Modern American Spiritualism

Modern American Spiritualism
Author: Emma Hardinge Britten
Publisher:
Total Pages: 636
Release: 1870
Genre: Spiritualism
ISBN:

Modern American Spiritualism: Twenty Years' Record of the Communion Between Earth and the World of Spirits by Emma Hardinge Britten, first published in 1870, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.

Spiritualism in the American Civil War

Spiritualism in the American Civil War
Author: R. Gregory Lande
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2020-07-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1476640181

America's Civil War took a dreadful toll on human lives, and the emotional repercussions were exacerbated by tales of battlefield atrocities, improper burials and by the lack of news that many received about the fate of their loved ones. Amidst widespread religious doubt and social skepticism, spiritualism--the belief that the spirits of the dead existed and could communicate with the living--filled a psychological void by providing a pathway towards closure during a time of mourning, and by promising an eternal reunion in the afterlife regardless of earthly sins. Primary research, including 55 months of the weekly spiritual newspaper, Banner of Light and records of hundreds of soldiers' and family members' spirit messages, reveals unique insights into battlefield deaths, the transition to spirit life, and the motivations prompting ethereal communications. This book focuses extensively on Spiritualism's religious, political, and commercial activities during the war years, as well as the controversies surrounding the faith, strengthening the connection between ante- and postbellum studies of Spiritualism.

Technological Visions

Technological Visions
Author: Marita Sturken
Publisher: Temple University Press
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2004
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781592132270

For as long as people have developed new technologies, there has been debate over the purposes, shape, and potential for their use. In this exciting collection, a range of contributors, including Sherry Turkle, Lynn Spigel, John Perry Barlow, Langdon Winner, David Nye, and Lord Asa Briggs, discuss the visions that have shaped "new" technologies and the cultural implications of technological adaptation. Focusing on issues such as the nature of prediction, community, citizenship, consumption, and the nation, as well as the metaphors that have shaped public debates about technology, the authors examine innovations past and present, from the telegraph and the portable television to the Internet, to better understand how our visions and imagination have shaped the meaning and use of technology. Author note: Marita Sturken is Associate Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California and the author of Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering and Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (with Lisa Cartwright). Douglas Thomas is Associate Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. He is author of three books, most recently Hacker Culture. Sandra Ball-Rokeach is a Professor and Director of the Communication Technology and Community Program in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. She is author of several books, including Theories of Mass Communication (with M. L. De Fleur).

Other Powers

Other Powers
Author: Barbara Goldsmith
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 564
Release: 1999-03-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780060953324

Barbara Goldsmith's portrait of suffragette Victoria Woodhull and her times was hailed by George Plimpton as "a beautifully written biography of a remarkable woman" and by Gloria Steinem as "more memorable than a dozen histories." A highly readable combination of history and biography, Other Powers interviews the stories of some of the most colorful social, political, and religious figures of America's Victorian era with the courageous and notorious life of Victoria Woodhull--psychic, suffragette, publisher, presidential candidate, and self-confessed practitioner of free love. It is set amid the battle for women's suffrage, the Spiritualist movement that swept across the nation in the age of Radical Reconstruction following the Civil War, and the bitter fight that pitted black men against white women in the struggle for the right to vote. Peter Gay found Other Powers "Irresistible...this is a biography guaranteed to keep the reader reading." And Gloria Steinem called it "A real-life novel of how one charismatic woman...turned women's suffrage, the church, New York City, and much of the country on its ear."

Trance Speakers

Trance Speakers
Author: Claudie Massicotte
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2017-05-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0773549943

Few people know that Susanna Moodie participated in spiritual séances with her husband, Dunbar, and her sister, Catharine Parr Traill. Moodie, like many other women, found in her communications with the departed an important space to question her commitment to authorship and her understanding of femininity. Retracing the history of possession and mediumship among women following the emergence of spiritualism in mid-nineteenth-century Canada – and unearthing a vast collection of archival documents and photographs from séances – Claudie Massicotte pinpoints spiritualism as a site of conflict and gender struggle and redefines modern understandings of female agency. Trance Speakers offers a new feminist and psychoanalytical approach to the religious and creative practice of trance, arguing that by providing women with a voice for their conscious and unconscious desires, this phenomenon helped them resolve their inner struggles in a society that sought to confine their lives. Drawing attention to the fascinating history of spiritualism and its persistent appeal to women, Massicotte makes a strong case for moving this practice out of the margins of the past. A compelling new reading of spiritual possession as a response to conflicting interpretations of authorship, agency, and gender, Trance Speakers shines a much-needed light on women’s religious practices and on the history of spiritualist traditions and travels across North America and Europe.