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Modern Spiritualism: Its Quest to Become a Science Creative Works Southern Illinois University Carbondale OpenSIUC Modern Spiritualism: Its Quest to Become A Science Creative Works 2021 Modern Spiritualism: Its Quest to Become A Science John Haller Jr Follow this and additional works at: https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/histcw_ms Copyright © 2020, John S. Haller, Jr. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN (print): 9798651505449 Interior design by booknook.biz This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Creative Works at OpenSIUC. It has been accepted for inclusion in Modern Spiritualism: Its Quest to Become A Science by an authorized administrator of OpenSIUC. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Modern Spiritualism: Its Quest to Become A Science By John S. Haller, Jr. Copyright © 2020, John S. Haller, Jr. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN (print): 9798651505449 Interior design by booknook.biz Spiritualism, then, is a science, by authority of self-evident truth, observed fact, and inevitable deduction, having within itself all the elements upon which any science can found a claim. (R. T. Hallock, The Road to Spiritualism, 1858) TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapters 1. Awakening 11 2. Rappings 41 3. Poughkeepsie Seer 69 4. Architect of the Spirit World 95 5. Esoteric Wisdom 121 6. American Portraits 153 7. Spirit Cousins 179 8. Retrospective 211 Endnotes 221 Bibliography 267 INTRODUCTION n 1907, an article appeared simultaneously in Amer- ican Medicine and the Journal of Psychical Research I that not only evoked discussion within the medical community but drew an equally significant response from the popular press. In speculating whether it was possible for the psychic functions of personality and consciousness to exist after death, Duncan MacDou- gall, M.D., of Haverhill, Massachusetts, hypothesized that a material, space-occupying “soul substance” essential to the body in life, escaped at death and entered the ether where it retained its identity in “a real world above the storm zone of the earth’s atmos- phere.” There, the psychic functions of human beings continued their existence and although the soul sub- stance was no longer subject to the earth’s gravitation, “it follow[ed] that ever since human beings began to die upon the earth, the complex pathway of the earth around the sun in space, and of the earth as part of the solar system moving in space, is littered with these non-gravitative spiritual principles.”1 2 MODERN SPIRITUALISM MacDougall tested his hypothesis on a man dying of tuberculosis. Several hours prior to death, he placed the patient in a bed “arranged on a light framework built upon very delicately balanced platform beam scales.” While looking to the man’s comfort in his last hours, he carefully noted a weight loss at the rate of an ounce per hour from respiration and sweating. Dur- ing this time, he monitored the balance to ensure the accuracy of the man’s weight. At the moment of expi- ration, “the beam end dropped with an audible stroke hitting against the lower limiting bar and remaining there with no rebound.” He determined that at the precise moment of death, the man lost three-fourths of an ounce in weight. Not content with a single example, he tested his hypothesis on yet another dying patient. “In the eighteen minutes that elapsed between when he ceased breathing until we were certain of death,” MacDougall wrote, “there was a weight loss of one and a half ounces and fifty grains.” In a third case, he ascertained a loss of one and a half ounces at death. With each of these tests, MacDougall insisted that there had been no loss from the bowels or kidneys that might have accounted for the weight change. Three additional tests convinced him that “a substance capa- ble of being weighed does leave the human body at death.” From experiments he eventually carried out on six humans and fifteen dogs, MacDougall concluded that weight loss at death represented the weight of the departed soul-substance. In other words, a “space-oc- cupying body of measurable weight” left the body at death and survived as a “conscious ego” within the Introduction 3 earth’s ether. With the soul-substance differentiated from the physical body and from the ether, he sur- mised that he had at last proven the materialistic con- ception of the mind, spirit, or soul that continued to exist after the body’s death.2 The hypothesis of a non-gravitative existence of the mind after death may have been less satisfying to Christians who for centuries believed in physi- cal resurrection; nevertheless, it implied a mode of survival that appeared to be scientifically verifiable. “The essential thing,” MacDougall explained, “is that there must be a substance as the basis of continuing personal identity and consciousness, for without a space-occupying substance, personality or a con- tinuing conscious ego after bodily death is unthink- able.” Though he recognized that more experiments would be required to prove his hypothesis, he was sufficiently convinced that the spiritualistic concep- tion of the soul’s immateriality was wrong, there being no basis for the theories advanced over the cen- turies by theologians and metaphysicians. Instead, the evidence suggested that a “space occupying body of measurable weight disappearing at death, if ver- ified, furnishe[d] a substantial basis for persisting personality or a conscious ego surviving the act of bodily death.” 