santucci revision 4 - Emma Hardinge Britten · The spirit Katie King, as materialized in the presence of medium Florence Cook, for experiments conducted by William Crookes. A Strange

Marc Demarest The E. H. Britten Archive marc @ ehbritten.org

Clockwise: Eusapia Palladino séance, Rutter Magnetoscope, Davenport siblings at Davenport’s Spirit Hall

Modern Spiritualism Cartoons and Scribbles From The Field

William Eglinton, materialization and slate-writing medium. His

phenomena lead to a rupture in the Society for Psychical

Research, and changed the trajectory of Spiritualism.

Contents ¡ A Strange Visitor

¡  Spiritualism: A Working Definition

¡ Modern Spiritualism In Context

¡  The Trajectory of the Movement

¡  Issues In the Study of Spiritualism

¡  Things (Possibly) Left Untouched

¡  Studying Spiritualism – Why Bother?

¡ Coda

The E. H. Britten Archive | www . ehbritten . org | marc @ ehbritten.org

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A photograph that apparently shows Eglinton and one of his spirit controls, Abdullah, outside the cabinet during

a séance in the late 1870s.

The spirit Katie King, as materialized in the presence

of medium Florence Cook, for experiments conducted by

William Crookes.

A Strange Visitor ¡  MA in Victorian Studies, under Patrick Scott, at the University

of South Carolina

¡  CEO and Principal @ Noumenal, Inc.

¡  Curator, E. H. Britten Archive (www.ehbritten.org)

¡  Director, International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals (www.iapsop.com)

¡  Director, Friends of Theosophical Archives (FOTA) (www.hypatia.gr/fota)

¡  Blogs at ehbritten.blogspot.com

¡  Social historian: the material lives, of real people

¡  Archeology: material artifacts form the basis for theoretical constructs

¡  Enthusiast of the worst kind


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Emma Hardinge Britten – medium, editor, author, and

Spiritualist propagandist.

Modern Spiritualism ¡ A parascientific belief system with strong social

and political orientation, dating from the early 1840s, and emphasizing ¡  Survival of personality

¡  Finite progression toward spiritual perfection in a (mostly) beneficent many-sphered universe

¡  Personal responsibility for one’s works, here and hereafter

¡  Communion with the (not) dead

¡  Séance, mediumship and phenomena as ritual, method and proof

¡ A science, religion, philosophy, cosmology

¡  Significant, secular decline as an organized movement after WW II, but elements persist (strongly) in other belief systems

“Don’t you follow the advice of the spirits?”

“Yes, when I can do so in

harmony with my own Intuitions. Spirits have aided me many times; but they do not control either my person

or my reason.”

AJ Davis, The Magic Staff (1871)

Davis’ spirit guides included Swedenborg, and Galen.


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Henry Slade, independent slate-writing medium, and the

single most important medium of the nineteenth

century.

Victorian Parascience ¡  Parasciences are a market

phenomenon

¡  Unserved, underserved or dissatisfied consumers, exiting other markets, exercising choice

¡  Suppliers, with offerings, and some ability to access potential consumers and engineer their needs

¡  Meeting in the marketplace of ideas

¡  We underestimate the extent to which phenomena we do understand (literacy, relative affluence and disposable income, the communications revolution) create at least one phenomenon we don’t understand: the Victorian marketplace of ideas


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Leonora Piper – direct voice medium and automatist.

Phenomena produced in her presence shook William

James, converted Richard Hodgson to the Spiritualist

hypothesis, and contributed to the ultimate Spiritualist test: the Cross-Correspondences.

Modern Spiritualism: Context


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Source: Google Ngram Project (books.google.com/ngrams)

…the most sensible enthusiast for what he calls civil liberty, is not ashamed to assert, that self-direction and self-government are, in fact, ALL IN ALL! John Martin, Familiar Dialogues between Americus and Brittanicus (1776)

The question amounts to this: Has a man any opinion of his own at all? Even if he say: “No, he has not one; he holds exactly and only that which is prescribed for him by someone else,” yet first he must have so far exercised his own judgment as to come to this conclusion, that he ought not to exercise it any more. - Rev. Charles Girdlestone, The Right of Private Judgment (1847)

The Right of Private Judgment

Doubling

Emma Hardinge Britten – medium, editor, author, and

Spiritualist propagandist.



