Spiritualism

Hydesville and the Fox sisters

Margaretta and Catherina Fox were born in Consecon, Upper Canada, and their family rented a house in Hydesville, New York, in December 1847. According to the Psi Encyclopedia, unexplained raps began there in late March 1848, and Margaret Fox signed a statement about the disturbances dated 11 April 1848. The article describes these events as widely treated as the founding moment of Spiritualism. It also records conflicting accounts of the sisters' ages, from census entries to later recollections, so their exact ages are not settled.

Early demonstrations and spread

The same article reports that the sisters gave demonstrations in Rochester, that attendees of the Seneca Falls Convention in July 1848 witnessed private sittings, and that in November 1849 three committees at Corinthian Hall reported finding no fraud before hostile audience members disrupted the meeting. From 1850 the sisters became professional mediums. A second Psi Encyclopedia article describes rapid growth of Spiritualism in the United States, Britain and continental Europe after 1848, with phenomena moving from raps to table tilting and levitation.

Andrew Jackson Davis and earlier claims

The article on early psychical research notes that Andrew Jackson Davis, a young New York man, claimed to receive spirit messages before the Fox events became widely known, and that his journal entry for 31 March 1848 was found only years later. Hydesville remains the usual starting point in the sources reviewed, and they do not settle how much the early movement owed to Davis.

Confession, recantation and organization

On 21 October 1888, Maggie Fox publicly confessed in New York that the sisters had produced the raps themselves. In November 1889 she recanted, saying the confession was made under pressure from the movement's opponents, and Kate Fox gave conflicting statements. Organized bodies came later. The Spiritualists' National Union (SNU) in Britain gives 1901 as its founding year and states that its Seven Principles were given through the mediumship of Emma Hardinge Britten. An SNU booklet listing adds that the principles varied in wording and number until about 1887.

Spiritualism as a religion

On this page Spiritualism, capitalized, means the religious movement that grew from the events of 1848 and the churches and mediumship traditions that continue it, not the general word spirituality. The SNU says that those who choose Spiritualism as their religion adopt its Seven Principles. The National Spiritualist Association of Churches (NSAC) in the United States publishes a Declaration of Principles that describes contact with those who have died as real.

Spiritualist and Spiritist

Psi Encyclopedia writers distinguish British and American Spiritualist mediums from Spiritist mediums in Brazil and Puerto Rico, including Kardecist psychographers, who follow the teachings recorded by Allan Kardec. The article on early psychical research says Kardec concentrated on recording spirit teachings rather than documenting verifiable communications. The sources reviewed do not trace the relationship between the two traditions in detail, and this page does not cover Spiritism as a separate tradition.

Medium, psychic and types of mediumship

In the research literature a medium is a person who reports regular communication with the deceased, while a psychic reports information about living people, places or events. The NSAC divides mediumship into physical, which it describes as affecting objects and being observable, with raps, trumpets and materialization listed as examples, and mental, which it describes as subjective and which includes trance, inspirational speaking and faculties such as clairvoyance and clairaudience.

Churches and services

The SNU reports about 300 churches and centres, overseen by elected district councils, and over 2,500 individual members. It states that mediumship is practiced in Spiritualist churches and centres, that in services evidential mediumship is intended to demonstrate the continuous existence of the soul, and that mediumship is not a form of entertainment. Services may also include time for absent healing or demonstrations by healing mediums.

Training and credentials

Both national bodies publish training of their own. The SNU Learning section lists courses in church leadership, Spiritualism and mediumship, and healing, and its Healing Committee awards diplomas, certificates and accreditations. The SNU also owns the Arthur Findlay College at Stansted Hall. The NSAC states that it offers education and certifications in mediumship. The requirements for these credentials were not reviewed for this page.

Related practices on Machipedia

Machipedia has separate pages for practices that people sometimes connect with Spiritualist settings, such as White Light Healing and Starseed. The sources reviewed for this page do not show that either is an official part of the SNU or the NSAC, and a reader should consult each practice page for its own origins and sources.

Survival of personality and contact with the dead

The SNU states that mediumship allows contact with departed loved ones and that the human soul continues to exist with the same personality. The NSAC Declaration of Principles states that personal identity continues after bodily death and that contact with those who have died is real, and the NSAC page says Spiritualist phenomena demonstrate it. These are statements of belief by the organizations, not findings.

