Download or read book Three Spiritualist Novels written by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together for the first time three novels that illustrate the distinguished American writer Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's enduring interest in the afterlife. The daughter of a Calvinist minister, Phelps could not reconcile herself to the idea of a heaven full of spirits who had cut their ties to those left behind on Earth. Rather, she became convinced of the viability of the Spiritualist view that a vital link to earthly life continues in the hereafter. Articulating an alternative to conservative church doctrine, Phelps assured her readers--many of them women bereft of their loved ones by the Civil War--that Spiritualist ideas about the afterlife were not fundamentally at odds with Scripture. Like the protagonist of The Gates Ajar, these readers wanted to believe "something actual, something pleasant" about the world to come, not "glittering generalities" about a "dreadful Heaven" where their loved ones were too busy singing and worshiping to have any thought of those left behind. All three of the novels collected here--The Gates Ajar (1868), Beyond the Gates (1883), and The Gates Between (1887)--describe heaven as a perfected version of earthly life and the afterlife as a chance to make up for opportunities squandered on Earth. A grieving sister finds consolation in the Spiritualist idea of a continued connection with her beloved brother; a dying woman finds her soulmate in the afterlife; an erring husband makes amends across the line between the living and the dead. Tremendously popular in Phelps's lifetime, these novels offer a way of reconciling human beings to earthly loss and sorrow, assuring readers of an afterlife both restorative and compensatory. They also provide an intriguing look at a phenomenon that preoccupied nineteenth-century America and continues to fascinate us in the twenty-first century.
Download or read book The In Betweens The Spiritualists Mediums and Legends of Camp Etna written by Mira Ptacin and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2019-10-29 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young writer travels to Maine to tell the unusual story of America’s longest-running camp devoted to mysticism and the world beyond. They believed they would live forever. So begins Mira Ptacin’s haunting account of the women of Camp Etna—an otherworldly community in the woods of Maine that has, since 1876, played host to generations of Spiritualists and mediums dedicated to preserving the links between the mortal realm and the afterlife. Beginning her narrative in 1848 with two sisters who claimed they could speak to the dead, Ptacin reveals how Spiritualism first blossomed into a national practice during the Civil War, yet continues—even thrives—to this very day. Immersing herself in this community and its practices—from ghost hunting to releasing trapped spirits to water witching— Ptacin sheds new light on our ongoing struggle with faith, uncertainty, and mortality. Blending memoir, ethnography, and investigative reportage, The In-Betweens offers a vital portrait of Camp Etna and its enduring hold on a modern culture that remains as starved for a deeper sense of connection and otherworldliness as ever.
Download or read book Talking to the Dead written by Barbara Weisberg and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Barbara Weisberg’s Talking to the Dead blends biography and social history in this revelatory story of the family responsible for the rise of Spiritualism. A fascinating story of spirits and conjurors, skeptics and converts in the second half of nineteenth century America viewed through the lives of Kate and Maggie Fox, the sisters whose purported communication with the dead gave rise to the Spiritualism movement—and whose recanting forty years later is still shrouded in mystery. In March of 1848, Kate and Maggie Fox—sisters aged eleven and fourteen—anxiously reported to a neighbor that they had been hearing strange, unidentified sounds in their house. From a sequence of knocks and rattles translated by the young girls as a "voice from beyond," the Modern Spiritualism movement was born. Talking to the Dead follows the fascinating story of the two girls who were catapulted into an odd limelight after communicating with spirits that March night. Within a few years, tens of thousands of Americans were flocking to séances. An international movement followed. Yet thirty years after those first knocks, the sisters shocked the country by denying they had ever contacted spirits. Shortly after, the sisters once again changed their story and reaffirmed their belief in the spirit world. Weisberg traces not only the lives of the Fox sisters and their family (including their mysterious Svengali–like sister Leah) but also the social, religious, economic and political climates that provided the breeding ground for the movement. While this is a thorough, compelling overview of a potent time in US history, it is also an incredible ghost story.