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0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

1750 1760 1770 1780 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910

Males

Females

Percentage of British males and females unable to sign their names at time of marriage. Based on data from Roger S. Schofield, “Dimensions of Illiteracy in England, 1750-1850,” in Harvey J. Graff, ed. Literacy and Historical Development: A Reader (2007) The right of private judgment depends on literacy and numeracy, and many institutions and organizations cooperated to produce a literate, numerate marketplace during the 19th century.

1840

William Eglinton, materialization and slate-writing medium. His

phenomena lead to a rupture in the Society for Psychical

Research, and changed the trajectory of Spiritualism.



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Railroads, newspapers and public hotels all

followed, roughly, this basic pattern of

development/extension.

Spiritualism

developed in the US along the same

pathways. Source: http://www.stanford.edu/group/ruralwest/cgi-bin/drupal/visualizations/us_newspapers

Daniel Dunglas Home levitated, elongated,

handled hot coals and made Spiritualism an

international phenomena.



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It would probably not surprise anyone to learn that, by this

time, Modern Spiritualism in the

US had a decidedly regional flavor, with

many mediums traveling exclusively regional circuits (for

example). Source: http://www.stanford.edu/group/ruralwest/cgi-bin/drupal/visualizations/us_newspapers

The spirit Katie King, as materialized in the presence

of medium Florence Cook, for experiments conducted by

William Crookes.



10

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

1798 1805 1819 1842 1854 1857 1858 1865 1867 1881 1891

Information MPH

Physical MPH

1880

Relative speed with which important world events reached London, as compared with physical land-speed limits. Based on data from Gregory Clark. A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (2007). Charting any significant dimension of market participation (literacy, numeracy, disposable income, mobility) or market infrastructure (number of newspapers, number of book titles, railroad miles, steamship miles, number of hotels) would produce essentially the same two curves between 1840 or so, and 1880 or so – radical declines in barriers, or radical increases in enablers.

William Stainton Moses – medium, editor and the single

most important figure in ninenteenth century

Spiritualism.


The catalyst for Modern Spiritualism (and other

movements of the period) was: the right of private judgment (and

the collapse of received authority

which that right implied).

That right was

exercised in a rapidly-growing marketplace

of ideas of unprecedented size,

variety and dynamism.

That marketplace was open to an

unprecedented number of [a] literate, numerate, [b] highly

mobile people.

With [c] disposable income.

Joscelyn Godwin, The Theosophical Enlightenment Catherine Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit

Lougie Barrow, Independent Spirits: Spiritualism and English Plebians 1850-1910


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Swedenborgianism

Folk Occult Practices

Populist PoliticalMovements

Mesmerism,Magnetism,

Phrenology & Other Parasciences

Early VictorianTheories of Mind

High OccultTradition

Dissenting Christian Faiths

Literacy

Modern Spiritualism

Transcendentalism & Idealism

Transportation & LogisticsGrowth &

Development of the "Hard" Sciences

History

Anthropology

Geology

Market-MakingCapitalism

MythographyMythography

The hand of medium Mina Crandon, bound with leather straps and sealed wires for a

test séance.

Modern Spiritualism: Trajectory

The movement was born, as it were, in a

state of rift (A. J. Davis, the Fox sisters), and

branched, or splintered, as it

developed.

Spiritualism’s inability to [a] organize effectively, [b] establish common doctrine, [c] control the practices of self-identifying mediums and [d] establish an

epistemology based on something other than

personal testimony produced a

movement unable to recruit and retain large numbers of adherents (and access their real

and social capital).

