Modern Spiritualism and reform in America.

摘要

As many individuals know, Spiritualism (understood as meaning the belief that the so-called "dead" can communicate with the living) is not a new or even exclusively Western phenomenon. Beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century and lasting for a period of roughly sixty years, however, the interest in Spiritualism in America was linked with the impulse for reform. Many historians have recognized this fact, but they have had trouble explaining how individuals seated around seance tables and lost in visions of a glorious afterlife could acquire the reputation of being such a radical group of reformers. Much, if not all, of this difficulty disappears when we recognize the existence of two sets of Spiritualists: the Phenomenal Spiritualists, who were preoccupied with the phenomenal aspects of Spiritualism, and the Philosophical or Modern Spiritualists, whose general interest in the phenomenon of invisible causation led them to alter their perceptions of science, religion and philosophy.;The most important figure in the history of Modern Spiritualism was the trance medium and clairvoyant, Andrew Jackson Davis. In an entranced state, Davis dictated a huge volume entitled The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and A Voice to Mankind (1847). In this volume, he set forth a credo on the importance of invisible causation and enunciated the outlines of "scientific" theology based upon the ideas of invisible agency found in mesmerism, Fourierism and the philosophical ideas of the Swedish scientist-turned-seer, Emanuel Swedenborg.;This book and Davis' subsequent activities, then, inspired a reform movement which was always both aided and distracted by the interest shown in Phenomenal Spiritualism. A loosely-knit movement, the Modern Spiritualists embraced a number of reforms which complemented their theology and theories of science. Some of these causes included freethought, non-allopathic medicine, a reformation of the political economy, women's rights, sex education, prison reformation, and peace.;At the turn of the century, the movement declined for reasons related to both its success and failure. Many of its themes, however, are finding new life today in the New Age movement.