Modern Spiritualism
A History and a Criticism

The first comprehensive history of Spiritualism by one of the foremost Victorian psychic researchers: an indispensable source on the movement.

Frank Podmore (Author)

9781108072571, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 January 2011

332 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.9 cm, 0.42 kg

Frank Podmore (1856–1910) published Modern Spiritualism in two volumes in 1902. It was the first comprehensive history of the Spiritualist movement. Podmore traces the historical development of Spiritualism from its earliest origins in animal magnetism and alchemy, to its apogee in the early nineteenth century and through to its decline from 1870 onwards, which Podmore associated with the growth of professional psychics and an increase in fraud. Volume 1 covers the key figures of the movement: Paracelsus, Mesmer, Bertrand, Esdaile, and Andrew Jackson Davis. Book 1 focuses on French, English and German Spiritualism and Book 2 on American Spiritualism and its beginnings in Arcadia. The volume includes invaluable accounts of scientific investigations into possession, poltergeists, clairvoyance, and trances. Podmore was a leading member of the Victorian Society for Psychical Research and his work remains an indispensable source for the modern-day historian of nineteenth-century Spiritualism and occult practices.

Preface
Introduction
Book I. The Pedigree of Spiritualism: 1. Possession and witchcraft
2. On poltergeists
3. The sympathetic system
4. Mesmer and his disciples
5. The second French commission
6. Spiritualism in France before 1848
7. The German somnambules
8. The English mesmerists
9. Community of sensation
10. Clairvoyance in England
11. Andrew Jackson Davis and the Univercoelum
Book II. Early American Spiritualism: 1. In Arcadia
2. Some dwellers in Arcadia
3. The physical phenomena
4. Clairvoyance and speaking with tongues
5. Trance writing and speaking
6. General survey of the movement.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]