Frances A. Masamba
Georgia State University
During the 1850s and 1860s, spiritualism played a major role in the lives of believers, sometimes with profound effect. The media struggled, at first, to explain spiritualism and once described it as a religious expression “[taking] hold of earthiness…at one extreme and riding itself of miracles of the Divine Spirit by embracing… Table rappings [or knockings] at the other.”[1] The First Spiritual Temple, established in the 1800’s, explains, “God is Spirit, …we…and our [departed]… loved ones are [also] Spirit,” [and spiritualism is] “communication with God and God’s kingdom of Spirit.”[2]
[1] “The Disturbed Spirit of the Age—The Abbe de Lamennais,”New York Times,18 May 1884, p. 4.
[2] First Spiritual Temple, www.fst.org, 19 July 2001.