Spiritualism facts for kids
Spiritualism is a belief that humans can communicate with the spirits of the dead. It was popular in the nineteenth century up to the 1930s. The main centres were in America and Europe, with the Caribbean and South America, where it is usually called Spiritism.
Spiritualism did not have a book with authority, but it had pamphlets, meetings and mediums. A medium is a person, often female, who acts as a go-between between the living and the dead.
At its peak, spiritualism was very popular, and its followers formed Spiritualist churches.
Images for kids
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Spiritualism was equated by some Christians with witchcraft. This 1865 broadsheet, published in the United States, also blamed spiritualism for causing the American Civil War.
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The Fox sisters
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Cora L. V. Scott
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Houdini exposed the tricks of "mediums".
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Middle-class Chicago women discuss spiritualism (1906)
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Emma Hardinge Britten
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Helen Duncan
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Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes
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Andrew Jackson Davis, about 1860
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Frank Podmore, ca. 1895.
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William Crookes. Photo published 1904.
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Harry Price, 1922.
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