SPIRITUALISM (from spiritual, Lat. spiri t ual is, relating to spirit or breath, from spirit us, spirit, breath, air, from spirarc, to breathe). A term which, as most commonly used, describes the belief of those who think that communications are occasionally established between the living and the dead \vim survive in some other mode of existence. This conception, in so far as any gen eral acceptance of the doctrine is concerned, is probably not more than half a century old, al though sporadic instances of the belief are pos sibly as old as human nature.
In modern times the first definite movement in the direction of a general interest in spiritualism took place in 1S48 in America. and was associated with the Fox sisters, at Hydesville, New York. The 'phenomena' associated with these sisters were the traditional 'raps' and 'knockings,' the meaning of which required that the experimenter agree upon some certain number of 'raps' as an indication of an affirmative or negative answer to questions. In more complicated matters the answers were spelled out by pointing to letters, etc. The modus operandi of the 'communications' is not important, as it was only the familiar pro duction of physical phenomena supposed to be evidence of some transcendental origin. The Fox sisters performed their wonders for all classes of men and women and numbered among their fol lowers many intelligent people. But opinion was divided as to the value and significance of their `phenomena.' The more intelligent investigators discovered fraud in them, and finally the sisters confessed to the manner in which they had con sciously produced the 'raps' and 'knocks.' In the meantime the excitement and interest in spirit ualism had spread to England and the Continent. It was probably much less the actual facts in the alleged phenomena that created the widespread interest in the subject than it was two facts in the mental condition of the age wholly independ eat of the inciting cause. The first was the im mense strides which skepticism and criticism had made in discrediting the older theology the sec ond was the growing fail h. in scientific experiment and methods.
It was about the same, time that hypnotism (q.v.) began to arouse a scientific interest and to contribute to the spiritualist's cause. it had arisen about 1770 or 1780 Messner and was called mesmerism (q.v.) after him. But the quackery and ineautiommess associated with it, encouraged by the inertia of scientific academics, brought it into neglect, and it was not heard of more until Dr. Braid, of Manchester. England, reopened the question by showing that there were genuine phenomena in it worthy of scientific at tention. This was about 1840. He changed the
name of mesmerism to hypnotism and employed 'suggestion' as the explanatory principle as against 'magnetic fluids' of Mesmer. But the peculiar methods of producing hypnosis and the strange psychological susceptibilities exhibited by hypnotic patients were well calculated to impress the popular mind with the belief in occult forces, and in spite of the scientific treatment to which it has been exposed, it still suggests to the public the possibility of supernormal phenomena. lts facts were more easily demonstrable, and could be put to more dignified uses, than the ordinary absurdities of the séance room.
Another type of phenomena occurred about the same time to encourage the spiritualist in his general theory. It was the production of Andrew Jackson Davis, who discovered in 1844 that he could go into a 'trance,' and that he had a strange power of performing intellectual feats in this con dition, which were not natural to him in his nor mal state. He made a bargain with two friends to 'mesmerize' him and to take down in notes what he said during the 'trance.' A volume was published as a result representing the work of fifteen months. Ills utterances, which were very slow and deliberate, were taken down verbatim, and the- volume was called The Principles of Na ture, He• Dirine Rerelations, and a Voice to Mankind. The work dealt with the physical, chemical, and vital phenomena of the cosmos on a large scale, and treated of astronomical mat ters in a manner to excite curiosity, especially when the prediction of a new planet was verified soon afterwards by the di‘covery of Neptune by Leverrier and Adams. At the same time the man was practicing `clairvoyance,' and the book as serted the existence of spirit 'communication.' But it was not the philosophic nature of the work that gave it its influence. It was the ap parent illiteracy of the man who produced it, and its association with 'clairvoyance' and alleged spirit 'communications.' Davis himself said that, up to the time of his work, he had read hut one book in his life and this w•as a romance called Three Spaniards. This claim, however, seems to he fairly well controverted, and it is probable that the man had read scientific matter in a casual way. But no amount of casual reading will easily explain in a normal way the system atic character of this work. There are indica tions in the man's history, and the fact that he was 'clairvoyant' or subject to the 'trance' state is evidence, that his was a remarkable ease of secondary personality. See DOUBLE CONSCIOUS NESS.