What is Spiritualism?

A Personal Note

Sorry I haven't posted in sometime, but I have a lot of information to make make up for the time lapse. I've read through some of the articles and books I found and discovered one major item that will effect my research greatly: Spiritualism, in Europe, did not openly start until the 1850s. In every article, book, website, ect. l read all mentioned Spiritualism in the 1840s-1850s, which means the likelihood of finding information in the 18th century is going to be very little to nothing. So my research may have to shift toward the 19th century, but we're still in the Victorian Era.

What is Spiritualism? 

Before I could dive into the information I uncovered, I first had to learn what spiritualism was. A website I found called "The Victorian Web" says: "spiritualism the belief that the dead communicate with the living, became a fad throughout America and Europe during the 1850s." (Here, we receive our first clue that spiritualism was indeed during the 1850s) Dictionary.com defines Spiritualism as "the belief or doctrine that the spirits of the dead, surviving after the mortal life, can and do communicate with the living, especially through a person (a medium) particularly susceptible to their influence". So from these two definitions we can conclude that Spiritualism is the knowledge of being able to connect with those who have passed on, usually through someone who is connected to those souls or to their realm. I found a small clip on Youtube that gives another definition and describes almost the same thing, but with pictures and music. It's from a group called Dorset Ghost Investigators and I thought it would be a nice little clip to watch for fun.

For next time, I'll talk about the beginnings of Spiritualism, Emanuel Swedenburg, Allan Kordec, Mrs. Hayden, and D.D. Home. 

The First Step Into the Unknown...

Today we step into the mystical topic of Spiritualism. Many people today know about Spiritualism in the Victorian days within the United States, but not much is heard about Spiritualism in Victorian Europe. My question is: Why did Victorian Era Europe follow Spiritualism and what does Spiritualism entail? My goal is to discover what Spiritualism was like within Europe during the Victorian Era, mostly covering the 18th century. I might span my research into the early 19th century depending on the progress of my resources. There is much to be discovered and plenty of subtopics, I'm sure, to arise from this adventure.

I started off with light searching on a site called Jstor.com. This site offers a lot of scholarly research material, but I'm focusing more on the scholarly journals and books. I found a few possible journals to use, if not simply for the context, but their sources as well. One journal I found was called "Science and the Seance: Transgressions of Gender and Genre in Late Victorian London" by Judith R. Walkowitz which goes into detail about a spiritualist woman during the 1800s. It is rather interesting, viewing her lifestyle and personality, to see how she grows into a spiritualist. She even tries to help with the Jack the Ripper case! Here is a link to the site: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2928407?uid=3739256&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102696048677. This article should help me with seeing how spiritualists would work in their field and what evidence would be found to prove their work. Most of the articles or journals I run across now focus solely on the United States or span into the late 19th century. I hope to find more material that is to my liking within the next week and hopefully shine some light on this unique subject.