Spiritualist
An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1920)
Spiritualistic Journal. (See Spiritualism .) sacrificial fires. whether good or bad, comes from the spirits. It is in connection with this idea of the universality of mediumship that the effect of spiritualism on the morals and daily life of its adherents is most clearly seen. For the spirits are Spodomancy: Divination by means of the cinders from naturally attracted to those mediums whose qualities resemble their own. Enlightened spirits from the highest spheres seek high-souled and earnest mediums through whom to express themselves, while mediums who use their divine gifts for a base end are sought by the lowest and wickedest human spirits, or by beings termed "elementals," who do not even reach the human standard of goodness. Indeed, it is stated that the lower spirits communicate with the living much more readily than do the higher, by reason of a certain gross or material quality which binds them to earth. The path of the medium is thus beset with many difficulties, and it is essential that he should be principled and sincere, a creature of pure life and high ideals, so that the circle of his " controls be select. For 66 دو " not only do the tricky "elementals" deceive the sitters and the investigators with their lying ways, but they ofttimes drive the medium himself to fraud, so that under their control he secretes apports about his person, and materialises false beards and dirty muslin. And as it is with the full-fledged medium, so with the normal individual. If he is to insure that the source of his inspiration be a high one he must live in such a way that only the best spirits will control him, and so his impulses shall be for his own good and the betterment of the race. It will thus be seen that spiritualism is in itself a complete religion; but it also combines well with other religions and creeds. In America the spiritualistic and the socialistic elements mingled harmoniously and many of the socialistic communities were founded by spiritualists. Other sects there were which associated themselves with spiritualism during the early history of the movement in America, and rumour
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When this encyclopaedia was written in 1920, spiritualism was at its post-war peak, with respectable champions like Arthur Conan Doyle and Oliver Lodge, and the article could treat mediumship, "controls" and troublesome "elementals" as facts to be managed by living a pure life. The physical phenomena it takes seriously - apports, materialised beards, ectoplasm - were steadily exposed as conjuring: Houdini's campaign against the Boston medium "Margery" in the 1920s was the most public of many debunkings, and laboratory ectoplasm proved to be cheesecloth and muslin. Britain prosecuted the medium Helen Duncan under the 1735 Witchcraft Act as late as 1944; that law was replaced by the Fraudulent Mediums Act in 1951, itself repealed in 2008. Spiritualism survives as an organised religion - the Spiritualists' National Union, the Lily Dale and Cassadaga communities, and above all Kardecist Spiritism in Brazil, which counts millions of followers - but no longer as a claimant to scientific standing.
Written for this edition, 2026.