Talking to the dead and communication with 'the other side' is often presented as a taboo in an increasingly technological and medically advanced world. However, practices of spiritualism and mediumship continue to remain popular and in high demand within contemporary Western societies. This book analyses the practices of today’s mediums, who insist on standing at the threshold between life and death, interpreting signs and passing on communications, and asks how such concepts and practices are perceived by contemporary society. Using first-hand material gathered from alternative fairs, mediumistic congresses, séances, and interviews with both practitioners and clients, as well as thorough textual analysis, Anne Kalvig provides a clear overview of the various forms of consumption of mediumship in Western society and places these within a socio-cultural, religious and historical context. She also raises questions as to the controversies surrounding spiritualism and its representation and relationship with popular culture and the media. This book will be of interest to researchers in the field of sociology, religious studies, folklore, media studies and anthropology as well as to anyone interested in the upsurge of contemporary spiritualism, psychic phenomena and the paranormal.

Since its birth in 1848, Spiritualism as a religion, science, and philosophy has experienced great highs and lows. At the center of this purely American-made modern-religious movement are "mediums"--the people who are able to communicate, in some way, with spirit entities that are no longer on the earth plane. Based on three years of on-site investigation, and a plethora of data and research collected on the modern Spiritualist movement in America, Talking to the Other Side focuses upon the ethno-religious aspects of the religion, mediumship, and the mediums themselves. The first four chapters offer an expansive review of the history of religion in America, mediumship, and the Spiritualist movement. Chapters 5-7 comprise the research and data that were compiled and analyzed based on fieldwork analysis, a comprehensive questionnaire, personal interviews, and published literature on the topic of Spiritualism and mediumship. According to Spiritualist mediums, "people don't die, bodies do." Talking to the Other Side offers a contemporary look into the lives and backgrounds of the mediums who bridge this world and the Spirit world, connecting those who have passed over with those they left behind.

In Supernatural Entertainments, Simone Natale vividly depicts spiritualism’s rise as a religious and cultural phenomenon and explores its strong connection to the growth of the media entertainment industry in the nineteenth century. He frames the spiritualist movement as part of a new commodity culture that changed how public entertainments were produced and consumed. Starting with the story of the Fox sisters, considered the first spiritualist mediums in history, Natale follows the trajectory of spiritualism in Great Britain and the United States from its foundation in 1848 to the beginning of the twentieth century. He demonstrates that spiritualist mediums and leaders adopted many of the promotional strategies and spectacular techniques that were being developed for the broader entertainment industry. Spiritualist mediums were indistinguishable from other professional performers, as they had managers and agents, advertised in the press, and used spectacularism to draw audiences. Addressing the overlap between spiritualism’s explosion and nineteenth-century show business, Natale provides an archaeology of how the supernatural became a powerful force in the media and popular culture of today.

Spiritualism is constantly increasing all over the world. We can already see a great many evil effects from this deceitful agency. This book shows the origin, claims, and tendency of Modern Spiritualism. Chapter VI shows how disastrously it has failed to fulfill its promises and pretensions. Chapter VII presents the prophecies which have foretold the rise and progress of this deceptionin the last days, and how it is a most startling sign our times and of the nearness of the end. - 1. Opening Thought ... 2. What Is the Agency in Question? ... 3. The Dead Unconscious. 4. They Are Evil Angels ... 5. What the Spirits Teach ... 6. Its Promies: How Fulfilled. 7. Spiritualism a Subject Of Prophecy-Conclusion

Shows how some of the ideas about the afterlife presented by spiritualism helped to shape popular Christianity in the period.