Healing and spiritual guidance

The SNU says healing has always been a vital part of the religion. The ninth NSAC principle describes prophecy and healing as divine gifts shown through mediumship, and the NSAC objects include advocating and promoting spiritual healing. The sources reviewed describe what the bodies hold and do not evaluate health outcomes of Spiritualist healing.

Personal responsibility and progress

The SNU principles state that each person is accountable for thoughts, words and actions, that actions bring consequences, and that every soul can progress. The NSAC principles name the Golden Rule as the highest ethical standard, tie personal well-being to respect for natural physical and spiritual laws, and say anyone can change and improve in this life or after death.

Comfort for the bereaved in historical accounts

An essay on Victorian interiors argues that Spiritualist believers found solace in continued contact with the dead in the home, where grief was felt most acutely. It analyzes an 1887 book by Morrel Theobald that presented Spiritualism as a reasonable and beneficial way of life. This is one author's interpretation of a historical source, not a measurement of how bereaved people fared.

Historical investigations

The Fox sisters article records disagreement from the start. Committees at Rochester in 1849 reported no fraud, while Charles Culver's 1851 deposition alleged that Kate Fox confessed to fraud and a group of Buffalo medical professors in 1851 concluded the sounds were made physically. The article on early psychical research reports that William Crookes held 28 sittings with Daniel Dunglas Home from 1871 and reported striking phenomena, while noting that the movement produced considerable fraud. Both pages are published by the Society for Psychical Research, whose founders investigated Spiritualist claims.

Quantitative studies of mediums

A 2015 review in Archives of Clinical Psychiatry searched PubMed, Lilacs and Web of Science for articles from 2000 to June 2015 and included 19 studies. Seven examined psychopathology, six the accuracy of information given by mediums, and six physiological correlates. Accuracy results were mixed: two studies found target readings rated higher than decoy readings, and three found no significant difference. The authors called the empirical data sparse and asked for triple-blind designs.

A Psi Encyclopedia overview by Julie Beischel covers later work, including studies of British Spiritualist mediums and mediums at Lily Dale, New York. It reports that under blinded conditions some mediums gave accurate, specific information, that accuracy data cannot identify the source, and that fewer than ten research groups have published original peer-reviewed work in roughly a decade. It also notes criticism of earlier studies over screening, blinding, sensory leakage, scoring and statistics. The author works in this field and the overview is not a systematic review.

Voice-hearing, grief and gaps

A 2017 Schizophrenia Bulletin study compared 17 clairaudient psychics with patients who hear voices, patients who do not, and controls, 67 people in all. The psychics' voices resembled patients' voices in many respects, but they reported more control over onset and offset and less distress. Recruitment came from psychic websites and meetings, not specifically from Spiritualist churches, and the authors state they neither confirm nor deny the veracity of the psychics' beliefs.

A 2023 systematic review of 79 studies found that continuing bonds with the dead may have adaptive potential but that the literature has not confirmed whether retaining bonds is helpful. It is not a study of mediums or Spiritualist services. The web searches run for this page found no controlled trial of attending Spiritualist services or of readings on bereavement outcomes, and that finding is limited to the searches run.

Fraud and disputed phenomena

The article on early psychical research states that Spiritualism produced considerable fraud, that some mediums mixed genuine-seeming phenomena with trickery, and that skeptics often dismissed all physical phenomena as fraudulent. The Fox sisters article records the 1888 confession and its contested recantation. The sources reviewed describe this history and do not assess the conduct of present-day mediums or churches.

Mental health findings and care boundaries

In the 2015 review, most studies found good mental health and social adaptation among mediums, mainly experienced ones, while newcomers to the religion scored worse, and nearly all studies were done in Brazil. The voice-hearing study found that patients with psychosis were more distressed by voices than the psychics. These sources are not clinical guidance. Mediumship or church attendance should not delay or replace medical or mental health care, and distressing voices, severe grief or a health condition call for a qualified clinician.

Harms, costs and oversight

The sources reviewed for this page do not report documented harms such as financial exploitation, coercive teachers or spiritual abuse in Spiritualist churches, and a lack of reports in these sources is not evidence that none occur. The SNU and NSAC pages read describe their own training and credentials and did not state a code of conduct. No statutory regulation or training standard for Spiritualist mediums was found in the searches run for this page.

Who speaks for the movement

The sources reviewed describe two national bodies, the SNU in the United Kingdom with seven principles and the NSAC in the United States with nine, each with its own wording. Statements on this page reflect those bodies and the cited scholarship. Independent churches and other groups may hold different views, and the sources reviewed do not cover them.