Spiritualism

If it was/is possible, would you like to have contact with the dead? Spiritualism is the belief that some people have that the spirits of the dead have both the ability and the will to communicate with those among the living. This is usually done through a medium who has the ability to communicate with those on ‘the other side’...the afterlife as it is often referred to, sometimes known as the ‘spirit world’, is seen by those known as spiritualists, not as a stationary state, but as one in which spirits continue to evolve. These two beliefs, that contact with the spirits of the departed is possible, and that spirits are more advanced than mortal humans, lead spiritualists to a third belief, that spirits are capable of providing insight which can prove to be most useful.

Spiritualism developed and reached its peak in both popularity and growth in from the 1840s to the 1920s, mostly among the middle and upper class. There were many cases of fraud and hoaxes reported, but spiritualism remained popular nonetheless. Skeptics and believers abounded. About 100 years ago there was a spiritualist who in an experiment that was supposed to prove the existence of an afterlife, committed suicide. After that date however, no further communication from him was ever received by an associate whom he had hired to record his communication from the beyond. After the 1920’s, due to the movement of spiritualism splintering into different groups, and the associated hoaxes that had become commonplace, its popularity declined. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who wrote the Sherlock Holmes detective mysteries was a big believer in spiritualism.