Modern spiritism; its science and religion - SpiritArchive.org

26 MODERN SPIRITISM
Like many other "cults," Spiritism
friends.
suffers from its
American Origin
What impresses me in going through the accumulated
mass of literature on the subject is the
everlasting recurrence of the same dozen names of
leading Spiritists and mediums, who seem to constitute
all the authorities on Modern Spiritism. In
common with other new religions, its rise seems
to be, in modern times, from the States, where it
flourishes much better than in the more frigid and
exhausted soil of Europe.
It now remains for me to chronicle a few of the
best-authenticated and most remarkable phenomena
in Modern Spiritism and some other allied conditions,
and attempt some explanation of these so far as is
possible in the present state of our knowledge.
Those who look for final and absolute pronouncements
must remember that the whole subject is so
new and strange to most of us that such are neither
yet possible nor desirable. We shall consider
Spiritism first of all rather on its physical side as a
Science; and then we shall take up the subject on
its psychical and moral side as a Religion: and here
it may be both possible and desirable to come to
reasonable judgment.
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