3 What MacDougall evoked with his “soul substance” was another example of what humans throughout the ages have speculated about the finality of death. Time and again, they have insisted on some form of conti- nuity beyond physical existence. From ancient times 4 MODERN SPIRITUALISM to modernity, the chain connecting the living with the departed has seldom been broken. Both individu- als and whole societies have persisted in viewing the departed as a body of spirits who continue to attend the needs of mortals, guiding, instructing, and pro- tecting them. During the frenzied decades of early nineteenth-century America, this connection between the natural and spiritual worlds contained elements of radical individualism, antinomianism, sentimental- ism, liberal Protestantism, democracy, and the rule of natural law. It was a period remarkable for all manner of truth-seekers dedicated to making the world not only happier for its inhabitants but enhancing that happiness by connecting the living with those who were dead. In previous centuries, spirit manifestations were depicted as intuitive experiences of an individual, group, or society, and attributed to the agency of the devil. These included the epidemic of spirit-posses- sions recorded among the Ursuline Nuns of Loudun in 1633-40; the sightings recounted by the Rev. Joseph Glanvil, fellow of the Royal Society and chaplain to Charles II in 1661; the strange behavior of the peas- antry in Cevennes in 1707; and the disturbances affect- ing the family of the Rev. Samuel Wesley (his son John was the founder of Methodism) in the parsonage at Epworth in 1716-17. Later instances included reports of mysterious knockings at Stockwell, England, in 1772, and similar occurrences at Slawensick Castle, Silesia, in 1806; at Weinsberg in 1825 and 1828; and at Canandaigua, New York, in 1834.4 Introduction 5 By contrast, the spirit manifestations that occurred in modern Spiritualism are founded on an unbridled faith in their common purpose to lead mankind toward greater progress and a conviction that communication with these spirits could be sci- entifically confirmed and verified. Proof of this belief was based on rappings, a term describing the first tapping out of messages between living persons and spirits which reputedly took place at the home of the Fox family in Hydesville, New York, on March 31, 1848. This initial manifestation filled a vacuum that both society’s elite and the aspiring lower and middle classes celebrated at various levels of understanding. Utilizing philosophical, theological, and scientific explanations, all buoyed by corroboration from com- mittees of respected citizens, the rappings became proof of religious promises made over the centuries of an afterlife. It postulated that life continues in the form of an indestructible spirit which has always been a part of the human constitution. The material body is the covering of the soul which acts as the bridge between the spirit and the material body. After physi- cal death, the soul lives on and continues to reflect the temperament of the individual, his feelings, and even his physical characteristics. Spirit is the divine part of man descended from a Universal Spirit or Infinite Intelligence. Though the body and soul had a begin- ning, the spirit continues to exist after its material body dies. Death is simply that moment in time when the spirit separates from the material body. From that point onward, the spirit alone exists as the organized 6 MODERN SPIRITUALISM entity; it represents a transformation, a change in status, nothing more.5 As the rappings spread across villages, towns, and cities in the United States, the Fox sisters and their imi- tators borrowed from Mesmer’s novel baquet to create their spirit-circle or séance—Spiritualism’s laboratory for demonstrating and manifesting messages from beyond the grave. The séance became the portal for all classes to communicate with family and friends on the “Other Side.” These were not magisterial demon- strations of great minds imparting wisdom, but sim- ple queries to answer questions concerning personal family matters.
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