A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture

which God has revealed to them and withheld to everybody else, but a knowledge of
which at the same time is requisite for the salvation of all, substantiating their claims by
the working of divine ‘miracles’ or occult ‘wonders’ and you have the power that has in
all past times held mankind in mental bondage and consequent physical slavery. 63
Similarly, Professor W.M. Lockwood’s The Molecular Hypothesis of Nature speaks eloquently
to the links between the ethos of Spiritualism and the spirit of rational progress. 64
While the text
is from a relatively late moment in American Spiritualism (1895) it nonetheless captures some of
the basic tenets of the movement. Professor Lockwood floridly intoned throughout on the
scientific basis of Spiritualism and the new era that the knowledge gained through contact with
spirit world would inaugurate. Spiritualism was not an investigation of the “supernatural,” it was
merely “the effort to extend the boundary line of scientific verification into the domain of the
‘Unknown Country’.” 65
The good professor consistently decried the bugaboos of both
superstition and faith. “Human love bids civilization arise from the suppliant attitude of faith,
and walk erect in the sunshine of natural progression.” 66
“Science is loudly knocking at the
portals of thought, demanding that reason dethrone superstition, unlock the shackles of bigotry,
and bid humanity rise from the slavery of fanaticism into the domain of liberty and truth.” 67
That Spiritualism bypassed faith was a truism of the movement. Spiritualism or the “spiritual
63 Review of The Occult World, by A.P. Sinett, Banner of Light, June 3 (1882).
64 Many of the sources on Spiritualism discussed in this chapter will be unfamiliar to non-specialists, so a brief note
on their context and import is in order. The focus, in terms of the texts I use for analysis, is on primary sources.
More specifically, I am especially interested in examining texts that operate from a position of belief and emerge out
of the Spiritualist milieu. A number of them come out of a two volume collection, edited by religious studies
scholar Gary Ward. Ward’s stated goal in his compilation of texts is to outline the basic parameters of Spiritualism
as movement and philosophy. The texts are presented in facsimile form. I sought out further texts to provide
additional examples of the tendencies that emerged out of my analysis of the texts collected by Ward. I chose some
because of their mention in the key secondary literature on Spiritualism and some because they were included in the
university collections that constituted my basic research pool. All of them share a common desire, emerging from a
position of belief, to unravel the mysteries of communication between the living and the dead.
65 W.M Lockwood. “The Molecular Hypothesis of Nature: The Relation of its Principles to Continued Existence and to the
Philosophy of Spiritualism,” in Spiritualism I: Spiritualist Thought, ed. Gary L. Ward. (New York: Garland Press, 1990) 4.
66 Lockwood, 4.
67 Lockwood, 26.
52