Download or read book People from the Other Side written by Maurice Leonard and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-10-21 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kate, Leah, and Margaret Fox were three young sisters living in upstate New York in the middle of the 19th century who discovered an apparent ability to communicate with spirits. When this became known, they quickly found themselves at the core of an emerging spiritualist movement, and their public séances in New York City were attended by many. The movement gained considerable popularity, although Margaret would later admit to producing rapping noises by cracking her toe joints and both she and Kate eventually died in poverty. Spiritualism nonetheless became something of a Victorian phenomenon, both in the United States and Britain, with figures such as James Fenimore Cooper and Arthur Conan Doyle amongst its adherents. This account of the lives of the Foxes is a fascinating and informative look at the birth and early days of spiritualism, a belief that remains popular to this day.
Download or read book The Spiritualist written by Megan Chance and published by Crown. This book was released on 2008-05-27 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sometimes truth is the greatest illusion of all. On a cold January morning in 1856, Evelyn Atherton’s husband is found murdered after attending an exclusive séance. Having “married up” into New York society, Evie herself is the immediate suspect. Ostracized and vulnerable, she knows that to clear her name she must retrace her husband’s last steps. And so, joining forces with her husband’s best friend–and the only Manhattan lawyer who will accept her case–Evie dives into the mysterious underworld of the occult. Before long, the trail brings them to a charismatic medium, Michel Jourdain. Evie’s instincts tell her the smooth-talking Jourdain is a charlatan–and her only hope for exoneration. But getting close to Jourdain means embracing a seductive and hypnotic world where clues to murder come through the voices of the dead. Caught in a perilous game in which she is equal player and pawn, predator and victim, Evie finds there is no one to trust, perhaps not even herself. As her powerful in-laws build a case against her, and with time running out, Evie must face the real ghosts of her past if she is to have any hope of avoiding the hangman.
Download or read book Rochester Knockings written by Hubert Haddad and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1800s, the Fox sisters conned everyone into believing they could talk to ghosts. In Rochester Knockings, French author Hubert Haddad brings their weird and fascinating story to life. The Fox sisters launched the Spiritualist Movement in the US, giving seances for hundreds of people. Then, it all fell apart, and the sisters were exposed as frauds. Rich in historical detail, Rochester Knockings novelizes the rise and fall of the most infamous mediums and founders of one of the most popular religious movements of the past couple of centuries.
Download or read book The History of Spiritualism written by Arthur Conan Doyle and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 1926 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Talking to the Other Side written by Todd Jay Leonard and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2005 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its birth in 1848, Spiritualism as a religion, science, and philosophy has experienced great highs and lows. At the center of this purely American-made modern-religious movement are "mediums"--the people who are able to communicate, in some way, with spirit entities that are no longer on the earth plane. Based on three years of on-site investigation, and a plethora of data and research collected on the modern Spiritualist movement in America, Talking to the Other Side focuses upon the ethno-religious aspects of the religion, mediumship, and the mediums themselves. The first four chapters offer an expansive review of the history of religion in America, mediumship, and the Spiritualist movement. Chapters 5-7 comprise the research and data that were compiled and analyzed based on fieldwork analysis, a comprehensive questionnaire, personal interviews, and published literature on the topic of Spiritualism and mediumship. According to Spiritualist mediums, "people don't die, bodies do." Talking to the Other Side offers a contemporary look into the lives and backgrounds of the mediums who bridge this world and the Spirit world, connecting those who have passed over with those they left behind.
