Spiritualism In Ann Braude's Radical Spirits

In the annals of American religious history, spiritualism sits uncomfortably alongside fundamentalism and other conventional forms of religion that command largest portion of scholars’ attention. Ann Braude’s Radical Spirits was one of the first narratives written that documents this important but slighted movement. To the surprise of both nineteenth-century observers and contemporary scholars alike, spiritualists were consumed by the prospect of communication with the dead. Braude provides examples throughout her work of how this group of unique individuals channeled the dead through spirit mediums and/or in séances. She also provides examples detailing individuals’ claims that the dead responded with thumping, knocking and involuntary writing, and how the departed have made personal appearances in the form of spirit control and manipulation during hypnotic trances. Braude argues that spiritualism was “a central agent of feminism” (192). She uses several examples taken from …show more content…
Though the two movements engaged in two-way exchange in the last quarter of the nineteenth century (especially in California, where the Protestant establishment was less entrenched), the radical religious, political and economic agendas of spiritualists became increasingly marginalized at the turn of the twentieth century as suffragists sought to polish their public image (197). Braude also notes that some women abandoned spiritualism after securing prominent roles in the suffrage movement. However, it is difficult to determine whether or not their transformation was due to lost faith, political tension or economic pressure (195). In any case, “Spiritualism’s role in expanding American ideological alternatives dwindled as a result of the success of the campaigns it had done so much to advance” (200). By the 1870s, spiritualism heavily competed for practitioners with Theosophy and Christian