Spiritualism in William Stainton Moses's Ghost Club and Light: Blurring Public and Private Spaces

According to Prudens, Jesus brought Lazarus back via the "healing power" similar to the power possessed by mediums.13 Through questioning the guides, Stainton Moses gains new understanding about a traditional Christian concept, specifically that Spiritualists accepted the notion that the e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:English literature in transition, 1880-1920 1880-1920, 2018-01, Vol.61 (3), p.333-351
Main Author: Youngkin, Molly
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
British & Irish literature
Cultural history
Double consciousness
Doyle, Arthur Conan (1859-1930)
English literature
Ghosts
Religion
Time
Unexplained phenomena
Victorian period
Writing
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Summary:According to Prudens, Jesus brought Lazarus back via the "healing power" similar to the power possessed by mediums.13 Through questioning the guides, Stainton Moses gains new understanding about a traditional Christian concept, specifically that Spiritualists accepted the notion that the earthly body was left behind by the spirit at the time of "death" but generally rejected the idea of resurrection/reincarnation or the return of the spirit to a new earthly body. According to the minutes, Massey, the Club's President, believed spirits adopted "a new condition with each medium" and did not remember I the details of time spent in the medium's body as the spirit would his own life on earth.30 Another member, J. Herbert Stack, found it hard to believe the spirit would not remember time spent in the medium's body, but Alaric Watts did not think it strange, since the spirit was experiencing what might be called "Spiritual memory." [...]Stainton Moses continued to use the Club as a venue for discussing ideas he wished to publish in Light by bringing drafts of articles to the Club about "second sight," a term used to describe the ability to perceive events that are not visible in the material world and to foresee future events (for example, death). According to the Club's minutes, Stainton Moses presented cases from "a curious old book," Theophilus Insulanus's 1763 Treatise on the Second Sight, Dreams and Apparitions, which Stainton Moses may have encountered first through William Howitt's The History of the Supernatural in All Ages and Nations, and in All Churches, Christian and Pagan: Demonstrating a Universal Faith (1863).41 Following Stainton Moses's presentation, members discussed whether certain types of people, such as the Celts, were more likely to experience sec- ond sight.
ISSN:0013-8339
1559-2715