Emma Hardinge, Modern American Spiritualism and Nineteenth Century Miracles Frank Podmore, Modern Spiritualism and The Newer Spiritualism Janet Oppenheim, The Other World Alan Gauld, The Founders of Psychical Research


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Mesmeric Clairvoyance Phenomenal

SpiritualismPhilosophicalSpiritualism

Growth &Internationalization

1820 1847

Psychology & Electrobiology

Magnetic Medicine

1855 1870

Organizational &Epistemological

Crises

1880

ScientificConfrontations

Exodus &Quiescence

1895 1920

The SecondFlowering

1950

Christian v.Non-ChristianSpiritualism

The VictorianOccult Revival

The PsychicForce

HypothesisThe SPR

Mind Cure&

Christian Science

New Thought

Psychology &Parapsychology

Schools ofInterpretation

Peak: ~500,000-750,000 adherents in Anglo-American countries

Peak: 1.5-2.0M adherents in Anglo-American countries

Daniel Dunglas Home levitated, elongated,

handled hot coals and made Spiritualism an

international phenomena.

Modern Spiritualism: Issues ¡  Normal Science and Parascience

¡  Lack of Primary Materials & Primary Research

¡  Mediumship & the Séance

¡  The Deveney Conundrum – Spiritualism Doesn’t Pay

¡  Spiritualism’s Treatment By Science

¡  Phenomenal v. Philosophical Spiritualism

¡  Marketplace Models

¡  Diffusion & Influence

¡  Contemporary State of the Movement

¡  White Crows


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Henry Slade, independent slate-writing medium, and the

single most important medium of the nineteenth

century.

Things (Possibly) Left Untouched ¡  Spiritualism and Materialism

¡  Spiritualism and War

¡  Spiritualism and Stage Magic

¡  A Movement of Women

¡  Spiritualism and Feminism

¡  Spiritualism and Eugenics

¡  The Occult Within Spiritualism Itself

¡  Spiritualism’s Envy of Freemasonry

¡  The Open Boundary Between Spiritualism and Secular Culture

¡  Spiritualism and Class

¡  Spiritualism and Nationalism

¡  Spiritualism as a Machine for Making Gospels

¡  Spiritualism’s Truth Claims


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Leonora Piper – direct voice medium and automatist.

Phenomena produced in her presence shook William

James, converted Richard Hodgson to the Spiritualist

hypothesis, and contributed to the ultimate Spiritualist test: the Cross-Correspondences.

Why Bother With Spiritualism? ¡  The most pressing social problem we face today is:

the motive (social and political) power of belief.

¡  This is not a problem that “science” as a discourse is capable of addressing, because belief is at best about (tightly) bounded rationality.

¡  Large-scale belief systems with significant bodies of self-identifying adherents are unsuitable for study – often, we are, ourselves, enmeshed in these belief systems (as adherents or critics).

¡  Small-scale belief systems are usually dysfunctional and [a] produce catastrophes or [b] silently (or noisily) implode. Spectacle overwhelms us.

¡  Spiritualism is of ideal size, scale and complexity, and is entering a period of submergence (a full cycle is complete), but will survive, and likely revive.


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Spiritualism.

Coda

What is true for you, is true.

The group of spirits controlling and

educating Stainton Moses (and the

movement) during the 1870s and 1880s taught (among other things) a

war in heaven, between spirits who had humanity’s best interests in hand, and groups of spirits with

other, competing plans.

He had, as one of my sensei once wrote, “a lively sense of evil, at work in the world.”


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David Miscavige, head of the Church of Scientology



Spiritualism.

Coda

“No two of us,” Moses wrote, “ever struggle

up to the light by precisely similar

methods.”

Randi’s right. A relatively small amount of belief makes something far more powerful than a fact.


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James Randi, stage magician, patron saint of skeptics, parascientific debunker Richard Dawkins,

brilliant evolutionary theorist, and Xian-

baiter.

“Our mission is to support scientific

education and critical thinking to overcome

religious fundamentalism,

superstition, intolerance and suffering.”

Documents

santucci revision 4 - Emma Hardinge Britten · The spirit Katie King, as materialized in the presence of medium Florence Cook, for experiments conducted by William Crookes. A Strange