga, Florida, is the most notable spiritualist camp meeting in the southern United States.
The Night Side of Nature, by Catherine Crowe, published in 1853, provided definitions and accounts of wraiths, doppelgängers, apparitions, and haunted houses. Mainstream newspapers treated stories of ghosts and haunting as they would any other news story. An account in the
Chicago Daily Tribune in 1891, "sufficiently bloody to suit the most fastidious taste", tells of a house believed to be haunted by the ghosts of three murder victims seeking revenge against their killer's son, who was eventually driven insane. Certain methods intended to ward off spirits developed alongside broader nineteenth century interest in spirits and supernatural phenomena. In parts of the American South, many vernacular homes had ceilings or exterior woodwork painted a pale blue. It was believed that restless spirits, sometimes called “haints”, could be warded off by this pale blue color. This pale blue color became widely known as “haint blue” since it was thought that the pale blue could repel or confuse evil spirits. Architectural historian Edward A. Chappel notes that blue house paint was understood as a protective measure against demons, reflecting how spiritual beliefs influenced architectural design and everyday life. Many families, "having no faith in ghosts", thereafter moved into the house, but all soon moved out again. In the 1920s, numerous "psychic" books were published, ranging in quality. Such books were often based on excursions initiated by the use of
Ouija boards. A few of these popular books displayed unorganized spiritualism, though most were less insightful. The movement was extremely individualistic, with each person relying on their own experiences and readings to discern the nature of the afterlife. The organisation was therefore slow to appear, and when it did, it was resisted by mediums and trance lecturers. Most members were content to attend Christian churches, and particularly
universalist churches harboured many spiritualists. As the spiritualism movement began to fade, partly through the publicity of fraud accusations and partly through the appeal of religious movements such as
Christian Science, the
Spiritualist Church was organised. This church can claim to be the main vestige of the movement left today in the United States.
Eusapia Palladino (1854–1918) was an Italian spiritualist medium from the slums of Naples who made a career touring Italy, France, Germany, Britain, the United States, Russia, and Poland. Palladino was said by believers to perform spiritualist phenomena in the dark: levitating tables, producing apports, and materializing spirits. Upon investigation, all these things were found to be the result of deception. The British medium
William Eglinton (1857–1933) claimed to perform spiritualist phenomena such as movement of objects and
materializations. All of his feats were exposed as tricks. '' magazine. The
Bangs Sisters, Mary "May" E. Bangs (1862–1917) and Elizabeth "Lizzie" Snow Bangs (1859–1920), were two spiritualist mediums based in Chicago, who made a career out of painting the dead or "spirit portraits" and conducted
slate-writing séances in which questions were sealed in an envelope and placed between two tied slates and after a period of supposed spirit communication the letters would appear to have been answered in a different handwriting. Their methods were investigated by
Herbert A. Parkyn, founder of the
Chicago School of Psychology, and
Stanley L. Krebs, a past graduate and member of its faculty. Parkyn first attended a séance and concluded that the phenomenon was produced by mechanical means. He then advised Krebs to attend with a concealed mirror on his lap to observe movements beneath the table. Krebs confirmed that the envelope was secretly removed, opened in an adjoining room by an accomplice, answered, resealed, and returned to the slates without detection. The full incident was later reported in
Suggestion magazine and by the
Society for Psychical Research.
Mina Crandon (1888–1941), a spiritualist medium in the 1920s, was known for producing an
ectoplasm hand during her séances. The hand was later exposed as a trick when biologists found it to be made from a piece of carved animal liver. In 1934, the psychical researcher
Walter Franklin Prince described the Crandon case as "the most ingenious, persistent, and fantastic complex of fraud in the history of psychic research." The American voice medium
Etta Wriedt (1859–1942) was exposed as a fraud by the physicist
Kristian Birkeland when he discovered that the noises produced by her trumpet were caused by chemical explosions induced by potassium and water, and in other cases by lycopodium powder. Another well-known medium was the Scottish materialization medium
Helen Duncan (1897–1956). In 1928, photographer Harvey Metcalfe attended a series of séances at Duncan's house and took flash photographs of Duncan and her alleged "materialization" spirits, including her spirit guide "Peggy". The photographs revealed the "spirits" to have been fraudulently produced, using dolls made from painted papier-mâché masks, draped in old sheets. Duncan was later tested by
Harry Price at the
National Laboratory of Psychical Research; photographs revealed Duncan's
ectoplasm to be made from
cheesecloth, rubber gloves, and cut-out heads from magazine covers. ==Evolution==