- Founder
- Margaret Fox, Kate Fox, Andrew Jackson Davis, Horace Greeley
- Time Period
- 3/31/1848
- Description
- Spiritualism is a movement emphasizing communication with the dead through the agency of mediums. Its origins trace back to March 31, 1848, when two young girls known as the Fox sisters claimed to hear mysterious rapping in western New York. Soon, "seers" like Andrew Jackson Davis emerged and others began reporting spiritual manifestations in the form of levitations and slate-writing.Since its inception, spiritualism faced skepticism and accusations of fraud. In the 1850s, scientific studies began investigating these supernatural occurrences, often yielding critical conclusions regarding the credibility of these accounts. The movement’s popularity waned following 1888, after the Fox sisters confessed to fabricating their reports.Nonetheless, spiritualism persisted in institutional forms, despite its anti-institutional and anti-doctrinal origins. One of the oldest and largest spiritualist churches is the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, founded in 1893 in Chicago. Mediums continue to fascinate many Americans and remain visible in various parts of popular culture, like television and film.
- Interactive Timeline(s)
- Social Movements and Religion Religious Minorities (Non-Christian)
- Browse Related Timeline Entries
- Social Movements and Religion in American History Religious Minorities (Non-Christian) in American History
- Religious Groups
- Timeline Entries for the same religious group Spiritualist Family Spiritualist Family: Other ARDA Links
- Biographies
- Bailey, Alice
- Events
- Theosophical Society Founded Fox Sisters Contact a Spirit
- Photographs
-
Fox sisters- Internet Archive- from Abraham Lincoln and Religion -
Andrew Jackson Davis portrait- Internet Archive- from The Principles of Nature by Andrew Jackson Davis -
Demonstrating a fraudulent method to levitate a table- Wikimedia Commons -
Horace Greeley portrait- National Archives and Records Administration -
Banner of Light, a spiritualist journal- Wikimedia Commons - Book/Journal Source(s)
- Lippy, Charles H., and Peter W. Williams, 1988. Encyclopedia of American Religious Experience. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
- Web Page Contributor
- Benjamin T. Gurrentz Affliated with: Pennsylvania State University, Ph.D. in Sociology
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