Spiritualism

Spiritualism is a religious and philosophical movement built around the belief that the living can communicate with the spirits of the dead, often through mediums.

Mediumship: The claimed ability to communicate with spirits or other entities, often by conveying messages to other people. Mediums were believed to relay communications from the dead.
Fox sisters: Margaret and Kate Fox were American sisters whose reported spirit communications helped launch modern Spiritualism. Their 1848 Hydesville claims became an early public catalyst for the movement.
Andrew Jackson Davis: An American Spiritualist writer and lecturer who published influential accounts of spiritual realms and human destiny. Davis helped give the emerging movement an elaborate philosophical framework.
Christianity: A monotheistic religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Christian traditions differ over whether attempts to contact the dead are permissible.
National Spiritualist Association of Churches: An American organization founded in 1893 to represent Spiritualist churches and promote Spiritualist principles. Its formation institutionalized Spiritualism as an organized religious tradition.
Séance: A gathering in which participants seek communication with spirits, commonly through a medium. Séances became Spiritualism’s characteristic setting for spirit communication.
Hydesville rappings: A series of knocks reported in 1848 at the Fox family home in Hydesville, New York, and attributed to a spirit. The rappings supplied Spiritualism with its founding public story.
Daniel Dunglas Home: A Scottish-born medium famed for séances and claimed physical manifestations in the nineteenth century. Home’s performances brought prominent attention to physical mediumship.
Theosophy: A religious and philosophical movement that explores spiritual evolution and hidden dimensions of reality. Theosophy shares interest in unseen realms but emphasizes a different spiritual cosmology.
Spiritualism and women's rights: The historical relationship between Spiritualist communities and women’s public speech, reform, and political activism. Mediumship gave some women a platform for public authority during the nineteenth century.

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