Download or read book Radical Spirits written by Ann Braude and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-25 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Braude has discovered a crucial link between the early feminists and the spiritualists who so captured the American imagination.” —Los Angeles Times In Radical Spirits, Ann Braude contends that the early women’s rights movement and Spiritualism went hand in hand. Her book makes a convincing argument for the importance of religion in the study of American women’s history. In this new edition, Braude discusses the impact of the book on the scholarship of the last decade and assesses the place of religion in interpretations of women’s history in general and the women’s rights movement in particular. A review of current scholarship and suggestions for further reading make it even more useful for contemporary teachers and students. “It would be hard to imagine a book that more insightfully combined gender, social, and religious history together more perfectly than Radical Spirits. Braude still speaks powerfully to unique issues of women’s creativity—spiritual as well as political—in a superb account of the controversial nineteenth-century Spiritualist movement.” —Jon Butler, Howard R. Lamar Professor Emeritus of American Studies, History, and Religious Studies at Yale University “Continually rewarding.” —The New York Times Book Review “A fascinating, well-researched, and scholarly work on a peripheral aspect of the rise of the American feminist movement.” —Library Journal “A vitally important book . . . [that] has . . . influenced a generation of young scholars.” —Marie Griffith, associate director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University “An insightful book and a delightful read.” —Journal of American History
Download or read book The Celestine Prophecy written by James Redfield and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2008-08-01 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The #1 bestselling phenomenon with millions of copies sold around the world -- now with a guide to creating your own Celestine Prophecy experience. You have never read a book like this before--a book that comes along once in a lifetime to change lives forever. In the rain forests of Peru, an ancient manuscript has been discovered. Within its pages are 9 key insights into life itself -- insights each human being is predicted to grasp sequentially; one insight, then another, as we move toward a completely spiritual culture on Earth. Drawing on ancient wisdom, it tells you how to make connections among the events happening in your life right now and lets you see what is going to happen to you in the years to come. The story it tells is a gripping one of adventure and discovery, but it is also a guidebook that has the power to crystallize your perceptions of why you are where you are in life and to direct your steps with a new energy and optimism as you head into tomorrow. Praise for The Celestine Prophecy "A gripping adventure story filled with intrigue, suspense, and spiritual revelations." - Commonwealth Journal "A spiritual classic...a book to read and reread, to cherish, and to give to friends." - Joan Borysenko, PhD, author of Fire in the Soul "In his inimitable style of great storytelling, Redfield opens us up to a world of insight, inspiration, synchronicity, and power." - Deepak Chopra
Download or read book Out of the Shadows written by Emily Midorikawa and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Queen Victoria's reign was an era of breathtaking social change, but it did little to create a platform for women to express themselves. But not so within the social sphere of the séance--a mysterious, lamp-lit world on both sides of the Atlantic, in which women who craved a public voice could hold their own. Out of the Shadows tells the stories of the enterprising women whose supposedly clairvoyant gifts granted them fame, fortune, and most important, influence as they crossed rigid boundaries of gender and class as easily as they passed between the realms of the living and the dead. The Fox sisters inspired some of the era’s best-known political activists and set off a transatlantic séance craze. While in the throes of a trance, Emma Hardinge Britten delivered powerful speeches to crowds of thousands. Victoria Woodhull claimed guidance from the spirit world as she took on the millionaires of Wall Street before becoming America’s first female presidential candidate. And Georgina Weldon narrowly escaped the asylum before becoming a celebrity campaigner against archaic lunacy laws. Drawing on diaries, letters, and rarely seen memoirs and texts, Emily Midorikawa illuminates a radical history of female influence that has been confined to the dark until now.
Download or read book Ghostly Communion written by John J. Kucich and published by Dartmouth College Press. This book was released on 2015-03-24 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this exceptional book, Kucich reveals through his readings of literary and historical accounts that spiritualism helped shape the terms by which Native American, European, and African cultures interacted in America from the earliest days of contact through the present. Beginning his study with a provocative juxtaposition of the Pueblo Indian Revolt and the Salem Witchcraft trials of the seventeenth century, Kucich examin[e]s how both events forged "contact zones" - spaces of intense cultural conflict and negotiation - mediated by spiritualism. Kucich goes on to chronicle how a diverse group of writers used spiritualism to reshape a range of such contact zones. These include Rochester, New York, where Harriet Jacobs adapted the spirit rappings of the Fox Sisters and the abolitionist writings of Frederick Douglass as she crafted her own story of escape from slavery; mid-century periodicals from the Atlantic Monthly to the Cherokee Advocate to the Anglo-African Magazine; post-bellum representations of the afterlife by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Mark Twain and the Native Americans who developed the Ghost Dance; turn-of-the-century local color fiction by writers like Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles Chesnutt and Maria Cristina Mena; and the New England reformist circles traced in Henry James's The Bostonians and Pauline Hopkins's Of One Blood. Kucich's conclusion looks briefly at New Age spiritualism, then considers the implications of a cross-cultural scholarship that draws on a variety of critical methodologies, from border and ethnic studies to feminism to post-colonialism and the public sphere. The implications of this study, which brings well-known, canonical writers and lesser-known writers into conversation with one another, are broadly relevant to the resurgent interest in religious studies and American cultural studies in general.
Download or read book Speaking with the Dead written by Andrés Isidoro Pérez y Mena and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the subtitle indicates, this study focuses on Puerto Rican Spiritism, that mixture of spiritualism and the teachings of Allan Kardec that swept Latin America inspite of the Roman Catholic church's strong opposition. Dr Perez y Mena traces the movement's historical growth, then investigates its function today, how it differs from similar practices, such as the Cuban Santeria, its practices and promises, and how the congregation participates. The roles of Godchild (Ahijado), the Godfather (Padrino), the public (El Publica) and the associates (Los Asociados) in the centro espiritista are described as well as the fulfilling role of Afro-Latin cultural beliefs generally among latinos in the United States.
Download or read book Calling the Spirits written by Lisa Morton and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2022-10-10 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Halloween expert Morton, a level-headed and entertaining history of our desire and attempts to hold conversations with the dead. Calling the Spirits investigates the eerie history of our conversations with the dead, from necromancy in Homer’s Odyssey to the emergence of Spiritualism—when Victorians were entranced by mediums and the seance was born. Among our cast are the Fox sisters, teenagers surrounded by “spirit rappings”; Daniel Dunglas Home, the “greatest medium of all time”; Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whose unlikely friendship was forged, then riven, by the afterlife; and Helen Duncan, the medium whose trial in 1944 for witchcraft proved more popular to the public than news about the war. The book also considers Ouija boards, modern psychics, and paranormal investigations, and is illustrated with engravings, fine art (from beyond), and photographs. Hugely entertaining, it begs the question: is anybody there . . . ?
Download or read book Witches of America written by Alex Mar and published by Sarah Crichton Books. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Witches are gathering." When most people hear the word "witches," they think of horror films and Halloween, but to the nearly one million Americans who practice Paganism today, witchcraft is a nature-worshipping, polytheistic, and very real religion. So Alex Mar discovers when she sets out to film a documentary and finds herself drawn deep into the world of present-day magic. Witches of America follows Mar on her immersive five-year trip into the occult, charting modern Paganism from its roots in 1950s England to its current American mecca in the San Francisco Bay Area; from a gathering of more than a thousand witches in the Illinois woods to the New Orleans branch of one of the world's most influential magical societies. Along the way she takes part in dozens of rituals and becomes involved with a wild array of characters: a government employee who founds a California priesthood dedicated to a Celtic goddess of war; American disciples of Aleister Crowley, whose elaborate ceremonies turn the Catholic mass on its head; second-wave feminist Wiccans who practice a radical separatist witchcraft; a growing "mystery cult" whose initiates trace their rites back to a blind shaman in rural Oregon. This sprawling magical community compels Mar to confront what she believes is possible-or hopes might be. With keen intelligence and wit, Mar illuminates the world of witchcraft while grappling in fresh and unexpected ways with the question underlying every faith: Why do we choose to believe in anything at all? Whether evangelical Christian, Pagan priestess, or atheist, each of us craves a system of meaning to give structure to our lives. Sometimes we just find it in unexpected places.
Download or read book The Darkened Room written by Alex Owen and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2004-04-15 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly original study that examines the central role played by women as mediums, healers, and believers during the golden age of spiritualism in the late Victorian era, The Darkened Room is more than a meditation on women mediums—it's an exploration of the era's gender relations. The hugely popular spiritualist movement, which maintained that women were uniquely qualified to commune with spirits of the dead, offered female mediums a new independence, authority, and potential to undermine conventional class and gender relations in the home and in society. Using previously unexamined sources and an innovative approach, Alex Owen invokes the Victorian world of darkened séance rooms, theatrical apparitions, and moving episodes of happiness lost and regained. She charts the struggles between spiritualists and the medical and legal establishments over the issue of female mediumship, and provides new insights into the gendered dynamics of Victorian society.
Download or read book The Alchemist 30th Anniversary Edition written by Paulo Coelho and published by . This book was released on 2018-11-12 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Synopsis coming soon.......
